Jimmie Johnson’s teammate Jeff Gordon, who broke a season-long victory drought with a win in a Gatorade Duel at Daytona in February, credited his car’s new look with a boost in performance.

“Just changing paint schemes is something that can light that fire a little bit,” he said.

Bringing those paint schemes to life is an art form.  It takes a team of graphic artists, designers and painters to take a paint scheme from concept to actual car. For Team 48, it is a collaboration between Lowe’s creative team and Hendrick Motorsports.

Matt Dorton is the paint scheme designer at Hendrick Motorsports.  His primary goal in designing a scheme is to come up with something that conveys speed and the sponsor’s message.

The first step in the process begins with the simplest of tools – a pencil and paper.  On the paper is an outline of a plain white Chevrolet racecar.

“I start by just sketching it out,” he said. “When it looks good at that stage, it’s scanned into the computer and then I take the lines I’ve sketched out and add them to a blank template. Eventually, I end up with the finished product.”

Although Dorton has his hands on the controls, the finished product reflects input from Lowe’s, Johnson and Chad Knaus, among others.

“The initial designs might be sponsor-oriented, but the drivers do have input,” Dorton said. “I love to have them involved in the process.”

Johnson said he usually defers to Lowe’s on paint scheme matters.

“I’m able to see a couple of the final versions, what it’s going to look like,” he said. “But that’s something that Lowe’s is very involved with.”

Dorton said he tries to make the perfect match between the home improvement store colors and designs and the company’s racecar. “I like to use the base colors they have in their logos, and I like to coincide some thing in the paint scheme with elements in the logo,” he said.

Knaus also enjoys being a part of coming up with different designs for his race car.

“When we first started running the Kobalt Tools paint scheme a couple of years ago people really liked it,” he said. “It’s been a big hit. The fans like it. We really enjoy doing that.”

Making those paint schemes come to life is the responsibility of Casey Hill, the paint and body shop manager at Hendrick Motorsports. Although Hill is a manager, he’s also one of the people who actually holds the paint gun and sprays the colors on the No. 48.

Once the car is shaped, sanded and primed, the stencils generated by Dorton’s computer are applied and the car is ready for painting. Unlike other teams that often use wraps, which are essentially decals that cover large portions of the car, nearly every vehicle in the Hendrick shops is painted.  This provides a more aerodynamic surface and reduces the weight of the vehicle.

His sponsors would be proud to know that often he uses tools right off his sponsor’s shelf.

“I’ve got a little Kobalt gravity-feed gun that I use as an airbrush for small detail work,” he said.

Normally, Hill and his crew will have a car painted and ready to go at least two weeks before it’s scheduled to hit the track. But during the Chase, things can quickly get more hectic, especially if Johnson and Knaus find one particular car in the fleet that they really like and want to run more often.

“That car will be turned about back to back, week to week, or maybe skip a week,” Hill said.  “That gets to be pretty stressful.”

But the people who produce the paint schemes say it’s worth all the effort just to see Johnson steer the car onto the track for the first time.

“Each time it’s a highlight of a career to know that you’ve pleased not only the sponsor but the driver and the people you work for,” Dorton said. “Once it’s out on the track it’s kind of like turning loose your kid when they’re 18.  You just know you’ve done a good job. It’s a really, really good feeling.”