1989 J D McDuffie Rumple Pontiac

[modelcarcrazy]

I built this one in 1990, even before he was killed at Watkins Glen (August 11, 1991). There has been no one in the history of NASCAR that has tried harder than J D McDuffie. 28 years, 653 starts 0 wins, which is a NASCAR record. He truly loved racing.                                                                                                                                                The model is a Monogram, built box stock except for the wheels and tires. The wheels came from a Thunderbird kit and the tires came from an ASA stocker. The paint is Model Master French Blue and Testors 1203 red on the inside. The decals are by J n J.  I think it has held up pretty good for a 30 year old build. 

Edited September 3, 2020 by modelcarcrazy

[iBorg]

I remember JD.....this is a fitting tribute. 

[MarkJ]

Wow, Tony. What an awesome build . How did you keep it so perfect  for all these years?  Looks like you just finished it. Again, Excellent build.

[64Comet404]

Good looking model. I remember watching the race when JD was killed, and it seemed to take forever for any news to be given to the broadcast team.

[modelcarcrazy]

7 hours ago, MarkJ said:

Wow, Tony. What an awesome build . How did you keep it so perfect  for all these years?  Looks like you just finished it. Again, Excellent build.

Thank you, it hasn’t received any special treatment over the years. I’ve stored it in it’s box all this time, only rarely coming out. I have several others that have shared the same fate, however, I have finally  bought a glass display case to put them in. I’ve been slowly digging them out and cleaning them up and repairing things. This particular one has faired better than some of the others, I removed the body and brushed the chassis with a makeup brush and reattached a shock absorber. The body was wiped down with some Pledge and then lightly polished with some Meguiar’s Scratch X, when I got it back together, it had never looked better. Just lucky on this one. 

[modelcarcrazy]

8 hours ago, 64Comet404 said:

Good looking model. I remember watching the race when JD was killed, and it seemed to take forever for any news to be given to the broadcast team.

J D died from a basil scull fracture. After the race, there was no response from NASCAR addressing any safety issues. They swept it under the rug like it was a freak accident, but it was just a sign of what was to come. Ten more years and way too many more deaths were to come before NASCAR would acknowledge they had a problem. Pretty sad bunch running that joint. The France family swimming in the millions of dollars saturated in the blood of their competitors.                                    The Watkins Glen track officials did respond with changes to the track by installing the bus stop at the end of the straightaway going into the carousel, addressing the biggest safety concerns, however, there are still safety issues to this day with no attempted solutions. There are no safer barriers in place anywhere and the guardrails are grossly inadequate at the extreme speeds that they run there. Saying all of that, I enjoy the racing there, but it is still the most dangerous track on the circuit and the clock is ticking for the next driver to suffer the same fate as J D. NASCAR just hopes it’s some insignificant back marker, so they can just sweep another one under the rug and do nothing. 

Edited September 4, 2020 by modelcarcrazy

[Merkur XR4Ti]

For years the only footage of JD's crash was slo-mo from the ESPN broadcast, but on youtube you can see the raw feed and there's a brief clip of the car hitting the barrier at full speed and it's shocking how violent the crash was. JD was killed instantly. The real miracle may be that Jimmy Means wasn't seriously hurt in that wreck.

[Old Coyote]

Great looking build sir, beautiful craftsmanship.

[PappyD340]

Very nice,

[CRANMAN1]

Nice!!

[bbowser]

Love this blast from the past!  Where did you source the Hoosier tire decals?

[THarrison351]

 

On 9/4/2020 at 7:36 AM, Merkur XR4Ti said:

For years the only footage of JD's crash was slo-mo from the ESPN broadcast, but on youtube you can see the raw feed and there's a brief clip of the car hitting the barrier at full speed and it's shocking how violent the crash was. JD was killed instantly. The real miracle may be that Jimmy Means wasn't seriously hurt in that wreck.

What I remember was in the first one, driver (Jimmy "Smut" Means) who looked through the side window of the upside down car got up, looked around and waved frantically for help. It was kind of the same way when the first person (Kenny Schrader) who came up on Earnhradt after his fatal wreck.

Edited September 12, 2020 by THarrison351

[modelcarcrazy]

On 9/11/2020 at 6:46 PM, bbowser said:

Love this blast from the past!  Where did you source the Hoosier tire decals?

Thanks Bruce, I didn’t use any tire decals. I actually painted the letters on the tires by hand with a 000 brush and water based paint. I just did them one letter at a time and if I messed one up I would wipe it off and redo it. They did turn out pretty spectacular and still look great 30 years later. One advantage I had at the time was some 28 year old eyes. I did these at that time without any visual aids, now with 58 year old eyes, I couldn’t do as well even with bifocals and magnifying glasses. Dang it man!

Edited September 13, 2020 by modelcarcrazy

[TarheelRick]

This is a very well built tribute to a talented, underfunded driver. As a teen driver I used to cruise the streets of Elkin, at least until the "Big Uncle" tapped me for service. I have two chairs in my den I bought from Rumple furniture.  They used to have one of J D's retired racers sitting in the parking lot.