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<o:p>Formula one promotes the cars as their number one selling point.
NASCAR promotes the drivers.
“It’s all about the show,” says HO Champ Car Commissioner Mike Kristof.
Stats, race wins, silly season rumors, crazy on-air and off-air characters, the one item that doesn’t get much attention in either HO Champ Car or the ISF is the beautiful works of art that are the race cars.</o:p>

<o:p>In 1993 when HO Champ Car was just starting out, drivers used whatever cars were commercially made by Tyco. Even though the league was inspired by CART, the available slot car bodies at the time were limited to a few CART and Formula One cars, hence why grids were made up of Ferraris, Benettons, Shell sponsored McLarens, Valvoline, Budweiser, Miller and Pennzoil Indycars. The lack of variety of cars began to be a problem as more drivers expressed interest in joining the group. To accommodate these new drivers and to have more diversity on the grid, drivers began to paint their own cars. </o:p>

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<o:p>John Shea was the first to paint a car. He ran a blue and orange Unocal / Sunny Delight sponsored car based on a color scheme he painted several of his NASCAR hot wheels as a kid.</o:p>

<o:p>Tony Perkins soon followed with the Duracell (later dubbed the “workin’ mans car”) Indy car driven in real life by Raul Boesel and the original black and red Target car driven by Bryan Herta. “Painting race cars has never been listed among my talents.  I am ridiculously bad at it,” said Perkins. Dan Margetta came up with his own creation of a red and green “Christmas car” which still holds the unofficial record of the ugliest car ever painted (for the record both the Unocal car of Shea and the Christmas car of Margetta were donated to the shrine museum). Arnie Lueders was the first to create a car with actual graphic decals when he created his Mountain Dew car.

Whether he says he has talent for designing cars or not, Tony Perkins was the first to paint a Penske Porsche Spyder
and a BMW F1 car for his races in the ISF.

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As the seasons came and went and the league got more sophisticated, so did the creation of the cars. Wings began to get shaved, bodies were modified, and a whole new wave of creativity began as more drivers went away from running a stock Tyco body to creating designs of their own. “I tried to create a new Ferrari with smaller wings that wouldn’t break, and more rounded side pods,” Everet Kamikawa said. I painted it true Italian racing red and decaled it with Ferrari logos. I’m such a bad painter though. When I was a kid I couldn’t paint anything except military tanks. It was not the greatest paint job. The car ran as bad as it looked! I never tried creating my own car again. In fact one of the reasons I kept running a stock Ferrari body was that I didn’t have to paint it!”

Kamikawa's first, and so far only, attempt to design his own car. Notice the rounded sidepods and shaved rear and front wings, and the lower reinforced rear wing.</o:p>

<o:p>Drivers also began running their own fantasy teams with local sponsors of where the drivers worked, or just something they were interested in. The Frugal Home Brewer, Harley Davidson, Jelly Belly, and other local and favorite driver brands were decked out on the cars. Chad Sorce was the first to paint a car with a local sponsor as he created not one, but three cars to run during the season. “Without a doubt the most fun I had creating a car of original paint scheme was the series of Leinenkugel's cars.  I tried to make a car up for most of the brands such as Red, Honey Weiss, Maple, Winter and even Berry Weiss, Sorce said. The logos “were all graphics and decals, mainly from ad slicks.” Sorce did at one time try to hand paint sponsor logos “and it wasn't pretty.  My first ever car was an attempt to recreate the VISA car driven by Danny Sullivan,” said Sorce. When it came to original designs Sorce thought that he
“Never really thought I had talent for it, just seemed to be if I wanted it done, I had to do it.”  </o:p>

<o:p>John Baas soon followed with a three car team promoting his own business, The Frugal Home Brewer. Each car was a solid color; however graphics from his Frugal Home Brewer store were adorned all over the cars for each of the three drivers.
Tom Spehert painted orange and black multi-colored cars for his two car team that featured Harley Davidson logos where he was employed. It was a little known driver and a little known team that would give the series its first glimpse of the future.
Mike Prelozni was probably the first of the real detailed painters. He created a Dan Gurney Eagle Toyota, with the eagle face on the front nose done in free hand. The car is famously known as one of the best looking cars in series history, even though it only was around a handful of races.

Chris Spehert's Briggs & Stratton HO Champ car</o:p>

<o:p>In 1999 the era of independent teams and the mix of F1/Indy cars on the grid would end as a rule was made that all drivers must represent a “real” CART team (the two Ferrari drivers at the time were given what amounted to a two year exception because of the loophole that Ferrari actually created an Indy car that was tested by Bobby Rahal but never actually raced). Gone were the Williams, Benetons, and McLarens (soon followed by the Ferraris). Drivers then had to paint cars to match the real CART cars as there was no one that produced bodies with current sponsors from those seasons. In came the Newman Haas Texaco sponsored cars of Tom and Andy Spehert.    When asked what their favorite cars to paint from this era were, Sorce said:
“The Miller Lite Car, I even managed to get a Lite logo on the little driver's helmet.”
When asked his favorite Perkins responded, “The multi-colored Hollywood Indy car was cool.”</o:p>

<o:p>So what happened to all the F1 bodies?
In 2000 the International Sportscar Federation (ISF) was launched as a summertime racing league. Based on F1 (and thanks to a flurry of production of new F1 bodies by Tyco/Mattel) Jordans, Ferraris, McLarens, Williams, Stewarts, and Jaguar bodies were plentiful. It ran into the same problem that HOCC had in 1993 as the lack of different F1 teams forced drivers to create their own cars to mimic the current F1 grid. It was about this time that the real artists began to emerge: Mark Walczak, Jim Iverson, Chris Spehert, John Shea, and Amy Butler have produced most of the celebrated cars in either the ISF or HOCC. If you ask them what their favorites are, the answers come pretty quick.
“Probably the Pabst Blue Ribbon Special that I did for Jim Kaehny.  I thought it looked nice.  I also like the Day-glo yellow "special" that I did for Ned Wicker a few years back,” says Spehert.
“[I] did the Telafonica car for Dean his rookie year in the ISF,” says Mark Walczak. “I [also] like my Red Bull Acura LMP.”

Mark Walczak's Minardi was the first time ISF drivers took notice of his talent as a designer.
Jim Iverson also had a flair for creativity with his designs of the Toro Roso and Spyker F1 teams.
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<o:p>So where do these designers get their inspiration?
Walczak’s answer is simple. “Just enjoyed making replica cars and designing my own.”
Spehert gives credit to his parents.
“My mom is an artist and my dad is an engineer so I attribute everything to them!”

"I like my Red Bull Acura LMP, but I think this years version will be even better," says Walczak. Below is
Walczak's 2007 LMP and his 2008 LMP. Walczak also desgned the green and black Patron car. John Shea's
white Brumos Porsche and Kamikawa's stickered "Rusteeze" Saturn.


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It takes patience and a steady hand to paint these small cars, however what about the sponsor logos? How do the designers handle those?
</o:p><o:p>“I do all of my sponsor decals by hand.  I design them on Adobe Photoshop.  I generally start with a graphic that I grab off of the Internet but then I essentially redo the whole thing to get a crisper, clearer decal.  I've used decal sheets in the past, but recently I've printed directly to thin, glossy paper.  This seems to be more durable than decals,” says Spehert. “I have never actually attempted to paint logos because I'm sure I'd screw it up and it would look like garbage.  I do try to create some nice detail work with a paintbrush, but that's it.”

"The McDonald's cars of Newman-Haas have been fun these last couple of years," says Spehert. 
John Shea's Team Australia cars from 2007 were two of the best looking cars on the HOCC grid.

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<o:p>Some take an easier route when it comes to the sponsor logos.
”They were all graphics and decals, mainly from ad slicks,” says Sorce. Perkins also uses “Graphics and decals, most of them more than 20 years old.”

Some cars just need decals to be customized like the Marlboro decals on the Ferraris of Shea and Kamikawa.

Mike Fitzlaff gets credit for attempting to design the first Renaults F1 cars with the ING sponsrship. While Dan Margetta created a Playboy Daytona Prototype.
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