Painting on a race track.

[p3]

I am trying to figure out how to make a template to lay down on a dirt race track and paint inside for different logos of sponsors for a big race. Any ideas on how to approach this or tips to make it easy-er? The logos are going to be pretty big, they are all around 25' x 6'.

Thanks for any help or insights.

 

[Pat Whatley]

Kind of labor intensive for a one time use thing but here's what I did for a football field. I had a 10' x 10' banner printed with the logo (because I was too lazy to project it and trace it). I bought a cheap wood burning tool at Hobby Lobby and used the 1/4" wide tip to melt holes every couple of inches along all the lines in the logo.

Lay the banner on the track where you need it, spray all the holes with field marking paint, lift off your banner and you're left with easy to follow dotted lines as a pattern. Our logos were simple so we just painted them in with field marking paint aerosol cans.

If you want a cheaper way use Tyvek house wrap (most hardware stores have it) or visqueen and do the same thing.

Tony Vickio is a sign guy who does a lot of the Nascar tracks. His website is a treasure trove of information on how he tackled some amazing projects. Here's one showing pretty much what I'm describing. http://www.vickiosigns.com/graphics/nazarethgrass.jpg

 

[round man]

At Nascar facilities we used a sheet of polyethylene drop cloth type material,..the design is projected and or free handed if the the artist has the capabilities with a magic marker,.....with this we take and cut half moons alot like the wind slits you would see in a big banner except we remove the whole half moon along the inside edges of areas we need to paint. this serves as a pattern and we go out to the infield and take long gutter nails and or pole barn bars (biggest long assed nail we could find) and stake them down in place in the grass on the infield,...we take an airless and spray a mist coat of white thru these half moon holes and it makes a pattern to use to paint the artwork/logo/advertisment.

edited to add,.. you are going to get your feelings hurt if you try and paint on dirt,......the stuff blows back up in your face when you paint it with a spray gun and it sucks up paint like a sponge,....be prepared to buy four times the amount of paint you would normally use if it were grass and or asphalt,...don't ask me how I came by this pearl of wisdom and I will not tell you any lies,.....