When an ARCA Menards Series race ends with the checkered flag, the celebration in victory lane begins. But once the team is splashed with Gatorade and the winner does his television interviews, the real business begins.
Photgraphers move into position to get dozens of pictures with the winning team wearing a variety of hats. “The hat dance” as it’s known is done to get team and series contingency sponsors exposure with the winning team at each event.
With sometimes a dozen or more team members and dozens of sponsors to service, that means there are a lot of hats in victory lane. A LOT.
Did you ever wonder what happens to all of those hundreds of hats?
Some crew members fortunate enough to win a race will keep them as part of their collection. You might even hear them say they want to add to their “free hat” collection as a way of saying they want to win.
Some, unfortunately, are forgotten or discarded, lost to history on the ground or in a trash barrel somewhere.
But some crew members who don’t collect their victory lane hats will make a fan’s day by giving them away following the hat dance.
That’s exactly what Venturini Motorsports crew chief Shannon Rursch did following Michael Self’s win at Five Flags. He stepped to the fence and tossed a hat to a young fan, Layne Presley Phillips, of nearby Crestview, Alabama. Better yet, the team invited young Layne to join them for a victory lane photo too.
Layne’s grandfather, Keith Howe, is retired from the United States Air Force. He thanked the Venturini team for giving his grandson a one-in-a-lifetime memory.
“He hasn’t stopped talking about it since it happened,” he said. “I have seen Chandler Smith race a few times, so he was my pick to win. Of course Layne picked the dinosaur car to win and it did. So he was already happy, but then to get a hat from the team and be invited to join them in victory lane for a picture was a wonderful gesture by the team. I can’t thank them enough for what they did for my grandson.”
Howe returned the team’s gesture of kindness by sending a couple of commemorative F-35 coins to Rursch and Self.
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