#12 John Player Special Lotus NASCAR

Going back to my speculative paint schemes, I decided to convert the famous John Player Special paint scheme that Lotus used to run into a NASCAR. Making the JPS logo took a bit of thought with the basic shapes in the paint scheme, but I think I did a pretty good job with it.

#99 Boost Mobile Travis Pastrana NASCAR

Travis Pastrana is trying to make his transition to NASCAR, running the Nationwide series. I recreated his car for the game. The real car actually has a subtle texture of symbols, including a 1 in front of the 99, but almost nobody notices it, so I focused on getting the sponsors right.

#12 Obama NASCAR ( Obamacar )

With all the endless political advertizing and the appearance of a car sponsored by a political candidate (Rick Santorum) earlier in the year, I decided to make one we're not likely to see on track: A NASCAR vehicle sponsored by Barack Obama's reelection campaign.

Making his signature logo was a bit difficult with the limited tools the game provides, but I think I pulled it off as a sort of quick looking sketch. There are a few little jokes poking fun at some of his signature legislation on the Obamacar.

If I can think of any Romney jokes, I'll probably consider making him a car too, in the interest of being fair and balanced™.

#26 Quaker State Buick

As you may have noticed in my last glitch post, I was driving a car poking fun at the old #26 Quaker State Buick. Since then, I've updated it to make the "Q" logo, and got rid of the duck.

If I keep working on it, I'll probably turn it into a more serious replica, and either add in the gold trim from the earlier Buick version, or turn it into Brett Bodine's Ford that he drove later.

Glitch: Cars Without Bodies

I was racing online at Talladega with a few buddies, when the game decided to have a brain hemorrhage on a restart when someone quit out. Our cars were stuck here, unable to move. I could still speak with the other drivers, but none of us could see the paint schemes (or even body panels) of the other cars. Obviously, I am the "Quacker State" parody car.

Unfortunately, the race never restarted and we had to quit out. Otherwise, it might have been hilarious to see roll cages roaring through the corners.

#17 Darrell Waltrip Western Auto Chevy

In the early 90s, Darrell Waltrip owned his own team, and got his final win in a 17 car sponsored by Western Auto. The main challenge of this car is to have the patience to create the gradual stripes going from white to black, and getting something that approximates the flag logo. To get the metallic number right, I found it best to use a gradient that was white in the center, fading to a dark gray around the edges.

Michigan Speedway Lap Record Glitch

I was doing some testing on an experimental setup at Michigan with my Reddit Car when I noticed I had no chance of ever beating my personal best.

#66 Phillips 66 Tropartic Ford

Here's the old Phillips 66 Tropartic car that used to run back in the early nineties.

#64 Nintendo Wii NASCAR

I race on the PS3 version of the game. So, naturally, I decided to start racing with a Nintendo Wii sponsored car for awhile. I started to make a PS3 car, but the game crashed. Nintendo tends to keep its logos nice and clean. I had to use custom shapes for the Wii logo, since none of the fonts really gave me something similar enough to match it.

I also toyed around with alternate coloring.

#28 Davey Allison Texaco Havoline Ford Thunderbird

Returning to traditional paint schemes, here is the old 28 Texaco Havoline Ford Thunderbird Davey Allison was running for Robert Yates Racing before his life was cut short. Ernie Irvan then took over the car.

#2 1969 Mario Andretti Indy 500 winning pain scheme

In 1969, Mario Adnretti earned his single Indianapolis 500 win. He remains the only driver to win the Indy 500, the Daytona 500, and a Formula 1 championship. Had NASCAR been running at the Brickyard at the height of his career, I'm sure he would've won that too.

I decided to do a tribute to his winning Indy 500 car. Pretty simple paint scheme, but I kinda miss those days when a car was just a solid color, a number, and maybe one or two sponsors.

At some point in the near future, I want to tackle his Daytona 500 winning car. That will be much more complicated, heh.

#10 Vodafone McLaren Mercedes

Since I already had the Mercedes logo, I decided to go ahead and make a speculative modern McLaren Mercedes NASCAR scheme. Lewis Hamilton actually did a seat swap with Tony Stewart at Watkins Glen. The last F1 driver to do a seat swap was Juan Pablo Montoya with Jeff Gordon at the Indianapolis road course, and now he's in Cup. I don't think Lewis Hamilton (or teammate Jenson Button) are likely to make the jump any time soon, but who knows what the future may hold. Maybe once he retires from F1, he'll decide to try his hand at something new.

Either way, this paint scheme was a bit different than most. I took my inspiration from the Silver and orange style the V8 Supercars ran a couple years back. (So maybe it should be a Holden? Heh.) On the right side, I copied the way the Sponsor name runs all the way along the door. On the left side, I experimented with incorporating the logo into the car number. I'm not sure which side works better, so I currently race this scheme somewhat lopsided.

#1 F1 Petronas Mercedes NASCAR

Here's another speculative one for you. This time, what would happen if Ross Brawn decided to take his Mercedes F1 team (sponsored by the oil giant Petronas Energy) NASCAR racing. Could you imagine Michael Schumacher with rookie stripes? (Or maybe it'd be Nico Rossberg.)

#5 F1 Nigel Mansell Williams Renault NASCAR

Following the trend of speculative paint schemes, here's version of Nigel Mansell's F1 Williams Renault, if they had decided to defect to NASCAR, rather than him jumping to Newman Haas at Indycar in 1993.

#1 Marlboro NASCAR Honda Accord

Continuing the theme of turning open wheel liveries into NASCAR paint schemes, I decided to go with Marlboro's famous colors. This paint scheme has been famously wrapped around some of the most successful teams in motorsports -- Penske's Indy Cars, McLaren's Formula 1 masterpieces. For fun, I decided to expand my speculative manufacturer entries, since the last Penske Marlboro cars were Hondas, and some of the most famous Marlboro McLaren's were also Honda powered (such as those driven by Senna and Prost.)

#12 Ford Lotus NASCAR

Sometimes it's fun to try speculate as to what other famous motorsports liveries or paint schemes would look like in NASCAR. Lotus has a long and varied history in racing, mostly focused around open wheel racing. They ran Formula 1, and also made a successful go of the 1965 Indy 500, hiring NASCAR's Wood Brothers team to pit them.

One of their more famous paint schemes involves British racing green, with yellow racing stripes, and the number in the classic white circle. I chose to make the first attempts into Fords, due to Ford's history both with NASCAR and Lotus.

I decided to make another version with some other sponsorship. Olympus Cameras has sponsored them in the past, and I own an Olympus, so I went with that. Obviously I put huge amounts of thought into this, heh.

Lotus and the Wood Brothers, together again!

EDIT: I later made a model using the black and gold John Player Special paint scheme for a followup Lotus NASCAR