Foyt used to say "if your going to build show cars, show them. If your going to build race cars, race them"

That being said, I've always strived to have a nice looking car, but haven't gone over board. I'm moving away from neon colors or metallic paint for ease and affordability.

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I really doubt it. There will always be racers that will spend their money on a new tire and some fuel (or whatever) rather than fancy graphics. JMO

One of the neatest ways I ever seen was a guy take regular white vinyl, paint what he wanted, then cut the numbers, decals, etc out and put them on the car. The convenience of vinyl with the old school hand painted look!

I like the minimalist look.... so most of the wraps today don't appeal to me at all. Too many times I see graphics on top of other graphics and you can't make anything out... Just because you "can" add a graphic doesn't mean you MUST add a graphic...

We're in the process of wrapping a race car for the first time. I'm old school but figured out a way to do a traditional two tone look [think Wynn's Friction Proofing yellow & red] with wrap material purchased on E-Bay. The flat panels went very quickly; curvy stuff is proving to be tricky. Despite the hassles I don't think I'll paint a race car again. The vinyl seems to hold up better on the track. I'll post photos when completed.

Tips so far:
1. Panels need to be ready for paint before you wrap. The vinyl shows off "issues" like spandex on a 300 pound belly dancer.
2. Three sets of very patient & clean hands are best; if you get dirty or impatient you regret it quickly.
3. For our car we needed 50% more vinyl than I first thought.
4. Make sure you have the cleaner, primer, & adhesive recommended along with the squegees.

Chuck Schultz
Winfield, Illinois
Illini Racing Series #8 Stealth-Honda

If you need vinyl supplies... Give the Indy Grimco office a call. Ask for Brett or 2hwrench on IOW.

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Depends how you use your money and how much of it u have. I had a wrap basically sponsored to me and it held up real well. I don't think I would ever be able to spend that money on it and paint and hand letter and stripe is hard to beat as far as looks in my opinion

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We wrapped 2 of our cars this off season and could not be more happy with how they turned out! We went through KBC Graphix and from what I have paid for paint in the past they came to our shop and wrapped the car war far less money then paint. We have only raced once since the wrap and expierenced a flood in the shop and the wrap seems to be holding up well.

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Thank you! I can't tell you how many photos I deleted because of Neon or Metallic or reflective numbers and such on race cars. They look really cool but are hard to photograph and you might be missing out on some coverage because of that.

Hand painted and gold leaf ..

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While I do like some of the wraps, and even some of the creative paint schemes, I guess I fall into the "traditionlist" catagory, good, two color paint combinations, and hand lettered numbers and ads, unless the sponsor prefers his/her own decals, dirt racing isn't easy on paint or vinyl, so it's like AJ said, show it or race it, some can afford to do both, most of us can't, I last painted my then new chassis with 6 cans of Rustoleum Sunrise Red, available anywhere for touchup, and used prepainted aluminum for the panels and hood, total cost, about $80.00, the prepainted aluminum is great, light weight, the paint is flawless, and withstands the sanding it gets on the track, no waiting for it to dry, just fit it, peel off the protective plastic coating, and it's ready for the hand lettering, damage one, just make a new one. Bob!