5 min 19.546 sec – The new AWESOME!

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.

Forza Horizon 4

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.

Decal afternoon

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.

The studio

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 .