NASCAR MODELS by MR NASCAR
By season's end, Tony had shattered all rookie records, with an astounding three wins, and twelve top-fives, and an amazing 4th place in the '99 Championship.
Tony drives the HOME DEPOT Pontiac, with a regular orange and white colour scheme we all quickly became familiar with. This livery was released in '99 by SLIXX, another of their excellent issues. I have this one built, but have yet to post it on my site.
The model shown here is another "Three Amigos" creation, with artwork by Sam Lopez, and production by Alex Kung and myself. I printed these decals myself, as I've gotten so excited about this process, and the opportunities it presents, that I got my own ALPS printer. (Thanks, Alex!!) Alex guided me thru the process - it was very satisfying!
These decals represent a special paint job that Tony ran at Charlotte in October, honouring the Habitat for Humanity foundation, featuring their logo, and a reverse colour scheme.
From their website: "Habitat for Humanity International is a nonprofit, ecumenical Christian housing ministry. HFHI seeks to eliminate poverty housing and homelessness from the world, and to make decent shelter a matter of conscience and action." HOME DEPOT is apparently one of their affiliates/sponsors.
Again, Sam's graphics were impeccable, and this was an excellent sheet to learn the printing process on! All decals on this model, except the front grille screens and fender contingency decals, are included on the sheet - even those stripes, which, like on the SLIXX decal are very harrowing to get aligned with the side numbers!
My advice - before you mask and apply the orange on this or the regular colour scheme, make a photocopy of the sheet, and test-fit the sidestripes and the numbers from the photocopy, to ensure you mask properly. If you don't - and I didn't the first time, you'll have an impossible task to get both stripes to line up with those that are embedded with the numbers, and you may launch the model in frustration...
Colours used were GM white #40 touchup lacquer, and Tamiya's TS12 orange. Since I had applied a double underlay of white when printing the decal sheet, bleedthru over the orange was minimal. The decal sheet had as well been airbrushed with several light coats of Microscale Superfilm, which had been cut about 50% with lacquer solvent, and let dry 24 hours before I tried to use it... This gave a thin, yet strong and mar-resistant decal to work with.
Once I had the decals all applied, I let it sit for a few days, then applied several LIGHT coats of Tamiya TS13 clear, heated in hot water of course, then I polished it with good old green Turtle Wax.
The actual build of the model was pretty standard stuff - it's the graphics source that makes this one unique! Valve stems, radio cord, Earnhardt bar, oil lines, plug wires and scratch-built exhaust dumps were all added.
Once again, with Sam and Alex' help, I had completed a unique model.
So, how did the HABITAT car fare in the race? Compared to most of Tony's year, it was pretty mediocre, starting in fifth, and ending up 19th, eclipsed by lousy weather that had the race postponed until the Monday.
Amusing side note: if you look closely at the model you'll see there are various tool graphics scattered around the body. I did not have good reference photos, particularly of the right side, to know fer shur where everything went. It just happened that a store in a local mall that deals in NASCAR had a HABITAT diecast in the window. I was able to not only pinpoint the proper location for everything, but was able to feel real smug comparing my model built out with Sam's graphics to the diecast thingie that cost five times more... you win, Sam - hands down!!
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