Imagine a dazzling series of papaya orange curves, cobalt blue and black lines, all streaking across the Cumberland River into the heart of downtown Nashville, Tennessee. Hear the cheers and music from the grandstands echoing throughout the city streets. Taste the fare of local food trucks. Smell the burnt rubber of screaming tires. Picture the No. 7 Vuse Arrow McLaren SP and No. 5 Arrow McLaren SP INDYCARs, crossing the finish line at the inaugural Big Machine Music City Grand Prix in a custom livery. Vuse Design Challenge Winner Jack L. envisioned it all when designing his entry in the one-of-a-kind contest Vuse hosted, offering a chance to inspire the design of an IndyCar for a motorsports legend.
“It’s a surreal feeling knowing my design was selected out of the hundreds of submissions and will be racing around Nashville at over 200mph.” Jack tells Rolling Stone. “I’ve always loved the look of the camouflage designs car manufactures use on their prototype cars – it’s originally inspired by the patterns that were painted on World War I battleships in order to conceal their direction and speed. I wanted to recreate the sense of mystery, bewilderment, and excitement I felt when I saw the first spy shots online of a new race car being driven around the Nürburgring.” By combining dazzling camouflage designs seen only on test tracks with the iconic papaya orange sported by the Arrow McLaren SP cars, Jack gives color to patterns typically seen exclusively in black and white.
Jack’s winning design brings a novel twist to a concept that is familiar in the car world, but not necessarily seen in racing. “I wanted to make a design everyone would be able to appreciate even without knowing the history or inspiration behind it,” he explains. “It’s easy to make something wild for the sake of being wild, but I’ve always preferred something clean and classic, with a twist that makes you do a double take and ensures you won’t forget it.”
Derived from a shared commitment to discovering the best in design, innovation, and performance, the Vuse Design Challenge was created as part of the partnership between Vuse and the legendary Arrow McLaren SP team. Jack’s entry embodies the spirit of the challenge with a bold disruption that breezes past racing and design barriers. “Racing is always evolving, always pushing the envelope with new engineering techniques and new technologies. Design as a concept is never stagnant either, with ever changing trends and techniques” he observes.
When asked what drew him to the Vuse Design Challenge, Jack responds, “The chance for a design of mine to inspire the design of an IndyCar? It was a no-brainer for me to enter.” Jack is not formally trained in design, he is a video editor working in television. “Most of the time my ‘canvas for creativity is inside editing software. Painting has never been my thing, I’ve definitely never designed a race car before,” he admits. For Vuse, the contest was designed specifically to be accessible to artists at all levels of their crafts. Vuse invested in cutting edge technology on the contest site that allowed both novice and advanced designers to turn their creations into templates that could be applied expertly to the car itself, inviting artists across a broad spectrum of experience and skill to take part.
Having never been to the Music City, designed a race car or won a contest, Jack will change all of that as he watches his livery debut to a crowd of over a hundred thousand. “I can’t think of a better way to experience Nashville! I think it’s really neat how the IndyCar course continues over the water, bridging the two sides of the city. I can’t wait to walk the track and take in all Nashville has to offer,” says Jack. “Thank you to Vuse for coming up with such a novel idea for a challenge like this, I’m excited to see how they execute my design on the real world car!” Besides the VIP trip to the race, Jack has won $10,000 – he plans to use his prize money to move in with his girlfriend after dating long-distance for five years.
The Vuse Design Challenge proves that creativity knows no bounds, encouraging experts and amateurs alike to participate in creating turbocharged works of art. Driving innovation and inspiration even further, Vuse will sponsor local Nashville artists to create activations on race weekend, adding to Nashville’s festival-like events focused on art, music, fashion, and racing. Watch for the No. 7 and No. 5 Arrow McLaren SP INDYCARs in Jack’s dazzle camouflage inspired livery at the inaugural Big Machine Music City Grand Prix on August 8.