Behind the Scenes: Monica Smeltzer Explains the Process of Paint Scheme Design

Go behind the scenes at JR Motorsports with the woman who sees each paint scheme from start to finish.

MOORESVILLE, N.C. (Aug. 25, 2016) – When you see the fleet of JR Motorsports Chevrolets on the track each week, consider this: each one of the paint schemes you’re looking at was a long time in the making.

Monica Smeltzer, the licensing project manager for JRM, sees each scheme from start to finish from her office on the upper level, and it’s a full-time job and then some. With the number of sponsors on each of the three NASCAR Xfinity Series machines that run out of JRM, that’s a lot of designing and scheduling, and a lot of planning goes into each one.

It’s the timing, though, that is most important, she says.

“Timing is the most difficult thing I do,” Smeltzer said. “Timing in getting the paint schemes created and approved by all parties in a timely manner, which is six weeks before it finally hits the track. That gives me the time to make sure I have it in-house, ready to go for the installers, as soon as that car comes out of the paint shop or the fab shop.

“There’s a lot of moving parts.”

Once the scheme is approved, it’s up to her to get the car ready for the track.

“I work with our decal supplier, The Decal Source,” she said. “As soon as the paint scheme is created and approved by Dale Jr., the sponsors and NASCAR, I make the orders, schedule the installation and make sure it goes out the door the right way.”

Each car has a primary sponsor and several associate sponsors, and all the logos have to be in the right place, with the right colors and positioning. It’s a massive undertaking. The Decal Source, which installs the wraps, is in the shop bay a lot, you can be sure.

“TDS is here at least three days a week, if not four days a week, all through the season,” Smeltzer confirmed.

Smeltzer is among the longest-tenured JRM employees, with nearly 12 years in. She came to JRM from Action Performance, the company that helped begin the collectibles boom in the sport.

“When I first came here, it was purely from the licensing standpoint,” she said. “Over at Action Performance, I did licensing from the other side, trying to get approvals from teams. When I came over here, they were trying to get the approvals from me!”

Through the years, Smeltzer said she’s lost count of the number of paint schemes she has helped create, processed and scheduled, but a few of them stand out.

“The Advance Auto Parts one was pretty cool,” she said. “Some of the Great Clips cars were neat, too, and the zebra-striped Nationwide Children’s Hospital car that Regan Smith drove in 2014. I helped with the design of that one, too, with Hannah, the Patient Champion that year. The scheme he won with in 2015, the purple NCH car, was cool too.”

To aid in her production scheduling, Smeltzer trained herself to use the computer programs involved in the process as a way of speeding things up, and also to help her add design touches to various schemes along the way.

The most difficult scheme she remembers was from 2015.

“It was the Hellmann’s car, when they did the swirls from the bottle all over the car,” she said. “Those were kind of tough to match up, but it looked great.” Hellmann’s is a longtime partner of JRM, and their cars are among the best-looking in the series, hands-down.

Producing all the paint schemes for the teams also includes producing the die-cast cars for fans.

“I produce all the die-cast as well,” she said. “It’s more extensive now because we have more sponsors. It’s all timelines and more product in the queue, so it takes longer to get. You have to try and start working at least six months out if you can. That way the product is available when the car is on the track.”

Next time you admire the paint schemes on the JRM stable, remember all it took to get them on the track. There are more moving parts than anyone realizes.