LUKE'57

Darlington on the first day of practice for the '67 Rebel 300 from the backstretch grandstands.

And you would be very correct my friend. Now how about a little pavement?

Some of you may have seen this one but I ran across it while looking for something else and wanted to share it with the ones that haven't. There's at least ten Championships and over 350 wins in this group, not to mention some of the best dirt dobbers to ever strap into a five point harness.

If all the off-shore manufacturing frenzy hadn't help shut down ERTL as we knew it, this could have been plastic instead of metal and we could have afforded to build several instead of watching the diecast values rise for collectors. Sour grapes, yeah, just a little. I'm just glad my brother bought me this one because it's probably the only Rocket 88 I'll be able to put on the shelf now.

As some of you know, I've done research for diecast, decal and plastic model companies for some of the early stock car products. In doing so I have accumulated a wide range of photos and info on the early days from some of the participants. The question here is whether or not this photo is a real car or a model.

Yep, it's him and my brother Gator and look what got dropped of at my house for Christmas. When I asked for a little brother for my birthday all those years ago I had no idea just how special the one I got was. And he only missed my birthday by three days. LOL

Merry Christmas to everybody here. It's been a very good year and I'm looking forward to next year and getting some new projects done. Hope to get the museum ready by Spring and get some new cars built for it..

I used to be a "pro" if that means I made my living doing it. I had two dirt tracks that I was track photographer at and shot weddings, reunions and such but that didn't mean squat when it came to model photography, as a lot of my early stuff painfully proves. I've seen some wonderful model pics shot by rank amatuers and some barely passable ones done by some really great pros. Sometimes it's like comparing apples and watermelons. LOL The indoor stuff with the three or four light system is beautiful but it doesn't appeal to me. I've seen some really nice model pics that looked just like the auto maker's stuff from the '50's and early 60's done that way. But I guess that with my background as a racing photographer I'm kinda partial to the sun for my lighting. What you have to watch out for in closeup photography is the depth of field and the background focus. A camera can't tell if it's a foot away from a model car or twenty or thirty feet away from a real one but the blurry background will tell on you every time. The trick is to use the smallest aperture (biggest number, I know, it confused me at first too) and focus the camera at the windshield post on a front 3/4 shot. That's because there's usually more in focus behind the point of focus than in front and there's also more car behind the windshield post than in front of it. If you use that focus point and bright sunlight then the depth of field (what's actually in focus) is usually enough to get even the background in focus and lend realism to your shot. Now let's get our "location" done the easy way. Cheap flat black or dark grey primer dry-sprayed on styrofoam or cardboard looks an awful lot like asphalt when you put a model car on it and you can just find a picture from a calender of a lake or something to use as the background and it makes a convincing shot. If you keep your eye out and think "in scale" as you go through the day you can "see" some pretty amazing things to use for a photo "set" for your models. This pic is taken on a sheet of styrofoam sprinkled with HO scale railroad ballast with a chain link fence made from the metal mesh in a used real car air cleaner on bent coathanger wire frames. The privacy fence made of saved popsicle and corn dog sticks. Total expenses- less than five bucks for the ballast and some adhesive and a couple hours work.

Hey Virg !! Good to see (digitally, lol) you old buddy. Merry Christmas

Thanks Barbo. But you know that a race car isn't any good without a race track. LOL

Thanks for the welcome ya'll. I can't take credit for the '55 though. It's one of those high dollar "Mint" diecast from a photo shoot I did of a friend's collection. Here's one of my ol' redneck race cars I did build. Hope ya'll like it.

Here's my shop where the historic stock cars come from from. This is an early pic shot before the wooden fencing and the chain link fenced security lot was done.

After trying to register for it seems like forever and not getting a reply, today is the day! I feel like I just opened a long awaited Christmas present. Really looking forward to seeing what everybody is building and sharing some of my stuff too. Seen some old friends and what I hope will be new ones too. Hope everyone has a very Merry Christmas and a Happy Model Filled New Year.