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Quick hits…

November 23, 2009

So I went over to the JTuned Formula D Pro-Am event on Saturday to go check it out and hang out with some of my homies, but I had prior engagements so of course I showed up late. I got there with like about 2 hours left until it was over and a majority of the cars had left already. It was actually a meet but they donated the proceeds from the event to cancer research. Good to see that our industry is trying to give back and support good causes. They also had the Formula D Pro-Am where amateur drifters competed for an opportunity to participate in next year’s Formula D comp. They were probably a little over 15 cars left over and I got pics of that stuff, but I also had the chance to take some pics of my boy Billy’s IS300 as well as Karen’s EVO. If you’re not familiar with the Evo, it’s the one that was dominating the show scene for the last couple of years. Karen and Jay from JDMEGO built this thing and it recently got some new wheels and Jay asked me to take some updated pictures of it. It’s rare to see Jay come out to anything because he’s usually bumming it at home or incredibly busy, and it’s even rarer to see the EVO driven andywhere so it was definitely cool to be able to get some picture of it. You know the routine, most of the pics have links to click to enlarge and what not. I’ll be back with more coverage from the actual event once I go through the pics as well as continued SEMA coverage…

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Did you see the $500 T1R lugs…gotdamn, haha…back with more stuff tomorrow…Oh and make sure to check out JDMEGO’s new blog since it’s moved over to the Fatlace network….The guy’s been blogging forever now and now he’s got a whole new layout and everything…

 

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SEMA 2009 Coverage…Part 7…

November 20, 2009

Are we still doing this stuff?…

I love IS250/350s, just the style of them and how they sit when they’re lowered…Definitely one of the cars I plan to own in my lifetime. I actually want an IS-F and at the rate I’m going, hmm, I think I should be able to afford one in let’s say….10 years from now? I also like Weds Kranze wheels so whoever owns this car, good job…

This guy is awfully happy to be photographed next to this S14…maybe he’s the owner, who knows…

There’s so much sunlight in this picture that I’m pretty sure it would fuck a vampire up…I’m just sayin…

Interesting matte blue S2000…never seen it before so I’m wondering if it’s from California. I’m also wondering why the bay is silver still and if the matte blue is a wrap or not…Okay I’m done wondering…

This bB belongs to Dan from BBsquad. He used to have a white one that was really nice as well but he crashed it and now he’s building up this one…Mikey was explaining to me everything that was on it but it’s been awhile so I think I forgot, but the whole front end is JDM stuff like the lights, grille, etc….

I really like the new Genesis, because it’s one of the first times Hyundai took something and made it look nice…

Here’s the Camaro I talked about a couple posts back that came all the way from Japan. Pretty badass right? It even has Work LS wheels on it…

Super clean…when I was in Japan a couple years ago I also saw a couple lowriders and other domestics that were imported that they modified and made look absolutely amazing. Really shows their ability to build anything, Japanese or not…These guys who owned the Camaro didn’t even speak english, they had to have someone translate for them when people approached them to ask them questions…

Look at that center exit exhaust…

Even had their own poster…

This probably belonged in the SEMA post before but this is the bay of that black S2000…

Man I kept going back to this car over and over again pretty much everyday that I was there…such amazing craftsmanship and ingeniuity…

Seriously, where would you ever see anything else like this if you were involved in the import scene. That’s why it’s cool to go to SEMA because you get to see both sides of the spectrum….

Moving on…here’s a bunch of BMWs…

Asuka widebody…

This thing is badass…

So after I finished walking around that day, we went to go hang out with the BBsquad guys again because I had to shoot one of the Scions for a magazine. I pretty much just spent the rest of the night hanging out with them while we waited for Tina, May, and Ojay to show up later that night…

We met up with everyone and then we headed over to the new M hotel to eat dinner too. That buffet is the business…oh man, probably right up there with the Wynn buffet with alot cheaper…I ate so much that day I think I almost threw up while eating…yeah, it’s possible…

After dinner is when we went off to go shoot…There’s actually alot of nice areas to shoot off the strip in Vegas because it’s such a huge empty place…

Here’s a sample of the xB I shot… Really clean simple car built by Gene from BBsquad. He’s on air and just rides dumped all day, it’s awesome, dude doesn’t even care…

After I finished up with that, we just hung out in some empty parking structure and took random pics….One of the Squad guys was doing the majority of the shooting but I had the camera on me so I took some as well. They’re not very good but they never are anyway…

That’s it for today….back with more SEMA coverage over the weekend…

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Battle Prep…

November 19, 2009

Now for a break from the SEMA 2009 coverage…

So last Monday, I headed over to Sportcar Motion to drop off some stickers I had cut for Loi and decided to bring the camera along to show you guys what he was doing. He and his crew were actually getting ready for Super Lap Battle that Wednesday as well as Redline Time Attack. He had just picked up the EG from Robispec a couple weeks back and was hard at work on it to try to get it ready to run at SLB. The hatch had seen some major changes since the last time you all saw it and it’s definitely gonna be a force once everything is dialed in. Those of you on NWP have probably followed his thread and seen what had been done lately and those of you who haven’t, I’ll leave a link at the bottom for you all. These pics are just of them getting the car ready and what not, nothing special, but it’ll give you guys a good idea of what’s going on down there…

New reinforcement bar welded to the chassis as well as the new oil cooler set-up…

949 wheels…

Wilwood brakes…

New front splitter and canard set-up…no more wood haha…

Installing the sideskirts…

Loi and I putting on the new Sportcar logos on his car…

No dash, all gutted…

Accu-sump…

Cage by Robispec…

Battery shut-off…

Random shot of the new Autopower cage for his other Civic that will be running street class…

New mirrors for the DC2R…

Loi loves his stickers, haha…

…including this gigantic NWP sticker…shit took like 2 hours to put on…

Shameless plug…

That’s about it…this is how it looked at SLB…

I’ll prob post the rest of these pics up that Loi took later on after the SEMA coverage, who knows…alot of nice cars out there like the Sierra Sierra Evo and what not…

Unfortunately during practice runs they had a little mishap and spun out at 120mph. Luckily no real serious damage to the body…Loi and the crew are already back to work on it and getting it ready for next year…Once this car is dialed in, oh man…should be quite a sight to see…

Thanks for looking, back tomorrow with more SEMA coverage…yes, even more…

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SEMA 2009 Coverage…Part 6…

November 17, 2009

Need I say more?…

Probably one of the most talked about cars of SEMA was this all carbon Zonda R…

Ridiculous…

370Z sitting in the Falken booth…

…along with this Porsche…

Alot of people are iffy on the new Porsche Panama but I really like it. Sure the idea of a 4-door Porsche seems a little weird but hey, can’t blame them for trying. I think it’s executed really well….I’d rock it, especially on some HREs…hah…but then again I’ll never own one, so wishful thinking…

After we finished up at the wheel section, we headed back outside to look at the cars out there before taking off…

Jimmy’s Previa of course…

Another shot of his homie’s coupe…

A couple of S2000s…

White guy picking his nose…

This G37 belongs to JR from High End/Auto Concept. He passed away a couple months ago and this is the first time his car has been out since, especially with the new paint. Such a shame that a great car builder and human being had to go before his time…His car as well as his memory will be immortalized in the new Gran Turismo game so look out for that….RIP…

The graphics for this car was actually designed by someone in Forza 2….the owner held a contest to determine the final design for his car on the Forza forums and in-game copies of the car was even distributed to gamers all over the world…pretty cool stuff…

Those three guys are probably staring at it thinking, “what the fuck is happening right here?”…haha…

Airbrushed vent on the fender…interesting…

Kia Euro Civic Type R, haha…

C6 Corvette GTR…

My boy Billy’s supercharged M3…

Ronzilla’s bB…

Suzuki Kizashi?…Imagine if you owned one of these things. Someone would ask you “what kinda car you drive?” and you say…”I drive a Kizashi”…hmm…not a good look. Car is pretty cool looking though, name…eh, sounds like a name for a character from Killer Instinct, haha…

I’m trying some new effects with photography…it’s called “put as many huge gigantic shadows as possible in ur pictures and even get a shadow of yourself in the car that you’re taking a picture of”….

That’s all for today…might switch it up tomorrow and take a break from SEMA stuff and put up some other shit, just to switch it up you know…we’ll see…