User:Arttoon

Pit Road Toad is one of the first, if not THE first cartoon character ever created to represent the NASCAR Race Fan. Most other characters relied on representing drivers or other entities, while ignoring the importance of the fan base that makes NASCAR so popular and a thriving sport.

Pit Road Toad is the quintessential representation of the southern roots of Stock Car Racing! Pit Road Toad speaks with a southern accent, and is mischievously always in trouble with Racing Officials, Race Teams, and Drivers. He is the brain child of his creator, Art Almond.

Almond came up with the idea for Pit Road Toad in 1995 while mowing his lawn in Mooresville, NC. Almond was mowing his lawn in the Reed Creek area of Mooresville, when he encountered several toads that barely escaped his lawn mower! He was listening to a NASCAR race at the time on a Walkman, and coincidentally the announcers were speaking of an occurrence on pit road. This radio incident combined with the visual reference of the toads, inspired Almond to mentally combine the three words; Pit...Road...and Toad. He consequently thought of the cartoon character at the same moment. Before even completing the mowing, he went inside to sketch his first drawing of the Pit Road Toad character. He later took it to a racing museum in Mooresville, (The North Carolina Auto Racing Hall of Fame) where the curator, Mr. Fred Gross provided an encouraging response to the character. Mr. Gross encouraged the Almond to seek publishing in a local Stock Car Racing newspaper entitled “Track Talk”. After contacting the owners of the paper, it was agreed that Almond would provide single frame cartoons in black and white for each issue. Almond began to write and illustrate these frames to educate race fans on the more technical aspects of NASCAR with a humorous view point. Since the paper was distributed to virtually every business and racing team located in Mooresville, North Carolina, the character soon gained popularity. Almond had t-shirts printed for exclusive sale at the North Carolina Auto Racing Hall of Fame. The profits from those sales went primarily to the establishment to further promote Stock Car Racing and its regional history in North Carolina. When Track Talk went of business in the late 1990’s Almond packed his drawings away and really did not consider drawing the character again, until September of 2008 where he stumbled upon the website Rowdy.com. Almond began to publish the character on that specific networking site for race fans as blogger. He received encouraging responses from fellow race fans on Rowdy and continues to illustrate the character today.

http://www.rowdy.com http://www.onpitrow.com http://www.ncarhof.com

--~Arttoon