Forum: HoseHeads Sprint Car General Forum (go)
Moderators: dirtonly  /  dmantx  /  hosehead

    The thread asking for pictures of Mark Kinser's Spiderman car made me wonder. When did teams start doing special paint schemes for The Knoxville Nationals? Was the salad car one of the first ones? Do teams do this for any other major race?

Steve Kinser super man car was a cool one for its time. Not a lot of people know, but my Dad and uncle bought the super man car from Steve in I believe 2000, My uncle Jeff and Travis Whitney drove it at the time, and Steve said that we could run the scheme, but had to take superman off, and thats where the Mighty Mouse car came about in the Midwest. After my Dad took over it was a staple in the midwest and a huge hit with the kids, and it just stuck. I would have stuck with it when I was running 305 and 360 stuff a couple years back, but I figured if I was starting my own deal I wanted to try to make a name for myself aside from the success that we had with Jody and drivers previous.

Any of Steve or Danny's cars from that era when they were doing different things, Steves Hulk car, Dannys Madagascar car, those were all cool because they were the first couple to do anything off the wall.

Dalton Johnson.

It seems to me the special paint schemes for Knoxville came around in about 1998-99. I remember the 1st all vinyl wrap I ever saw, and that was Joe Gaertes Holbrook Motorsports #8G at the 1998 Knoxville Nationals. 

Super Chuck thinks saphead is right, once the vinyl wraps came into play it became easier to do.  Seemed like the Holbrook 8h was first, then the 7tw flames, 104+ Octane Boost car were some of the early ones.  Once it was easy and guys realized they could sell a ton of merchandise it started becomming a regular thing. 

Super Chuck

Not sure what year the wraps actually got started, but my memory tells me that the Brian Paulus "salad" car and the Brad Furr "Sanmina circuit board" car both in 2002 were a couple of the first real exotic wrap schemes.....and one of them I think won best looking car that year at the Knoxville Nationals. I think it was the Paulus car that won best looking and the Nationals was the debut of the salad scheme. I'm relying on memory here, so if someone knows for sure please pipe in.

Great story. For the thousands of times I watched the Team Crown #27 with Mighty Mouse on the side, I never connected that scheme to the Kinser/Superman scheme. Now looking at them - it's obvious! 

I still love this car and how the kids reacted to it! Also, Dalton, who is that young crew chief in the sticker?  

Shawn, here is a little better comparison on where it started, the paint was even the same! Thinking about it, this may actually be the exact car we bought from Steve. His picture is from the 99 Knoxville Nationals and ours is from the 01 360 Nationals.

Yes, that was me in the picture! That started with the mighty mouse car and lasted all the way until we sold our stuff, I though I was King Kong when I was little, LOL!

Cool stuff!  Where did the name "Team Crown" come from?

I think "Team Crown" came from my Uncle Jeff. His drink is a Crown and Coke. More than anything, I think that might be where the mane came from, and thats another thing that just stuck. Don't quote me on that though, as I was just a young buck at the time an don't remember a whole lot about the early days!

Back to the original topic, here are some of the cool ones that I remember. I know its mostly Lasoski, and I never really was a fan, but it was neat to see what they would come up with! I wish I could find some of the Shrek car and the Mad Magazine car in action, but I can only find Die Cast pictures.

Crown and Coke is what came to mind everytime I heard Team Crown. I guess it's a good thing he wasn't into wine. We could have had Team Ripple, Team Boone's Farm or Team Little Black Box.

     Ha ha. I don't even remember a Cat in the Hat paint scheme. Do you suppose that was as a sponsor?

      I can think back to when most cars were painted in somebody's garage or by somebody's cousin's body shop. The better higher profile  teams would have a sign painter do the lettering.

Yo Murph Ian Madsen's Kville Nats scheme was actually painted (not wrapped) this year which was really cool, especially looking at the final product and how much prep, time and energy went into it.  A LOT more costly than a wrap.  They released a teaser video. 

I always liked Chuck Hebring's "cobra" - Snake wrap..... and I'm from Texas.

See y'all at the Chili Bowl

The nationals paint schemes had to have been started, or at least continued as teams were trying to find sponsorship for the big event and since it was/is the biggest race of the year and still airing on tv after TNN left us, I am sure that it became a more common thing. 

The drivers were making new shirts at the nationals for years, so a new paint scheme also promoted the sell of a new t-shirt to the same person that bought one the first time the outlaws went through.

Also, the superman car was accompanied by a black and green elden racing/haud #22 car that was originally supposed to be kryptonite..and changed to radioactive (I think). 

Yeah, I just saw that same scheme on the TV coverage that CBS Sports had of either Kings Royal or World Finals.   I liked that scheme at the Nationals.    I think it would look good in either solid color too, but I thought having the colors divide right down the middle was awesome.   

     In the late 70's we used to see cars with metallic numbers. Up close, the number decals were silvery and had a triangle and diamond pattern. Under different lighting angles, the numbers were different colors. As the cars would go around a typical dirt track with dark-ages lighting, the numbers would change colors anywhere from yellow to purple and all shades in between. Was that popular anywhere other than western South Dakota and eastern Wyoming?

One of the most famous schemes ever - Sammy in the TMC 1 had reflective numbers. Brent Kaedings 69 in cali did too I think (or was his gold leaf?). I believe it was simply the aesthetics of the era (I'm talking 80s into the 90s as I was not around in the 70s. It was a substrate that was available and eye catching. Always loved numbers like that when I was a kid.