Click here for catalog!
NASCAR MODELS by MR NASCAR

Paul Menard's 2005 MENARD'S Monte Carlo - Daytona Version


Like many NASCAR racers, Paul Menard started early, racing karts at 8 years of age in 1988. But he took an unusual turn, getting involved in ice racing in 1995, winning 10 International Ice Racing events. He moved up to NASCAR ReMax Challenge racing in 2000 and won his first race, at Elkhart Lake, in 2001. He notched two more wins – Fontana and Phoenix – in 2002 and also competed in SCCA Trans Am, Grand Am Cup and NASCAR Southwest. The next year saw Menard race in NASCAR Nextel Cup, Busch Series, Craftsman Trucks Series and ARCA events for Andy Petree Racing. He joined DEI Inc in 2004, debuting at the New Hampshire Busch Series race midway through the 2004 season. By October, Paul had won his first Bud Pole at the Kansas Speedway and a total of four top-10 starts. He hopes to keep the momentum going in 2005. (It obviously doesn't hurt that his primary sponsor at DEI is MENARD's; owned by his billionaire father, John Menard, of hardware store and IndyCar fame...)

I was quite taken by the screaming yellow paint job on this car at Daytona, and set about gathering materials to allow me to do up a set of decals. The car has raced in several different sponsor variants on the hood and decklid, but MENARDS is always on the rear haunches. The model shown here represents the car as raced at Daytona in Feb 05. By early May I had everything pulled together except a couple of the B-pillar contingencies. After a plea on Randy's NASCAR Modelling Board, Kevin of XJARHEAD decals provided me the missing graphics from his sheet, and Larry Divock confirmed the logos. A big thank-you for your help, guys!

The starting kit for this model was a 2003/2004 Revell Monte Carlo. The decal sheet I constructed contains everything needed for the Daytona car, including contingencies and the "supersized" Goodyear tire lettering. All I needed from the kit decal was the NASCAR Race Car logos for the A pillars, and the grille decals.

While working up the decal, I also built the chassis, and prepared and painted the body. As per NASCAR mandate, this car has the ignition system mounted in a recess in the dash on the driver's side. I used another trick set from Modern Motorsports, their Ignition Plate Kit, part number IG-IPK. This allows you to configure the compoenents as you want on the plate. (Not being very original, mine ended up looking remarkably - or depressingly, I suppose- similar to the one-piece version that TJ offers that I used on the Crown Royal car...) Other than that the chassis was built box-stock, with seatbelts being the only other upgrade.

While at the NNL in March, I got myself some of House of Kolor's incredible paints from Black Gold. One colour that I bought multiple jars of was their Neon Chartreuse universal base (NE50801). This appears to be a perfect match for this car. I applied white PlastiKote primer, then mixed the HoK chartreuse with about 200% lacquer thinner, and applied it thru my airbrush. Since it dried pretty flat, I followed up with a couple coats of TAMIYA TS13 clear before decalling.

Decal application is straightforward, I started with roof and the side strakes/numbers, than followed up with the rest. Once all the decals were in place, and had had 24 hours or so to dry, I applied successive light coats of TS13, again from warmed rattle-can, and after a day or two to dry, I polished it all up with terry cloth and Turtle Wax to a nice shine.

At this point, I noticed that, being a restrictoracer, this car ran with the roof blade as per NASCAR rules for Busch. The idea of gluing a blade to that nice shiny roof really unnerved me, so I had to try something different. The "blade" was made of Plastruct L- rod, thinned through careful sanding. I cut a piece of proper length to fit between the roof rails, and carefully pre-bent it so it matched the roof's lateral contour, with no gaps. I then drilled holes at each end, in about a quarter-inch. Here was where it got dodgy... I then held the blade in position on the roof, and using my drill, marked the roof thru the holes I'd drilled with a straight pin. I then drilled the roof. One-quarter-inch lengths of pin were then cyano'd into the holes in the blade, and they were inserted thru the drilled holes in the roof. So far, so good.. I then applied cyano glue to the pins from underneath the roof, inside the body, so it would not get on my nice finish on the roof. The pins, being glued in place, held the blade down with no glue between the blade underside and the roof exterior. (It had been prepainted black as per references). Rear spoiler and roof rails were also painted black, as per references.

If Paul hopes to add to his momentum in 2005, he'll need to improve over the outing he had in the Daytona race. Although he had a strong qualifying run, starting fourth, a midrace incident caused him to finish 17th, with sheetmetal damage to the nose, about 10 laps down to the winner, Tony Stewart.

The finished car, thanks to the paint, is an eye-catcher. To use a street-rodder expresson, it has a high "gotcha factor". I hope to build a couple more of these with some of the different sponsor combinations down the road. After all, I have this drawer full of eyeball-searing little bottles of Neon Chartreuse to use up...

This decal sheet is now listed as available from 3 Amigos (Click here for our catalog page).

To Home Page To Models Index Page To Top of Page