Limited-Edition Print o f 350 (13x19) prints
Signed and numbered by the Artist.
By 1977, funny car racing had started to become cliché, and somewhat common place. The media, and more precisely the motorsports media, basically ignored the flopper class. One editor remarked that the cars had become "cookie cutters." "All the cars were basically the same, only adorned with different body shells to somehow appease the Factories."
For the next few years, magazines would only occasionally run articles on the "Plastic Fantastics," and then the stories would only be about the major players at the time, like Prudhomme's "Army" car, or Beadle's "Blue Max." However, there were some very beautiful cars running at the time, and real fans of the sport realized, that Funny Cars were just coming into their own. They were becoming extremely exotic race cars, and a ongoing working experiment in aerodynamics.
As an Artist, I was very excited to be able to paint, two prime examples of the "Beauty" of Funny Car racing. These are two of my "personal favorite" cars, and they go way back to my model car building days.
One of my last jobs as a Professional Modeler, was a series I was building for Ed "the Ace" McCulloch. I was building replicas of all of Ed's Funny Cars, to display in his trophy case, and he paid me well for my efforts. This magenta "Revellution" car was the last replica I built for him, and I never thought I would be in a position to be able to do a painting of this uniquely painted car.
In the 70s, when Revell models released their series of authentic Drag Racing cars, the "Ace" was their biggest seller. They released 3 different versions of his cars, this Magenta schemed Dodge Dart being the last. ( Ed carried this scheme into the 78 season on a new Plymouth Arrow body, until the "Revell" deal expired later that year.)
(Those of you who built the "Revell" model of this car, know that the kit was a far cry from the real car. In fact the model kit was Ed's 72 car reissued as the 77 version. In the 5 years from 72 to 77, the aerodynamics on these cars had changed dramatically. The bodies had been stretched and cropped, the chassis had become more developed, which allowed the body of the car to be dropped lower to the ground.)
"In this painting, we Ed "the Ace" McCulloch, battling with the Ron Colson driven, "Hawaiian" Monza, during the first round of 1977 "Winternationals" held at the "Pomona Fairgrounds." Although the "Ace" is cranking on the brakes, he can't keep the potent Dodge from smoking the tires and handing the victory to Colson.
As for the beautiful "Hawaiian" Monza; I'm sure in 1976 when Roland debuted his new Chevy bodied flopper, he caught a lot of grief from the Mopar crowd. Not only that! But he painted the new Monza red... RED? A red "Hawaiian"? Really?
So in 77 when Roland landed the "Power Gloss" sponsorship he quickly hired "design-wiz" Kenny Youngblood, to come up with a colorful new "Blue" scheme. (Thank God!).
Bill Carter applied the brilliant colors to the "Hawaiian" with Youngblood doing the signs, and although I haven't found out for sure yet, I believe Carter also painted Ed's "Show-stopping" "Revellution" Dart...
In doing this painting, I was reminded why I don't as many images post 1975. It takes a week to do the painting, and 3 weeks to paint all the decals and signs on the cars. I had constant flash backs to being a kid in the "Miniatures" museum at "Knotts Berryfarm" marveling over seeing the "Lord's Prayer" written on the head of a pin. I have enough trouble just painting a "Cragar" decal that's only 3/8 of an inch wide...No wonder my eyes ache...
