IN MEMORY DALE EARNHARDT 1951 - 2001

NASCAR MODELS by MR NASCAR

KEVIN HARVICK's 2001 GOODWRENCH "FIRST RIDE" MONTE CARLO

Harvick had been scheduled to run up to seven races in a third RCR machine, with AOL sponsorship in 2001, while securing another BGN crown for RCR. This was to be a warm-up for a RotY run in 2002. Instead, he got the nod, and found himself suddenly the de facto number 1 in RCR's WC program... a daunting situation that he appears to be handling well."

The car you see here carries the colours that RCR rolled out for the Rockingham race, a week after the Daytona tragedy. This colour scheme lasted for this race, and the next one at Vegas. He then set NASCAR on its ear, with a win his third time out! (Click Here to see the First Win car!)

This initial colour scheme, adopted the week after Daytona, was a simple reversal of colours, a white car with black numbers and lettering, but, by the fourth race at Atlanta, the scheme had been brightened up considerably, with red striping and numbers.

Work on the First Win car had pretty well given me all the graphics needed for this car as well. All I had to do was recolour the numbers, change the stripes to red, and duplicate the round "3" memorial circle for the base of the B-pillar. I chose pictures from WINSTON CUP ILLUSTRATED, May issue, which had shots of the Rockingham and Vegas cars, as the basis to build this model. Masking is simpler than the first win version with a simple black band around the bottom of the body.

For this model, I decided to try one of the Profinish kits, Gordon's 2000 Daytona car, rather than the regular kit. One reason was just plain old curiosity, but I had also been impressed by the Profinish chassis I'd built for the First Win car, and the Profinish body had lines that actually looked more prototypical than the regular glue kit. This model is box stock... no oil lines. no plug wires, no valve stems... the building time in total was likely about 5 hours, not counting body painting and decalling!!

The body was primed with PlastiKote white, then topcoated with GM Code 10 Arctic White aerosol automotive touch-up lacquer from Canadian Tire. Again, using a basic black CTC touch-up lacquer, I masked off and painted the black trim around the base of the body, and the spoiler. No airbrushes were harmed in the production of this model!!

Once painting was complete, decal application was straightforward. All the graphics except the fender contingency decals are on this sheet. The red stripe is doubled with a black stripe, that can be applied at the black/white break to clean it up, and ensure the red is parallel, and always the same distance from, the black area.

I did run into one interesting snag, and this will haunt anyone who tries to use aftermarket decals on a Profinish Monte Carlo:
The headlight area, and the decals for the headlights provided on the Profinish decal sheet, are much bigger than the decals provided on any regular glue kit or current aftermarket sheet. I couldn't use the Profinish decals, as they had "24" integrated into the right hand decal! I tried a set from the regular kit, and they looked totally out of place... What to do? Then I noted the left-hand light decal had no graphic overlaid on it, so I scanned it, used Photoshop to make a mirror image, and Viola!, two "blank" headlight decals that worked fine! I will make up sheets of these for anyone who plans to use aftermarket decals on Profinish kits, and wants a correct-looking decal.
Keep an eye on the 3 Amigos Page.

Once all the decals were in place, I let them dry for a day, then applied several LIGHT coats of TAMIYA TS13 clear, followed up a day later with TURTLE WAX polishing compound, and the "First Ride" body was complete. The only issue I had with this kit was in trying to mate the body and chassis. There are three screws to join them, reminiscent of old AMT annual kits of the '50's and '60's. Problem was the posts are a bit too long, so the body sits too high on the chassis.

"No Problem!" said I.. "I'll just grind the posts down a bit!" This worked pretty well to get the front down in the weeds, but now the rear edge of the "package shelf" interfered with the base of the rear window, so I redisassembled (is that a word??? Is Now...) it, and ground an eighth-inch off the "package shelf", and it all fit together pretty well (altho the rear wheels are bit further forward in the wheelwells than I'd like...) It's a bit tricky to get the nose level side-to-side, too bad Revell hadn't totally copied AMT, and used four posts...

At The Rock, Harvick, severely in the spotlight, qualified this car in 36th, just sneaking in, and worked his way up to a respectable 14th place by the end of the race. A week later at Vegas, a 20th place start led to an encouraging 8th place finish, then came Atlanta, and the CrackerBarrel 500...

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