Mike, the track announcer at several Speedways sent a General Mills press release. I will give you the nuggets in this Alert, I'm sure the entire text is on-line, I just don't want to mess with any kind of copyright stuff.

General Mills is offering a dozen 1/64 DieCast Cars free with General Mills products!

They are celebrating the kick-off of the 2003 racing season, General Mills, and Petty Enterprises, and giving die cast collectors a "one-of-a-kind opportunity" to collect 12 different paint schemes. You'll have to look in the cereals, snacks, meals, baking products aisles and in the refrigerated baked goods.

We know about the die cast cars free inside specially marked packages of five General Mills cereals. The official featured paint schemes list is: Cheerios® and the 2003 Cheerios/Betty Crocker No. 43; Honey Nut Cheerios® and the 2001 Honey Nut Cheerios No. 43; Wheaties® and the 2000 Wheaties No. 43; Honey Nut Chex® and the 2002 Chex Party Mix No. 43; and Cinnamon Toast Crunch® and the 2002 Sprint No. 45. There will also be the 2002 Pop Secret No. 43 in Pop Secret® microwave popcorn, and the 2002 Georgia-Pacific No. 44 available with Chex Mix®, Gardetto's® and Bugles® snacks.

You'll also be trying meals, there's three different die cast cars. Unless you don't collect fantasy paint jobs, the press release called this a "never-seen-before fantasy paint scheme"; the 1998 Betty Crocker paint scheme will be in Betty Crocker Complete Meals®, Betty Crocker® Specialty Potatoes and Betty Crocker Bowl Appétit!® rice or pasta. You can get the 2001 Hamburger Helper No. 43 with Hamburger Helper® Oven Favorites® dinners (hopefully not the brown one!), and another fantasy paint job, the Old El Paso No. 43 available free with an Old El Paso® brand purchase.

Never previously offered nationally as a 1:64 die cast in Betty Crocker® baking products (including participating flavors of SuperMoist® cake mix, select Betty Crocker® brownie mixes and ready-to-spread frostings), is the 2002 Box Tops for Education No. 43, the paint scheme that ran in August 2002 during the Brickyard 400.

You have another chance to get the special Pillsbury® Grands!® die cast car. For a limited time only, you will find three packages of Grands! Buttermilk Biscuits packaged with the 2002 Grands! Biscuits No. 43 paint scheme. They mentioned the 2002 Grands! paint scheme was previously available as a free mail-in offer (except for the S&H); this is the first time it will be available in stores.

They tell us that Cheerios and Betty Crocker will continue to be the primary sponsors of Petty Enterprises No. 43 Dodge for the 2003 season. Also other General Mills brands will continue as associate sponsors (Pop Secret, Grands!, Chex, Hamburger Helper and Pillsbury). This season is the seventh year that General Mills has been a part of NASCAR, and the fourth season sponsoring the Petty Enterprises car(s).

He has also seen a promo Matt Kenseth #17 Alka Seltzer Taurus promo Team Caliber promo (Bayer will sponsor Matt in the Busch Series this year, not Tony Raines as in past years (Tony will race as a Rookie in Winston Cup)).

Marty in Nashville has been surfing eBay, he sent me this after I got the press release from Mike. "I have also seen several other #43 promo cars on eBay, I was wondering if you had heard anything about them. One particular dealer has been auctioning off the black window promo cars of the #43 Betty Crocker, the #43 El Paso, and the #43 Hamburger Helper cars as well as the #45 Brawny car." Well, at least now I know what to tell him; Keep up the great work everyone, and

Keep your eyes peeled - they're out there!

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