NASCAR MODELS by MR NASCAR

Joe Nemechek's 2006 ARMY Monte Carlo


Brandon sent me these graphics months ago, and I'm just now getting around to building it. This is my first build of the new 2006 Monte as well... more on that later...

Joe is another of the "journeymen" of NASCAR. He has been racing and bouncing from ride to ride at the top level in NASCAR since 1994, when he joined Larry Hedrick Motorsports to drive the #41 Meineke Chevy. Despite missing two races, he had three top-tens and finished 27th. The next season, he moved his 87 team up to the Cup series with sponsorship from Burger King, and posted a fourth-place finish at the MBNA 500 and finished 28th in points. The following year, he abandoned his Cup team and signed to drive the #42 Bellsouth car for SABCO Racing. Nemechek won the first two pole positions of his career, at California Speedway and Pocono Raceway, respectively. He posted four top-tens and finished a career-best 26th the following year. In the following season he picked up his first career victory at Loudon. He won two more poles at Martinsville and Talladega Superspeedway and finished 30th in points that year.

Joe hooked up with Andy Petree in 2000 to drive the #33 Oakwood Homes Chevrolet, but Petree's team began to run into financial problems, and Joe left for the 26 Ford Taurus fielded by Haas-Carter Motorsports. But after sponsor Kmart filed for bankruptcy, Nemechek left that team. Ah... the life of a stock car driver...

Joe's next stop was Hendrick Motorsports, where he subbed for Johnny Benson (injured in an accident at Richmond) for a few races. Hendrick Motorsports signed him to drive the #25 UAW-Delphi Chevrolet (replacing Jerry Nadeau). He had a solid finish to his 2002 season, finishing second twice in the season's final four races. In 2003, he won at the Pontiac Excitement 400 as well as posting five other top-ten finishes, but finished 25th in points. Not good enough for Joe to keep his job at Hendrick, and at the end of the season was released.

In 2004, Nemechek signed with MB2/MBV Motorsports, taking over the #01 U.S. Army car (driven previously by Jerry Nadeau). He won two poles late in the season. In October 2004, Nemechek got his most recent win at Kansas Speedway. In 2005, Nemechek won a pole at Michigan and fell seven points short of matching his career-best points finish. As 2006 progressed, he was not able to make the top ten at any race, and finally suffwered the ignominy of losing his ride to a rookie - Ken Ragan.

This was a very simple build. The whole car was primed and painted black, and all I needed to do was apply the decals. all the striping around the bottom is on the sheet. Once all the decals were in place, and had 24 hours or so to dry, I applied successive light coats of clear (TAMIYA TS13), again from a warmed rattle-can, and after a day of two to dry, polished it all up with terry cloth and Turtle Wax, to a nice shine.

This was my first build of the new '06 Monte. I had originally planned to build the 24 from the box, but a look at the decal sheet convinced me that would be a frustrating experience. Misshapen headlight... missing roof flames.... faggedaboutit... I scanned the sheet, and "stretched" the headlight decals to match references, and added them to my ARMY sheet for printing...

The kit itself seemed pretty good, there were no issues with the plastic like I'd heard about, and altho I was a bit leary about the ignition system as repesented on the dash, with a bit of detail painting, it could be made pretty convincing. I liked the way the windows plopp into place, and overall, I was pretty happy with the model.

Joe will drive MB2's third car, the #13 Chevy in 2007, and Mark Martin will take his place along with Busch Series driver Regan Smith in the ARMY car. Bobby Ginn purchased the team in 2006, and for 2007 the MB2 organization will be rebranded as Ginn Racing.

Joe does not project the charisma of a Kahne or the passion of a Stewart, but, like many of the mid-packers, he has parlayed his skills into a comfortable career. It will be interesting to see how he fares in the company of Mark, Sterling, and let's not forget... Ricky Carmichael...

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