A Mark Martin Fan

Modeling Subjects Autos
1

When I started following NASCAR in the early 90’s, I became a fan of Mark Martin (while the rest of my family/friends were Gordon freaks[+o(]). I’m glad he’s still racing, it’s the only reason I have for watching it now. Anyhow, I have built some of his cars, and while it’s not an extensive collection, it’s nearly 20% of my nearly 50 NASCAR stockers that I have built. Most of them are 4 footers, with a couple that I took some extra time with:

The first one is the '88 Stroh’s Light Tbird, when he started racing full time again in Cup with Roush racing (he had driven for some teams in the early 80’s, but it didn’t pan out).

The next one is from his '94 season, with Reese’s as an associate sponsor. He won two races that year, and finished second to Earnhardt, who won his seventh, and final championship.

After his first winless season since '88, Mark won four races in '97, including beating Dale Earnhardt at Talladega to set a record for the fastest 500 mile race to that point. I modeled the front air dam/vents to replicate that car:

In '98, he had his most successful season in terms of wins (7 points races), with his first at the third race of the season at Las Vegas. Scale Auto had a photo feature of that car that I used to make the vents up front look right. It was also the first year for the Ford Taurus:

In May of '98, Mark won the Winston All Star race, outlasting Jeff Gordon when he ran out of gas; I’m grateful to Slixx decals for the marking for this car, and the next one:

In August, Mark finished second to Gordon at the Brickyard 400 in Indy with this car.

His last win for Valvoline was in 2000 at Martinsville with this car:

This last one was a special scheme run at the July Daytona race in 2000:

2

Well done.I’d like to eventually take a shot at one of these some day.

3

They look great! I still have one of the Valvoline cars in my stash.

4

Nice work. My first NASCAR is a Mark Martin #6 I got as a gift from my mother-in-law many years ago. I think it was from the clearance aisle at Walmart, but it was the thought that counts. I do remember starting it, but I know I’ve never finished it. I’m just not a NASCAR fan although I have collected up several of the Army car markings, but again, haven’t gotten around to building a car to put them on.

5

Thanks, y’all!

I found out some time ago that since a lot of the stockcars are similar, you can batch build a lot of the chassis at the same time. Also, you can swap out chassis for different body styles, like dropping the '94-97 Tbirds (updated chassis, molded in '94; has rollcage padding molded in) with the '89-93 Tbirds (whole different chassis that was first molded in the early '80’s). You can also use the Chevy Lumina chassis from the early '90’s with the Pontiac Grand Prix bodies; the Chevy was updated with roll cage padding and some other mods.

Glenn

6

A very nice collection of Mark Martin cars.

I’m a big fan of Mark too.

I started a #6 Valvoline car a few years ago, but never finished it. The chassis is completed, but it needs the paint scheme and decals.

I’ll get to it one of these days.

7

Also a Martin fan.will they ever let that guy retire.must be cool to be that good

8

Yeah, I really wish he had won Daytona when Harvick won it…that would’ve been cool…