More and more drag racers seem to be going to vinyl wrap instead of paint. 2 in mind Worsham and WJ. Is it more afforable, lighter than a custom paint job with graphics or allow for more detail on the car? To create the wrap one would think it is difficult to design and carefully apply to the body without thee keenest of eyes being able to pick out that it not painted. I admit they do look good, but back in the '70s the work of 'Blood and others were outstanding in detail - even today with a few of the recreations and restorals that are being done.
What are your thoughts.

With the funny cars, it's much easier to repair. If you bang the blower, and crack the body, you don't to re-paint it. Just fix the body, and put a new section of wrap on it. No paint to deal with, and it looks brand new. Plus, take Team CSK as an example, the Madman Murrays, Havoline, Techron, and other special cars, they just wrap an existing regualr body. No need to re-paint, or have to have a special body made just for one race. When that special event is over, peel the wrap off, and you are back to the normal red/blue CSK body.

Up close, you can tell. They all have seams, and they split, and peel espically around the wheel opening flares. Also, they don't shine like paint does.

Nascar.com had a good write up on Vinyl wraps, they do an entire side of the car at one shot. 3M came up with special vinyl that has channels in the adhesive to let the air out and all that fancy stuff to make them lay down better, with less bubbles.

__________________
Go Hight!!!----4.63
Prock Rocket 2008 Style

While I appreciate all the skill and hard work that goes into a custom paint job, the wraps allow a team to economically change the theme of the car to meet a particular sponsor's marketing target for a race or number of races. In the end, it all comes down to $$$ and how to best meet the sponsor's plans.

Wait until they have LED signage Ilike on the Goodyear blimp) installed on the cars so that the marketing message can change during an actual run...

what paul said.....
the vinyl with the air channels in the adhesive really is the 'cat's meow'.
works just like it's advertised.
not too difficult to design, just have to know your software very well.
again, let me use worsham's body's as an example - at least last year -
up close they have small sponsor decals very subtly mixed into main
background colors - very cool, so even up close in pits it draws the
fans in, at least it did with me.

I guess I'm old school, I like custom paint with gold leaf and nice lettering. It truly is an art form and I appreciate the talent involved.

If you like trick Paint jobs,just look at Matt Hagens new cars.even the logos are painted on.there are no decals,its all paint.

Wrap it

MacDermid ColorSpan Inc. - High resolution large format and wide format inkjet color printers.

Real is Far more Impressive, but Much more Expensive as well!

__________________
Shift for Brains!!!!

Not sure on the Drag cars.. but i know in some cases the differnce on the cup cars was weight... a wrap on one of the early dupont special schemes was like a 30pds weight difference with the wrap being lighter....

the one thing i noticed is that several decals shops are getting the machines since cost has dropped a ton.. but they don't know how to get a good quaility... some wraps look great.. some are great from 100ft away.. but like mud up close...

Printed (machine wise) are lighter than screen printed logos.. and much lighter than layered decals as well.... in some case we are talking grams .. but a bunch of grams can equal a pound or two....

Billy

__________________
www.myspace.com/bwrsp
www.imdra.com

Does anyone know if the Chip Foose graphics that the Kalittas ran last year were painted? I think they were. The graphics that Doug Kalitta ran last year at the spring Vegas race were very impressive.

__________________
Greg
-----------
aka Greggo

The Foose FC was 100% wrap, The dragster was also, I am pretty sure.

__________________
Go Hight!!!----4.63
Prock Rocket 2008 Style

I was shocked to find out the paint on a F/C weighs like 40 lbs.

Before the split, I used to really be into the indy/champ cars. They had brake calipers or something behind the wheels with LED's. They glowed pretty bright. Very noticeable in the braking areas. Gotta dig out my footage from my last visit to Laguna Seca. Almost sure the LED's read "goodyear".

__________________
Go NAPA/ Rockstar funny car team!

wraps suck!!! i looked at one at the pri show and up close it has as much shine as wall paint. i guess its fine when yo look at it from the stands or on t.v. but up close..... its crap!

There are some intricate designs in some of these wraps. Look at Steve Johson's (Denny Johnson's) cars. He had one of them wrapped to look like the bare chassis was showing with fun graphics hidden within.

__________________
My imaginary friends think I have serious mental problems.

Chip's were wraps...He said he just threw together a bunch of sketches and his signature and they took care of the rest. For me the wraps give you opportunity to have so much more depth-If you look at the transporters they are all pretty intricate but I will always love tried and true paint artistry. The depth of Gilbertson's iridium jungle car was spectacular up close and I'm pretty sure a printer couldn't capture that. That said most of my rendos would be way better wrapped(Baca) but they did a great job painting the MTS car. My original idea for that was metallure which would have looked chrome with letters so no way could it be wrapped but that paint is pretty fussy in the time allotted so he did a more brushed look.

Dave

I guess as wrap technology increases I'll go with that. You can do a few paint schemes in a season that way