Sunday, December 20, 2020

Resurrection of The King: Race King

What COVID-19 does?

For years, medical experts has warned of the coming of a pandemic. Something that has the scale of the 14th Century's Black Plague or the more recent Spanish Flu. We has been anticipating it from Ebola, SARS, MERS.... but it took COVID-19 to shatter the daily life that we were so comfortable with. 



Malaysia is not spared from the Pandemic. Government has no choice but to announce curfews in the form of MCO (Movement Control Order 2020) or PKP in Malay language (Perintah Kawalan Pergerakan) on 18th March 2020. Well, is basically a locked down. All industries and activities ceased apart from those daily necessities. The operating time for Groceries shops, Pharmacies, Clinics were restricted from 7 am-7 pm. After 7 pm, all should remain at home. Ya, basically a house arrest. Flights in and out were restricted as well. What was once a busy airport becomes somewhat deserted. Everything standstill.... pretty much like those zombie and apocalypse movies. 


One of the main road in my town... usually jam, and yet here I am the only vehicle on the road.


First night of MCO at my neighbourhood eatery.... Usually crowded with people.....




The ever busy airport..... Ghostly......


During the MCO period, my watchmaker friend finally had time to repair my watches. This Race King has been on his work bench since the day dinosaurs ruled the Earth. 

Can't blame him for his laziness. Is a big and massive surgery after-all. Apart from the internal transplant, he had to do plastic surgery to this legendary watch. One of the biggest obstacle was to customise chronograph pusher buttons. This watch came as an in-completed parts from eBay India.




We have tried to rebuild this watch to as original as possible. However parts are scarce..... Here is the outcome..... I believe a picture tells a thousand words......

















What made Race King so very famous is the fact that it used the same mechanism as The Legendary Rolex Daytona Paul Newman...... 
 
Below is the pictures that I found on ebay of a prime Race King for sale.... 







It has been a crazy year.... somewhat depressing...... I forever thankful for my watchmaker friend to somewhat give me that extra positive energy to carry on and to survive...... Let's all survive 2020 and beyond and to Fight and Win over this COVID-19......