IN MEMORY DALE EARNHARDT 1951 - 2001

NASCAR MODELS by MR NASCAR

DALE EARNHARDT's 2000 PETER MAX MONTE CARLO

I finished it on the morning of Saturday, Feb 17th, and took it to that afternoon's Group 25 meeting in Toronto, and Club members were intrigued by it, especially the Earnhardt fans. The plan was to publish this article, with shots of the finished model, on Sunday night, after the Daytona 500... and offer the decals to those who might be interested...

Dale did not make it through the 500, and I had to think long and hard about how, when, or even if, I was going to post this work.

Dale was not the driver I rooted for each week... In fact, I was usually glad when he got snookered during the race. But I was pleased he did get a 500 win - Lord knows he deserved it - and I never questioned his ability, courage or commitment to racing. But race he did, and paid the ultimate price.

But the world goes on... The rest of the NASCAR field will be on the track at "The Rock" on Sunday, and somehow, a way has been found to keep the GOODWRENCH name on a stock car. Kevin Harvick will drive the 29 Goodwrench car for the rest of the season.. Dale Jr will be in the race, along with the rest of DEI's cars.... Those of us who love building NASCAR models will continue to build models of Dale's cars, as well as those of all the other drivers, who, we now realize more than ever, are really puttin' it on the line for themselves and for us, the fans. And we'll watch the racin' on Sundays, and we'll think about Dale and his family, and a lot of us will root for his son, and a sense of normalcy will return... but we won't forget.

In that spirit, I hope you enjoy looking at the shots of the latest graphical wizardry to come from Sam Lopez.

Sam promised something pretty special, and he was as good as his word! When the files arrived, I was blown away by their size and complexity; in fact, Sam had to break them into three files each (white underlays and colour overlays) before our servers could handle them. The finished sheet, once I had it reassembled in PhotoShop, was a full 8 1/2 by 11-incher, and had all the numbers, special logos, and "swatches" that were on the real car. The starting model for this exercise was the Revell 2000 GOODWRENCH Monte Carlo.

Now, all I had to do was spray the underlying paint scheme, and apply the decals once I'd printed them with the ALPS printer.

Ha! Even with all the work Sam had done, that underlying scheme was still pretty durned complicated! Sam had sent along a diagram showing what areas needed to be yellow, where the red was fogged in, where the light purple (lavender? mauve?? pink???) had to be fogged in, and don't ferget that little green-yellow patch on the right side B-pillar!!

"Phase I" began with the application of a coat of white PlastiKote primer, some scuff sanding, then a couple coats of Tamiya TS16 Yellow from the heated aerosol can. Then, using Sam's illustation as a guide, I shot it with VW MARS RED touchup lacquer through an airbrush.

Even this required two steps, as the breaklines between the red and yellow are a combination of hard-masked breaks, and fogging. First I hard-masked the model to allow me to shoot the roof between the rails, the cowl, decklid, and spoiler in red. So far, so good. Then I had to hard-mask the base of the left C-pillar, and shoot it red thru the airbrush, fogging it onto the B-pillar, and roof area outside the rails up to the B-pillar. Still with me??

Next, I fogged in the red areas on the rear quarterpanels, on both sides around the rear fenderwell openings, and the rear of the car. This gave an interesting effect of the hard-masked red break on the left C-pillar fading into a fogged break. That Peter Max guy was pretty innovative!

You'll notice I haven't mentioned the lavender areas yet... At this point, I realized that the lavender area on the left front needed to match the lavender on the hood decal, which I had yet to print.... So I went ahead and printed the decal, and cut out and applied the huge hood decal, that included the lavender on the left side, the red in the center, and the lavender/blue/green/yellow fade area on the right side. (Printing these really made the old ALPS sweat!!)

I then matched the lavender area on the hood decal using white, red, and a bit of purple, and sprayed the fogged area on the left side, and cowl. When I positioned the hood, I saw I had a decent match, but not good enough, and after a couple retints and sprays, I realized I'd never get a dead-on match to the printed hood decal.

What to do? They say desperate times breeds desperate measures. I took the hood, and threw an extra coat of Tamiya clear on it. Then I taped it in place on the car, held my breath, and fogged the lavender up off the fender onto the hood, hoping the clear would protect the decal. It worked! The hood/cowl/fender area on the left side all matched, and with the red area providing separation, the match to the small lavender area on the right side looked fine. Call it a two-inch match...

So, the shot to the above right shows "Phase I" completed, with a hood that is part decal, part fogged on touchup lacquer.

"Phase II" consisted of applying the colour "swatches" from the decal sheet. Relative to the painting in Phase I, this was pretty straightforward.

I was fortunate enough to get some good shots of this car at Modellers' Choice, a hobby shop in Hamilton, Ontario, just west of Toronto. These were very valuable in the placement of the "swatches". Once they'd had a couple days to dry, I applied several LIGHT coats of TAMIYA TS13 clear from the heated (tap water!) rattle can. The two shots above show the car at the end of "Phase II". I sent a couple shots of this stage to Sam, who pointed out that the cowl is actually completely red, so I had to correct that, without damaging those decals I'd just applied... Jeez......

"Phase III" consisted of applying the red lower stripes, numbers, GOODWRENCH and other signage, and contingency decals. Decklid decal, tire lettering, headlights and jack locators, and grilles came from the Revell GOODWRENCH Sheet, as did various decals in front of rear fenderwells, and on lower rear quarterpanels.

The fender contingency decals came from the excellent SLIXX 2000 grouped sheet. Everything else was in the files Sam sent me. Final touch was to apply several LIGHT coats of clear (see above) after decals had had a couple days to dry thoroughly., then polishing with Turtle Wax compound.

Of course, while all the above was happening, I built out the chassis, using my usual techniques. Valve stems, seatbelts, and a radio wire coil around the steering column were the only scratch-built items added. (See my Snoopy write-up for my comments on the Revell 2000 Monte...)

Once it was all assembled, I had a very satisfying model of a unique Earnhart ride, and looked forward to showing it off, in reality and cyberspace... if only circumstances had been different....

But here it is; we hope you like this tribute to The Man...

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