Reinventing Roxie from Street Outlaws: No Prep Kings

IT SOUNDS LIKE the zenith of a wrapper’s dream: “… a featured car in Lucas Oil Stadium and when we removed the cover to unveil it, the car looked stunning, absolutely flawless under the stadium lights.” But this was reality at the 2023 PRI Show in Indianapolis last December for husband-and-wife co-owners Micah Simms and Donna Gritters of Twisted Grafix (Thayer, IN).

Regular viewers of Discovery Channel’s Street Outlaws: No Prep Kings will recognize the featured car as “Roxie,” a custom Mustang driven by John Poole from 336 Mafia Drag Team. Poole contacted Simms and Gritters in January 2023 to change the wrap for the upcoming season. “He was rebuilding the entire car and updating the chassis and engine,” Simms says. The team wanted something that would stand out at events using purple and orange colors for multiple sclerosis and autism awareness ribbons. Poole has been battling MS for more than 30 years.

After working in CorelDRAW Graphics Suite X8, Simms and Gritters emailed five designs based on a blend of their ideas. Within minutes, Pooled called, excited that one of the designs “hit the nail on the head.”

Because Roxie was in parts and couldn’t be measured for templates, Simms and Gritters scoured the internet for a similar Mustang body style and luckily found one about 35 miles away. “We went to the dealership, told them who we were, why we were there, and what we were doing and they were kind enough to let us measure the car in the back lot,” Simms recalls.

The best advice Simms can offer for wrapping any type of racecar is to measure. “If you aren’t 100% sure, especially on dirt cars with fab bodies, get that tape measure out and make a template,” he says.

He and Gritters planned on wrapping the car in March or April, but due to delays during the rebuild, and the fact that Twisted Grafix was relocating to a shop still under construction, wrapping did not happen until just a few days before the show opened. They used SAi FlexiPRINT SE Mutoh Edition to drive their MUTOH ValueJet 628 to image their proprietary Twisted Grafix 3200 wrap film, then their Gfp 230C laminator to apply their own 3100 gloss laminate. They trimmed the graphics using Summa WinPlot and their Summa S2 120T.

Though Simms couldn’t comment on the vinyl manufacturer, he did state, “We’ve been using it since late 2018. We have also been working on a full line of color-change wrap films and some specialty films like holographic glitter vinyl that we have been using and plan to bring to the market in the near future.”

Roxie arrived in Indy less than wrap-ready: The handles, spoiler, parachute, etc., were still on the car, and the parachute blocked the rear bumper. “We opted to remove the door handles rather than wrap them because they would be the areas that got the most wear,” Simms says. “Because his series rules mandate working headlights, tail lights, turn signals and marker lights, we removed them to tuck in the edges of the wrap for a clean look and re-installed them after wrapping.” Roxie ended up being a hit at the 2023 PRI Show and did a great job to raise awareness of autism and MS.

Simms and Gritters have been in business since 2008. In 2010, Gritters wanted to set values in their business to help with community work and charities. They sponsor police events, cancer walks, fundraisers, benefits and more. “A lot of shops don’t see a return on doing these — and we don’t either necessarily, but sometimes it isn’t all about the money,” Simms says, adding, “Sometimes the impact of just being nice is felt more than we can see, or even know, but it’s there.”

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