#1 Mopar Dodge NASCAR Supertruck 1/24th Decals |  |
The combination of American's love of pick up trucks and the boom in the popularity of NASCAR stock car racing in the1990s led to combining the two into a NASCAR competition series called Supertrucks. This allowed NASCAR to offer an additional motorsport product to their growing market base of fans. The inaugural year of the series was 1995. The trucks are basically the same technical design as NASCAR's top division, the Winston Cup, utilizing tube frame chassis with 355 cubic inch V8 engines, just with truck bodies instead of sedans. The inaugural year of the series was 1995, and while it has not taken off as well as was hoped, it continues to remain as a viable series, now call the NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series. It often runs as a preliminary event on a Winston Cup weekend. Revell has offered several scale model kit versions of these trucks, like their real counterparts based heavily on existing Winston Cup design and tooling. While these are fine kits, they haven't been great sellers and most have been dropped.
A recent release by aftermarket decal manufacturer Just Want to Build a Model provides an alternative marking scheme for the 1/24th scale NASCAR Dodge Supertruck kit available from Revell (the current version of this is kit #2998, the #43 Hot Wheels Dodge Race Truck). Prior to running the Intrepid in Winston cup, Chrysler Corporation used the Supertruck series as a testing ground, racing their Dodge Ram body style. Since there had not been any Chrysler products in NASCAR racing for over twenty years, there was a lot of interest in these trucks. This decal set allows a modeler to replicate the #1 Mopar sponsored truck, driven by Wisconsin driver Ted Musgrave during the 2001 season. Musgrave won 7 races in 2001, the most by any driver, and while he fell just short of winning the drivers championship, Dodge won it's first manufacturers title.
There is one 8" x 5" sheet of waterslide decals provided, providing all the sponsor and contingency markings needed except for tire lettering. The red, yellow and blue flame graphics on the sheet really stand out. The paint color of the real truck was black in front and white in the rear, with the colorful flames blending the two areas together. The builder will need to use the decals a guide in masking off the two sections for painting. The yellow band around the front spoiler of the truck is included as a decal.
The package contains an 8½ x 11 instruction sheet, with five black and white photos of the actual car as it raced at the event held at the Milwaukee Mile, at the Wisconsin State Fairgrounds in July 2001. The photos are of various angles and provide placement references. Also, specific paint references, using MCW Automotive Finishes are provided for an exact match for both the body and the interior.
JWTBM decals are now printed in Italy by Cartograph so the quality is excellent. Printing is extremely sharp, and the colors of the flame design are very striking. These decals and following the suggestions offered on the instruction sheets allows NASCAR modelers to add a great looking subject to their collection.
