NASCAR MODELS by MR NASCAR

TODD BODINE'S 1998 TABASCO "GREEN SAUCE" PONTIAC


If the TABASCO FIASCO, Todd Bodine and TABASCO in 1998 are remembered at all, they are associated with bright orange/white Pontiacs. With this episode of Todd's NASCAR career now slowly receding into obscurity, the "Green Sauce" car is only remembered by those of us in the NASCAR modeling world, who were promised decals, that never appeared due to the Great Clampdown of '98...As with the "Bottle car, this was a striking colour scheme, but quite different from others he ran in early '98, and again, one I had the "hots" for..sorry...

With no decals ever materializing, there were certainly lots of other projects from 1998 to keeo me busy, so it moved into the back of my mind, along with a lot of other useless stuff (actually, that is a fairly big area...) Then Sam Lopez sent me this file, and one for the "Bottle" car. Wow... these two immediately became "must builds"! (If you stretched all my "must builds" end-to-end... guess this was a "REALLY must build... hmmm... this was funnier in the "Bottle" car write-up...)

The "TABASCO FIASCO" has already been documented here, with models of Todd's regular 1998 ride, that he hung onto until mid-1998, when he was replaced with Darrell Waltrip, whose one-race wonder Monte Carlo has also been covered here.

I frankly had no idea if this car ever qualified. or in what races, if any, it actually ran. All my info came from a little teaser at one of the internet NASCAR modeling sites, and shots from CIAstockphotos. A couple visitors to the site came thru with info on where the car ran. First I heard from Christopher Henderson:

"Todd started in the #2 spot for the Atlanta race in March."

Then Linn Sanders came though with this info on the history of this livery...

"Todd drove the green sauce car several times in '98. In the first Atlanta race he started on the outside of row one and led the biggest part of the first half of the race. Engine failure put him out later in the race. (actually, according to the '99 NASCAR Press Guide, he finished 10th, a lap down, in that race - Mr N.) Man, was I pulling for him then - since Jeff G was doing so terrible in that race."

Thanks, guys!

The model shown here is, like the "Bottle" car, to the best of my knowledge, the first plastic kit-based model ever built in this livery. Again, thanks go to Sam Lopez for the incredible graphics, and Alex Kung, for his invaluable technical guidance thru the ALPS printing process. The decal was printed on clear decal paper from Tangopapa Decals, first two layers of white undercoat, followed by the colour images, then two coats of MicroScale decal film, applied thru an airbrush, after thinning 1:1 with lacquer thinner.

The model buildup itself was fairly conventional, with the usual oil lines, plug wires, Earnhardt bar, valve stems, new exhaust dumps, etc, added, as is my usual practice. The paint job was real simple: prime it, sand it, shoot it with black touchup lacquer. All the splash graphics came on Sam's incredible artwork. I pushed the ALPS to its limit to get the brightest possible yellow-green on them, overall much better than I expected, close to Dayglo....

As with the "bottle" car, all decals were in the files Sam sent, except the fender contingency, headlight and grille areas. Again, these came from various old RaceScale and SLIXX extras I had in the war wagon.

Having learned from the "Bottle" car, I printed up an extra layer of the white undercoats for the diamond on the hood, and the side numbers, and applied them first, over the black hood, and the splashes on the sides, then followed by the graphics decals, effectively giving FOUR layers of white in these areas! The decals are thin enuff that this was not a problem... turned out that I likely did not need the extra layers on the hood, as the black did not have same showthru there as on the "bottle" car's bright orange hood. Once I'd completed the decalling, I gave the body a day or two to dry, then sprayed several LIGHT coats of TAMIYA TS13 clear, from the rattle-can, heated in hot tap water. The body was then polished with Turtle Wax, and I was finished.

As with the "bottle" car,sharp-eyed readers may have noticed a different look to the nose of this car, compared to the regular RevelloGram Pontiac stockers. Following up on a tip I read in Randy Ayers' NASCAR MODELING FORUM (sorry, contributor name has escaped me...), I tried grafting the front valence from the first series (95-96) Monte Carlo kit to the GP, to get a more vertical, flush look. Not too bad... now I got a use for that old carton of WCW kits... The actual detail in this kitbash is in another page on the site - access it here.

And now I have FOUR versions of the TABASCO FIASCO cars. How odd... but I like 'em, and can't wait for the next offering from my pal, Sam!

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