I was going to airbrush a new color and use decals on the Stern one while I owned NASCAR.

I thought about having some fun with it and making it like the Cole Trickle city chevy car from Days of Thunder. I kinda wish I had.

I'll be interested to see if you do something.

cole-trickle-car.jpg

See Wolmarsh, you have to think big. Take that real car in your pic, add some ingenuity and I'll bet you could trigger it to fire up just like the toy test car.

Now we just need to figure out how to make it jump up at 100x the speed.

No Cole Trickle car... we need a DICK TRICKLE car...

Lived hard, raced hard. May he rest in peace...

Interesting but that's just a mustang fastback, the one Steve McQueen drived. Don't want to put a Nascar car on it instead?

If there was ever a car that deserved bashing, it would be this one--

bash-away.JPG

There are a ton of them for about 5 bucks on ebay. Any car will do, but #24 would be a crowd favorite for bashing. Very interesting problem to solve. Post a top down photo, I may have an idea.

By the way, I went to about 30 races in a span of seven years starting in about 1997. I don't have the stamina anymore to drink for 4 days so it wasn't fun anymore.

Old school bash toy.
29452BU.jpg

1997 Dale Earnhardt crash car.

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That would be soooooo wrong. But I like it!

It's not the 'one'.

The story of Earnhardt's 1997 Daytona "Crash Car" is one that truly personifies who Earnhardt was as a person and a racer — tough and determined. He never gave up, no matter how much the deck was stacked against him. In the closing laps of the race, Earnhardt had maneuvered into second place and was battling Jeff Gordon for the lead when he lost control of the GM Goodwrench Chevrolet. The car smacked the wall at close to 200 miles per hour and rolled several times, before somehow winding up on its wheels in the infield.

Earnhardt was being escorted to the ambulance when he realized that the car could be restarted. "I looked back over and said, 'Man, the wheels ain't knocked off the car yet,'" Earnhardt said. "So I went back over and told the guy in the car to fire it up. He hit the switch and it fired. I said, 'Give me my car back!'"

With hundreds of thousands of fans going wild, Earnhardt refused medical attention and climbed back into his wounded race car. He drove it back to the pits for repair and a new set of tires, and finished the race five laps down in 31st place.

1997 didn't sound like the right year for that, but I so easily lose track of time. I remember watching the fatal crash and seeing the hood of the car smashing into the windshield and thinking this can't be good. A very sad day indeed. But he died doing what he loved best, so hats off to him!

I actually don't watch NASCAR anymore, Kristin and I enjoy watching NFL games now. If I want to take a nap I will turn on NASCAR.

I'm digging through the kids rooms trying to find one of those cars too to help you.

I haven't been paying much attention lately myself. After Earnhardt died the sport lost a lot of it's soul, and now the cars all look the same.

My father died of a heart attack right in the galley of his boat after a day of fishing. He died on his feet doing what he loved until the last minute. We should all be so lucky. But later than sooner with any luck at all.

Wonderful posts which home in on life how precious it is but also how fickle it is. As an Aussie abroad I did a few laps of Daytona in a Nascar three or fours years ago. As a result I acquired a real appreciation of just how good these Nascar drivers are and the story of Dale Earnhardt set out by o-din is not just about talent but guts and determination. Thks so much for sharing.

Doing laps at 200 MPH? Coming within a foot of the wall around each turn? I have people in front of me brake test me, because they think I am too close, when we are going 25 MPH in Atlanta traffic? These guys do it at 180 MPH! Wow!

Anyway, can you mylar the metal car that is going to get bashed for strength and to protect from chipping the paint?

I have to check out your Nascar again. The pin is just plain fun.

NASCAR has become one of my favorites

I like it, but the rubber hides the car quite a bit or so it seems. I know the car can't take the bashing hence the protection. Looks better than the test car for sure. What scale is it? - Barry

I think the plastic piece on the top may have to be flipped. It looks like the ball could clip the tail of the car.

Thought about doing something like this to mine but haven't gotten around to it yet. Nice job, Cant wait to see the next version.

I did 24 laps on Daytona a year before they repaved it on a 98 degree Florida humid day, between turn 3&4 there was a slight dip and at 160 it snapped my head to the right something fierce on every lap. Doing that at 200 in traffic just boggles my mind. And some people say NASCAR is boring only because they have no idea what it's really like to DO it. Try it some time, you'll walk away with a whole new appreciation for what they do. I've got the vid to prove I did it too.

Swampfire, let me know if you need help, I have an idea...

It looks great. Only question I have is that it appears that the ball will hit the car directly. Am I missing something? I would think that would beat up the car and I would be worried about the ball being marked up and then chewing up the playfield.

This a great idea. I'd love to see side by side shots of the OEM version and your latest iteration.

Looking good!
When i first read this thread i purchased 2 cars so i could start doing the same thing. Mine are still in the box I am working on a topper then i will get back on the test car,after you perfect it

Swampfire, yours looks at least 100 times better. I played a Nascar once and it was a good pin.

I will have to look at doing this, mine has the Grand Prix car, but I would prefer a stock car

It was a sad day. After the race I walked to the airport to fly out on delta. Larry McReynolds, Jeff Purvis and Jeff's wife were departing on the same flight and they were crying. That was 60 minutes post race and it occurred to me that Dale hadn't made it. I remember seeing Ken Schrader waving frantically the moment that he looked into the 3 car. I can only imagine the broken spinal column resulting in an unnatural appearance of Dale's head in relationship to his torso. The Charlotte newspaper analyzed close to 300 auto racing deaths over a ten year period and if memory serves me correctly 90% of the deaths were caused by broken necks.

Michael Waltrip said it best when he said something to the effect of "with these soft walls and Hans devices we'll look back and say 'remember when drivers dude to die'?" It's amazing what safer barriers and head and neck devices have done for driver safety. Like FAA rules nascar rules are written in blood but you have to admit that race is safer. From fuel cells (Fred lorenzen), the third bar (Earnhardt bar), bars in the windshield (terry labonte), wheel and hood tethers (Kurt Busch and others), HANS device (Earnhardt), hood and roof flaps (rusty Wallace) and other safety measures (plate steel in door bars) NASCAR is as safe as could ever be imagined.

You have a really cool idea! Can you stretch a yellow sling rubber around the car at the height of the stripes? Could maybe even black out the area in front of the tires with marker.

Edit, guess it doesn't matter for as long as its held up! I skimmed through the thread without reading the dates!

They are a bit harder to find, but 1:50 scale model cars fit perfectly:

NASCAR_TestCar.jpg

wow nice gonna favorite this for future reference

Don't mess with the Dukes . . .