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Dale Earnhardt VICTORY LAP Tribute #3 Monte Carlo!!


To honour WINSTON's role in the incredible growth of NASCAR during the years 1971 to 2003, NASCAR organized "Victory Laps" during the last half of the 2003 season, wherein cars of Winston Cup-Winning Champions would run an honourary lap in the pole position prior to the race.

Amidst a flurry of flashbulbs, seven-time champ, the late Dale Earnhardt, was honoured at the Charlotte night race in October, the UAW-GM Quality 500. Richard Chldress lit up the tires on a specially-painted #3 Monte Carlo to commemorate Dale's contribution to the sport and his multiple championships.

This was an extemely elegant paint scheme, and it was good to see the 3 on the track again. When Sam let me know he had these ready to go, I knew I did NOT want to wait until Jan 2004 or whenever, for the long-overdue Revell 2003 Monte. Here was my excuse to test drive the AMT offering... admittedly with misgivings, based on my initial peek into the box.

Since this was a 1/25th model, with a few dimensional differences that went beyond mere scale differences, I had to resize (read downsize somewhat) Sam's graphics to fit the slightly smaller AMT body. Generally everything needed to be shrunk 90 to 95%.

I also looked over the body, and determaned a couple of the most objectionable things - the Mickey-Mouse grille rendering, and the lack of "beef" that the shape of the rear quarterpanels presented. By hogging out the grille to use etched screen, and adding a "wedge" to the bottom of the quarterpanels, I came up with something I was happier with:

Once all the grinding and puttying and sanding was done, the body was primed with PlastiKote grey sandable primer. After sanding with 600, I laid down the silver, using a CTC lacquer touchup aerosol, GM #13 Bright Silver. (I read somewhere once that RCR only uses standard GM colours for their paint schemes - that correct?) The body was then masked and the black was sprayed, using Tamiya Gloss Black aerosol. A coat of TAMIYA TS13 clear was applied, then the two-tone breaks were lightly sanded to be smooth.

During this process, I had printed and clearcoated the decal sheet. The graphics Sam provided made a great set of decals, especially the silver foil lettering on the quarterpanels! All decalling was straightforward. the red stripes were a bit fiddly, they always are for me... but all went well, and I was very pleased with the finished body. Only real beef I have is it seems a bit "chunky" maybe if it were about 10% longer, it would look ok ... oh, wait, that would make it 1/24th... But I digress...

Once it had dried a couple days, I applied the clearcoat, using TAMIYA TS13 heated in hot tapwater. Body was then polished out with Turtle Wax.

Won't go into a lot of detail on the chassis - basically identical to all iterations of this since the early 90's.... It's hard to get motivated to go into a lot of detailing on this one. I did add a driver figure from the Dodge kit, to be Richard smokin' 'em... Had to whittle his anterior proportions down a bit, and modify the seat to get him in, but he's in there now... forever...

And ther I had it, the RCR VL car. Sam is busily preparing graphics for the rest of 'em... in a fit of ambition I volunteered to do the 88 car....

The pictures of the finished model you see here were taken this weekend at the Toronto Hobby show, where it was included in the Group 25 Hobby 2003 display....

Reading the letters section of WINSTON CUP SCENE in the weeks since this, many people were both cheered and moved to see the 3 back on the track... but I somwhow don't think we'll ever see it raced in anger again, unless by an Earnhardt.... We can hope....

(By the way - the rear tire lettering is not really blurry as you see in the pics - I used the "smudge" tool in PhotoShop to make 'em look like they were spinning. An idea from one of the Show visitors today... also this was my "Fun With Cotton Batting" project for this year...)

(UPDATE Feb 17, 2004 - these decals have now been updated so that there is also a true 1/24th set available to fit Revell's new 03 Monte Body...)

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