2000 #9 Target G-Force Juan Montoya Done 7/8/13

[MikeB]

Reprinted from my blog The Mind

I have been a Open-wheel racing fan, for as long as I can remember watching the Indy 500 every year use to be one of the biggest events of the year for me, and 2000 was by far up to that time the biggest it was year 5 of the CART/IRL split that had effectively killed open wheel in America and for the 1st time since the split, a CART team was going to invade the Indy 500, and it wasn’t just any team it was THE marque CART team the four time defending PPG cup champion’s Target/Chip Ganassi racing team of 1996 PPG cup Champion Jimmy Vasser and current series champ Juan Montoya.

Even with little time in the IRL G-Forces Montoya and Vasser quickly headed to the top of the speed charts in practice, and both looked to be contenders for the pole and the front row Montoya would hold down the pole position for most of the day before Greg Ray knocked him off putting Montoya in the second starting spot for the race Vasser would never be a threat for the pole and would start 4th.

Race day would be the Juan Montoya show taking the lead for the 1st time on lap 27 Montoya would have a 30-second lead by lap 66 and would lead laps 33-175 before a late race yellow flag would hand the lead to his teammate Jimmy Vasser, who would hold onto the lead for just four laps before Montoya would take it back for good and win the race by 7.1839 seconds over 1996 winner Buddy Lazier.

Montoya would end up leading 167 of the 200 laps and would be the 1st rookie since Graham Hill in 1966 to win the race.

The Model

Chris Etzel made a resin kit of Montoya’s winner G-Force in 2001 it would be the last kit issued by the Indy Car Modeling hall of fame member it quickly sold out and became very hard to find thankfully another hall of fame member Bill Jorgensen stepped up and has re-issued the body.

The 1st thing I like to do before I start the build is gather as much reference on the subject and then map out a game plan for the build.

What you get from Bill are all the main parts, they include the body, under tray, wings, air box, rear wheel kick ups, seat and gear box so all we have to come up with is front and rear suspensions and the wheels and tires everything else will be easy to scratch build from styrene sheet.

For the suspensions, we will use the same parts Chris used to make his masters, and those are the suspensions from the AMT Penske PC-17 kit they will need to be modified but will work just fine the OZ wheels and Firestone tires will come from a Revell Vestion Reynard kit.

For the cosmetics, I will be using a original Etzel decal sheet but Indycals also makes a really great one that could be used as well the paint will be Krylon Fusion Safety Red and Semi-Gloss Black.

With everything mapped out I am ready to begin the build stay tuned ………………

[MikeB]

Here is the kit from Bill pretty much everything you need

As with every resin car I build I start with the front suspension here you can see the unmodified AMT PC-17 part

The parts marked in Black will be removed then small holes will be drilled into the ends and small .025 aluminum rod will be inserted


As you can see the part fits into the holes in the nose like a glove


We will do the same with the lower suspension part they will need a little bending inward to mate up with the holes on the body

Fits like a glove

[MikeB]

Ok, moving onto the rear suspension will be using some modified parts from an AMT 88 March this is the same kit Chris used to make his master so it is a natural choice for our G-Force.


As you can see in this photo, even before we make any cuts the parts from the Etzel kit, and the AMT kits are almost identical.

After the cuts, you can really see it now the only thing I want to do is to thin the AMT parts out a little they have a little out of scale thickness to them.

The last thing we need to do is add some pins to the ends of the parts and just like that both the front and rear suspensions are done.

[MikeB]

Just a little small addition to the earlier post
I drilled out all the mounting holes for the rear suspension on the gearbox I also made two rear wing supports from .020 plastic sheet.


Front & rear suspensions, the gearbox and rear wing supports

[MikeB]

OK now it’s onto the body and painting.


I applied a light coat of gray primer to the body and sanded and filled any imperfections. Once I was happy with how things looked, I glued the camera box to the body if you build one of these. Please do yourself a favor and pin the camera to the body if you don’t trust me, You will knock it off more than once (don’t ask)



Next it’s onto the front and rear wings. I misplaced the front wing endplates, so I drew up a template in Corel Draw and cut new one’s from .010 plastic sheet pretty happy with them.


Off to the paint shop for what I hope will be a final coat of white primer and it everything is good it should be wearing Target red by this time tomorrow.



I found this resin set of OZ wheels in my parts box so I will be using these instead of the Revell one's

More later

[MikeB]

I got some color on JPM's 2000 really happy with it just a few dust specks that need to be sanded out will begin detail painting after I clear it.

[MikeB]

I got the clear on and started to add the decals should have this one done by Monday



Thanks for looking

MikeB

[MikeB]

Pretty happy with it

[illeagle10]

Sweet job Mike! Looks great!

Jim