A NASCAR Model by Jodie Peeler!!!

Ricky Rudd's 1983 PIEDMONT Monte Carlo

But in 1984, Childress had a chance to hire back his friend Earnhardt, who brought his sponsor, Wrangler, with him. Rudd went to the Bud Moore team, and Piedmont shifted its sponsorship to the #44 Monte Carlo owned by Billy Hagan and driven by eventual 1984 Cup champion Terry Labonte.

That Piedmont Airlines sponsored stock cars intrigued me, for before I was into stock cars, I was (and still am) into aviation, specifically, commercial aviation. Some of my favorite subjects are airplanes from airlines that have since disappeared; names from my youth such as Eastern, Pan American, Southern and Piedmont. Thus, it was only natural that when I discovered that Slixx had produced a decal sheet for Ricky Rudd's 1982-83 Piedmont Airlines cars, I pounced! That's not to mention that the '83 Monte Carlo, with its aerodynamic nose and flowing curves, is probably one of the most aesthetically pleasing cars to take the track. I just had to build one.

The car model itself is the trusty old Monogram kit we all know and love. In this particular instance, my base kit was the Cale Yarborough "Legends" release from a few years ago (and my apologies to Cale, a fellow South Carolininan, for "borrowing" his car for this model!). After wrestling with more recent Revellogram projects, trying to load them up with modern conveniences and gizmos, it was fun to relax with a project representing simpler times, and this kit was fun to build, with no real headaches. The only difficulty I had was with some warp in the front of the body; from the radiator support to the top of the windshield, the body is one big hole, and keeping the body straight and making the hood lay down level is a challenge! Lots of work with files and sanding sticks ensued, and eventually I got the hood to settle in.

The interior is basically stock. I cut out the kit window net and mounted it in its lowered position, as I normally do. The only other modification I made was to add some roll cage padding, and for this I experimented with a new method. Instead of slipping something over the roll cage areas to represent padding, I cut out segments of the roll cage and replaced them with styrene rod of a larger diameter, and securing it by using brass wire placed into little holes in the mating ends. It worked.but not quite as well as I'd hoped, and there are areas where some of the bars are crooked.

All my pictures of the '82-'83 Rudd cars show them with wheels that are kind of a dull aluminum color. However, the Revellogram kit gives you that big tree of chromed parts.many of which don't need to be that shiny. After dumping the wheels and other assorted parts into a bowl of Fantastik for a nice long soak, I painted the wheels with Testors Flat Aluminum. When they dried, I swabbed a little Future on them and painted the cooling holes in with Tamiya Flat Black and a fine brush. I scuffed the tread section of the tires and sanded the raised lettering off the sidewalls, buffing them with sanding sticks and swabbing Future on them. They were then ready for the "Goodyear" decals from the kit sheet. The kit decals, to my surprise, settled right in and look great.

The drivetrain is basically stock; the only alterations I made were simple ones, such as replacing the solid dump pipes with lengths of K&S aluminum tubing. For other detailing and alterations, I followed the guidance of Bill Coulter, both from his October 1988 Fine Scale Modeler article on Yarborough's 1984 Daytona 500 winner and from his indispensable book, Building and Detailing Scale Model Stock Car Models, in adding little touches to the model.

The cars Rudd drove for Richard Childress wore a simple scheme, and the Slixx sheet requires only that you paint the body white. I did this with Krylon Semi-Gloss White, and used Krylon Pewter Grey for the chassis and interior. I was expecting to have to rub the finish out, but the Krylon settled down to form a very nice surface. I merely rubbed a light coat of Future on with a swab so the decals would have a slick surface on which to settle. I did detail painting with assorted Polly Scale and Tamiya acrylic paints.

The decals are what you expect from Slixx - beautiful printing, fine detail and pleasant handling. The sheet gives you options for both the '82 Pontiac and the '83 Monte Carlo, but the instructions don't fully differentiate between the two types. As a result, and given my lack of references, I had to do a fair amount of guessing. I finally came up with something that looked "right" to me. The red, white and silver stripes required a good bit of adjustment for proper alignment, and, since they're designed to fit both types of cars, considerable trimming. However, it's nothing the average modeler can't handle. After quite a bit of trimming, adjusting and diluted Solvaset, the stripes settled in nicely.

The grouped contingency decals fit right where they should. For my own curious historical reasons, I chose the old RCR logo for the C-pillar over another Anderson & Webb logo. I didn't have enough room to squeeze in the "Jesus Christ - The Winning Team" logo below the B-pillar between the "3" and the "Piedmont" title, though. Oh, well! (Besides, I can save those for the early Earnhardt cars I have planned.)

Once all the decals had settled, I glued the body to the chassis, popped the hood in place, applied the last little pieces to the model, and my little Ricky Rudd car was ready to go.

And I'm proud to say that Ricky's road warrior managed to come in second in the NASCAR category at the 2002 IPMS/Region 3 convention near Atlanta in February. It drew many favorable comments, not only from my airliner buddies, but from my stock car buddies as well!

But, while awards are nice, what matters most is the fun I had building it. Not only was it a pleasant diversion, but it lets me honor an airline that no longer exists (well, not in its original form, anyway) and one of the prettiest cars ever to race. "