They don’t paint NASCAR racers anymore; they “wrap” them with a thin plastic film. Here’s a cute video that uses time-lapse photography to show how it’s done.
The car is Tony Stewart’s number 14 Office Depot/Mobil 1 Chevrolet. The shop is, of course, Stewart-Haas Racing. The six-hour process of wrapping the entire car with the pre-printed plastic film has been compressed, through the magic of video, to around 30 seconds. This particular wrap was applied for last weekend’s Pocono race.
Brief as it is, the video shows a number of fascinating and fun details. For example, note how the dozens of sponsor contingency decals on the front fender are duplicated on one large sheet of film.
Wraps have proven to be a big step forward for Motorsports teams—not only for the boys in the body shop, but for the marketing departments as well. New color and graphic schemes can be designed on the computer and printed out for each individual race, allowing the marketing guys to sell special event promotions and multiple season title sponsors.
With paint this process would require days if not weeks of taping, masking, and spraying, but with wrap the work is reduced to a matter of hours. Repairing crash damage suddenly becomes a lot easier as well. And from the grandstands, the wrap looks just as nice as paint. Video below.