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NASCAR MODELS by MR NASCAR

Ryan Newman's 2003 "PENSKE 50TH WIN" Intrepid!!


Ryan Newman is a top candidate to win it all in 2004. Although he finished only 6th overall in '03, he posted 8 wins; unfortunately those wins were offset by some very spectacular dnf's during the 2003 season. Ryan is one of the poster-boys of the new look NASCAR is trying to develop to broaden it's fan demographics. Those of us who have followed NASCAR since Cale used the outside guardrail at Darlington to stabilize his Merc's handling tend to see this as a bit of a betrayal of NASCAR's roots, but time marches on...and NASCAR is first and foremost a business enterprise, just like any other pro sports league.

No matter, since it cannot be denied that when it comes to wringing the max out of a racecar, Ryan's right up there... engineering degree and all, he'll hang 'er all out to stay in front. That of course might explain the boom-or-bust results he got in 2003... Some of the best racing I've seen this season has been him fending aff a 2nd-place challenger.

The colour scheme shown here was to commemorate Roger Penske's 50th NASCAR win as a team owner, and was run at Rockingham this fall. IF you count in his Kranefuss/Mayfield association of a few seasons back, that win occurred at MIS in August 2003, with Ryan wheeling the ALLTEL Intepid to victory. If you go by pure Penske wins, it was Newman's last win at Kansas in October. Either way it's a great-looking car and commemorates Roger's longtime involvement in the sport by resurrecting a colour scheme from the 70's used back then. This was on a fleet of Matadors, driven by Mark Donehue, and Dave Marcis, among others. My first-ever NASCAR model in fact, was the original issue from back then... tried to find it for some comparison photos, but it's buried in the catacombs of the Smirle Archives somewhere.... still...

When this car appeared at "The Rock" there was an immediate response from modellers looking for decals. Our Sam was quick off the mark, and within a week-and-a-half, I had some great-looking graphics for this model. After some minor size-tweaking I was good to go.

The model used, of course, is the ELLIOTT/MARLIN Intrepid from Revell. Body was primed with PlastiKote white primer, then painted pure white with automotive aerosol touch-up lacquer. I realized that getting the angle of the red/white and white/blue breaks was critical for the model to look right. The breaks neded to run parallel to the slant of the side numbers. To do this I photocopied the decal, and taped the numbers in place on the white body, then applied TAMIYA masking tape parallel to the slants on each side. I then masked off and painted the rear red and the front blue. For the red, I used TAMIYA TS8; for the blue I used TS15. As is my practice, all aerosols were warmed in hot tapwater prior to use.

Looking at the finished product, something musta slipped on the right side, they are not quite lined up correctly... oh, well... Now I know which side will face the wall in the cabinet...

..SIGH...

The decal application is quite simple, nothing overlaps, and they went on quickly. Everything you see but the fender contingencies are on the sheet. Those came from SLIXX 2003 contingency sheet (not grouped) The MOBIL1 is not on SLIXX' sheet, It has been added to our sheet. There was minor showthru of the red, but not enought to be of concern, and certainly better than many other sheets i've worked with. No problem over the blue.

Once all decals were in place, and the model had sat 24 hours, I applied several LIGHT dustcoats of TAMIYA TS13, followed another 24 hours later by polishing with Turtle Wax.

The Chassis was built box-stock, with nothing but seatbelts added, I screwed 'er all together and was very happy with the end result

As I said Ryan ran this car in the fall Rockingham race, and the most notable incident he was involved in was with Jeff Gordon. They were racing for position and Ryan engaged Jeff in a bit of fender-rubbing to keep him from getting by (a trick young Mr Newman had used in several races before this...). After about the third episode Jeffie'd had it, and punted Ryan into a spin. Most Un-Jeffie-like!!..

Ryan kept it off the wall, and brought it home in 5th place, on the lead lap. Jeff was penalized a lap for rough driving, and ended up 22nd, three laps down...

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