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SHORT TRACK MODELS by Rod McLeod

Don Biederman's Thompson Mover’s Camaro Late Model

decals by BULLRING GRAPHIX!

Story by Rod:
"Don Biederman is one of the all-time great characters in Canadian Late Model stock car racing. He made a living at it long before anyone else in the country and won as many races as anyone north of the border from the mid-60s through the mid-80s. He had a brief stint down south on the superspeedways in NASCAR in the mid-60s and a memorable win in the 1977 Oxford 250 against the best Late Model Sportsman drivers from the northern and southern NASCAR LMS ranks.

Don was an individual, an aggressive driver when required and not one to mince words. Not exactly a sponsor’s dream and his cars often displayed nothing more than his familiar #43 and were usually painted in Petty blue. In 1982 he hooked up with United Van Lines Mover John Thompson who had been a supporter of other drivers but his cars usually finished behind Biederman. The Thompson Movers Camaro soon found victory lane at tracks all over Ontario, Michigan, New York ,Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. A replica of the real car is in the Canadian Motorsports Hall of Fame and ensures that Don’s memory will live on after his passing in 1999.

Biederman was one of those guys that you had to watch whether or not you were a fan. He was a little like Dale Earnhardt in that respect, his appearance would draw as many boos as it would cheers. I saw him race lots of times and there was no question that I’d have to build some of his cars, in fact this was the first decal artwork that I started. It took a lot longer than I thought it would to get the model built.

The first challenge was to find a body that bore some resemblance to an early 1980s Howe Camaro. These cars had fabricated sheet metal that bore a passing resemblance to the real car but were quite different than stock. That meant a kit body would be major reworking. It turns out that a vacuum formed body was available made by Jackie Sims who goes by Gator on the boards. Jackie builds local stock car models and makes the bodies himself primarily for his own use. Pat Redmond had one that he wasn’t going to use so I was ready to begin.

If you’ve ever trimmed a slot car body then you have some idea what working with one of these vacuum formed bodies is like. The styrene is thicker than the lexan of a slot car but you have to trim out the windows and the wheel-wells. I went slowly using small scissors and a sharp x-acto and it worked out pretty well. The rear window was opened a little more to make it more like a late 70s style Camaro and I also trimmed out the tail completely. The rear spoiler was made from sheet Evergreen and glued with Tenax at Jackie’s suggestion.

No windows are provided but it wasn’t too difficult to make a front and rear out of acetate that I got from the local business supplies store. I guess some people still use overhead transparencies instead of Powerpoint projected presentations

. The chassis underneath is from an AMT Winston Cup kit with the rear clip cut down and a new one formed from Evergreen rectangular tubing. The roll cage fit nicely under the body so it was left alone. Tires are from the Model King Super Stocker reissue but the kit tires would have worked nicely as well. I needed those for another project though so I swapped them out. The wheels are Plastic Performance Wide 5s that I got from BSR.

The body was primed with Plasticote White Primer and lightly sanded. It didn’t need to be perfectly smooth and the body is accurate in that respect for a typical Saturday Night short tracker. The paint is Tamiya Pure White and the gold stripes are from the Bullring Graphix decal sheet. The sheet includes several contingency options for the car over a couple of years and will also do the all blue version from 1981 as well as the 1977 Nova that won at Oxford.

After the white was painted I masked the front and sprayed some Krylon black on the ‘rubber’ nose. This was followed by a light coat of Testor’s dullcote lacquer. I forgot to open up the radiator opening before I painted the nose but this wasn’t that hard to do after. I made the surround out of Bare Metal and there is some black nylon ribbon mesh for the grill. The rear opening was filled with some diamond shaped mesh called Brass Micro Mesh from Scale Scenics. It was a little tricky to work with but perfect for this car.

There is not much detail under the hood on this one since the hood doesn’t open, I decided it would basically be a curbside although the kit engine is under there. The overall effect looks pretty much like the real car and someday there will be a couple of more of his cars on the shelf with this one."

(Note from Mr NASCAR: Rod is a fellow Canuck, short track enthusiast, and one of the NASCARphiles in GROUP 25... He is the "Resident Artiste" for BULLRING GRAPHIX)

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