I'm not surprised I'd never seen the company before. It was founded in 2006 in China, apparently the flagship around several sister companies (although information about the company is hard to find). But I did find automatic watches with favorable reviews for $40 (and even less, but I liked the design I chose). I wasn't looking to buy a watch, but I thought this was a unique enough timepiece to go ahead and buy. And so I did. I chose the s1150-1 model, which has a "Special Design [that] Reveals Your Fashionable Point of View." How could I resist? In terms of what that actually means, it means a two-tone silver and blue automatic watch with a (fake) tourbillon and a moonphase dial. It's got a stainless-steel strap with mineral-tempered glass. After a long delay in shipping, the watch arrived. And it exceeded my expectations. It's not a great watch by any means. And it's not a particularly-sophisticated movement; the case is 13mm thick and it's far from silent. But honestly everything came as advertised, and that's a win. The balance wheel might be incorrectly advertised as a tourbillon, but Forsining is hardly alone in that. The moonphase works and the watch is a functioning automatic. Functioning and accurate are certainly different, but the watch holds time acceptably-well for me. After a few days of wearing it, the time needs to be adjusted about a second to compensate for it running fast. The power reserve isn't long: I can't find the actual number anywhere, but it definitely won't last more than a day. On that note, it didn't come with any manual whatsoever; not much of a problem, but interesting nonetheless. All of that doesn't answer my headline, though. It is my favorite watch for the simple reason that it's interesting. It gets compliments, and although probably the same number as any nicer watch, they allow me to tell someone the story behind it. I've owned it for a year, and I keep wearing it. Quite a bit more than other, nicer watches, too. It is beautiful, and it does everything a good watch should: tell the time while also telling a bit of a story. On another note, the Forsining did get me thinking about the Chinese market in general. There's always a reason why Chinese prices are lower, and the lack of regulation and fair laws is something to keep in mind. (Of note, Forsining and its parent company have not been accused of slave labor or anything similarly egregious.) But it's not surprising that China offers cheap watches. And sure, that's interesting proof that a bare-bones automatic watch doesn't need to be expensive. But if you want to pay for quality, the Chinese market can offer that. High-end Chinese products, at least according to a GQ article from last year, undercut Swiss prices primarily based on lower costs of land and salaries, not materials or assembly. Still, the article points out, Chinese buyers also aren't convinced and Chinese brands struggle to make profits even at home, let alone globally. The cheap watches are an established part of the global scene, but Chinese watchmaking is varied, and I think it'll be a growing player (mirroring, and hopefully simultaneously with a continuation of, the rise of luxury Japanese watches). At the end of the day, if you want a nice watch, don't buy a Forsining. Watches with famous names deserve them. However, it might be worth considering a quality brand outside the norm; maybe even from China.
0 Comments
For 2020 and 2021, Ty scored 13 wins in ARCA, as well as four more in the ARCA East and West series, on the hunt for the championship. Critics of his performance have pointed his dominant equipment and agressive racing style, sometimes wrecking leaders for the win. That might be one of the reasons he struggled to land sponsorship outside of his Monster Energy deal, sometimes winning with an unsponsored car. Ty's real breakout performances this year have been in the XFinity Series, where he's racked up three wins in eleven starts, along with eight top fives. That's got him on the national stage, which has helped his sponsorship issue. Once again, this is a chance that his name helped him get, but one he's capitalized on. More than that, he's winning while his teammates aren't. That convinces me that he's a real talent and a next-generation star. His path to success echoes that of another NASCAR driver, Joey Logano. Like Logano, he found success in the lower series before jumping straight to the XFinity Series and winning young (Gibbs is now the second-youngest XFinity winner after Logano). And like Logano, it seems like he'll bring his talents to the Cup Series in Joe Gibbs equipment. It took Logano being dropped and finding a seat a Penske to find his fit, but from there he went on to be a champion. So for Dale Earnhardt Jr. to compare Ty Gibbs to Logano is high praise for the young talent.
CHASE ELLIOT (ALAN KULWICKI) Another sponsor with a long history in the sport, the 9 Hooters car throws it back to Alan Kulwicki's bittersweet 1992 championship with Hooters on the car. Kulwicki, unfortunately, died just before the spring Bristol race the next year. This scheme does him justice, looking great from every angle with every detail in place. Hendrick might have the two best schemes of the weekend rolling off on Sunday MICHAEL MCDOWELL (BILL ELLIOTT) Michael McDowell may not have Coors sponsorship, but Fr8 Auctions was still willing to meld their logo to fit this amazing throwback to Bill Elliott. The company said: “It's an honor to celebrate the Elliot family. As a Georgia-based company, we know first-hand the excitement and joy that Bill Elliott brought everyone in the state during his historical run in 1985." Driver Michael McDowell, this year's Daytona 500 winner, called it "an unbelievable car" and said it was "a great honor" to race it. JOSH BILICKI (LENNY POND) Another smaller team getting into the spirit of things, the 52 Rick Ware Racing car features the amazing Insurance King scheme, perfectly replicating Lennie Pond's Burger King car. It's accurate in every detail, down to the slogan on the rear quarter panel, substituting "Best Darn Rates" for Burger. Insurance King was even happy to change their logo to mimic the old Burger King design. Said Bilicki: “My friends at Insurance King are always very creative with their paint schemes, so when they came to me with this idea, I was all for it. MICHAEL ANNETT (DARRELL WALTRIP) Michael Annett is dropping the Pilot Flying J colors for one race and will run these amazing throwback colors to Darrell Waltrip's successful 1979 run, when he finished second in the standings to Richard Petty. Annett is currently 14th, but he'll be hoping this amazing scheme will be the start of a resurgence to match Waltrip. RILEY HERBST (TONY STEWART) Riley Herbst was born only three days after Tony Stewart's second cup start, so it's only fitting that Herbst races the car that Stewart was driving that day in 1999, or at least an almost perfect replica on a modern XFinity Mustang. This looks almost exactly like the car Tony Stewart drove his rookie year. As Herbst said, "it's a scheme everyone remembers." And not only that, driving for Stewart-Haas racing, it's his boss's old scheme. ROSS CHASTAIN (HUT STRICKLIN) This scheme might not be much of a departure from Chastain's standard McDonald's scheme, since the company hasn't changed their brand too much in almost thirty years. In 1993, McDonald's sponsored Hut Stricklin driving for Junior Johnson. AJ ALMENDINGER (AJ ALMENDINGER) Running a throwback paint of yourself seems a bit narcissistic. But road-course veteran AJ Almendinger scored his only Cup Series win back in 2014 at the Watkins Glen circuit in a huge moment for his career. Now competing in the XFinity series, this is a great throwback that pulls off really well, looking exactly like the original. Almendinger said: That Cup win was really special at that point in my life for so many reasons... Hopefully we can do the same thing and go out there, win the race, and burn it down. SHELDON CREED (JASON LEFFLER) Sheldon Creed won the truck race in this amazing throwback to Truck Series icon Jason Leffler, and it looks great with GMS Racing team colors mirroring perfectly the colors on Leffler's 2002 Dodge Ram racing truck. JEREMY CLEMENTS (DALE JARRETT) All South Electric also changed their logo to honor Dale Jarrett's 1999 UPS scheme and the iconic brown truck livery. Owner-driver Jeremy Clements said: “I’m really stoked that Chuck from ASE came to me with this Dale Jarrett paint scheme for Darlington. Dale was definitely one of my favorite drivers growing up, and I really admired the way he raced throughout his career. There are many more amazing schemes this weekend from all three series, like Joey Logano's paint honoring Mario Andretti's first F1 win, or Josh Berry honoring Dale Jr's win of the 2001 Pepsi 400 with Michael Waltrip, or Tyler Ankrum with the obligatory Talladega Nights colors.
But the race was far from good. The mud problem was resolved quickly as the truck dried, and there were shades of great racing, especially from the start. Sure, visibility was an issue and drivers were still figuring out the track. Even I was liking it though, and I still wasn't happy with the spring Bristol date being taken away. But that didn't last. Unfortunately, as happens so often in NASCAR, as the race went on wrecks bred wrecks. Dust circling the air on the restart wasn't just a problem for the television cameras trying to capture the restart, but also for the drivers themselves. There were plenty of restarts that went right back into caution with a spin as the drivers made contact getting up to speed, unable to see each other with the dust. What should've been small wrecks became massive as drivers who couldn't see or avoid the accident plowed in, and a red flag came out quickly in the first stage. By lap 150, NASCAR eventually threw up its hands and went to single-file restarts for the remainder of the race. And single-file best describes how the race went from there, with all the battles disappearing and, while lap cars played a role for a time, Logano drove away to the win. Tony Stewart must be laughing. He's managed to run truck series races at his Eldora Speedway for seven years, but NASCAR passed him over in favor of the prestige of Bristol for their dirt race. So he refused to host the truck race. That didn't go well for NASCAR, with the truck racing being an even bigger mess than the cup race, while Stewart has run them flawlessly at Eldora each time. And NASCAR's coming back. The crowd at Bristol approved, and if the race can be made up of just the good racing from the beginning, I'll be cheering too. But I don't think NASCAR will. NASCAR hasn't tested the new cars on dirt at all, and it needs to test them before it tries to make another dirt race. The series has proven that big stock cars can make a good race on dirt. NASCAR just needs to actually test and prepare the cars and put on a better race. It might be an unfair comparison to say the race was like the 2008 Brickyard 400, when 'the tire debacle' led to competition cautions every 10 laps with a seven-lap run to the uncontested finish. This one was much the same, with cautions following cautions constantly in the worst sections of the race. If NASCAR can't figure it out for last year, it'll only get worse for them.
|