Today I bought a 1/12 Tamiya Texaco Marlboro M23 from Kevin at GMPA.org. Special thanks to Kevin for selling his favorite kit to me. I had wanted to get this kit for long long time and I am happy that I can finally "afford" and get one now. This kit is in really good shape given that it is a 30+ yrs old kit. Even the orignal decal is still in very fine shape. Kevin includes a S27 decal and it is a big bonus too. I don't know when I will build this, but I am so excited to add this kit into my Tamiya F1 collection.

While my Minardi project is set aside and waiting for gloss white paint. I continue to do some other fun stuff. I built a F1 tire stand with styrene sheets, wires and a resin tool wheel casted by my good friend Mario. This idea is 100% inspired by AJ's super Ferrari workshop diorama. This is my 1st try to build tools myself.. Hopefully I will be able to build a F1 garage scene one day too

Alright, finally make some progress here. I have put 3rd coat of Tamiya white primer on. It now has consistent white base to receive gloss white paint. I will sand the white primer smooth and use Tamiya TS26 pure white to do the job. I will probably de-can it and use my Tamiya HG airbrush to put 3 layers on. Here are some pic and you can see the difference between Lotus 107B and this mod-version of Minardi. You can see the major mod is on the cowling backbone and the nose cone. Actually I feel Lotus shape looks more distinctive

Today is one exciting day for me. I finally attended the karting school at Jim Russell Racing School in Sonoma, CA. I had wanted to do this real karting stuff since 1997 and never got my act together. The overall experience is incredible and I am really happy about it. Embrassingly, I am the only adult in the class of 8 and the oldest kid there was only 16. LOL.. Believe it or not, the fastest and smoothest driver in the class was the ~12-13 yrs old boy who drove so smoothly and I have hard time to stay with him.

The kart I drove was a sprint kart. Instructor mentoned that this kind of kart can go to max of 80-100 mph. Driving this kart is no joke.. It accelerates so fast and the brake pedal travel distance is only 1 - 2 inch or so.. very difficult to adjust after so many years of road car driving. The throttle is so responsive that just a little harder on gas while exiting the corner can easily swing your rear around.

After full day of class (around 6 drills), I still couldn't brake consistently on the right braking spot and kept the correct race line when entering corner (maybe braking too late or carry too much brake into apex while instructor taught not to carry the brake into apex.) I guess it does take a lot of practice to get it right
During my last run, the kart just died. Mechanics said the drive shaft broke and he gave me ride back to the pit. LOL It is like F1 with mechanical failure and I got a DNF... LOL So instructor gave me a few laps of bonus run to make up the lost track time and I really appreciated that.

Overall, I had a lot of fun and I finally get the real race kart driving experience.. After I got back in my road car to drive home, suddenly I felt everything was going in slow motion. If I have chance, I will try out their advanced course, but will definitely try to attend a class with few more adults to be less embrassing

Here are some photos taken by a friendly mechanics there in my last bonus run and I was all by myself at the track. Enjoys my report.




This is silly me wearing helmet after final bonus run

Not much progress was done on my Minardi. I managed to put on 2 thin layers of Tamiya white primers on this weekend. I fixed the panel line on the cowling. The panel line is not exactly the same as the real car but I am satisfied about it. After sanding with 1000 grits sandpaper, some white has already gone off. Now I need to put on at least 2 more layers of white primer to make sure the car has consistent base to receive gloss white paint. Hopefully I can start spraying gloss white 2 weeks from now.