IN MEMORY DALE EARNHARDT 1951 - 2001

NASCAR MODELS by MR NASCAR

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

Childress probably arrived at the best possible solution to hold RCR together. Change the number, change the colour scheme, and bring in a promising young driver who would not be seen as a threat to the Earnhardt followers' memories. (Can you imagine the no-win position any current WC shoe woulda been in had he been pried loose for that ride? Gordon? Jarrett?? or even Little E???)

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. Witness his win in his third outing at Atlanta, holding off a determined Jeff Gordon by mere inches for the win. Harvick is now likely going to win the RotY in 2001, due to the sad turn of events...

The initial colour scheme, adopted the week after Daytona, was a simple reversal of colours, a white car with black numbers and lettering (Click Here to see the First Ride Car!)), but, by the fourth race at Atlanta, the scheme had been brightened up considerably, with red striping and numbers, and I thought this was a very eye-catching car.

Thanks to work on previous models, I had all the GOODWRENCH signage that could be easily convertible to black for a white car. All I needed were the numbers and some updated secondary sponsor logos.

I found the required SONIC restaurants logo at their website, and was able to work up some others (Van Camps, Hershey's, for the b-pillar), but the numbers were problematic. Finally, a set appeared in an illustration in WINSTON CUP SCENE that I was able to scan and manipulate to arrive at what I needed, and I was on my way!

While I was playing around with the graphics, I began the build-up of the model. Basic body came from a full-glue 2000 Earnhardt kit, but I had a spare Profinish Chassis, that I wanted to use, as I thought I'd like to include the figure, giving a three-finger salute to honour his fallen predecessor, after taking the first win for RCR since Dale was lost.

The chassis needed to be trimmed a bit at the back to fit under the regular kit body, but all in all, there were no serious issues. This chassis is quite nice, and will build up into a credible shelf model (that's my goal in modelling...) very quickly.

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 CTC touch-up lacquers, a red and a red-orange, I blended a colour to match the numbers on my freshly-minted decal sheet, by spraying into bottles, mixing until hue was right, then applying thru my airbrush.

Once painting was complete, decal application was straightforward. All the graphics except the fender contingency decals are on this sheet. White underlays that are slightly larger, but mimic the contours of the bottom of the side numbers, are on the sheet, so the red can be masked as a simple straight line, and the white underlays positioned to define the white outline of the numbers. (This was developed AFTER I'd tried masking out the right contours...) I designed the black stripes for the white/red break to be cut out and applied as a doubled pair, to simplify their application, rather than trying to lay two stripes close together in parallel. (This, of course, was AFTER I had actually tried to lay singles side-by-side... and, combined with the numbers thing above, completely exhausted my vocabulary of profanities...)

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 Win" was complete. During construction of the chassis, I painted and installed the driver figure to represent Harvick, but without the left arm... I reworked the hand to show the "3" Salute, and installed it after the body was in place on the chassis.

Harvick won in this colour scheme his third time out, a feat unmatched by any driver in the modern era. He has a great future in store, and though he knows, and we know, he'll never take the place of Dale Earnhardt in the fans' hearts, he will bring glory in the NASCAR world for himself and RCR in the future. Best of Luck, Kevin!

SMOKIN'....
Of course, inspired by the front cover of the May issue of WINSTON CUP ILLUSTRATED, I had to haul out the cotton batting once more...

To Home Page

To Models Index Page

To Top of Page