NASCAR MODELS by MR NASCAR

DALE JARRETT'S UPS TAURUS - DOVER "TRIBUTE" VERSION


Ten days after the horrific events in New York, Pennsylvania and Washington, it was time to get back to business - and if you were part of the NASCAR fraternity, that meant back to racin'. I think everyone felt a need to prove to the world, and the perpetrators of these terrorist activities that, yes, we are bruised, but no, we are not beaten. What better way than to reactivate that most American of all spectacles, NASCAR Stock Car racing?? As Chris Hafner put it in WINSTON CUP SCENE: "..all involved faced what could have been a very difficult weekend and instead gave hope to those trying to find some normalcy."

But getting back to business does not mean forgetting what happened, so tributes to the fallen were many, including signs and flags around the racetrack, and flags on virtually every car on the track in both the BGN and WC races. Among those showing special tribute schemes were the 28 and 88 cars of Robert Yates' team. Both cars ran with huge flag graphics across the hood, and "I (heart) NY" stickers on the quarterpanels, those on Rudd's car in front of the rear wheelwell opening, on Jarrett's behind the wheelwell. Other than that, and a small UPS logo on the hood front of Jarrett's car, below the flag, the graphics were normal on both cars.

Immediately upon seeing these, I felt an urge to have these graphics duplicated, and contacted Sam. He worked up the flag images almost overnite, and I was able to come up with the "I(heart)NY" sticker in Word, and scan a printout and reproduce in Photoshop. Meanwhile, requests were coming in, asking if the 3 Amigos had plans for these (and others).

The decals were ready about a week after the race, and meantime, I had painted up a body. I posted a preliminary shot of the body sans chassis on Sept 29th, for folks on Randy's NASCAR board to see (there's a link on my home page to his excellent NASCAR Modelling Forum...). The next couple weeks were spent completing the chassis, helping out at the Group 25 Modelling Contest, and working on another Dover project.

Starting kit for this project was the 2000 Mark Martin Taurus. See my UPS Taurus write-up for my comments on the kit. Overall, it's quite good. After cleaning up the body, I primed it with PlastiKote white primer, then shot it with white aerosol touchup lacquer from a warm (tap water) rattlecan. I then masked and shot it with leftover brown from the first UPS project (fortunately I still had enuff of the brown I'd mixed for my first UPS car back in December 2000) Once everything was dried (about 2 hours - that's why I love lacquers...),
I applied the freshly-printed decals - most are shared with the original 3 Amigos UPS sheet... fender contingencies came from the SLIXX excellent 2001 Grouped sheet... I let everything dry overnight, then applied LIGHT coats of Tamiya TS13 clear from the warmed rattlecan, and polished it all to a nice finish.

Parallel to that, I was working on the chassis, using PlastiKote grey Primer. Once i had finished the chassis, I plunked the body onto it, to see how it would look. Oooops... that darned "package shelf"! I had forgotten to mask off the "package shelf" below the rear window opening that should be chassis colour! What Now? I had visions of pulling off my carefully applied decals and clearcoat if I tried to mask and repaint... and I knew I'd end up with a mess if I tried to brushpaint it.... So I carefully cut a piece of masking tape to fit the area in question, sprayed it with the primer, and after it had dried, burnished it in place over the brown-painted shelf. Problem solved... A good trick to remember for future bonehead moves...

Chassis buildup was normal process, with only oil lines added under the hood to fill out the engine compartment.

I commented on the following last time - it bears repeating: One problem with this kit is if you apply the rocker panel filler parts to the sides of the chassis, the exhaust hangs too low, and does not look at all right. To solve this, cut the left side filler in half, and only apply the front part, so you do get some body location capability, yet the exhaust can snuggle right up to the frame where it should be.

Once I had the chassis completed, and the body mounted, I was pleased with the outcome. The car represents a tribute to victims of a black day in the history of civilization, and to the spirit of freedom we have all come to now perhaps appreciate a bit more.

So, how did the "Flag Car" do in the race? Well... one of the reasons I was confident in the shape, size and placement of the "I(heart)NY" decal was due to an excellent shot in WINSTON CUP SCENE of Ol' DJ slidin' sideways on the track... After starting on the pole and dicin' with the top runners all day, he spun on Lap 388, with help from Tony Stewart's Home Depot car, and finished 12th... Ironically, a rather similar fate awaited the other Yates car, who was tapped by Rusty Wallace, dropping him from the lead to finish third, only one position ahead of Gordon, whom he was chasing in the Points Thing... Dale Earnhrdt Jr won the race, and proudly carried the American flag around the track, to the joy of the fans.

And normalcy (at least in NASCAR) was indeed back, as Rusty and Ricky sniped at each other after the race, DJ was most unhappy with Tony, and we all looked ahead to the next week...

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