Shawn Howell’s NASCAR diecast collection is a treasure trove of the obscure; the back-markers, the underfunded, under-promoted, underwhelming and the underdogs. Howell, who lives near Daytona, Florida, didn’t dive headfirst into collecting until the late 2010s, but he’s since amassed a massive collection of over 1,000 1/24-scale diecasts, the vast majority of which he calls “oddballs.” Howell, who goes by Gilliland38 on the NASCARCollectors subreddit and Diecast Crazy, built his collection with a focus on obscure drivers and teams. It’s a nod to his favorite driver, David Gilliand, and his respect for the less prolific names of NASCAR.

The beginnings of a collection

Howell doesn’t have an exact count of the 1/24 diecasts in his collection, understandable given his ballpark estimate is 1,300 cars. And all but a few David Gilliand cars have been purchased in the last seven years. The catalyst to dive headfirst into the hobby, Howell said, was seeing the “gypsy tents” for the first time during a race weekend at Talladega.

“Just seeing so many of those tents, how many different cars there were, how many different paint schemes, from obscure ARCA cars to Rick Ware Racing cars, I thought, ‘Huh, this is cool.’ Later that year I went to Homestead, bought some discounted diecasts, and it just kept snowballing from there as I learned about different schemes, teams and manufacturers and started looking at flea markets, eBay and Mercari,” he said.

Howell was immediately drawn to diecasts of smaller teams and drivers that weren’t household names.

“David Gilliland always ran for smaller teams, and I liked rooting for the underdog,” Howell said. “I started growing attached to the obscure teams, the hard-time small teams and started going after unusual diecasts. I own so many cars, but only a few of them are Chase Elliott or the most popular drivers.”

Once he found his collecting niche, Howell went on a frenzy of purchases.

“It snowballed from there,” he laughed.

“I do have a golden rule, which is I try not to spend more than $100 on a single car. I keep that intact most of the time, but with some of my customs, I did go above that. I also spent $104 on Ricky Carmichael’s [2009] Oakley truck, but that was close enough.”

Diving into the obscure

Perusing Howell’s collection could benefit from an audio descriptive tour — like those museums offer — as it includes a massive slice of the often-forgotten rides and drivers of NASCAR, ARCA and even the K&N West Series.

Even dedicated stock car racing fans might struggle to remember the names Bob Strait, Dick McCabe or Eric Harden. But Howell’s collection includes those driver’s rides — Strait’s 1995 No. 37 Target Expediting truck, McCabe’s No. 9 Fisher Snowplows Pontiac and Harden’s 2007 K&N West AltaDente No. 5 produced by Checker Flag Sports.

There are well-known drivers in Howell’s collection, to be sure, but his diecasts usually feature their harder-to-find or forgotten schemes. There’s Robby Gordon’s 2007 Fruit of the Loom ride, Jeffrey Earnhardt’s No. 33 Hulu Chevrolet, Jeff Burton’s 2004 NBA All-Star Game Taurus, Dave Blaney’s 2003 First Tennessee Bank Ford and Harry Gant’s 1992 Easy-Off No. 7.

The collection doesn’t just celebrate NASCAR rides of yesteryear. If there’s been a diecast made of a smaller team or driver in recent years, chances are Howell has those, too. That includes Brennan Poole’s Toxic Waste Sour Candy and Rock Chalk Kansas Jayhawks promos, BJ McLeod’s rides that were produced and others.

Even “sub-themes” could be concocted. Howell has several oddball collegiate-sponsored diecasts, like Lake Speed’s University of Nebraska ride, Brian Scott’s 2011 Boise State scheme and Travis Braden’s University of West Virginia sponsored ARCA No. 01. Another could be Howell owning every Landon Cassill 1/24 diecast produced.  

In keeping with his fandom, Howell has also commissioned a bevy of Todd and David Gilliland diecasts and customs. Among his favorites are David Gilliand’s Taco Bell schemes when he drove for Front Row Motorsports.

A few other favorites of his include Marcos Ambrose’s No. 47 iRacing ride, Jason Bowles’ No. 81 American Majority 2012 Nationwide promo and Bryan Cluason’s 2007 Memorex No. 41. But the most sentimental are customs of schemes Howell produced himself that appeared on two of Brandon Brown’s 2019 cars and Robby Lyons’ 2018 Camping World Truck Series ride. For fun, Howell has made schemes for the NR2003 video game and iRacing, but he turned quasi-professional when his designs adorned real NASCAR machines.

Displaying so many diecasts is nigh impossible, but Howell said displaying his Gilliland cars is a must. Otherwise, an unfortunate circumstance dictates what adorns his cases. Howell said he lost over 300 diecast boxes to flood damage during a hurricane.

More to come

Despite his extensive collection, Howell is always on the lookout for new obscure diecasts and those from the past, even if they aren’t what is considered today to be the most detailed. He doesn’t shy away from Racing Champions diecasts. In fact, Racing Champions delivers plenty for his underdog collection.

“Racing Champions made so many random schemes starting in 1992,” Howell said. “I try to get the highest quality diecast of the time the car was produced, and in a lot of cases, that was Racing Champions.”

Some could be considered quasi-grails for Howell, particularly diecasts from Racing Champions first year, 1992.

“A lot of them I’m after,” he said. “Some can be found for $5 or $10 at a flea market, but some sell for over $100, and they don’t come up for sale too often with how old they are.”

Others he’s been trying to track down, for years in some cases, include Todd Bodine’s 2005 No. 50 Arnold Motorsports car, a Thad Moffitt Safety Kleen promo that was only sold at SEMA and Elliott Sadler’s Geek Squad No. 19 Dodge. Given his affinity for the obscure, Howell’s “want list” includes cars that he knows were produced, though he’s never seen one for sale, even with years of searching. One such example is Tim George’s No. 5 Applebee’s truck.

Howell will continue to cheer on the small-team underdogs and his new favorite driver, Todd Gilliland, as his collection celebrating the obscure continues to grow.

A gallery of nearly all Howell’s diecasts can be viewed at his DiecastCrazy media page.