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NASCAR MODELS by MR NASCAR

Bobby Labonte's 2001 " Cal Ripken Jr" Grand Prix


The fall Dover race in 2001, the MBNA Cal Ripken Jr 400, was a very emotional event for all concerned - NASCAR's first foray back on the track since the tragic events of September 11. Virtually all of the teams showed up with special graphics, or added graphics to honour those lost, and express support for those who had suffered loss. In the face of this greater recognition, the special paint scheme on Bobby Labonte's INTERSTATE Pontiac caused barely a ripple, whereas in more normal times it would have been a cause for celebration on its own. Commemorated on that car was the 20 year playing career of Cal Ripken Jr, who was playing in his last season, all for the Orioles. Cal himself was there to serve as Grand Marshal.

Done out in the Baltimore Orioles' team colours, the car was striking and a dramatic change from Bobby's normal green and black Interstate Batteries scheme.This was another colour scheme that I wanted to see on my shelf, and in the 3 Amigos lineup. Sam began the artwork, and we gathered up the required images. We were frustrated for a few weeks by our inability to find a decent image of the commemorative crest that was part of the hood layout, but finally one of my Site visitors came through with a good image (free decals on their way!) and we were able to wrap it up. After a few weeks interspersed among other projects, spring-cleaning, yardwork, Maple Leaf hockey, etc, I finally got the decals printed, and built out, as the pics here attest, into a very satisying model.

I chose to use the #36 M&M's ProFinish Pontiac for this model, as the body, especially the nose, is much closer to current 1:1 practice. No modifications were made to the body, altho I did have to resize the roof decal to fit this one (I assume Sam had the '96 vintage glue kit body as a reference...).

I did not paint the model until I had optimized the "Oriole Orange" in the numbers on the decal sheet, knowing that the orange on the body would need to be a match to the decal orange. Once I had finalized the decal colour (No small challenge - printing oranges is not an ALPS printer's forte...) I matched it by blending a 1979 Ford touchup lacquer, Tangerine, with a couple shots of Tamiya TS16 yellow, to match the hue of the decals. Body was primed with white PlastiKote primer, wetsanded with 600 sandpaper, then shot with the blended colour thru an airbrush. It was then masked following references, and shot with black touchup lacquer.

Decal application was quite simple; the roof "ball" and number are one large graphic (Surprise, Sam!) and it went on very well, with a bit of Microset to convince it to snug up around the little roofcam pod. All the rest of the decalling was straightforward, the three hood graphics can be cut out and put in place as one unit, what I did, or cut apart and placed separately if you want to minimize amount of clear carrier film showing.


All the decals on the model, other than the fender contingencies, are on the sheet. The contingency decals came from SLIXX 20001 grouped sets. (I was very surprised at the amount of difficulty I had with these, the decals split into two or three parts when put in water - very unSLIXXlike behaviour... it took a lot of effort to align them so the splits were not noticeable!) Once all decals were on, and it had a couple days to dry, I sprayed on several light coats of TAMIYA TS13 clear from a rattlecan heated in hot tapwater, then polished it out with Turtle Wax, and it was ready for the chassis.

Although this chassis is much cruder than those in the glue kits, it is also more representative of the current practice, especially the more accurate seat, and ignition boxes in the interior. I decided to add some detail to the chassis, primarily seat belts to the interior, oil lines, and I fixed the VERY OFFENSIVE driveshaft. To do that I razor sawed it away from the rear suspension, being very careful to preserve the rear universal joint, and cut away the big slug of plastic in the middle of the driveshaft and crossmember. I measured the length of the driveshaft tube, and cut a length of 3/32nd Plastruct tubing to replace it, attaching the universals which I had razor-sawn away from the original kit piece. All in all, it took about fifteen minutes, not counting time I left for the universals to dry after gluing in place, and it made a big difference to the underside. Didn't even have to paint the white Plastruct tubing. Heck! Next time I might even fill in the screw holes!

In the race, Bobby had placed the Cal Car on the outside of the front row, losing the pole by 7/1000th's of a second to Dale Jarrett. After leading briefly, Bobby tangled with Bill Elliott on the 21st lap, significantly shortening the Grand Prix to rather Gremlin-like proportions, and after some sheetmetal surgery, got back into the race, finishing in 36th place about 140 laps down. Musta kinda felt like striking out on what woulda been Ball Four... but in the big picture, I think most were thankful to be back to some semblance of normalcy, even if it meant just nursing a sick machine and stayin' outta the way for some 225 laps.

Cal's last at-bat in the Toronto SkyDome. We were there...

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