How a team quickly wraps a car to get a sponsor in the race (Photos)
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. – The results of Saturday's Xfinity Series qualifying session sent Tri-Star Motorsports into a frenzy.
Scott Lagasse, driving for the team with a one-race sponsorship deal from the Florida Department of Transportation, missed the race. Jeff Green, who drives the team's unsponsored start-and-park car, made the race.
To get the sponsorship money from the deal with FDOT, it needed to be in the race. So the team made the decison to put Lagasse in Green's car. But not only did the driver's seat have to be changed, the car did too.
In 69 minutes, from 2:01 to 3:10 p.m. ET, the team wrapped Green's blank No. 10 car with the FDOT scheme that adorned Lagasse's car. Here's how they did it.
After a second set of decals arrived at Green's car, the the team put the right side design on first over the number and decals adorning Green's white No. 10.
The hood was next.
The blowtorch is used to help smooth out any wrinkles in the decals.
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As team members worked on decals (anywhere between 6-10 people were working on the car at a given time), Green's name was also peeled off above the door.
Since Green's No. 10 was decaled over, a new number needed to be created. Lagasse's original number was 19, so the team used the backup set of decals and put the No. 19 on the car. Then it ripped the 9 from the car that didn't qualify, put it upside down over the 9 on Green's old car, and with some creativity, a 0 was made.
The whole process was mesmerizing. Fans roaming the garage stopped to gawk at the process, which, while happening rapidly, didn't happen quickly enough to get the entire car looking exactly like Lagasse's originai one.
By the time it had to roll out of the garage at 3:10 to top off with fuel and head to the grid for the start of the race scheduled for just after 3:30 p.m. ET, the B-posts and roof of the car wer the same and the front bumper was still white. And former crew chief and Kyle Busch Motorsports competition director Rick Ren, who had wandered over to watch the rest of the process, was putting the tape for the hoodpins on the car as it rolled out.
But damn, it was a quick turnaround. And thankfully for the team, no crashes happened in the first few laps of the race, meaning the work didn't get mangled shortly after the green flag.
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Nick Bromberg is the editor of From The Marbles on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at nickbromberg@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!
