A few hours ago, Porsche established a new absolute record for the Nürburgring Nordschleife with the 919 Hybrid Evo. Timo Bernhard smashed the record of 6min 11.3 sec by Stefan Bellof during a practice run for the 1000 Km of Nürburgring of 1983 aboard a Porsche 956. Up until now, that record was thought to be impossible to be beaten.
It should be out in October, and does that mean Forza 7 will have real competition? Well, for me the Horizon series is more of a “fun” driving game, while Forza 6 and 7 (the ones I have) are more serious racing games, at least compared to the current Horizon 3 (got it too). If you’re in it for the cars and gorgeous graphics the new game will be smashing, without a doubt. But if you like more serious racing in proper race tracks and if the new Horizon 4 follows the same formula of it’s predecessor, maybe Forza 7 is still the better game.
In 1971 the Pink Pig had it’s chance to win Le Mans, but over-stressed brakes caused the car to crash close to the half point of the race.
This year, 47 years later, a Pink Pig crosses the finish line in first, and the Der Trüffeljäger von Zuffenhausen was avenged.
That is Ari Vatanen in 1988, driving a Peugeot 405 T16. It took him 10:47.220 to run the more than 156 turns in 19.99 km and climbing 4720 ft of the Pikes Peak Highway in Colorado, USA.
Last Saturday 24th, Romain Dumas aboard the Volkswagen I.D. R (electric car) did the same run in just 7:57.148. Time passes and we get faster.
Unfortunately sometimes model manufacturers don’t apply all the brands and markings that a car should have. Usually it’s due to licensing issues, so that’s not something rare to happen among budget brands. But sometimes the manufacturer just wants to be politically correct, and with that many race cars with tobacco brands are produced with missing logos. For the same reason, it’s almost unheard of a Nazi-era German car coming out with the correct swastikas. Some manufacturers, like Spark, add the decals loose inside the package so that the owner can apply them or not (HPI also did that, but you had to purchase the decals separately). But the majority doesn’t do that, so either you forget about it or you have the right decals made 🙁
And that’s what I did this afternoon. My Porsche “Hippie”917LH, from CMR, came without the appropriate Martini logos, and my Mercedes-Benz W125 Stromlinie from Minichamps (future review) came without the correct swastikas. The Mercedes was a piece of cake to do, and the result was perfect, but the Porsche…Still, it looks better now, so in the end it was worth the hassle.
Looks like I’m done! Well, at least I think I’m done. From here it looks like I added all the sections and elements needed for the site, and from now on it should be only a matter of uploading new content. Good, it’s much easier to maintain than to create.
Will Toyota finally win?!?
Not the best of wins IMO, since none of the big dogs are around this year, but still a win. Still 30 minutes to go, so let’s see…
UPDATE!
And yes, they did it!
One of the BIG pluses about 1:43 is that they’re very easy to shoot. I do it in my veranda, where I get a lot of natural light. Than it’s just a matter of setting the backdrop, putting the camera (old Nikon D90) on a tripod, setting for aperture mode and using a remote trigger.
The end results are pretty good IMO, or at least good enough to show a car. I obviously could get better results using a light box, but that would compromise the use of dioramas and backdrops.
And changing pavement and backdrops is a great way to keep the shots interesting. AND for very cheap. So for a totally unprofessional setup I think it works just fine for me .
Slowly the reviews are coming up. I had them published at Scale143, but now with the blog, I’m transferring them here. There are a LOT of reviews (close to 200), so it will take some time to bring them all. But they will come.
When I say a certain buddy of mine will be my ruin, people say that I’m exagerating….
And now I’m racking my brains to come up with a good excuse for the wife… 
