June 5, 2009

By Duane Cross

A "kid with crayons" is how Sam Bass remembers the seed being planted. A collection of 64 with the sharpener in the back of the box or a handful worn to a blunt nub isn't important. However, the end result -- through Testors enamel paints, pencils, oils, water colors -- is what continues to resonate with fans, and has earned Sam the status of the first Official Artist of NASCAR.

He also could be the Willy Wonka of wheels, judging by his creative lair that features musical muses KISS, Clapton and, of course, cars -- a lot of cars, because his studio is a youthful expression in a grown-up's world. Name a Cup Series champion and Sam's creative flair has captured the driver's career (especially Bobby Allison, his stock-car hero). Name a special paint scheme and Sam's hands have painted it (especially those raced by Dale Earnhardt, a personal friend whose death remains a painful memory). In NASCAR, name it and Sam has expressed it (including the Victory Lane guitars at Nashville Speedway).

"How could my painting compare to a new Corvette?"

"I tell everybody that if you took a career path and charted it out, for me, it would not be a straight line," he says. "There were a lot of twists and turns, but I have been hooked on racing since the first event I went to, in the late '60s at Southside Speedway in Richmond, Virginia. I remember being overwhelmed by the sights and sounds and the color and the speed ... I was just hooked.

"I had been painting and drawing with my crayons, I'd had an interest in art work," Sam remembers, "and from that very night I wanted to become some sort of racing artist. It was all I set my sights on -- and I'm very thankful that it worked out because I don't really know what else I could do."

A walk through the Sam Bass Gallery, nestled in the shadows outside Turn 2 of Lowe's Motor Speedway at the corner of Morehead Road and Performance Drive in Concord, N.C., is a journey through the sport's history. It's also a kaleidoscope of colors -- obviously parked on paper and within display cases but with the all-too-real visage and damn-near exhilaration of exiting Turn 4 at 180 mph. The gallery is more than a fan's ode to stock-car racing, or even a professional's art studio -- it's a working factory, replete of smoke wafting from the roof but rife with ideas, colors ... life.

Lighting the 'Spectraflame'

Life as Sam Bass knows it began with Hot Wheels, the 1/64th scale cars -- marketed as the "fastest metal cars in the world" -- that so many kids have raced across living room floors, kitchen tables and driveways. However, Sam's love of early 1970s Hot Wheels, boasting "Spectraflame" paint colors and "redline" tires, wasn't borne from speed; rather it was nurtured by his unyielding desire to repaint the cars as he saw them in his 6-year-old mind.

"I want to portray the excitement that I feel as an artist looking at this sport," he says. "I want to invite the viewer into the whole composition and to be able to share in that moment with me. One of the things that is important is that you're showing race cars -- you've got to have some sort of speed or movement.

"In this sport you've got to be creative quickly because everything moves at a fast pace, right down to 99 percent of the sponsors that come to me to design a race car needed it yesterday. The drivers, if they want me to do a project, need it as soon as I can get it. ... There's always this sense of urgency. I could paint or draw 24 hours a day. The part that makes it difficult is when you've got to finish it in a certain amount of time. That's the challenge."

Golden opportunity

Sam graduated from Virginia Commonwealth University in 1984 and eventually received an audience with legendary promoter H.A. "Humpy" Wheeler. A career was born, one that "brought Technicolor to a black-and-white sport," Wheeler says. Bass has now designed more than 50 consecutive race program covers for Lowe's Motor Speedway.

"The challenge in working in black and white is that you have nothing you can hide behind," Sam says. "It's real straight forward. Every painting, drawing that I do starts with a pencil. Whether I add color in paints, its very beginning is basic black and white.

"More so than anything, people talk to me about the variety of styles that I work in, it keeps me fresh," he says. "If you do a bunch of water color paintings in a row -- these things take over 100 hours apiece to do -- there's so much labor and intensity in the process that sometimes it's nice to take a blank, white sheet of paper and attack it with a pencil or a marker. ... It's fun just to go back to basics."

Bill Russell in Celtics green. Mickey Mantle in Yankee pinstripes. Johnny Unitas in Colts blue. All are etched in fans' memories -- albeit mostly in black and white. Close your eyes and you can see the heroes in their prime, doing what endeared them to so many. When Sam closes his eyes he sees -- in glimmering gold -- Bobby Allison's No. 12 Miller High Life Buick. That was the first Cup Series paint scheme Sam designed that made it on the track. And in an ending right out of Hollywood, Allison wheeled the car into Victory Lane in the season-opening Daytona 500 -- the race in which Allison out dueled his son Davey by two car lengths for the checkered flag -- on Feb. 14, 1988.

The memory, more than 20 years old, is as vivid as a Sam Bass painting.

"I was just beginning my career," he says. "It was a great way to start a career. But what was cool about that weekend was that Bobby drove the Piper Aircraft car to victory in the Busch Series the day before, so the first two times he ran my paint schemes he won the biggest races in each respective series."

Somewhere over the 'Rainbow'

Arguably the most famous paint scheme that Sam has designed is the "Rainbow Warrior" look for Jeff Gordon's No. 24 Chevrolet. "I had worked on two or three different paint schemes to present to Ray Evernham and the folks at Hendrick Motorsports," Sam recalls. "About two hours before the meeting, I thought 'Wow, wouldn't it be great to show around the DuPont oval the arcs of a rainbow,' because they are selling a rainbow of colors in their automotive finishes department.

"That's where the inspiration came from. I was literally mounting the drawing before they walked in. The ideas come from all over [and] you never know exactly when they're going to hit you -- but you know the minute you've got the idea that it's going to be the one."

And then there is The Mustache & Mullet painting ("Rookie Sensation" is the official name of the piece), which remains "the one" that stands out for a much different reason.

"Ray Evernham asked me to present the very first print of it to Jeff at his birthday party at a place that used to be just up the road, the Sandwich Construction Company," Sam says. "It was tough because the night I went there with this painting that I was so proud of was the day that Jeff had shaved off his mustache and got his hair cut. ... I was standing there with this painting that immediately became outdated the minute he received it!

"Shortly after that presentation I created another painting of Jeff that didn't have the mustache, obviously. All during that year when people would order my print we would ask, 'Do you want the mustache or do you not want the mustache?' It was almost like super-sizing it at McDonald's."

As much as the brightly colored No. 24 is a part of the sport's history, Sam also is a part of the DuPont scheme's on-track legacy. "I've been able to do all of Jeff Gordon's primary paint schemes for the 17, 18 years he's been in the sport. To have met him before anybody really knew him and to have shared in that ride with Jeff Gordon via my artwork on his race car has been one of the most rewarding things anybody could ask for."

With the evolution from the Rainbow to the Flames scheme that Gordon now drives, Sam's keenness again is on display each race weekend. "My whole vision for that paint scheme was for that car to look like it was on fire going down the backstretch, like some sort of comet going from Turn 2 to Turn 3.

"The thing about working for a company like DuPont is they have been around for 200 years and they don't just make decisions randomly. Every time they have asked me to create a paint scheme, they've run it eight to nine years before they change it again. There's a lot of pressure; you don't want to be the guy who screwed up the Rainbow car."

Rock and roll all night

No matter how rewarding it is to work with teams and drivers, having the opportunity to design for the "greatest band in the world" -- KISS -- remains a highlight. In 2004, Sam designed the paint schemes for Kevin Harvick's No. 29 Chevrolet in the Cup Series, Ron Hornaday's No. 2 Chevy in the Busch Series and Matt Crafton's No. 6 Silverado in the Truck Series for the race weekend at Richmond.

"When I got the project to do the design work for the Chevy Rock & Roll 400 and I found I was going to be doing KISS cars, and oh by the way, actually be working with them and design for them and to go to an unveiling. ... Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley see me come into the media center and go, 'Hey Sam, come back here and hang with us.' It was like an out-of-body experience. I felt like I was on the set of Wayne's World, 'I'm not worthy! I'm not worthy!' "

It was another labor of love for Sam, who admittedly cannot remember a time when art and music were not part of his life. "I've been going to country-music concerts since I was a little kid with my mom. I've grown up around music and I've played guitar since I was 8 years old. I just love everything about the music industry."

Naturally, this led to a unique opportunity with Nashville Speedway. "To do the trophy guitars and work with the folks a Gibson Guitar is just so awesome. It's a bridge between the two loves of my life."

Much like Allison's No. 12 Buick, Sam also has a favorite guitar design -- and it's not even six months old. "The coolest guitar I've designed so far has to be the Keith Urban-Daytona 500 guitar that I did in February. It was a dream come true to have one of my favorite players, within two hours of my presenting the guitar to him, be walking on stage in front of millions of people around the world to play the instrument [with a design] that I had created. It was just an awesome experience."

A story that exemplifies Sam's continued amazement is a phone call that he received after Carl Edwards won the Truck Series race on Aug. 8, 2003, at Nashville.

"One of the biggest compliments I've gotten in this sport," Sam says, "is that on a Monday, after the Friday night race, I got a call from Carl Edwards. He wanted to thank me for the cool trophy that he'd been given.

"I was thinking to myself, 'How cool is this? A driver thinks enough of his trophy to call the guy who designed it.' "

It's just child's play

Sam's gallery is more than just a place for fans to connect with NASCAR. It's also his playground. Mementoes from his life surround him down every hallway, in every room. The gallery is Sam Bass. So too is "Tune Ups," a nirvana-like room that succinctly captures the child that remains inside Sam.

Glance around and you'll see an old magazine with Springsteen on the cover, or a collection of KISS dolls from yesteryear, or Count Chocula, or the right-side sheet metal from Rusty Wallace's No. 27 Miller Genuine Draft Pontiac.

"People get so frustrated with me for never throwing anything away," he admits. "So many of the things that are up on the wall ... people look at it and say, 'Oh, Bruce Springsteen; oh Brian Setzer' ... well, it's the cover a magazine. I just put it in a frame. If I'd have tossed the magazine after I read it I wouldn't have it.

"I've had this stuff in boxes forever, but when we moved into this building I finally had a place to pull it out and show. If I ever achieve my real dream, I'm going to have a little live music venue that has best hamburger, hot dogs, pizza and the coldest beer."

There is one piece that Sam hails as the Holy Grail that is missing from his collection. "I would give my right arm to have a hood off the original Bobby Allison Coca-Cola Monte Carlo [from 1972]. That would just be over the top!"

Sam spends 12 or more hours a day at the gallery, much of that time in his studio working through the creative process. "This is where the magic happens, hopefully," he says.

"I just love coming in here. I purposely decorated it with things that are important in my life. All the albums on the wall are albums that I owned and were influential to me. I surround myself with all my heroes -- both in the painting and drawings of the NASCAR guys to musicians that I'm a fan of."

It is here where the ideas of creation flow most freely. The room is spacious, yet it's intimate, no doubt because of the warm feeling you get surrounded by Sam's collections.

"I love the challenge of trying to come up with something different every time," he says. "The real challenge is coming up with the idea -- a unique perspective and composition that is unlike what people have seen before."

Fade to black

Sam has spent countless hours conceptualizing, sketching and painting images of Rusty Wallace and Dale Earnhardt. For Wallace's "Last Call" season in 2007, Sam had the ingenious idea to create a piece that exemplified the 1989 Cup Series champion: Rusty, sitting on a bar stool, surrounded by memorabilia from his 22-year career. ... Look closely and you'll notice the memorabilia is all Sam Bass.

"Fortunately I had the chance to work with Rusty for 15, 16 years while he was driving for Miller Brewing Company and my artwork was a part of his career so I thought, 'Well, I'm just going to show my artwork on the walls of the bar.' I had a good time with it."

For all the drivers -- Allison, Gordon, Wallace and countless others -- that Sam has painted, the Intimidator remains his most popular, from the fans' perspective, and his favorite, from a personal perspective. Dale Earnhardt was a known commodity long before Sam Bass was introduced to the NASCAR Nation. Yet it was Earnhardt who took the time to nurture Sam's dreams -- in only a way Big E could do.

"I did a painting entitled 'Quick Silver,' his [Winston] Select car that really started, in 1995, the whole special paint scheme craze and die cast industry. Dale loved that painting but he said the only thing wrong with it was that it wasn't of his black car."

Given the task of recreating a life-like rendering of the famed black No. 3 Chevrolet, Sam thought to himself, 'OK, I'll show him. I'll work on this.'

"I worked on it for three or four months and took it to Daytona," Sam recalls. "I got an appointment with him on his motor coach -- and I was so confident of this painting; it was going to be over the top."

Earnhardt popped Sam's balloon. "He didn't like it," Sam says. "I was devastated. He said, 'It's kinda like Quick Silver but it's not. It's got too much color in it.' Dale said his fans would love it but it was not what he was looking for."

Heartbroken, Sam nonetheless marketed the print and it sold well. But the gnawing remained. He hadn't fulfilled Earnhardt's expectations. Undaunted, Sam set out to create a one-of-a-kind painting for Earnhardt.

"He always had this annual deal out at his Chevy dealership where he would sign autographs for like 12, 14 hours for all his fans," Sam says. "At the end of the day, I got in line with all the fans. Right before I got to where I was going to present this painting to him, a guy from Chevrolet comes out and says, 'Dale, we've got the keys for you to a brand-new Corvette.' It was like the third one off the assembly line.

"My heart just sank. How could my painting compare to a new Corvette?"

What happened next was classic Earnhardt and the gesture of a true friend. In the wake of the presentation of the car, Sam indeed followed through and gave Earnhardt the painting.

"He looked at the painting, and he looked up at me, and he looked at the painting, and he looked up at me," Sam remembers. "Then he got up out of his chair and walked over to the Corvette, opened up the trunk and put my painting in there.

"He said, 'Now the car really means something.' "

For the "kid with crayons," it's the defining moment of a Technicolor career.

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