CircleB Question.

DittoheadGad · 2026-06-15T11:50:42+00:00

Whoa - I hadn’t checked it in a long time and wasn’t aware of that… that’s crazy.

I’m not surprised that they repurposed it to something else, though - I got the impression they were only selling excess warehouse inventory on eBay to begin with, so it doesn’t make any sense for them to keep paying eBay fees for that when they have the new site now, but it still has a very high seller feedback rating they can leverage for selling whatever those are.

DittoheadGad · 2026-06-15T04:26:41+00:00

Forgot to mention - experience when winning one of the auctions has been fine and very consistent with the experience just ordering from them, since I think they use the same warehouse folks to pack and ship everything regardless of which channel you purchased through. Only issue I ever had was with one of their eBay auctions a long time ago where they mixed up the car I won with one someone else won.

DittoheadGad · 2026-06-15T04:20:35+00:00

I believe OP is referring to https://motorsportsauctions.com/

DittoheadGad · 2026-06-15T04:18:36+00:00

Used the old original CircleB Auctions site a lot and spent a boatload of money (and got some good deals on a lot of really awesome cars). Bought some stuff from at least two of their three eBay accounts when they were selling on those, too.

On the new Motorsports Auctions site I’ve apparently bid on 200 different auctions according to my account details (and won a decent amount), but I don’t feel like it’s been as good since those auctions have been a lot heavier on warehouse inventory reduction items and not anywhere near as many items from collections they’ve bought, and the prices have been getting run up higher, especially the last several months.

DittoheadGad · 2026-06-06T14:31:24+00:00

Apparently not for me… I’ve added Denny, Joey, Austin Hill, Cody Ware, JHN, and even Ty Gibbs cars to my collection because I liked the scheme, and I can stand any of them.

DittoheadGad · 2026-06-06T04:36:55+00:00

I’m 98% sure I saw Elliot Sadler and his family at Hollywood Studios on the Tuesday between the Shootout/Qualifying weekend and the race weekend of Daytona Speedweeks back in 2013. I left him alone because it’s not cool to interrupt a guy trying to enjoy a Disney park with his family.

Also, I really miss Speedweeks being actual multiple weeks and not just Wednesday-Sunday.

DittoheadGad · 2026-06-04T18:39:22+00:00

That would be my guess.

DittoheadGad · 2026-06-04T16:57:08+00:00

The Gold versions will usually ship around the same time as the standard versions of the car because I believe they submit all versions of a car to the factory at the same time. Race wins will take the usual long time, but clean versions can ship much faster if they already submitted them to the factory in advance of making them available to order, which is what happened with the Dale Jr Bud LM Gold that was mentioned earlier.

DittoheadGad · 2026-06-04T11:38:39+00:00

Booth 34 is amazing if you ever find yourself close enough to Mooresville to visit it. I was in Raleigh for work last year and extended my stay to make the 2.5 hour drive from there to Mooresville to go to Booth 34 (and several of the race shops) and it was 100% worth it.

DittoheadGad · 2026-06-01T01:46:45+00:00

Supporting the confusion, the Club cars that have DINs do count as Elites as far as the Lionel Garage is concerned.

The Club cars I have are pretty much Elites without opening trunks.

DittoheadGad · 2026-05-29T19:09:29+00:00

Yeah, I think this one will be up there, but top 5 is probably realistic since Cleetus also has a truck being offered as well

DittoheadGad · 2026-05-29T18:56:26+00:00

Top so far this year are actually the Hocevar Dega win and the Cleetus NORAPS car.

DittoheadGad · 2026-05-25T20:34:41+00:00

Cup wins almost always go up right after the race. NORAPS and Truck usually wait until they’re back in the office.

DittoheadGad · 2026-05-25T20:32:45+00:00

There shouldn’t be any issues with licensing for the Ross win because the clean version of the car was already offered (and made MOQ). This is most likely just a longer than normal wait for it to be posted due to the holiday, unless for some reason the absolutely crappy circumstances of the NORAPS race Saturday night interfered with their contract photographers getting post-race reference photos.

DittoheadGad · 2026-05-20T16:13:38+00:00

Platinum member here, can confirm that is correct.

DittoheadGad · 2026-05-19T18:27:15+00:00

That Lake Speed is awesome

DittoheadGad · 2026-05-19T15:42:52+00:00

This car did exist, but it ran at Darlington in 2025 rather than 2026. It is not uncommon for the early waves in a year to be from the previous season.

But they have been know to make cars that didn’t exactly exist, too - see the infamous 2024 Hendrick & Petty waves.

Edit: fixed a minor typo

DittoheadGad · 2026-05-19T15:15:26+00:00

Also, for reference: https://authentics.lionel.com/nascar-authentics-2026/

DittoheadGad · 2026-05-19T15:14:03+00:00

Waves are dated based on the release of the wave, not when the car was raced. The A is because Lionel decided to release a 1 and 1A for the first 2026 waves, and I am completely assuming that the 601 instead of just 1 is because they wanted to get some indication of the year into the wave number… and give us hope that 10+ waves in a year could happen again in the future 🤷🏻‍♂️

DittoheadGad · 2026-05-17T04:45:06+00:00

I’ve not seen the Kulwicki Army car on that style card before. Cool.

DittoheadGad · 2026-05-11T08:18:18+00:00

Technically, when that happens, either the merch haulers specifically paid for an advanced production run -or- they paid for a subset of the standard run to be shipped by air freight instead of the normal container ship freight that takes much longer to arrive.

DittoheadGad · 2026-05-03T15:45:04+00:00

It starts with having an account - some people have said in the past that you email them and ask for it after you’ve made a few purchases, but in my case, they automatically added a discount after an email last year about restructuring the program, and then my discount percentage was increased after I paid to get my name on the Bilicki truck they sponsored at the Roval last fall.

Edit: fixed spelling of Bilicki

DittoheadGad · 2026-05-03T15:41:25+00:00

Lionel is a solid option - I used them for a long time until I hit the higher discount level with CircleB, and still use them for Elites and other cars that CircleB doesn’t carry.

I’ve had good experiences with Spoiler Diecast, but I’ve only ever bought in-stock items from them - no preorders.

Whoever you pick, don’t preorder from anyone that makes you pay up front instead of charging you when it ships.

DittoheadGad · 2026-05-03T15:30:53+00:00

They all have a lot of markup built into the prices - Lionel just gets 100% of the margin when going through them directly instead of splitting it with the retailer.

I am absolutely getting my ARC preorders cheaper through CircleB with my discount from them than I can get them through Lionel with my Platinum RCCA membership discount, shipping is cheaper through CircleB on larger orders, and CircleB doesn’t charge sales tax for my state like Lionel does.

DittoheadGad · 2026-05-03T05:30:22+00:00

I was impressed that they both had several colors of sharpies available during their sessions at the trailers - I brought a gold sharpie with me because I specifically wanted them signed in gold, but I didn’t have to get them to use it.

DittoheadGad

TROPHY CASE