Male Standard was invited to participate in the Capture the Crown competition at the Brickyard 400 in Indianapolis. I’m sure you noticed our excitement by the large number of tweets and Instagram posts we shared over the weekend.
Capture the Crown is a competition, sponsored by Crown Royal, where 12 influencers compete for a grand prize. This year’s grand prize, an all expenses paid trip to Montreal, Quebec, Canada to tour the Crown Royal Factory.
This years challenge took place during the NASCAR John Wayne Walding 400 at the Brickyard. Why the John Wayne Walding 400? We’ll that’s the cool part. Crown Royal named this years race after a true American Hero, John Wayne Walding.
‘Capture The Crown’ 2014 at NASCAR Brickyard 400Walding, of Little Elm, Texas, is a highly decorated Army veteran who served for 12 years, completing tours in Afghanistan and Iraq. While overseas in 2008, Walding was involved in a firefight during a mission to capture a high value target, during which he lost the lower part of his right leg.
After recovering from his injury, Walding was the first amputee to graduate the Special Forces Sniper School. He completed the Army 10 miler on foot and the 2009 Boston Marathon utilizing a hand cycle, within a year of the accident. Among Walding’s many awards and badges are the Silver Star, Bronze Star, Purple Heart, and Combat Infantry Badge.
Start Your Engines
‘Capture The Crown’ 2014 at NASCAR Brickyard 400There is NOTHING in this world like hearing the roaring engines of 43 jacked up cars zooming by you at nearly 200 miles per hour. You feel the vibration in your body as the cars scream past you. We were shoulder to shoulder with the pit crews of the top racers in the world. We received an all access pass to the Pits, Garages and Pagoda.
Placed right above the finish line with a 360 degree view of the track , the Crown Royal Pagoda suite was the place to see all the action. It’s here where sampled Crown Royal Deluxe, Black, Maple, Reserve, XO, and XR with a Master of Whiskey.
The Competition
There were 12 influencers who participated in the challenge. The influencers were broken up into three teams of four. Our team included Z Smith, DJ Foothill and Jeremy Johnson. A special shout out goes to our team captain Hailey who lugged us around between challenges.
There were two elimination rounds. After the first two teams were eliminated, the last team competed against each other ‘Hunger Games’ style. It was intense.
Round One
In round one, we had to answer a series of trivia questions. The winners received a five minute head start. Seeing as we had Z Smith, Nascar Race Mom, on our squad, we won this challenge. We took our head start and proceeded to knock out the next set of challenges:
- Recruit 15 people to stuff care packages for our troops
- Find somebody to sing a song by Taylor Swift
- Snap 10 pictures of Crown Royal logos from the camp grounds
- Take a picture with somebody in uniform
Our crew moved on to the next challenge.
Round Two
For this round, each team developed a toast for John Wayne Walding. We needed to use a set of keywords provided to us. The judge was Terrance J, host of E News. The other team won this challenge and was granted a five minute head start. Once the five minutes were up, we needed to complete the following challenges:
- Solve a John Wayne Walding puzzle
- Complete an obstacle course
- Send a video tribute to a local hero
- Answer trivia questions at the Hall of Fame
We ran through the first two challenges (shout out to DJ Foothill for completing the obstacle course) and then we hit a road block. We ran to the video booth for our Video Toast challenge but there were two people inside. We waited a few minutes for them to get out, but nothing. They were in no hurry to leave. We peaked inside and saw they too busy making out! After 10 minutes, they finally left the booth. We bolted through this challenge and the next, but we were too late.
We were eliminated in round two.
The Final Round
The final team was pitted against each other for the grand prize. They each received a set of clues as part of a scavenger hunt. Each person needed to scour the venue to find hidden crowns. The first person to get all the crowns and reach the finish line took home the grand prize. We were not around for this challenge, but saw the participants running around. It looked like fun, but in the end only one influencer took home the grand prize. Meanwhile at the track, another competition was taking place. Jeff Gordon took home his fifth victory at the Brickyard.
Thanks again to Crown Royal for this amazing opportunity. Next year the crown will be ours!
