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Thanks to 16-year-old fan and social media, Josh Wise has Dogecoin and Reddit backing for Talladega

'We are all about fun and goofiness,' said Ben Doernberg, board member at the Dogecoin Foundation

Josh Wise Dogecoin car

Josh Wise Dogecoin car

Mike Curb Racing

In a partnership effort between Dogecoin and Reddit, the No. 98 Ford Fusion of Phil Parsons Racing will have a new look at Talladega (Ala.) Superspeedway this weekend. Earlier this year, Reddit user and tech fan Denis Pavel, 16, noticed a plain black car with a driver he felt "raced the wheels off the car" during a NASCAR Sprint Cup Series race. The lack of sponsorship caused Pavel to think of some of the significant fundraisers that he's witnessed on the Reddit platform.

"I didn't really know much about Dogecoin or Reddit when Denis Pavel initially reached out to us about the race at Talladega Superspeedway," commented Parsons. "He watched a race on television and was excited about what he saw from Josh Wise and our team. We were able to connect on Twitter and everything took off from there-it's amazing how social media allows sports fans to actually connect to us, and that it would allow something like this to come together. As far as I know, this is the first online effort like this that's been able to fund sponsorship for a NASCAR team, so it's pretty cool to be a part of it."

"I knew that Dogecoin had done some significant fundraisers, like sending the Jamaican bobsled team to the Olympics," Pavel said. "I was thinking what kind of response I would get if I did ask the (Reddit) community about sponsoring a Sprint Cup car. They were all with it."

Familiar with the digital currency Dogecoin, Pavel, from Niles, Ill., decided to utilize the currency to raise sponsorship funds for driver Josh Wise and the No. 98 Ford Fusion team. Exceeding their initial goal by ten percentwithin the opening week, Dogecoin and Reddit were able to partner with Phil Parsons Racing for the Sprint Cup Series event at Talladega Superspeedway.

"We are all about fun and goofiness," commented Ben Doernberg, board member at the Dogecoin Foundation. "At the same time, we want to make sure that digital currency is really giving back to the world. We do feel like this is a technology that can make the world a better place, and we want to put that into practice by doing fundraisers."

To date, this marks the first fundraising effort through Dogecoin and Reddit to sponsor a NASCAR race team. In addition to raising funds online, the team also took to the internet allowing Reddit users to vote on a paint scheme for Sunday's event.

"The more we've walked through this fundraising effort, it has really been special to us," commented Wise. "People are noticing our effort. We're a tiny little team with seven or eight employees. The amount of support we're getting from the Reddit community ... we're just trying to do the best job we can."

Phil Parsons Racing

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