Paul Menard’s Richard Childress Racing #27 Chevy will carry the gray, orange and black color scheme used by Al Unser Jr. for the 1993 Daytona 500 with sponsor Valvoline featured on the hood when the series travels to Darlington Raceway for the annual Labor Day weekend classic. ‘Little Al’s first NASCAR race was the Daytona 500 in 1993,’ Menard said earlier this week as preparations for the unveiling of the paint scheme got underway. ‘The partnership with Valvoline this year ‘ we got to talking earlier about who some of my racing heroes were and Al Jr. was right away, even without the Valvoline relationship. I’ve always been a huge fan of his. He was the guy in IndyCar that I always pulled for.’ Menard said he met the former open-wheel champion and two-time winner of the Indianapolis 500 ‘when I was probably 12.’
‘I remember; he probably doesn’t,’ Menard continued. ‘But I pulled up (this morning) ‘¦ and he was standing out in the parking lot. We were out there talking probably 10 or 15 minutes, just about the ’93 (Daytona) 500, his autocross stuff that he’s doing now, just talking about a little bit of racing.’ When told that Menard and Valvoline were bringing the original paint scheme back to the track for the Darlington throwback weekend, Unser said he was ‘just overwhelmed.’(NASCAR.com), see images of the scheme on the #27 Team Schemes page.
