Shop-based painters see their handiwork in the colorful details source: indycar.com / Dave Lewandowski Vitor Meira shrugs off a tire imprint on the left sidepod of the No. 4 Honda-powered Dallara during the Bombardier Learjet 500k last June as "just one of those racing things." The incident, in which the driver and car were otherwise unscathed, left more of an impression on Panther Racing's Zane Dougherty and Jake Cole. They had to deal with the souvenir. "If on TV you see two cars bump and a tire hits a sidepod, you say, 'Oh, it really didn't do anything.' But we have to repaint the whole sidepod because it took the paint off and you can't fix that one little spot. A little two-second wheel bump can cost us eight hours," said Cole, one of the shop-based painters. Such is the nature of the bustling business for the duo, who - given the season -- follow a cycle of prepare and repair. Presently, they are well along with painting every square inch of the eight-car fleet for the IndyCar Series and Indy Pro Series season openers March 24 at Homestead-Miami Speedway (and two Open Tests beforehand). Of course, this isn't your local one-color-fits-all auto body paint shop. From sponsor and sanctioning body logos placement to aerodynamic fit, every step is exacting. Like most IndyCar Series teams, Panther Racing paints each logo (no stickers please) on its cars using a decal mask. One 4-inch x 5-inch associate sponsor logo with five colors - that's seven steps plus drying time - occupies a chunk of Cole's day. "We use the paint mask because you can paint on all the colors and then you clear-coat it," said Cole, who uses acrylic urethane. "Then you bake it for three or four hours (at 140 degrees F), sand it with 400 grit and then you re-clear it. It's all smooth and it doesn't mess up the airflow. "You have to measure and make sure they are straight. If you stick it on and it's wrong, you can't reuse it. You have to pull it, get a new one and start over from the base coat." Here's a stripped-down version of the process, according to Dougherty, of preparing the holdover chassis for the new season: "You have to clean it; strip the old paint off down to the primer and sand it. Then you do the body fit; put the car together and glue all the seams, get rid of any gaps, get the aerodynamics as close as perfect as possible, then take it apart. Then we go into our process. You put a base of primer on it. (The painters work off a computer print of the color scheme and main sponsor logo placement.) "Then you put on a base coat of color, which takes a few hours to dry. On the (No. 55) Panasonic car, you'll paint the whole thing white, which would be your base color. We tape up the car we want to paint with new color scheme (blue, white and red). Then you get into the graphics. You clear-coat it, sand it and clear-coat it again." OK, there's one gleaming car complete. The crew uses it as a model, taking multiple measurements so every red or white line will line up if components are swapped between events or practice sessions. "You take your time," Dougherty said. "It's all time."
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