Its’ another cold snowy Saturday, so its a perfect day for playing in the basement! And oh wow, have I ever! There’s a lot of new action all around the track: some new cars, additional patrons of the carnival, and all kinds of little “Easter eggs” showing up everywhere! Take a look behind the scenes at some of the goings-on at Drag City…
Around Town…
Another Parts Delivery to the Outlaw Garage…
Over the week I delved into some little boxes and containers on the upper reaches of my workbench and came across some 3D-printed figures I bought many months ago but had not yet painted or decided what to do with. Finding those, and looking at this bright red Matchbox ’56 Ford F100 panel van that I also acquired last summer at a little antique store not far from work, and an idea began to brew…
I had been saving one of these figures, the thick bearded bubba with the ball cap and the work boots, for a while; I wanted to make sure I gave him a somewhat prominent place on the layout because…I dunno, something about this figure reminded me of someone…not sure who, mind you…
So I painted him and a younger co-worker up and made them the delivery guys dropping off more rare vintage parts for the crack mechancing team at the Outlaw Garage! Can’t have too many parts!
The Long Arm of the Law
The cop who stopped a pair of joyful speeders in a classic ‘57 T-Bird wasn’t working alone; he had a partner backing him up a few exits down, armed with a radar gun! Keep the high speed on the track and not the freeway, leadfoots!
Meanwhile, down at the station, another motorcycle cop straps on his helmet to head up to the freeway himself.
At The Track…
More Cars is ALWAYS Good!
That’s our motto here @ Drag City…or one of them, anyway! And we’ve got some really good newly added cars here at the track!
Hot Wheels “Wheel Swap”
Since I am sodden with copies of HW’s awesome ‘55 Chevy gasser – just like you’d expect me to be! – I decided to drill the rivets out of this one and replace the stock wheels with these fancy white aftermarket customs. It wasn’t easy to do without damaging the plastic baseplate, but I managed, and in the end it came out pretty nice! This “Tri-Five Terror” is now in the line of traffic moving from the inspection station over to the paddock to get ready to race
ZAGATO!
That Aston Martin DB4GT “Zagato” I went after and won has arrived, and it is beautiful! I unpackaged it right away and added a racing number! Since I wanted black on white for the roundel I opted for #19 which seemed appropriate, as 19 of these awesome cars were built. This car had to be displayed in a prominent place on the layout, and now it is, right at the entrance to the paddock, where its drawing a pair of admirers from the crowd!
More Peeps is…Usually Good
Perhaps not in real life, but at the track, we can’t get enough spectators, racers, mechanics, and staff! And how there’s more!
More Fun At The Carnival!
A couple of batches of American Diorama die-cast figures arrived, including the set called “Ballers,” a group of 4 guys playing basketball, which were perfect for the “Hoops” kiosk near the Ferris wheel!
But that’s not all! I also came across this pair of 3D Printed figures I bought months ago with the carnival in mind, but which I had forgotten about, so I set about painting them…and lemmetellya, these were extremely challenging to paint: probably the hardest ones I’ve ever done! I had to go back and forth over and over again with different colors, touching up bleed-over and wiping off smears, and some of the detail where the bodies meet was so fine I had to apply the paint with the sharp end of a toothpick!
So there you have it, race fans: the latest updates on all the action at the track! And now its time to do a little turning and maintenance on some of the old Road Crew cars that are feeling a little run-down lately! After all, just like your mom use to tell you, cold snowy weekends are made for playing indoors!
LATE BREAKING UPDATE:
I don’t know what’s going on with the postal peeps lately with them delivering packages @ 9:00 @ night, but better later than never, I guess… So for the 2nd time in as many days, the end of the day brings another addition to the blog, and to the layout:
Wow Wow Wow! There is so much cool stuff going on their at Drag City! That figure you working at the Outlaw Garage looks mighty familiar for sure! I love that addition! All these details down to the cops to the spectators. I love what your doing there. Definitely some really cool additions. The mods to the Chevy gasser looks terrific. Cool cars, good times, and great people!