Rare and Unraced Motor Racing Liveries

[acerogers58]

Bottom post of the previous page:

19 year old Spencer Clark made his first NASCAR Busch series start at Las Vegas in 2006 driving this car for Gallagher-Diederich Racing. It was the teams first race, and they initially planned to run a partial schedule with sponsorship from Allegiant Air, owned by the Gallagher family. Clark was at the time tipped to be Las Vegas' next big thing in stock car racing, following in the footsteps of Kurt and Kyle Busch.

Tragically, just two months after this event, Clark died in a highway accident in New Mexico. As a result, the team ceased its NASCAR operations and returned to short track racing, with the Clark family founding the "Spencer Clark Driven program" to provide young racers proper training and competitive race cars to continue what Spencer Clark had started.

Six years later, Maury Gallagher, now the sole owner, relaunched the team into the major national series, starting out in ARCA under the name Gallagher Motorsports, using the #23, which was Spencer Clark's junior racing number. The name of the team was later changed to GMS Racing and in 2013, Spencer Gallagher, Maury's son, made his NASCAR Truck series debut. In 2014, the team made its full time debut, with Joey Coulter behind the wheel. A second part time entry was driven by Gallagher, Max Gresham and Brandon Jones.

Gallagher would go full time in 2015, however his career would never really take off. Nevertheless, Gallagher jumped up to the Xfinity series part time in 2016, while GMS Racing would win its first of two NASCAR Truck series championships with Johnny Sauter behind the wheel. Gallagher made a few Xfinity series starts in 2016, before a full time season in 2017 proved unsuccesful. Gallagher made a solid start to the 2018 Xfinity series season, earning his first win at Talladega, The celebrations were short lived however, as days later Gallagher was suspended indefinitely for violating NASCARs substance abuse policy. He would return midway through the year, before retiring at seasons end to take up an ownership role within the organization. GMS Racing returned for the 2019 Xfinity series season, with John Hunter Nemechek behind the wheel. 2019 would be the teams last season in the Xfinity series, choosing to focus on the Truck series, where it now had 4 full time teams.

2020 would be the teams best season, scoring 10 wins with 4 different drivers and its second championship with Sheldon Creed. They would win 4 races in 2021, 3 with Creed before announcing at seasons end they would be moving up to the Cup series, with Ty Dillon to drive the #94. The team then merged its Cup startup into Richard Petty Motorsports, forming Petty GMS Racing. The team had a solid year with Erik Jones in the #43, winning the Southern 500 at Darlington, however Dillon struggled and was released. In early 2023 Petty GMS would again change names, this time to Legacy Motor Club, with Jimmie Johnson buying out a stake in the team and Richard Petty selling the remainder of his share to Gallagher with Johnson taking over the day to day running of the Cup series team. The Truck series teams continued to operate separately in 2022 and 2023, with a couple of wins.

On August 23, 2023, GMS Racing announced they would cease operations at seasons end. Legacy Motor Club will switch to Toyota in 2024, with both Gallagher and Johnson remaining owners.

[Nononsensecapeesh]

Nicolas Hamilton's Team HARD Cupra Leon sported this Rosland Gold livery at this year's Goodwood Festival of Speed but never got to actually race in these colours as Hamilton pulled out of the 2023 British Touring Car Championship soon after.

[Nononsensecapeesh]

https://www.theracetorque.com/2020/10/t ... st-livery/
Special Bathurst liveries count as rare.

[acerogers58]

Teammates Bobby Hillin Jr. and Sammy Swindell both practiced for the 1991 Daytona 500 using the number 20 in honor of fellow driver Rob Moroso, who was tragically killed in a traffic accident aged 22 the year prior. The team, which was owned by Rob's father Dick, changed Hillin's car, pictured below, to a #27 and painted it all black prior to the Twin 125 races in order to comply with NASCAR regulations. Both the #20 and #27 made the Daytona 500 field, with Swindell and Hillin were initially on one race deals, Swindell finished 41st after a crash while Hillin had a strong run, finishing 7th. Hillin would run the first 10 races of the 1991 season with Moroso's team, including a handful with the red livery, before a lack of sponsors saw the team scale back its operations.



The repainted and renumbered car raced by Hillin in the Twin 125s and Daytona 500:

[Nononsensecapeesh]

The Mazda Xedos 6 driven by the late David Leslie in the 1994 British Touring Car Championship usually had a plain white livery.

[acerogers58]

Phil Parsons attempted to qualify for the 1991 Daytona 500 driving this car for "Italian Connection". The team was sponsored by a Ferrari Dealership and had previously ran 1 race, coming in late 1990 at Phoenix with Brent Kaeding behind the wheel, although I cannot find any pictures of Kaeding's car, which was numbered #69. After DNQing for the '91 Daytona 500 the team vanished into obscurity and never attempted another race.

[Nononsensecapeesh]

The McLaren MP4-30 only ran in this livery for the first 4 races of the 2015 F1 Season.

[Vassago]

Special pop art livery for Ellen Lohr (Nurburgring 1991) made by Andora - an artist from East Berlin.

The car was otherwise white/red with West cigarette brand sponsorship (written as East due to the tobacco ban in Germany at the time already).

[Everso Biggyballies]

I have always been a bit of a fan of "Art" liveries... I guess it started back in the days of the BMW art cars, ever since Hervé Poulain got his artist mate Alex Calder to paint a CSL 'Batmobile' back in the mid seventies with red and yellow geometric shapes. ISTR it was done for the LM24.

Edit:
In fact here 'tis. (OK so its more than just red and yellow shapes) I got the LM24 right though. 1975.

[Nononsensecapeesh]

Sam Osborne's Valvoline-liveried NAPA Racing (Motorbase) Ford Focus at the Silverstone meeting of the 2023 British Touring Car Championship.

[Nononsensecapeesh]

Intended to race in the 2003 British Touring Car Championship.

[Vassago]

Silk Cut & Repsol ain't exactly associated with open-wheel racing sponsorship but they teamed up for Fermin Velez during 1988 F3000 season.

[Everso Biggyballies]

Silk Cut & Repsol ain't exactly associated with open-wheel racing sponsorship but they teamed up for Fermin Velez during 1988 F3000 season.

That livery I have not seen before. Must have slipped under the radar in the days before I even knew anything of things beginning www.

It seems Repsol are involved in a lot more than just Honda / Motorcycles and indeed are busy in European Open Wheelers of all ages. They are sponsoring the Pau Historic meeting for cars this year. Indeed they have also provided tens of thousands of litres of bio-fuel to the French Formula 4 Championships and others.
https://www.repsol.com/en/press-room/pr ... dex.cshtml



They seemed to have been involved in Sports Cars as well back in the day. This particular 962 (chassis#160) was recently sold and races in Historic stuff. Back in the day it was run by Brun albeit it only ran three times in period with Repsol livery, so I guess it classifies as rare.

It ran at Le Mans in 1990, 1991 as a Repsol LM24 Test car, and also at Silverstone at the 1990 World Sportscar Championship round.

It is the car which came very close to one of the toughest podiums in motor sport at Le Mans retiring late in the piece.(lap 353/359 ..... Oscar Larrauri, Walter Brun and Jesús Pareja started on the front row for the 1990 Le Mans 24 Hours, but with just 15 minutes left on the clock the trio was forced to retire having been chipping away at the Jaguar’s lead.



This is all the seven appearances for #160. https://www.racingsportscars.com/chassi ... 2-160.html

The #160 was their 1990 LM24 race car (It was also their 1991 LM24 'T' car not raced) It actually only did six races in total (plus a Le Mans Test ). in total of which only two races plus the test were in Repsol livery



The other four races for chassis #160 saw it re-liveried for four appearances in 1990 (running as #15 Hydro Alluminium) [/b] World Sports Prototype Championship rounds at Dijon, Nurburgring, Donington and Montreal
https://www.racingsportscars.com/chassi ... 2-160.html





They had 2 x962 Chassis that ran Repsol liveries. The #160 is covered above.

Chassis #150,(ran Le Mans 1989 and was their T car at Le Mans 1990) as well as several World Sportscar Prototype Championship rounds in 1989 / 90

Chassis #150 did eleven races in Repsol livery so not that rare..... full list of the 11 appearances: https://www.racingsportscars.com/chassi ... 2-150.html

.....but a one off race for #150 in 1990 at Montreal saw it re-liveried in Torno Colours, which was rare :

[Vassago]

That Torno livery was used in IMSA races where Brun entered for Larrauri & Sigala in late 80s/early 90s IIRC. They had more green added in various seasons when Joest took over that sponsorship but that was when Porsche dominance more or less ended in IMSA.

[acerogers58]

Ernie Irvan's initial car for the 1990 Daytona 500. Sponsor deal fell through at the last minute so he ran unsponsored in the 125s before picking up Chad Little's sponsor, Bullseye Barbecue sauce, after Little failed to qualify for the Daytona 500.

Irvan ran the first 3 races of 1990 with Junie Donlavey's #90 team, before jumping over to the Morgan McClure #4.



Irvan in the Daytona 500:

[JG24]

During an Instagram livestream to reveal his 2022 Xfinity Series car, Dale Earnhardt Jr revealed that he had thought of running #03 instead of his popular #88. There was at least one render made, displayed here.