Tuesday 29 December 2015

Santa's Been!

With the R500 having been at Dartford for the past few weeks, I've not had any real content to write about.  I've been in regular contact with Simon Lambert over the last four or five weeks and he has been extremely patient with me and has kept the information coming about my car... And, on that note, the gearbox leak is fixed (TBC! :-)), the diff leak is fixed and also the issue with the wiring loom is sorted... Unfortunately everyone who ordered their kits wanted them before Xmas (how dare they :-)) , so I'm having to wait until 5th Jan to get my car back - which is fine by me as I'm a little 'short of space' in my garage, but more on that later...

Now that most of the festivities (and meeting up with the outlaws) are out of the way, I feel a little more 'enthused' to write a post...

Santa was extremely good to me this year, and in typical 'petrol head' fashion I thought I'd share my latest goodies... So with the on topic items first...

An ELF beard hat!  Now I like a blat, but in an ELF beard hat, with ears... hmmm, not too sure this'll get used!  I'll vouch for the beard hats though, the beard part obviously fits under your chin and as a result they're great at stopping the hat flying of your head!
An ELF beard hat
An ELF beard hat
A couple of Caterham 13" wheel centre caps (as I lost one and wanted a spare) along with five centre cap badges as I'm feeling the need to change my 'road' wheels to a different colour... More on that in the next few weeks.
Caterham 13" Wheel Centre Caps and Cap Badges
Caterham 13" Wheel Centre Caps and Cap Badges
Now slightly off the 'Caterham' topic, but hopefully still enjoyable to those fellow petrol heads...  I don't think Christmas could be Christmas without a decent sized LEGO Technic to build - this year I got the 42039 Le-Mans Racer which took around five hours to build and was a good way to fill an otherwise boring boxing day.
LEGO Technic 42039 Le-Mans Race Car
LEGO Technic 42039 Le-Mans Race Car
On the small scale car theme, I was also lucky enough to receive an RC18B2 / T2 kit... This is quite an old kit (in terms of release date and now is only available in a ready-to-run format, which is a shame) but I was given the kit form to build - which is great, and will help me get through these last few days until the Caterham returns home!  I'm also aiming to replicate my Caterham's colour scheme of light blue, orange triple stripes and using a friends vinyl cutter I'll also try and get the model derivative masked and sprayed into the shell in white too - should look good once finished, and will post pics of them when completed.
Team Associated RC18B2 and RC18T2 kit
Team Associated RC18B2 and RC18T2 kit
As an avid EVO reader, my girlfriends mother always buys me a six month subscription for xmas and the same for my birthday (which is great!), but rather than a picture of the magazine, I found these little gems towards the back of the advertisers section.... A bluetooth tyre pressure (and temperature) monitoring kit... Should be great for track day action, and I think these will be making an appearance on my birthday list - gotta try em out!
Snooper / Tyre Pilot Tyre Pressure Monitoring Set
Snooper / Tyre Pilot Tyre Pressure Monitoring Set
Oh yeah, and I nearly forgot... Santa (well I) also treated me to a new car... Along with a new blog domain, but no dry weather to get any good pics / post anything interesting... yet......  
The domain is www.ferrari458.co.uk and I am hoping to get some nice pics, write some informative posts, get some interesting videos yadda, yadda, - perhaps a back to back track day comparison with the R500 would be good?!? - I just hope the gearbox doesn't leak on this one :-)
Ferrari 458 italia in Grigio Silverstone grey with black roof
Ferrari 458 italia in Grigio Silverstone grey with black roof
The R500 should be back with me on Tuesday the 5th Jan, and I'm very much looking forward to seeing it again!  Not only that, there are a number of upgrades I've got planned, so 2016 is looking like it will be a great year!

Thanks once again to all the blog readers - I'm hoping to reach the 250k+ reads next year... Wishing you all a happy, healthy and prosperous 2016.