As all of us know, or should know by now, one of the premier assets of a WC car is the big expanse of sheetmetal that can serve as a rolling billboard for promoting companies, products, and, yas, even movies...
With the Firecracker race falling on the long weekend that kicks off the summer season, it is a natural for new paint schemes to catch consumers' eyes to steer them to your products over the next couple months. Thus there were several special paint schemes related to summer activities planned for this race. Imagine the screams of woe and agony from the Madison Avenue set, when they found out all their plans around this critical weekend were for nought, as the race was moved to October!
"Small Soldiers" was one of the one-time sponsors that got caught in this situation. The paint job was a one-off on Bobby's car to publicize the opening of Univeral Studios' computer-animated "Small Soldiers" movie, one of the summer offerings for 1998. By the time the race was run in it's new timeslot of October 17th, the movie was old news... and the car only ran once in this colour scheme that I can remember, or find in my references. I never did understand why it wasn't just carried forward into the next race...same with several other cars and their paint schemes...
Anyhoo, Monogram saw fit to release this kit in early '99 as one of their "Limited Edition" kits, with 5,000 being made. The kit, of course, is the standard, and very well-done, Pontiac GP that made its first appearance as the John Deere car in 1997. The nose, around the airdam, could use a little revising to match current cars, but other than that, it is, to my mind, the best of the current three Monogram bodies.
What is different in the "LIMITED EDITION" series is you get preprinted tires - saves some fiddlin', and a little card assuring you of its authenticity. Oh, and very well-printed decals. And, of course, the opportunity to pay about 50% above regular kit prices....But, whattaya gonna do... no different than buying a regular kit, scrappin' the decals for a set of SLIXX or somethin'... What you DON't get however, is the full contingency set, so you still need a source of "WINSTON", "BUSCH", etc to complete the markings... nor in some cases, do you get colours of sufficient brilliance.
This set was excellent, however - fit properly, snugged down nicely, and was quite resistant to damage as I applied clearcoat. A "fog" decal is provided for the black/DAYGLO red breakline on the rear end. I opted instead to fog it in with my airbrush. (What actually happened is the decal got all folded up as i tried to move it around, and I damaging it too much to be usable tryin' to get it straight again...)
As I indicated, this is a well-designed kit. I did make some changes to bring it in laie with current NASCAR rules and best practices, however. The "Earnhardt bar" was added, the engine was wired and plumbed, and a more realistic set of Fan-type exhausts were made, following instructions at Randy Ayers' site (you can get at from my Modelling Links page. The Earnhardt bar, and exhaust, really make the finishing touch for added realism in the finished piece!!
Applying the fake "bullet-holes" was just the icing on the cake...
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