thats just how Manuel rolls, he’s still recovering from the fall of communism

Well my CAN-AM article ended up being lost in translation but this was brought to my attention through 7tune, a replica Porsche 917 by Madhouse in Japan. Again using a spaceframe but with a Mitsubishi Mivec engine and running gear, a modern interpretation with retro looks, a quick browse of their website seems to indicate this is entered in a race series.

Mad indeed

 I’m feeling strangely nostalgic this week, I must have been 16 when I shot these my second Rally GB, after attending the Silverstone Super special in 1999. By 2001 the event had moved to South Wales where it remains to this day, i’d got into rallying after seeing strangley the Skoda Felicia’s running well up the field on a snowy Network Q rally in a previous year and i’ve been hooked ever since.

So here’s a few photos, there blurry and out of frame and poor quality but who cares, memories aren’t pixel perfect

Overnight parc ferme used to be in Cathays park outside the city hall in Cardiff city centre

Tommi Makinen my hero at the time peddling the pig that was the Evo 7 WRC,his last outing in the Evo he’d taken to several championships previously.

Didier Auriol in the Peugeot 206 WRC entering the time control at Felindre

Hard looking Mitsubishi Lancer Evo 6 gravel recce car complete with cage and lamp-pod

Henning Solberg bigger brother of Petter Solberg in one of the old ex works Subaru Impreza wrc’s

For Rally GB in 2001 Ford rewarded Mark Higgins with a wrc drive

Alistair Mcrae and the equally poor Hyundai Accent WRC which was eventually terminated part way through the following season much to the dismay of MSD. Neither Alistair or the Hyundai set the world aflame.

Sebastian Loeb Citroen’s golden boy was dominant in JWRC winning the majority of the rounds quickly sidestepping him to the WRC driver he is today.

So yeah I think i’m addicted to deadliest catch, loving the new series on Discovery so much so its sky+ ‘d for those boring days when there’s nothing on the tv. Some of the filming is amazing particularly during heavy storms and i’m in awe of what these guys do, and in the conditions they do it.

I’m not really into Crab though or indeed seafood, go figure

I love Karen’s evo, you just cant go wrong with Voltex Aero, while your at it go read Jay’s blog  http://dropjay.wordpress.com/ and buy his stuff at www.iloveracing.com.

I’ve a soft spot for the S1600 Vauxhall Corsa at the time I had both a 1.0 then a 1.6 as my first cars whilst they were reasonable cars a series of problems and finally a coil-pack failure led to its quick sale.

At the time Kris Meeke was in the early stages of his career driving the Corsa with semi works backing from OPC in the British Rally Championship, the car had great potential but a lack of support from Opel left it trailing in the wake of both the Ignis and Citroen Saxo / C2 in the Junior World Rally championship.

It certainly did Meeke plenty of favors getting Colin Mcrae’s young protege noticed on the world stage, the car having achieved a career best of 16th on Rally Italy in 2004

Open eventually pulled the program after 2 years because it didn’t fit their marketing strategy as they’d done previously with the Calibra, with more support and some proper development it may well have done better. The short-lived project quickly faded into memory with the majority of vehicles now residing in European national championships.

Running a VQ35DE, V6 an outputting circa 350hp a rear wheel drive 350z isn’t what you’d usually expect to see rallying, this example is driven by Chris Van Woensel with Proflex dampers and Alcon brakes further investigation reveals there’s a few rallying in Japan.

Think of it as a big mk2 escort

It’s that MSC Micra again, sideways, the way fuel prices are going i’ll be driving one of these by christmas

Asimolate, originally uploaded by Dogbox.

Starting to get to grips with Adobe Illustrator now, and the creative juices are really flowing this week

Awesome show of Travis Pastrana now co driven by Derek Ringer, i’ve missed my rallying, it was always rallying for me with my recent interest in grip racing and drifting. But i’ll be getting back into it for the rest of the year