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Kevin Grubb's 2002 TOYS 'R US BGN Monte Carlo!!


I was unaware of a TOYS"R"US-sponsored car in BGN, until a picture of it all sideways was featured in WINSTON CUP SCENE last year. And I was only vaguely aware of driver Kevin Grubb, associating him and his brother Wayne with the Truck series.... It turns out Mr Grubb has had a fairly reasonable run in the BGN series to date, but he appears to be fading in 2003. His racing bio (from his fansite) reflects the type of determination and focus you need even to be a journeyman driver in the second-string level in this demanding sport:

  • Kevin started in ChampKarts in 1993 (he'd have been about 15...), won the 1994 MAScar (Mid-Atlantic Small Car Associated Racing) Series Championship in his first year on the circuit (at Southside Speedway), and moved up to NASCAR Winston Racing Series Late Model Stock division, winning Rookie of the Year honors at the famed South Boston Speedway (1995).
  • Kevin made his Craftsman Truck Series debut in 1996 at 18, piloting his family owned #55 truck.
  • In '97 he debuted in the NASCAR Busch Series US Cellular 200 at Loudon, NH (5/10); started 36th; finished 38th...
  • He started second 4 times in his first full season with Brewco Motorsports, piloting the #38 Timber Wolf sponsored entry, in 1999, a ride he kept thru 2001.
  • He and Brewco parted ways at the end of 2001,and he accepted a position with Team Bristol Motorsports, 3 races into the 2002 season, driving the #54 Toys 'R' Us car in 30 out of 34 races.

The picture revealed a really NEAT "giraffe-themed" paint scheme that I immediately thought would make a great model. So I fiddled a bit with it over the winter, and finally got serious around the end of July to see what I could come up with.

Some diligent online searches, plus some checking thru back-issues of the NASCAR Press Guide, and WINSTON CUP SCENE gave me a bit more info on the car and Mr Grubb, but the motherlode of reference pics was at CIASTOCKPHOTOS.com..

Sometimes this hobby is so much fun, you wonder why it hasn't been declared totally illegal! (my wife would concur...) This was a fun car to do!! To come up with the decals, I started with the original pic from WCS, which I resized in Photoshop to equal the wheelbase of a REVELL Profinish Monte Carlo. The first thing was to see if I could recreate the "spots", using that resized pic as a template. No problem... only tricky part was how to make the graphics for the front fender/headlight area, but a bit of "Cut and Paste" and I'd duplicated the CIASTOCK references quite well, coming up with a two-part decal that was easy to fit around the front quarterpanel/fender area.

I decided to keep the red stripes used on the two-tone yellow breaklines separate from the "spots" graphics, to provide a bit more "wiggle-room" for decal application. This worked out pretty well. I applied the "spots", which are on a transparent backing to allow the yellow to show through, and anywhere where they encroached on the upper colour, I simply used an Exacto knife to trim back to the breaklines between colours, then applied the red stripes. I also left the "R" in the TOYS"R"US logo clear so the proper shade yellow, matching the body colour, showed thru.

The starting model was a Jeff Gordon 2000 Profinish Monte. Body was primed with white PlastiKote primer, then coated with TAMIYA TS34 Chrome Yellow Aerosol. Once it was cured, I masked the upper half of the body, to match pictures, then sprayed the bottom half in TS47 Camel Yellow (camels are yellow?? ..who knew?), which is slightly redder. Once the dark brown spots had been applied, I had a very "giraffesque" paint scheme upon which to lay down the rest of the decals I'd developed. Spots, stripes, numbers and TOYS"R"US logos were developed by myself; the head and tail light decals were from the JWTBM sheet, the grille decals from the kit sheet, except brake duct grilles, which were from the pre-2K Terry Labonte Kellogg's Monte. Contingency decals came from the SLIXX grouped 2002 contingency sheet.

Once the spots and stripes were down, all other decal application was straightforward. Once all decals had been in place 24 hours, they were clearcoated by carefully spraying several LIGHT coats of TAMIYA TS13 clear from the heated (hot tap water) aerosol can, then polished to a nice shine with Turtle wax.

Once it was all polished up I was very happy with the end result, and even learned a couple more PhotoShop tricks along the way!

More about Kevin:
In 2002, he finished 3rd twice, and, despite missing those 4 races, still finished 24th in point standings. However, 54 car team owner Rick Goodwin and Grubb were unable to come to terms on a contract for the upcoming '03 season and agreed to part ways. Ultimately, Grubb ended up in the #26 Dr Pepper Dodge; he drove the first seven races of 2003 and lifted the team into the Top 15 in the point standings. But in 10 of the final 27 races, he will yield his Carroll Racing ride to Lance Norick. To stay in the points chase, Grubb is scrambling to find rides with other teams for those events. Such is the life of a dedicated racer....Incidentally, the TOYS"R"US car, and Goodwin's 54 team seems to have disappeared...

But don't feel too awful sorry for young Kevin, the 25 year-old is considered a veteran, and is still younger than several of the "Young Guns" making an impact in Winston-Nexel Cup.. who knows? He may not have missed the brass ring yet... Besides, he still has his two favourite personal vehicles, his Corvette and his Escalade, to console him, plus his hobbies: Motorcycles (riding & racing), Four-Wheeling, Drag racing...

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