Fan of NASCAR and contests wins opportunity to race

If entering sweepstakes were a religion, Brenda Cohen might be a guru.

The 69-year-old Wilkins resident has won thousands of prizes over the past four decades, including more than 40 trips, by entering up to a hundred sweepstakes nearly every night.

Most recently, she won the Gillette TimeShaver Challenge, which will send her to Charlotte, N.C., next Sunday to race stock cars against nine other winners, all being coached by NASCAR drivers.

Mrs. Cohen began entering contests after a neighbor showed her a frying pan that he had won through a sweepstakes. She started filling out forms immediately afterward, and when her first prize -- a set of barbecue tongs -- came in the mail three months later, she was hooked.

Sweepstakes kept her busy and "out of mischief," she said, when a car accident left her bedridden for a time shortly after she picked up the habit. She said she finds filling out entry forms somewhat therapeutic, adding that it keeps her busy and "out of the refrigerator."

Frequently, she does them right before bedtime because "it tires me out and I go to bed."

Mrs. Cohen said that entering sweepstakes is "just a hobby," something she does for fun. It's one that requires an investment -- she spends $6,000 to $7,000 a year on postage. But it has paid off, with prizes ranging from trips abroad to a lifesize Yoda statue, which lords over her living room.

When possible, she enters sweepstakes on behalf of other family members. She has won scholarships and school supplies for her grandchildren; a car for her daughter, Julie; and a beer keg refrigerator, or kegerator, for her son, Adam.

Once, when she entered a department store sweepstakes without checking the prize, she won a pair of pantyhose for her husband, Martin.

Some prizes have taken her all over the world, including Paris for dinner at the Eiffel Tower; Switzerland for a jazz festival and remote Mayan ruins in Mexico.

"They are things that you wouldn't do otherwise," she said.

Indeed, it was a trip to Phoenix six years ago that turned her into a NASCAR fanatic. She did not anticipate liking the races and saw the prize more as an opportunity to go on vacation in Arizona. But after one race, she was a fan.

"It's so exciting," she said breathlessly, dressed head to toe in race car fan apparel.

Her wrists jangle with charm bracelets, one of Disney characters, one with photos of her grandchildren and a third with pictures of race cars and the numbers of her favorite drivers.

"When you get hooked on it, you get hooked on it," she said.

Her NASCAR obsession came as a surprise to her daughter.

"She doesn't fit the image of the people you expect to love NASCAR," Julie Cohen said.

Her mother acknowledged that, as a "Jewish grandmother," she probably stands out in the crowd, but she said the NASCAR races have given her an opportunity to brush shoulders with people she ordinarily wouldn't meet, and NASCAR fans are, by and large, extremely nice.

"You have nothing in common with the people sitting next to you, but for that night, you're interested in the same conditions and people," she said.

She added that she's most impressed with the drivers, who, she said, are very down to earth.

Mrs. Cohen has passed on some of her knowledge of sweepstakes to her daughter, a freelance writer. By the time her daughter learned to write, she was filling out her name and address on sweepstakes cards.

Julie Cohen said her mother trained her to listen for key words, such as "win" or "sweepstakes," so she can catch even brief advertisements on the radio and television for opportunities. She said she also learned from her mother how to roughly gauge her odds by paying attention to things such as the breadth of eligibility and the length of the sweepstakes.

While there's no way to guarantee a win, entrants can increase their odds through careful selection of sweepstakes and through filling out as many entries as possible.

"I don't think it's luck at all," Julie Cohen said. "It's hard work."