More recent years have not been so kind to him, and there seems to be a link to when he began running special paint jobs in the event. Witness 1995, when he and Ol' DW took each other out, letting young Gordo scoot thru for the win.
1998 was particularly tough, as Dale took a hard lick in the crash pictured, hurting his ribcage. He drove hurt through the middle part of the season. Only in the last few weeks has he begun to return to his old, nasty self.
The model pictured here represents Dale's Bass Proshops car all prettied up BEFORE he took it on the track to race! It was built from the most recent iteration of Monogram's Monte Carlo,with decals from the "B" sources, ordered thru the Internet.
Unfortunately, these excellent marking, plus many others, are no longer available, as lawyers appear to have descended upon the makers and purveyors of these threatening legal consequences if they did not "cease and desist" mfg and distribution. At least that's my understanding of the current situation... Hell, for all I know I could be breaking the law having this model on my site!!
Pretty standard build of the model itself; wiring, oil line, "Earnhardt bar", dual valve stems were primary detail items added. I also fabricated more accurate fan-style exhaust dumps, using the technique at Randy Ayers' site (accessible from my Modelling Links page).
The paint job was fairly straightforward; I chose to apply touch-up lacquer, straight from the heated rattle-can. The base colour laid down was a solid beige, GM's 75 - 83 #60 Neutral. Over this I applied light coats of Ford's 77-79 Medium Tan 8J. The objective was to get the metallic look, but with a "softer" look than straight coats of the Tan Metallic would have given.
It took some doing to locate a decent overhead shot of this car, to know what areas to paint black! I finally ran a site to ground via an ALTA VISTA search; a site called "Mel's Tribute to Dale Earnhardt" with some overhead shots of the actual car. Sure saved me some anxiety! My plan had been to paint only the hood black until I saw these!
Now, of course, Monogram have issued a Limited Edition version of this kit, so the colour scheme is no longer a mystery. I have heard, though, that the decals are not correct in the R-M kits, in that there is no yellow pinstriping on the numbers. Funny, there is in the box art - guess they used the aftermarket versions for that!!
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