NASCAR MODELS by MR NASCAR

DALE JARRETT's 2001 UPS TAURUS!!


Being the son of a former Champion is a situation that likely gets the odd door opened for you as you fight to the top of the NASCAR heap, but it can also lead to a lot of questions if you don't immediately grab that opportunity and run with it. That was the situation Dale Jarrett found himself in in the early 1990's as he struggled to prove he could make it to the top tier of WC drivers.

DJ's big opportunity came when Ernie Irvan suffered life-threatening injuries at MIS in 1994 that would ultimately lead to his career's early end. After having seen some decent runs by DJ in the Wood Brothers' T-Bird, (including a photofinish with Yates driver Davey allison for DJ's first win) Yates felt Dale could be a reasonable backfill for Irvan, until Ernie could return to action. DJ filled in in 1995, and when Ernie did come back for the '96 season, Yates started a second team for Dale, with Ford Quality Care/Credit as primary sponsor. The red-white-and-blue number 88 soon became a major factor at every race, culminating in the Points Championship in 1999.

But all things come to an end, and after 5 years' sponsorship of the 88 car, Ford QC/Credit is movin' on, and the red/white/blue will be replaced by the UPS white and brown colour scheme in 2001.

Here's the latest graphics from the talented hands of Sam Lopez - DJ's 2001 ride as presented to the press at season's end. Will it look like this at Daytona?? Who knows? This is how it looks in the recent WINSTON CUP SCENE and Sports Illustrated (Thanks, Pat!) ads, and shots I saw from the Preview.

The interior at Daytona may well be grey, as apparently Yates has followed the lead of Childress Racing, and are going with a grey chassis. Pictures I was working from showed definite red components in the interior, so it may well be an older chassis reskinned and painted for promotional purposes. Since the Daytona-winning Yates Taurus from '00 is gatherin' dust on display at Daytona USA, we need to assume a new chassis is in the works for February. Grey? Red?? Guess we'll know in a few weeks!

This kit was my first buildup of the new 2000 Taurus, and Revell has made some good enhancements over the last Taurus, primarily in the cold air box, wheels and exhaust dumps. The body looks right on. Looks like the front hoop of the rollcage may be a bit low, as it is very visible thru the windshield.

The rest of the kit appears to be a rehash of the original Taurus, which ain't all bad... a set of rear spring adjusting extensions, plus holes in the window for access, as was done for the 2K Monte woulda been nice, but at least it has rear decklid pins, and the spoiler looks more prototypical... (If Revellogram ever gets everything right on the same model, it'll be pretty awesome, I'll bet!!)

After cleaning up the body and priming with PlastiKote white primer, I first sprayed the rear "parcel shelf" in the red I planned to use for the chassis. (Had I not done this so early in the game, I mighta sprayed it grey, to hopefully model the '01 Daytona car...who knew??) I then masked it off, and applied several coat of white touchup lacquer from the rattle can, heated in warm tapwater. I then masked off the white, working from photos at Jayski's, CIAstock, and an ad in Winston Cup Scene from late December.

Mixing up the UPS brown turned out to be rather tricky. I had adjusted the colour of the brown fill in the decal sheet number 88's to let me print a brown that was close to the actual UPS colour. I then mixed a brown to match those numbers using Canadian Tire Aerosol touchup lacquer sprayed into a bottle for airbrush application. To mix the colour, I started with a GM red - Flame Red. To it I added black, yellow, and a little bit of white, until I had a good-looking match in the bottle.

After spraying the body, I realized I was too dark and not yellow enough, so I whacked the remaining material with some more yellow, and resprayed. Better... but not quite right... One more hit and the brown on the body was a decent match to the numbers on the decal sheet. (I remembered, part way thru this process, that brown is actually one of the most difficult colour ranges to match in...)

Once the body was sprayed, decal application, using the decals I had printed on my ALPS printer for the main UPS signage, was straightforward. Head and tail lights, tire, and grille screen decals came from the kit decal, and the fender contingency decals were from the SLIXX 2000 grouped sponsors decal sheet.

Once all decals had had 24 hours to dry, I applied several LIGHT coats of TAMIYA TS13 clear from the heated aerosol can (Hot Tap Water, only!!). This was left to dry a few days, and then I polished with green Turtle polishing compound.

Chassis buildup was normal process, with only oil lines added under the hood to fill out the engine compartment.

One problem with this kit is if you apply the rocker panel filler parts to the sides of the chassis, the exhaust hangs too low, and does not look at all right. To solve this, cut the left side filler in half, and only apply the front part, so you do get some body location capability, yet the exhaust can snuggle right up to the frame where it should be.

And there it was - a model of a car that has yet to turn a wheel in anger! I must admit, this is NOT my favourite colour scheme, but I like DJ, and it built up into an impressive model, thanks to Sam's artistry. He really DELIVERED on this one!

To Home Page To Models Index Page To Top of Page