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NASCAR MODELS by MR NASCAR

Terry Labonte's 2001 "MONSTERS INC." Monte Carlo


This is the car Terry drove in the Homestead Race as the 2001 season wound down in November. This was one of those "tie-in" promotions with the recently-released Monsters Inc. movie. Quite a far cry from Terry's usual Kellogg's Scheme, in fact, Kellogg's only had one fender on the car for their logo (and a little sign on the hood...)! Hollywood musta parted with some serious coin! (Not to worry - diecast sales would cover it.)

Although I am not a big Terry Labonte fan (he was a non-entity as Champion a few years back...) I thought this was a pretty neat colour scheme, so I sat back and waited for the decals to come out from one of the major supliers... and waited...and waited...

Once we figured out they did not seem to be in the cards, Sam whipped up the great set of graphics, that you see here. Everything is on the sheet except the fender contingencies.

I built this model using the Jeff Gordon NASCAR 2000 ProFinish kit. No work was done to modify the aero package, I went with the kit-suplied nose and rear spoiler, didn't look too far off reference pics.

As is my usual practice, I did not bother to remove the tampo-printed artwork before priming with PlastiKote white primer from the aerosol can. I have done this before no problem. Well, this time there WAS a problem, ironically, not from the tampo printing, but from the plain silver plastic. Lots of crawling, fisheye and peel, as if the surface was contaminated with mold release agent. I had not bothered to give the body a good wash with detergent prior to priming. Usually this is not something I do, and this time I got bitten. Took a lot of sanding and resprays to get something acceptable for the application of the white colourcoat. A lesson well-learned; I won't continue using THAT shortcut!

Finally I had an acceptable finish, and applied a generic white touchup lacquer from an aerosol (heated in hot tap water...) from Canadian Tire. The lime green and the blue were both TAMIYA aerosols. A close study of my meager references convinced me that the blue around the base was a metallic or pearl-containing colour, and TAMIYA's #19 seemed a good match. For the roof, TAMIYA's #22 seemed made to order. Once all the colour was applied, I sprayed on a couple coats of TS13 clear, then lightly sanded down the colour break lines.

Decal application is quite simple. First the black stripes that separate the blue from the white were applied, then the rest of the decals. I put two sets of door numbers on the sheet, so that they could be overlaid to minimize showthough of the dark blue. Contingency decals came from a 2001 SLIXX grouped sheet, with some additions. After a couple days to dry, several light coats of TAMIYA TS13 clear was applied from the rattlecan after warming in hot tapwater, and it was polished out with TURTLE WAX.

Final model was pretty neat; Sam did a great job on the graphics, and it was an easy build. Gonna have to hide this one when the Gandkids come visiting!

In the Homestead race, Terry qualified 16th, and finished 11th, a typical day in his recent racing career.... The big news was Bill Elliott getting his first win in almost 8 years, and DODGE getting their first in nearly THIRTY Years!!!

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