Race Car Decal Wrap - Matters Of Style

Now you can work from the middle out and depend on the hinge to keep you stabilized as you work your way to the front or rear of the car. The material Starnes works with is actually so resistant to wrinkles that he’s actually able to shove his hand and arm between the media and the backing paper to create a gap so that the backing paper can be cut away.

Now use a razor blade to cut the backing paper away from the adhesive side of the decal near the hinge.

Now peel the backing paper away a bit at a time as you work your way down the car. If you pull the backing sheet away all at once, you’ll wind up with too much adhesive backing exposed and it can get unwieldy.

With your squeegee, work your way down the car using vertical strokes to firmly press the wrap to the car. It’s this pressure that causes the adhesive to lock to the body panels, so make sure to hit every inch of the wrap. Take your time and work slowly to minimize the air bubbles that get trapped behind the decal material. If you do notice a large one, you can try to work it toward an edge with your squeegee. Don’t worry about the small ones right now.

Speaking of the squeegee, here are two options. On the left is the standard rubber squeegee that you’ll see in body shops being used to spread Bondo body filler. These are a popular option but Starnes says that if you aren’t careful they can scratch the laminate on the decal. He prefers the option on the right that’s a pressed fiber and non-marking. Starnes includes one of these in every wrap kit he ships to his customers.

On most modern Dirt Late Model bodies, the driver-side rear quarter kicks in by several degrees. This can make it difficult to keep a large sheet of vinyl square to the body. If you aren’t careful you’ll see the wrap begin to run up- or downhill because of this angle, which will make everything look weird. To compensate for this, Starnes cuts a slit in the material in the wheel opening so that it’s easier to stretch the material slightly so that it follows the bend in the rear quarter correctly.

On the rear quarters, Starnes recommends concentrating on the top edge of the wrap. Once you get that where you want it, begin working down to the bottom of the car. This is the most difficult section of the car, but by not activating the adhesive with pressure he’s able to pull bad sections back off the car and keep working the material until he gets it perfect.

This piece of painters tape was used to hold the section of decal in place while Starnes was trying to get everything located properly. But instead of just pulling it off once he pulls away the backing paper and starts applying the decal, Starnes cuts the tape and matches the two pieces back up while applying the decal to make sure he’s hitting his marks.

If you need to stretch the material to keep everything aligned, try to do it in an area that doesn’t have any lettering so it’s less likely to show. A quick hit with a heat gun will help shrink any overly stretched areas back into shape.

Once the material is down, you can cut away the extra from the wheel openings with a razor blade.

Don’t forget to cut the vinyl at the seam between the door and the fender. If you don’t it will come back to bite you at the racetrack when you need to quickly remove the fender to get to the engine and realize the decal is holding everything together.

The hood decal is one large sheet that covers several panels. Aligning it correctly can be a bit of a trick. To compensate for extreme suspension movement, the nose on a dirt car is never straight, so don’t use that for a guide. Instead, measure to anything square you can find on the car, such as the hood seams, to get this part of the wrap centered.

Make sure to have the hoodscoop, the hoodpins, and the scuff panels for the hoodpins removed. You’ll want to use tape on the hood to make sure that it doesn’t shift on you. Once you have the decal panel aligned, use a tape hinge on the hood to secure the vinyl’s placement on the hood so that it won’t move. Now you can cut the piece into two sections at the seam between the hood and the nose.

The hood is a lot of real estate to be covered by vinyl. The easiest method to get it smooth and straight is to use a tape hinge to help hold it in the correct position and split the job in half.

This is another area where you almost require a helper. Hold the material loosely and allow the squeegee to guide how the vinyl goes down.