Last week, the community behind the silly/hilarious/very real cryptocurrency Dogecoin noticed that NASCAR racer Josh Wise was without a sponsor. They needed to raise $55,000 in dogecoins, and Josh would have a ticket to ride. In less than a week, they've done it. You're about to see a Doge race around 'Dega.
Josh's no. 98 Ford (unfortunately, not a Doge Dodge) will hit the track in its brand-spanking new Very NASCAR livery on May 4th at the Aaron's 499 at the Talladega Superspeedway, according to SBNation. And it doesn't get that much bigger than Talladega, as it's the longest track in all of NASCAR.
We don't know what the official sponsor wrap will look like, but a design competition is underway on the official dogecoin subreddit.
In true Doge fashion, the effort to raise money was always 100% totally professional. And by "100% truly professional," I mean that one guy accidentally donated 20,000,000 dogecoins by accident, instead of only 2,000,000. Seriously, dude had a case of fat fingers, leading him to donate just over $15,000 instead of $1500.
He seems to be taking it all in stride though, especially considering how his company operates a Dogecoin exchange.
It's not like this is all the case of a mistaken donation, either. There were over 1,200 separate donations averaging out at $41 each, according to Ben Doernberg, one of the subreddit's moderators and a Dogecoin Foundation member.
Josh Wise himself looks pretty pumped on Twitter, and to reward the community he's doing an AMA on reddit tomorrow at 9 PM eastern.
First dogecoin funds the Jamaican bobsled team, and now their very own NASCAR racer. We may just be dealing with the next big thing in sports sponsorship, just as it's growing up. Too bad, Nike.
Wow.