Videos

Safari Rally Kenya 2025

While at the gym this morning, resting in-between exercise series (one of those moments when you’re uncertain if you want to die or just go home?), I looked up to the big screen TV. Normally I don’t even know what’s showing on the TV, since I just want to get the torture over as soon as possible. Yet, today I looked up and to my astonishment they were showing a recap of the 2025 Kenya Rally, that ended this Sunday 23rd. Well, I than had to watch it, and boy, as always, the Kenya Rally was wild! And once again, DirtFish produced a great video on the race, so if you have 8 minutes to spare, it’s a nice watch.

And before someone asks, I’m not at liberty to confirm or deny the rumor that today’s gym session was not 100% optimal…

Shop Tour 2024 2.0

The last update I posted was in the beginning of the year, and as expected, my shop grows 😎. So, what’s new? I think that the biggest news is that I bought a circular hand saw. From Bosch, it’s a GKS 18v-57: 18v and with a 165 mm blade. Not the biggest of blades but for my needs perfect, and with a custom track guide that I made, just awesome. Though I was salivating for a circular hand saw for some years, I have to say it was not my best acquisition this year. That would be the GDR 12v-110 impact wrench. Also from Bosch, 12v and small, and yet let me tell you: I should have bought one years ago. One of those tools that you really don’t need, but once you have one, you don’t know how could you have lived without it. Damn how it simplifies and speed up a LOT of jobs!

Moreover, I also got a small auxiliary work bench (Worx WX01), since my 40+ years old Black & Decker one was kind of tired (and a bit crooked 😁). Besides that, more clamps, an anvil (made from a train track section!), new wall signs, a new drill set and other small stuff. Oh, and I almost forgot: with the GKS 18v-57 I made a couple of stools. In fact, one of them I made specifically for the shop. With wheels, now I can role around the shop with my butt firmly seated 😂. All in all, a productive year for my little shop.

The 959 at the Paris Dakar Rally

A few days ago, the great John Ficarra, through VINwiki, released an AWESOME video about the Porsche 959 at the 1986 Paris-Dakar Rally. As always, John Ficarra’s ability to spin a delightful tale is just outstanding. If you have 15 minutes and have at least a minor interest in the 959, I urge you to watch it. Absolutely fantastic! 😎😎😎

F1 in the 60s

Since I’m not a parade aficionado, I’m not the greatest fan of F1 😂. God, those races are boring – there’s more excitement off the track than during the race. Yet, it wasn’t always like this. Up to the 70s (80s?), things were way more thrilling. For instance, look at the current Grand Master Parade, the Monaco GP. Thrilling as paint drying nowadays, in the 60s it was awesome. Up above you can see this, and in 4K. The only issue is that the video is dubbed, with car sounds added in post-production (the original movie was like this). And due to the remasterization, some parts of the shot are shaky. Even so, a delightful 10 minutes, proving that F1 is not always bad. Or better saying, was once cool 😕.

Shop tour!

Been a while since I posted an update about how my small shop is shaping up. The big news is that I finally (!) bought a router 🤩! From Makita and battery-operated (18v), the DRT50Z is a very decent piece of kit. I also bought a set of bits from Bosch, which I think will cover most of my needs. However, these bits are 1/4″, and Makita ships the DRT50Z with two collets, in 6 and 8 mm sizes 🙄. Therefore, I had to order a 1/4″ (6,35 mm) collet, that arrived today. This afternoon I tried it out on some scraps of wood and the end result looked great.

Can’t say I have any specific job for a palm router right now, yet I’m looking forward to making wood chips fly 😁.

And how is Forza Motorsports doing?

Sauron’s ride at Road Atlanta.

Well, Turn10 fixed most (all?) of the stability issues. Therefore, currently it’s totally playable without you wanting to throw the XBox out the window. There still are some “missing” features, like no damage in single player – if you flip (!!) the car nothing breaks 🙄. Frustrating, if you want more realism. Graphics are still sketchy in some parts, and the livery editor is the same neolithic thing of 10 years ago. Yet, worse of all, is if you setup a race session with multiple cars, sometimes a few cars are rendered like a chassis base with four wheels with the pilot sitting inside 😣. Totally ridiculous.

With all that, and specially having EA WRC at hand, I’m not playing much. The game is (now) essentially OK, however I got so pissed at it in the beginning that currently I can’t be bothered about it 😕.

Why am I starstruck by rally lately?

Courtesy of https://www.instagram.com/dirtfishrally/

As I’m sure you noticed, there’s been a lot of rally cars around here. The fact is I just can not be totally flabbergasted by the kind of racing you can see above. It takes some very special skills (and a certain type of crazy) to drive like that 💀. Out of this world! If you want to see more, head to Dirtfish that they have a ton of content like this short video above.

New diorama – Rough Road

In early October, I showed a photo of a new project I was working on. It took a while, but I finally finished it. Nothing fancy, I only used simple stuff – I guess the most “pro technique” I used was static grass. Nonetheless, I had to test my ideas every single time, since I wasn’t sure things would work out as I expected. Also, lots of PVA glue and painting, that took sometimes more than a day to dry. With all that, it took me basically a month to get it done 🙄. Well, good or bad, here it is! And I think it worked out okay. Pretty soon I’ll use it in my review photos 😎.