The 1996 Nascar Busch Series WCW Sting & Winston Cup Cartoon Network Scooby Doo Diecast Controversy Revealed

The pics above are the 2 diecasts without any driver names on the cars

The 1996 Nascar Busch Series WCW Sting & Winston Cup Cartoon Network Scooby Doo Diecast Controversy Revealed

Written By James Allan | 11-1-2015

In 1996 Racing Champions released two race cars without any driver names on the cars or packages and these two car releases have been being sold in the collectors market as Steve Grissom cars. Diamond Ridge Motorsports owned both the WCW Sting team and the Cartoon Network Scooby Doo team.  

Steve Grissom was the driver of the number 29 WCW Sting car for only 8 Busch Series races in 1996. After the first 8 races Steve Grissom was fired from the ride. Bill Ingle the WCW Sting crew chief took over driving the car for two races. Diamond Ridge Motorsports hired Greg Sacks to drive the car for one race at Talladega in which he won the race. Elliott Sadler was hired to finish out the 1996 season in the WCW Sting car. Elliott Sadler went on to win 3 races in the 1997 Busch Series season to become a rising star.  

Steve Grissom owned his own Busch Series team in 1995 and sold it to Diamond Motorsports and continued on as the Busch Series driver in the WCW Sting car in 1996 until Diamond Ridge Motorsports fired him after 8 Busch Series races.

Steve Grissom was also driving for Diamond Ridge Motorsports in the 1996 "#29 Cartoon Network" Winston Cup car. Again, Steve Grissom was fired from the Winston Cup ride too after the Michigan race. Steve Grissom was fired from both the Busch Series and Winston Cup rides in the same year. 

In the 1996 Racing season Diamond Motorsports started the season running Steve Grissom in the Cartoon Network Flinstones race car. After the 1996 spring Michigan race Steve Grissom was replaced by Greg Sacks. In the last three races of the 1996 season the Cartoon Network car was driven by Robert Pressley with the first Scooby Doo paint scheme. No name was put on the Scooby Doo car because no permanent driver was named until the 1997 season in which Robert Pressley became the permanent driver of the #29 Cartoon Network car. 

Greg Sacks drove Winston Cup Cartoon Network Flinstones sponsored car for the next 6 races after Steve Grissom was released, then Chad Little, Butch Leitzinger and Jeff Green drove the car until Robert Pressley was hired to drive the car in the last 3 races of the 1996 season. No name was put on the #29 Scooby Doo car because Robert Pressley was not named the permanent driver of this car until the 1997 season. 

The WCW race car was not a special paint job. The WCW Sting race car was the standard paint scheme throughout the 1996 season in the Busch series. Again, no name was put on the diecast produced after Steve Grissom was fired because no permanent driver was named. The Winston Cup Cartoon Network Scooby Doo car was driven in the last 3 races of the 1996 season by Robert Pressley and never run as the paint scheme again so I guess it can be considered a special paint scheme because of the limited number of races run.

So in ending the 1996 WCW Sting Busch Series car can be deemed as an Elliott Sadler car because he was the last driver of it. The 1996 Cartoon Network "Flintstones" and  "Scooby Doo" car can be deemed as a Robert Pressley car because he was the last one to drive it. 

We can go back and forth with the issue of the driver that started out the season is the permanent driver name that the car should be tagged with or the last driver of the season to drive the car in that year gets tagged as the driver. I chose the driver that ended the season driving the car because the ending drivers were hired to drive the cars in the 1997 season.