Mario Joins NASCAR

Next Saturday at the NASCAR Meijer 300, one of the competing cars will be emblazoned with the world’s most famous plumber.

When you think about Nintendo’s iconic mascot and racing, you think of Mario Kart, right? You think of little zippy karts shooting green shells (and those cheap-ass spiky shells) and dropping banana peels with reckless abandon. You don’t think of the billion-horsepower stock cars that burn rubber on the NASCAR circuit.

And yet, the two are teaming up nonetheless. Next Saturday, June 12th, NASCAR driver Joey Logano will step behind the wheel of the No.20 GameStop car to race in the NASCAR Meijer 300 at the Kentucky Speedway. The car in question will be decorated with “characters and elements” from Nintendo’s rather stellar Super Mario Galaxy 2.

The image you see here is just a mock-up, not what the car will actually look like – but we can imagine that it’ll look close to this, can’t we? There will be Mario, there will be Yoshi, and there will probably be Lumas. There may or may not be power stars – who can say for sure?

If Nintendo and NASCAR can promise me that No.20 will suddenly start firing red shells at everyone in front of it, then I can officially say I will be watching this race.