Motion Auto Show 2011 Coverage…Part 1…
So for the delay, I just had a couple things I had to knock out before finally getting to the Motion Auto Show coverage. I have to first off give a huge thank you to Paul Nguyen from Pro-Motion Distributing. I never intended to have a booth at the Motion show, but Paul was kind enough to approach me at the Eibach 2011 event earlier this year to offer me a spot. I honestly kind of slept on the idea and just totally lagged it and fucked everything up. I didn’t hit Paul up about it again until probably the week leading up to the show and he was kind enough to squeeze me in and gave me a terrific spot. I had never met Paul previous to that but he was so great about letting me know that I was a welcome part of the Motion Auto event. Even on the day of the show Paul came up to me to thank me for coming out, shit was unbelievable…if anything I owed him big for giving me the opportunity. For that, I give a huge thumbs-up to Paul and Pro-Motion…
Now onto my thoughts on the show….Man, with a three week block of shows, I was expecting to be completely burned out from doing car shit week after week. Spocom was cool, but it wasn’t anything that I would run and tell people about….Nisei Showoff 2011 is always a show that I will be a huge part of because of the history of the Showoff events….and the Motion Auto Show, was the perfect ending to that three week block because the show itself, had all the elements of a well organized, well thought out event. Obviously with all these shows going on, you’re going to run into the same cars over and over, that’s expected. Spocom lacked the amount of cars that I would have preferred to see and almost seemed to take on more of an “Extreme Autofest” feel. The Motion Auto Show hosted way more cars, and the quality of cars was just better. I’m not going to compare it to Nisei obviously, because they are two completely different shows. Motion and Spocom are both heavily backed by the aftermarket parts industry so they had the funding and location to have huge events. The Motion show was great because it had elements that everyone would enjoy at a car show. If anything, it is the new “standard” of how all import automotive events and competitors should follow their lead. It had the cars, it was held at a great venue, and the girls…holy shit, there was a fucking shit ton of females there. If you are a guy or gal that goes to car shows just to stare at females, this was the show to be at. There were models at every corner, everywhere you looked. If you are there for the cars, then the females were a bit of a distraction, but that just comes with going to a car show of this size. I’m sure Tony and the It’s JDM Yo!!! staff was having a fucking field day shooting photos of girls. There were so many girls there that some were posing inside the fucking engine bay of some cars. It was a first for me for sure…but I literally saw girls standing like inside the engine bay of people’s cars. I mean, I don’t think you get what I mean….For example, I saw a girl standing inside Bolt Boys Frank’s engine bay like, inbetween his radiator and header. How she managed to cram herself in there I have no idea, but they managed to do it. Sometimes you would even have like 3 cars on one car and girls had to like dislocate their fucking joints and shit to fit inside a photo….it was crazy…
I wish I would have been able to cover the event with more depth because I have taken a look at other site’s event coverage and there was a significant amount of vehicles that I did indeed miss. Instead of spending all my time shooting though, I was busy operating The Chronicles booth. May had taken all of her time last weekend preparing for Nisei and also spent the whole day working the booth, so I didn’t want her to spend another weekend stuck at a car show, so I worked the booth with DPK David while May and David’s fiance, Jackie, went out to have a girl’s day. It was all good though because I thought it would be good to just sit back and enjoy a show for once and make a little bit of money. Whenever I had a free moment, I did go out and snap some photos though. A lot of the cars will be the same as you have seen during this entire month so expect that. There wasn’t that much debauchery from our side because we spent most of the day at the booth. The most interesting element of this 3-part series of Motion Auto Show coverage will definitely be the models. I’m sure that’s why you’re looking up Motion Auto Show coverage anyways…I didn’t go hunting for model shots or anything, that’s just not what I’m about. That’s Tony and It’s JDM Yo!!!’s prerogative…I captured whatever I saw at that particular moment and if it ended up being a good photo, so be it…Models don’t like to be photographed by me at events anyways because I usually just snap photos of them without waiting for them to pose for me. One reason behind that is because I’m always on the go snapping other photos, and the second reason is that I have the terrible shakes and by the time I’m able to focus and snap a photo of the model, they already think I took the shot already and start looking elsewhere or doing other shit….That’s why a lot of the models you’ll see on here are like, not looking at my camera. They started out doing that but probably thought I was fucking with them because I just stood there with a camera pointed at them and nothing was happening…haha…
Let’s get started with the photos…
I posted up some photos from the whole Saturday set-up process last weekend, but one of the photos that I left out was a shot I took while we ate lunch at Roscoe’s Chicken and Waffles. Roscoe’s is a staple of Long Beach, CA so whenever we get a chance to head to that area we try to grab a bite there. After we finished setting up The Chronicles booth at Motion, we all met up at Roscoes along with Bakari Howard and the some of the other guys from Falken Tire…
Not much really happened that night. We met up for dinner, hung out for a bit, and then went home to rest up for the show that Sunday. I got back to the Long Beach Convention Center around 10:30am along with DPK David and Ben from ATS Garage and spent an hour or so prepping the booth. I didn’t feel comfortable leaving all my merchandise at the booth over night at the show so we brought it on Sunday and the guys helped me carry it in…
I had a couple stickers on display so that people could decide which Chronicles decal they wanted to purchase. That day I had the 2011 Nisei Edition “Battleship Grey”, the traditional black on chrome, as well as the Eibach 2011 edition of the Chronicles decal…
I also debuted the brand new Ver. II HURT FEELINGS t-shirts. We updated the design a bit and had a new grey shirt available as well as black versions…
The show opened up at 11am that day so I just hung out at the booth for awhile. Some people came by to say what’s up and show their appreciation for the site, which was really cool. DPK David and ATS Ben then took off to go move some cars around in the Falken Tire section. Loi Song from Sportcar Motion then arrived at the show to hang out. He really didn’t have anything planned that day so he just sat in the booth with me while we people-watched…
It was a little slow so I decided to pick up the camera and take some quick snaps. Here is a shot of the Falken Tire area, where they had set-up an all-Honda/Acura display. You should be able to identify a majority of the Hondas in this photo because they are some pretty familiar faces…
There wasn’t much done to this Honda CR-Z but it was in the Takeda booth directly across from mine, so we spent most of the day staring right at it….
To the left across a wider walkway was the Injen booth where they had this Volkswagon CC on display as well as a 3-series BMW…
Tony from It’s JDM Yo!!! and I actually shared a 10×20″ space at the show, so that was pretty cool. I knew if and when I had to go walk the show, I could rely on him to operate my booth for me and take care of things. He had all kinds of people around his booth the whole day. It’s pretty crazy to think how big his site has gotten since he started it. He’s got a couple guys shooting for him now and at the Motion show, he had this model at his booth. I believe her name is like Rachelle Viado or something similar to that. I’m not good with names…
I got a bit thirsty so I had Tony watch things while David and I went over to the NOS area to grab some drinks…When we got over there, we were greeted with this crazy ice sculpture that helped to serve NOS samples to show attendees. It was a pretty cool idea…I doubt it really sped up the process of getting drinks out to people, but it was cool nonetheless…If I ever became like, filthy rich or some shit, I think I would have one of these NOS ice sculptures delivered every single day and placed in front of my toilet. Then I could have fancy pee sessions because ice sculptures make everything more classy. I don’t know how long it would last and because my pee is probably hot but whatever, I’m fucking rich. I could even take a dump into it and use it as some sort of NOS ice turd cannon…
After I spent some moments staring at the NOS girls and their sample serving, I turned around and spotted this model, who reminded me of this porn star named Rachel Roxxx. As I was taking this photo, I was thinking about this one scene that Rachel Roxxx did recently where she was getting DPed by two dudes…If you don’t know what DP is and aren’t well-versed in the lingo of the adult movies, try to picture an electrical outlet where both outlets are plugged-in….yeah it’s kinda like that….If that also doesn’t make sense, just think of a conventional hot dog and bun set-up, but this particular hot dog….has two hot dogs instead of just one…Do you get it now?…
Two McDonald’s chicken nuggets….ONE sauce…haha, okay moving on…
After I finished grossing myself out thinking about nasty shit, I stopped by the Falken Tire section to say what’s up to everyone. Big Mike had just gotten off work and returned to the show, and guys like Mike G. were standing around chatting with other guys…Here’s a shot of Mike’s “Tank” next to Anh’s ITR…
The “Tank”…
Anh’s Integra Type R…
Angel’s S2000 with Big Mike in the background with others…
Big Mike’s Prelude…
This black RSX with Backyard Special aero was parked in the Falken Tire area along with Big Mike and the others…
Danny from PlusOne’s coupe…
There wasn’t much going on over there so I headed back over to the booth to sit down…The 5Axis booth was also pretty close so I snapped this shot of a matte white tC that I spotted. That red contraption you see in front of it was actually one the Motion Auto Show trophies, designed by Troy from 5Axis…I have a better shot of it later on in the coverage….
At this point, people were beginning to trickle in so I decided to walk around a do some more coverage while I still had the chance too…
Michelle Yee modeling for Savini wheels….
E46 BMW M3 with Japanese Voltex aero…
Scion xB rocking the Gulf livery…
Infiniti M on AME Shallen LX wheels…
I journeyed over to the area where all the TWC cars were and saw that they also had an elaborate ice sculpture. I then remembered that I had seen the TWC crew rocking ice sculptures in the past at other events so they were probably responsible for the one that was also at the NOS booth…Later on in the day, Salem told me he saw this ice sculpture fall over and almost hit Ka Wong’s orange AE86…
TWC went all out for the Motion Auto Show. They had their own DJ, a fucking ice sculpture with their own crew name on it, a bunch of nice cars, and also had their own models. Here is one of them rolling around on the back of some huge fucking truck… The funniest thing I saw all day was the two go-go dancers that were in the TWC area. They were dancing like they someone had the fast forward button pushed and a majority of the time, they weren’t even dancing to the beat of the songs that the DJ was playing…shit was crazy…
Melyssa Grace posing on a motorcycle in the TWC area…The guy in the background snapping the photo of her cleavage looks like DPK Darryl making a pouty-face…Melyssa Grace probably went blind after I snapped this photo since the brightness of my flash was so intense….Shit was acting up all day and was just a total pain in the ass…
Yellow FD3S RX-7 from TWCompetition…
Ka Wong’s F20C-swapped AE86 Corolla…
Always love seeing this widebody orange Infiniti G35…
A model passing out some flyers about AutoImportCraze’s new website…
Widebody Toyota Supra representing Squad One San Diego…
A couple shots of Tracy Linh…
Genevieve Chanelle and friend…
Oh here’s a good example of what I was talking about earlier…Genevieve Chanelle was hawking at me wondering why I was taking so fucking long to take the photo. At this point, she was already over it and saying “fuck this guy” to me while her friend stepped-in and picked up the slack…
Another shot of ATS Angel’s S2000…
I’m sure you guys remember my photo from Spocom of this young lady posing alongside an old ass man who was making a jerk-off motion with his hand….Well she was back in black at the Motion Auto Show…I think someone mentioned that her name was Kai Lansangan or something like that, but I prefer to call her the name I coined for her after I saw her at Spocom….TITLA MCBOOB…
Here’s Titla flippin’ her herr…
Titla McBoob striking a pose for another photog….Haha…seriously though, her real name is Kai Lansangan…That may be her real name or an internet persona, I don’t fucking know but it sounds pretty legit to me…If she wanted to go by an easier, more recognizable name, she would probably have gone with Titla McBoob…
Gonna close it out for today with a couple shots of Big Steve’s LS400…This thing has been sitting in a garage for what seems like 49 years now, so it was cool to see it out again, especially since it was the car on the Motion Auto Show flyer…Big Steve and I are a lot alike…we are both Asian and drive cars…haha, I’m just fucking with you, it’s late and I don’t know what the fuck I’m talking about…I’ve been up for almost two days straight so it’s time for me to hit the hay…
Two more parts of Motion Auto Show Coverage to follow, thanks for looking….
Nisei Showoff 2011 Coverage…Part 6…The Finale…
Alright, time to close out the 2011 Nisei Showoff coverage with some random photos towards the end of the show, the awards ceremony, and at the end I’ve attached some of my favorite photos that I took from the show. Those won’t be in any particular order, they’re just shots that I thought were good. Overall, I think it was a great event. Foot traffic of course was a bit slower than in year’s past, but that was expected because of the 3-week block of shows. It’s really unprecedented to have that happen and definitely a first, but I’m happy to say that I was able to go to every show during those three weeks and was able to experience each of them. It’s crazy that it wrapped up with the Motion show because that was probably the most anticipated event of the summer. That’s not taking anything away from Nisei Showoff though. Nisei has and always will be a staple in our community’s history and it was more than kind of Ken Myoshi to have me be a huge part of it. I hope everyone enjoyed the 6-part mini-series of Nisei Showoff. I like to cover these events in such a way that you get to see not only nice cars, but also details behind their builds and stuff you may miss if you aren’t actually there in person. The GENERATIONS line-up came together quickly and I couldn’t be happier with the results. I think the general consensus from every Honda head that was there was that it was a positive move in bringing everyone together for one show. Hopefully in the near future I will be able to do the GENERATIONS line-up again but with even more people participating and more Hondas that we have all grown to know and love throughout the years. With that said, thank you everyone for coming over to The Chronicles to check out the coverage and I am appreciative of your continued support…
Now, let’s move onto the last batch of photos…
Lance Uchida, who helped drive Billy Shea’s IS300 out to the show, packing up along with some friends before awards took place…
You can’t look at Billy’s HKS-themed IS300 without taking a look at the amazing engine bay…
Billy’s HKS T51R turbine…
Sportcar Motion’s newly-built drag K24 Civic…I think a lot of people are misinformed when they see this car since they have become so used to Sportcar’s involvement with time attack. This is purely a drag car for their personal use. Nothing but pure straight line racing…
The motor currently makes around 350whp but plans are already underway to boost the K and make even more power. As of this week, the parts from AFI Turbo have already arrived at the shop and tear down will begin shortly…
Speaking of turbo Ks, one more shot of RC’s work-in-progress 4-door Civic…
Mike G. and DPK Jared having some fun and posing for a shot…
Mike G.’s buddy had this pristine real deal Civic Type R park with us since I ended up with an extra parking space when Will from Circuit Hero let us know that he couldn’t make it out…
Rywire Ryan and ATS Angel discussing some future plans, whether it be car shit or what to eat for dinner…
ATS FCB with his son Jaylen…
May and I were at the show for the whole day watching over The Chronicles booth, so we didn’t get an opportunity to go walk around J-town to grab a bite to eat…Luckily there was a sketchy-ass cart right outside of the front gates to Nisei Showoff where they sold “Danger Dogs” aka bacon-wrapped hot dogs. Definitely not the safest thing to eat, especially considering that there is meat being cooked on a rolling cart and mayo has been sitting out all day, but hey, sometimes you have to live dangerously…
As unsafe as it sounded, the thought of eating a bacon-wrapped hot dog inspired everyone’s appetites so the homies also went and bought some dogs…If there’s germs, the hot ass peppers are sure to kill them right? Haha…
Rhett and friends taking a closer look at Anh’s ITR…
Miss Chaba with an impromptu pose…
Rom, Jared, and Ryan beginning the sticker-removal process so that Jared and drive home with clear visibility…
After that came the hood re-install…Apparently it takes 5 dudes to put on an S2K hood…
WheelFlip model Tina striking a pose…
One more shot of Big Mike’s Prelude as the sun was making it’s way down…
Dennis from Team Hybrid’s STi that was near the front stage where the awards ceremony took place…
Even though Ken doesn’t have any major sponsors backing the Showoff series anymore, it doesn’t mean that he’s ever skimped on the awards at his shows. He’s always been more than generous with the number of awards and awards classes and appreciative of every make and model that participates…
It’s JDM Yo!!! x 1-Up, Tony’s super crew (aka The Vanguard Collective), anticipating some awards…
Peter Vong holding up his 3rd place trophy in the Nissan/Infiniti Class for his LS14…
Salem from Phaze2 holding up his 3rd Place Acura Class trophy for his J’s Racing TSX….
Big Mike with another 1st Place Honda trophy…
Jonathan “JonJon” Usaha holding up his “JDM VIP Showoff” award…
Jaylen and Fred from ATS up to receive the Integra/RSX showoff award for Anh Truong’s Integra Type R…
Sam Ip winning back-to-back years in the “ES/FG Civic Showoff” award with two separate cars…
Chris Sakai won the “EK Civic Showoff” award…
Mike G. with his “EG Civic Showoff” award. These awards are given to the best of that particular chassis at Showoff so it was cool to have Mike, Chris, and Anh win in their respective classes. It was cool to see Sam win again as well and the “EF Civic Showoff” award (if I remember correctly) went to the 4-door red EF Civic and that was definitely deserving…I didn’t get a chance to snap a photo of Angel winning his 2nd Place Honda Class award because I was busy shooting off a mini-confetti gun at him…
Peter up to grab the “Team Showoff” award for It’s JDM Yo! x 1-Up, which was given to the best car crew of the event…
We were all watching the Toyota and old school class awards fly by with no mention of Ka Wong’s name and we were honestly all a bit surprised. Ka of course is the owner of that beautifully-built F20C-swapped orange AE86. He’s usually a lock at almost every show to bring something home like Billy’s IS300 so we were thinking that maybe he was overlooked by the judges…
…and then they called his name and he walked up to the stage to win the coveted “Custom Showoff” award, which is the 1st runner-up to what basically is “the best of show” honors…Very well deserved. Ka’s Corolla is a remarkable build and a contender for best of show at any import event…The guy is also one of the most humble people ever as well so he couldn’t be more deserving…
…and the winner of course for the best of show, known as the “Showoff Auto” award went to Billy Shea’s HKS IS300. The photo above is Lance picking up the award since Billy couldn’t be there. It’s practically automatic for him to win because the car has it all, exterior aesthetics, performance upgrades, interior mods, custom paint, and custom audio…Congrats to Billy and the rest of the winners at Nisei Showoff 2011…
I was pretty happy with the results that the GENERATIONS line-up was able to produce… Integra/RSX Showoff, EK Civic Showoff, EG Civic Showoff (not pictured), 3rd Place Acura Class,2nd Place Honda Class, and 1st Place Honda Class…Doesn’t sound like much considering we had over 20 Hondas but you have to remember that these guys were pretty much competing with one another in the same classes…
After the annoying ass announcer was done promoting his own shit while giving out the awards, we walked back over to finish cleaning up and saying buy to everyone before they took off…
Here’s one more shot of Jorge Hernandez’s gold EG as the night quickly approached…
…and a shot of Mike Schietroma’s EM1 and Ejay Adriano’s DA Integra…
Ryan snacking on some JDM crunchy peas as we were getting ready to take off from the downtown Los Angeles lot…
Nothing to exciting happened after we left…We all went home to shower and take a break, then we headed down to the city of Irvine to go have dinner together and talk about the show….
Gonna close it out today with some bonus stuff for you guys. Below is a video of Nisei Showoff 2011, created by Honda Tuning head editor Rodrez…peep that. And when you’re done, I’ve included a couple of photos that I really liked from Nisei but in a larger format for your viewing pleasure. Thanks everyone for looking, thanks for supporting The Chronicles, and thanks for supporting Ken Myoshi and the Showoff events…Until next time…
Click on the links below each photo for larger versions…
History in the making… Larger Version (1400×933)
Fin.
Nisei Showoff 2011 Coverage…Part 5…
Just one more section of Nisei Showoff 2011 coverage after this one. I honestly didn’t even realize I took so many photos until I got home and went through them. Overall I’m happy with it and I think it’s a good representation of what was at the show. My only regret was not taking some more time to look at all the old school Mazdas that were there. There was a whole line-up full of them and I just completely missed them. Ah well, next time. I think I spotted a couple of them at the Motion show and I did snap some pics. In any case, you guys are probably here to see Hondas and shit anyways so all the other non-Honda stuff should be a plus. I just try to capture what please my eye so if you don’t see something that you like on here, I either missed it or we just have differing tastes…
Today we are going to be taking a further look at some of the other cars at the show and at the end I’ll give you some more detailed shots of various engine bays with some details that I really liked. Enjoy and I hope all of you have enjoyed the Nisei Showoff 2011 coverage…Tomorrow will cover the end of the day and stuff like that and there won’t be as much car content….
Always been a fan of Linda’s Toyota Matrix from Team Praxis. I think this car often gets overlooked and doesn’t get enough credit simply because it’s not a very popular platform. It’s definitely a top quality build though and it’s nice to have seen it progress to this point…
Linda’s VIP Modular wheels…
TRD Supercharger and custom wire-tuck and harness via Rywire.com…
Jay’s TL on Work Varianza T1s…
Michael Johnson’s 1st gen. Acura TL…
Joey’s Scion tC on Jline wheels…
Robert’s Civic with a custom front end adapted from a Mugen-style RSX front bumper…
Jared checking out some wheels at the Infinit Wheels booth…
DPK David once again…
Kane Chan’s girl Annie’s DC2 Integra on white Advan RGs…
Another shot of Parnell’s DA…
1st gen. Toyota Celica…
Mark II Toyota Celica Supra….
It was cool to see all the old school Toyotas parked along this row with a brand new Lexus LF-A in the middle to show off all the different generations of Toyota sports cars…
Wald IS-F…
Dennis Kongvongsai’s Subaru STi representing Team Hybrid…
350Z also from Team Hybrid…good looking car but I do feel like vinyl roll calls along the side of the door are a bit tacky these days…
Really liked this Miata on SSR MK2 wheels with the original caps…The custom rag top over the cage was a really cool idea…
Always see this hatchback from GTS at every show. At Nisei he ended up placing in the Honda category as well I believe…
This EF is always in immaculate condition and was recently in Honda Tuning magazine a couple months ago…
Always been a fan of the Lexus RX chassis. I’ve never seen this one before but it was definitely a pleasant surprise… There was an EK next to this car that I really liked too but there was this hoard of people around it and I could’t wait very long for them to move out of the way for a photo since I had to go back and clean up…
Charles from 1-Up x Its JDM Yo!!!’s Honda S2000…
Andrew Lim’s gold Supra…
Andrew’s brother Jason’s IS300 and JonJon’s IS350…
Old school Skyline GT-R…
Jose Romo’s Audi A4…
Lowfat Pie attempting to sexually assault Jared in The Chronicles booth…
Gonna close it out today with some engine bays like I mentioned at the top…
Arn Reyes’ white on white on white engine bay in his DC2…
A couple more shots of Sheepey’s turbo set-up since I saw some photos over the weekend of a particular S2000 owner on the east coast who is basically copying Alex’s exact turbo set-up…You’re welcome for the shots… If you guys are wondering who it is…think of a S2K out there that looks almost identical to ATS Angel’s S2000…haha…
Mike Schietroma’s bay with a Spoon Sports valve cover signed by Ichishima Tatsuru…
Ryan Der’s new white valve cover and coil over plug set-up…I love the blue beauty washers that are used throughout the car, from the interior to the bay all the way to his ignition coils…
Chris Sakai’s wrinkle black-themed bay…
…his breather and catch can set-up…
…and his custom Trick Flow fuel set-up…Note the hardware and the spacers used for fuel pressure regulator position in relation to how the fuel filter is mounted…all very minor touches that add up to a great overall bay…
Custom teal powder-coated horns for Anh’s individual throttle bodies…
Closing it out today with a shot of ATS Angel’s matte black TE37s and blue Project Mu brakes…
That’ll be all for today. Back with the final installment of the Nisei Showoff 2011 coverage tomorrow…
Nisei Showoff 2011 Coverage…Part 3…
Thanks everyone for their continued support…today we will be moving forward with Part 3 of the 2011 Nisei Showoff coverage. Today, like yesterday we will be taking a look at a mix of different cars at the show along with some closer detail shots that I really want you guys to take a look at. Many times when you look at photos of builds online, it’s easy to miss out on the minor details and intricacies that many like include. I’ve always been a firm believer that no matter how minor the detail, if you appreciate your own build enough to include them, somebody out there will notice it. One of the main things that I miss about having my own Honda build is those individuals who I don’t even know that will come up to me and ask me about a certain detail in my car, that I never expected any one to notice. It’s a great feeling, especially when you realize that there are people out there that really enjoy what you do and how you execute a particular detail. Attention to detail, like I have always said, has become a lost art form. Many people these days are out just to get immediate attention and hype, and completely ignore the little things that would make their builds so much better. It’s a shame when I see a really nice, well put together, car at a show and upon further inspection, realize that it’s just one of those cars that look better from far away. It’s very easy to spend those extra moments to make sure that you have things a certain way. I say that even the smallest detail will be noticed by someone, but I must also point out that the minor flaws that you took a short-cut on are even easier to notice sometimes. Just take that extra time, those extra dollars, to execute…you know? I know these days everybody is all about swag, and hype, and sticker bombing or whatever the fuck it is, but those things are only cool for the moment. Great detail, great builds, will live in the minds of enthusiasts for a lifetime. That’s why it’s great to see cars like Parnell’s from the past and the ATS Garage guys from the present. Those builds will stick with you. Every time you work on a new build, you’re going to go back into your memory banks to create a mental checklist of what should (or needs to) be done and those cars will be your mental examples. And years from now somebody will think back and remember what you did, because you spent those extra moments to make sure your build was as close to perfect as possible….
Anyways, moving on with the photos…
One more look at the DPK and ATS Garage guys in the “Present” section of GENERATIONS…
I was overjoyed to see the SSR Super Mesh wheels back on Ejay’s Integra…Of all the different sets that he’s had, I always felt like these wheels were the perfect look suited for his DA…
A better look at Jeff Campbell’s DC2…Love the engine bay and all the purple/blue -aN fittings and hose ends. It’s crazy how unsuspecting this car looks with the hood down. When he pops the hood it’s a completely different car…
I never get tired of seeing Parnell’s DA…I’m happy to see that it has aged well and hasn’t gotten beat up like some other Hondas…
One of the cool things about having a smaller crowd at an event is that you can actually stand there and look at a car in detail without being interrupted by someone or have someone stand in front of you, blocking your view. That’s usually what happens whenever I’m around Mike G.’s hatch but at Nisei, I was able to get some pretty good shots of “Tank” under the hood…
The Plan:B Motorsports billet valve cover with custom coil-over-plug set-up…
I thought all the bullet-ends on the bolts, dipstick, and oil cap were a cool touch. Definitely adds character to the bay…
Custom shock tower bar from ASC Speed Metal with “TANK” welded onto the center of it…here you have a better look at the oil cap….
Here you can get a better look at all the bullet-ends that serve as bolt caps…Also note the cap over the distributor…
ICB Matt’s Civic…Never thought I’d see the day where a Chronicles sticker would be placed on the same windshield as a DOHC Garage sticker…
Jorge Hernandez’s Civic and a shot of his bay with the classic Abbey Road Company intake and induction box…
Kane Chan’s EJ1 coupe…
Royal Origin 350Z on VIP Modular wheels…
E36 BMW on VIP Modular wheels…
Meet the owner of this FG2 Civic, Alex, while I was walking around doing coverage. Dude was telling me how he moved down from Washington state and what not and his experiences being out in Cali…nice guy…
Saw this NSX on aggressive white TE37s for the first time at this year’s Nisei Showoff… The owner of this NSX was parked in the same ditch that Sheeps was parked in. That’s why it looks like his car is taking a hard turn and leaning hard on one side…In fact, you can see Sheep’s S2K in the background and it looks like they are tandem drifting…
Yellow S2000 decked out in (hopefully legit) ASM aero all around…Good looking S2000 with individual throttle bodies and all…
It was good to see Darren Wong’s EM1 out at Nisei since he was having some problems with his C.O.P. set-up during FF Battle 3…I talked to him for a little bit and he told me that he figured out what the issue was and the car was running pretty good…
It definitely wasn’t over crowded at any point in time during the day. Here you can see the scattered crowds and groups of people talking…
Anh’s ITR was a hit throughout the day…
VW on some rare 16-inch VIP Modular wheels…
The 2nd Gen. Lexus GS was probably the most popular of the VIP-themed rides at Nisei….I don’t want to say that they were “everywhere” but there was definitely a strong showing from them…
DPK David DJing with his homie at one of the ItsJDMYo!!! booths…
Ms. Tracy Linh was one of the models present in the ItsJDM Yo!!! section…
A couple cars representing ItsJDMYo!!! x 1-Up crew…
Andrew Lim’s gold Supra…
Peter and Theresa’s LS1-powered S14…
Enrique Rosario’s EG…Always good to see that guy because he’s always all-smiles…
Loi Song from Sportcar Motion taking a Facebook break in the shade…
I really wanted you guys to take a closer look at one of my favorite cars at Nisei Showoff 2011, which is this IS350 that belongs to Jonathan “JonJon” Usaha…It’s a great example of a well-rounded VIP build….
I’ve been a fan of this car ever since last year’s RPM show in Irvine and it’s good to see that his IS has continued to evolve…
Love the Weds Kranze Vishunu wheels and the custom neo-chrome Endless big brake calipers….
Junction Produce-themed interior…
Quick shot of ATS Garage member Chris Sakai’s front end and engine bay…
Gonna close it out today with a couple shots of this DC2, which is owned by Twee… This Integra has come a long way and is now wearing a newer Acura RSX Jade Green Metallic tone…
…and is also now K-powered. I thought the air intake was a little odd but overall, the bay is getting there…
A quick interior shot of her Integra…
That’s all for today, back tomorrow with more…
Nisei Showoff 2011 Coverage…Part 2…
Back with part 2 of the Nisei 2011 coverage. Today we will be taking a look at some cars that were in the first two rows of the show where my booth was. I was still hanging out at the booth at the time and didn’t really want to move since the sun was blazing hot. Before the event started, a bunch of us even drove to one of the Japanese markets down the street to buy some nice cold drinks to cool down while we waited for May to finish making her fruit drinks. It was definitely hotter than we expected so it was a good thing we had a canopy to be under. I went out in short spurts to take photos and then quickly ran back under the canopy as to not get burnt, so the photos in the first few sections of the coverage are just of the front area. I didn’t make my way through to see the rest of the show until much later on in the day. Anyways, hopefully today will be drama free in the comments section and everybody can just sit back and enjoy the photos…
A couple people are complaining that I always cover the same shit over and over, so to start it out today, I’m gonna post some photos of cars that I have posted before….
Edgar Loyoza’s purple G35 was one of the cars that I really enjoyed staring at all day. I love the SSR Professor SP3 wheels and the subtle aero…
Ka Wong’s AE86 F20C-powered Corolla has to be, bar none, one of my favorite builds of all time. Everything is executed as close to perfect as it gets and to top it off, Ka is a very nice guy and I always enjoy running into him at events…
His engine bay has a lot of little nice touches. Look at the bolts with the purple beauty washers used in every part of the bay possible, even where the wiper used to be mounted…And as weird as it sounds, a Honda S2000 motor looks like it belongs in an 8-6….
Shooting his Corolla and doing a story on it for Super Street magazine was also one of my favorite shoots. I loved the way the photos came out and it’s cool to see that he brought the plaque out with him to display at Nisei Showoff…
ItsJDMYo!!! and 1-UP crew…
DPK David in the GENERATIONS section…Told this dude to move his car back like 16 times because it was sticking out past everyone else’s cars and he was busy DJing in one of Tony’s booths with his friend…
Sheepey’s S2000 parked in what I call “the ditch”…I had the exact same spot last year and Salem parked there. That groove was so deep that Salem’s TSX looked like it was flipped over on its side when he had his front wheel sitting in the groove. We were kind of joking around that Sheepey would be mad his car was parked right there but it wasn’t intentional. That’s how all the cars lined up and he just so happened to be at that exact spot. I was gonna put my booth there but with 22 cars even, I divided it up evenly down the middle and my booth ended up being 2 car spots down from there…
Sheep’s wild turbo, dump tube, and dual waste gate set-up…
Jared talking to Alex from WheelFlip about his custom M7s…
Big Mike talking to one of the judges, Amy, while she was judging his Prelude for the Honda Class category…
Big Mike’s Prelude on freshly refinished Volk SE37Ks…
A quick look at Jeff Campbell’s engine bay…
It’s crazy to think that the last time this Civic made a public appearance was at the 2006 Eibach Meet…Thanks to ICB Matt for bringing it out for the line-up…
2GS that was parked with Infinit Wheels…I liked how the rear fender was modified but doesn’t look haggered like a lot of other guys who are trying to fit aggressive wheels on their cars…
Really loved this BMW with Japanese Voltex aero and HRE wheels…Very nice mash-up of styles…
Says it all…
Mike G. enjoying one of the drinks that May prepared…
Anh’s loves teal…
Frankstar aka Mexican Zac Efron checking out Sheepey’s bay…
Billy’s IS300 came out once again to collect a best of show trophy. I’m starting to think that this car is untouchable in that class and it’s very deserving of the praise….
Engine bay shot of Sportcar Motion’s newly debuted Civic….
Phaze2 Salem’s TSX was a part of the GENERATIONS line-up. Not only does it have the best TSX components that J’s Racing has to offer, it’s also turned into quite a capable weekend track car, as evidenced by it’s great performance at the Super Street FF Battle 3…
Leon Casino’s CR-X was a late addition to the GENERATIONS line-up. I had contacted him about possibly being a part of it but with his baby due any time now, he wasn’t sure if he was going to be able to make it out. He called me at the 11th hour of roll-in and asked if I had a spot for him and we made room. I really wanted him to park with the older guys for the “past” section but that area was filled up and I had a spot up front since Will from Circuit Hero no-showed, and that’s where he ended up…
RC Chacon’s newly debuting EG sedan build. He wasn’t quite finished with it yet, as I stated in part 1, but it made for a perfect fit for the “future” portion of my line-up…Interested to see what else he plans on doing to this Civic. Maybe when the 3-year anniversary meet goes down towards the end of the year, he will make another appearance in it’s finished state…
Always enjoy seeing this GR Subaru STI on Volk TE37SLs… I think I use this exact same line every time I post a photo of this car…haha…
PlusOne Danny’s coupe…
Sheeps and ATS Angel…
RX-8 on BBS wheels…
Vincent Shu’s LS400… He used to have a 2GS and I actually bought my AMEs off of him…
TL on HREs…
As usual Socal car events usually have celebrity appearances from time to time. At the Super Street FF Battle 3 dyno day, we saw an appearance by Birdman. At Nisei…
Richard Attenborough aka the old man from Jurassic Park showed up in period-correct attire in honor of GENERATIONS….haha. Loi spotted him first and I asked him which Jurassic Park movie he liked the most, and he clearly enjoyed the second one the most…
Sam Ip’s new black 8th gen. Civic build, which replaces the white one that he totalled awhile back…The container of parts from Japan he was waiting on didn’t make it to the states in time, but he promises that there are all kinds of new J’s Racing parts in there for his car…Looks promising so far and very different from his previous Spoon Sports theme…
Arn Reyes’s Integra with the Hershey front bumper….
Charles from 1-Up’s widebody S2000…
A bagged and kitted Prius that I saw while walking towards the front gate…
Mike Schietroma’s Civic with BYS front bumper…loving the red Vision seats…
Closing it out with a trio of history-making EGs….if these three cars could talk, man, the stories that they could tell….
That’s all for today, thanks for looking…Oh and sorry that some of the tones are off on some of the photos compared to the others. I edited them at different times and they are from different times of the day but I actually went and organized the photos for once to make sure they were in order of what I was talking about and this happens…yikes…
Nisei Showoff 2011 Coverage…Part 1…An Introduction…
“Honor the past…Appreciate the present…Build for the future…”
GENERATIONS
presented to you by The Chronicles…
I wanted to start off the coverage with a formal explanation of the line-up that I put together at Nisei Showoff 2011. I’ve been looking around online and some people were wondering what the whole “Generations” sticker was about that they saw on some cars there and if you follow the site regularly, then you already know why. For those that don’t and are just here to see the coverage now, allow me to explain. Ken Myoshi hit me up a couple weeks ago wanting to know if I had any ideas to throw at him for our collaboration that we were doing. I try to work with Ken and Showoff a lot because I appreciate what Ken Myoshi has done throughout the years for the entire import automotive community. It was the original import car show back in the early 90′s, long before Hot Import Nights, any of that NOPI garbage, Import Fest, Wekfest, Spocom, etc. It will always be THE original import car show event. I always make it a point to work with Ken because it’s an honor for me to do so. I’ve always been a heavy supporter of his Showoff events in the past and attended them whenever I could (and that was often). Having The Chronicles collaborate with Ken is something that I never imagined I would be able to do. No matter what I want to call it, this is a blog about Hondas. Simple as that. I didn’t think working with Showoff was possible because this site is not very significant in the broader scheme of the import automotive community. It was cool of Ken to ask because for whatever reason, he values my opinion and thinks that I can help him push his show. Last year, I collaborated with him with the “Top Ten Showoff” where I brought out a couple of Hondas that I throught were really nice and it worked out well. I had a booth, I sold some things, and the show overall was a success. Ken liked what I did and he asked me to help him out again this year…
For this year’s Nisei event, I had a very short amount of time to put something together because I’ve been busy taking care of other things, and just hadn’t had much time to contact Ken about what we should do. When I contacted Ken, we threw some ideas out at each other but nothing was really set in stone. I told him I’d reconnect with him on AOL Instant Messenger the very next day at around the same time, which was early in the a.m. around 1:30. The next day came and went and we didn’t get a chance to talk. This was a week before the event was set to take place…and I had nothing. Whenever I drive to May’s place to go spend time with her, I always spend those 35-40 minutes on the highway brainstorming ideas for the site. Some of my best ideas have come from those drives, many of them which I forget by the time I get home. On one of the night’s driving to her place, I came up with an idea….an idea to bring some of the best builds of year’s past (that were still around of course) and display them with some of what I feel are the best builds of our current generation with a couple of other cars that had yet to make a public appearance, which I would deem “The builds of the future”. Showoff is so enriched in history that it just made sense…I would call it “GENERATIONS”…it had a nice ring to it, so I went with it. I parked my 4Runner in my carport, ran up to my apartment, hopped on my computer and shot Tony from ItsJDMYo an email. I had somehow lost my contact info for Ken so I had no way of contacting him, and he wasn’t online at that moment, so I asked Tony to forward my idea to him. I was pretty excited by the idea but it almost seemed impossible to put together in less than a week’s time but if Ken liked the idea, I would push forward and do whatever it took to make it happen. Ken emailed me later that next day and told me that he felt that it was a great idea…and then it came time to execute…
The Chronicles and GENERATIONS represented on Big Mike’s Prelude passenger window…
What car was still around I thought, that people would appreciate seeing, that hadn’t been out at a car show like Showoff in a couple years…the first car that sprang to mind, within moments of thinking was Parnell’s 1993 Acura Integra. It was a beautiful build, timeless in every way, with all the right parts to make to relevant no matter what era it stood in. I didn’t know Parnell that well, we had met in passing, and I ran into him another time during a dinner with May and some friends at Fogo de Chau, and I almost didn’t recognize him. We became friends on Facebook after that, so my only means of contacting him was through a social media source. I am very good friends with Ejay though, who also had a DA like Parnell, so I knew I could always talk to Ejay if I had to. Ejay and Parnell are like brothers, if I had to have someone convince him to do it, Ejay was my man to do it. I hit Parnell up on Facebook and he quickly responded without hesitation that he was all for it. So the first guy was locked down….
Team Kosoku past and present…Parnell’s Mugen DA and Ejay’s DA…
The second guy I knew who might be down, was Kane Chan. He shows with all the other old school car crews at Showoff practically every year, so if I could piggyback off that, the whole “GENERATIONS” theme would make even more sense. Kane wasn’t sure what everyone in his crew wanted to do, so he said he would let me know after they had a meeting…so Kane was a “maybe”. I needed some help brainstorming ideas of who and what car to bring out, so I headed down to the Rywire facilities to meet up with Ryan, DPK David, and Big Mike. There we tossed around some names of who to ask…Mike G. was one of them, and a couple other names popped up, but we had no idea if those guys were even into cars anymore. Right next door to Ryan’s shop, if you didn’t know…was L*CON. Inside L*CON’s building was a smaller business, called Ballade Sports and was operated by Alex Doan, who has that full Spoon-themed black S2000 and a guy who has been a part of the Honda community for years, a guy we know as “Skinhead Mike”. Mike is the proprietor of Jon Tanji’s Civic hatchback. Jon passed away a couple years ago, and Mike has had his EG ever since. He occasionally takes it to work with him, and it has remained in its exact state since Jon had it…it was the perfect choice to bring to Nisei. We could honor not only the history with Jon’s Civic but also honor Jon Tanji, who many people these days don’t know of and to showcase his work. Big Mike talked to Skinhead, I talked to him for a bit, and while Mike was all for it and loved the idea, he had a personal matter to deal with and that was all I needed to hear. I’m not gonna make anyone do anything car-related if they have more pressing matters to attend to. When I first made the announcement regarding the appearance of Jon’s Civic, I kind of pulled the trigger on it too early by stating it would be there and that was my error. It should not reflect on Skinhead Mike or anyone else. I would have loved to have seen the car there, but it’s more important to me that he takes care of whatever he had to in his personal life. For those of you who expected the car to be there, I apologize, it was my mistake in jumping the gun and no one elses…
With little time left to get more of the Hondas from year’s past together, I hit up Matt from ICB Motorsport to see if he was coming out from Arizona for Nisei, and all of a sudden, everything fell into place. Literally out of nowhere, Matt single-handedly saved my vision…and he has no idea that he did…haha. Matt was bringing out 5 cars… one of them being perfect for the section, because it stood the test of time and has remained in perfect condition…no, it’s not the car that you’re thinking of if you’ve already seen other pics. It wasn’t the famous “blue EG”. It was Jorge Hernandez’s gold Civic hatchback. You don’t hear from him because he’s a man of few words, but his build is one that you will always remember. The other cars that were coming out with him were perfect for the “present” section of GENERATIONS. Mike had a very nice Spoon-themed EM1 build, and another guy, Jeff Campbell, had a blue DC2 that made a strong presence at Eibach this year. RC Chacon was set to debut his new 4-door EG Civic build, that no one had seen yet, and while it wasn’t finished, it was perfectly suited for the “future” section alongside Loi Song’s debuting red EG build. The fifth and final car, was either going to be Matt’s CRX Pro.2 on MF10Ls…or a build that he’s had in his collection for years now (since 2006), a blue EG that once belonged to famed-Honda head, Chad Castelo. Chad for whatever reason, has taken it upon himself to speak ill of me and my work to others who we have as mutual friends so it was interesting that Matt offered to bring it out to Nisei. Matt had no idea about this of course but I made it a point to ask him to bring out Chad’s car to display at Nisei. Chad has never spoken to me in person, nor does he even know me personally, but he’s taken it upon himself to say some unpleasant things about The Chronicles and the people associated with the site. I have always loved his cars. In fact, his 4-door EF build back in his Team Ziggy days was one of the builds that made me fall in love with Hondas to begin with. His EG was a landmark build as well and one of the reasons why I really wanted it there was because Jon Tanji was the main contributor in that build. When it came to custom engine bays and tucks, and what not, Chad’s Civic was one of those builds that you will always remember if you have been in this community for the last decade-plus. I have nothing bad to say about Chad and I’ve been nothing but respectful of his work throughout the years, that’s why I wanted his old car to be there at Nisei. It was a perfect fit, albeit an ironic one, for GENERATIONS. Matt told me that it was iffy getting Chad’s old car out there because it had been sitting in storage so long but I made it a point to make sure that it made the trip out….
The cars for the “present” section, were by far the easiest to get together. The Hondas from DPK, ATS Garage, along with Ejay’s DA, Salem’s TSX, and Big Mike’s Prelude, were perfect. They are at the top of their game and the builds are a great representation of the top builds today. I later got a call from Kane to inform me that his Civic coupe would indeed be parked with us and that rounded out the 22-car line-up perfectly. All that came together in just a couple days time, and when Ken saw the line-up at Nisei that Saturday morning, even he was impressed by what was accomplished in that short time…
GENERATIONS “Present” line-up….starting with DPK David, ATS Garage’s Ryan Der, Chris Sakai, Anh Truong, and Angel Ramos’ S2000 in the distance…
Now on to what I think was one of the most talked about topics that day at Nisei Showoff 2011…the foot traffic and overall attendance. It wasn’t busy by any means that day, and it didn’t have to be. I heard so many people complaining about how no one showed up and how there was barely anyone there at the show. There didn’t have to be an overwhelming crowd. When there are too many people, people complain. When there aren’t that many people,….people complain. You have to remember that Nisei Showoff hasn’t been that crazy busy in the last couple years because that’s not what it’s about. If you want it to be crazy busy, go to one of the newer shows like Spocom or something, where there are bitches flocking around everywhere and there is loud music and go-go dancers. That’s not what this show is about. Nisei Showoff has always been about tradition. Ken Myoshi isn’t stupid. He doesn’t do this show to make money. The Showoff franchise hasn’t been a cash-cow in years and Nisei Showoff is one of his last remaining events. Ken continues to do Nisei Showoff because it’s an important part of our automotive community’s history. Showoff is what started it all in the beginning and it’s one of the last remains of our rich past. Honestly, you could have 4 people show up at Nisei Showoff, and I wouldn’t give a shit. Why? Because I know those 4 people that walked into the show will have come for the cars and for the history. What other event can you go to where you will see cars from the old school crews like Bosozoku and Street Image Performance parked alongside the current generation of crews like DPK and ATS Garage? Only at Nisei Showoff. People who only complained about the foot traffic fail to see the significance of Nisei Showoff. You should come to appreciate the cars and the people from your community, and not whether or not someone is invading your personal space because there’s no where to walk. You know what I mean? Who cares if there wasn’t that much foot traffic? Are you selling something? Do you have money invested in this event? If your answer is no, then why worry about it? You should appreciate Nisei Showoff because Showoff is still around. The people you looked up to who were building the cars that you wanted to build went to Showoff events, and hopefully, one day, when your kids are into cars and building cars like the ones they watched you build, can say that they went to a Showoff event. You are a part of a bigger picture and if you think that Nisei Showoff was a failure because attendance was low, you’re not only selling the event short, you’re also selling yourself short. Appreciate what is around you. When you go to this show, take a step back and look at everything. There are people from the past uniting with the current crop of enthusiasts to share each other’s work. You shouldn’t have to worry about attendance because the guys that are there to see the cars at Nisei Showoff, are already there with their cars and they are parked right next to you…
Just a small glimpse at the GENERATIONS line-up…
People always joke around saying “oh I thought last year’s Nisei was the last one”, “every year is the last one”…that’s because it possibly could be. Ken continues to put this event on because the lot that it is held at every year is still available for him to use…one day it won’t be. The lot is owned privately and at any point in time, it will be torn down and there will be property built over it. Every year Ken calls to ask if the lot is available, and if it is, he will put the show on. It isn’t because he’s using the fact that it’s going to be the last show as a selling point for you to come. Next year, it may very well go into development. And someday, you may drive by that exact area and tell your kids or whomever, that it was the spot where one of the best import automotive shows was held all time and you miss the fact that there’s no more Nisei Showoff…
It’s sad to hear that I see some people on other sites complaining about media passes and how they weren’t “taken care of” properly. It’s that ridiculous sense of entitlement that exists these days that make kids think that the people at Showoff should roll out the red carpet for them. The Showoff events have made their mark in our industry. It doesn’t need some kid’s photos to make or break it. If you really appreciate what you do as a journalist, enthusiast, car head, or blogger, pay the $10 that it costs at the gate and walk your ass inside and take your photos. I walk into every event I go to not thinking about what I can do for the event. I cover events because it has helped me build my site and reputation into what it is today. That’s why my coverage is always very comprehensive, very detailed. I have total confidence in saying that nobody does event coverage better than I do because I don’t feel entitled to anything. Nobody owes me shit. I cover cars, and especially the people because I want people to be able to look back and remember the great times they had doing what they love. If you’re getting upset because you didn’t get a free pass, or didn’t get inside the event at a certain point in time because you think that event organizer needs to have you there, your site sucks and what you’re doing fucking sucks. There are thousands of people taking photos at events and covering what’s going on who don’t complain and just do it because they love it…
It’s a lot to read, but I hope you got through all of it…now we can move forward with the photos…
There was quite a bit of traffic on the way to downtown L.A. the morning of Nisei Showoff, so I got there a little later than expected. I don’t have very many photos early in the day because I was busy setting up the booth, as well as parking all the cars in our line-up the way I wanted them to be parked. The first part of the coverage today will cover my booth and the cars around it. My reasoning behind that is because I think what I put together at Nisei Showoff is important and you should see it and also because I stayed at my booth the majority of the early hours of the show….
A quick glimpse at the line-up… Ryan from Rywire was supposed to bring out his CR-X, but for the second straight year, his EF had what we call “The Nisei Curse”, and didn’t make it to the event…so he brought out his back-up, his white NSX on white Regamasters….not a bad back-up if you ask me…
While Ryan’s NSX was the book-end to the left side of The Chronicles booth, Big Mike’s Prelude served as the end on the right…
Our line-up was so big that day that we ended up taking up that whole side of the show. It was a lucky coincidence that my boy Billy’s IS300 ended up parking next to The Chronicles. Sportcar Motion’s red EG made it’s first official public appearance at Nisei Showoff and it was at the start of our 22-car line-up…
Northwest internet celebrity and retired Hmong gangster Yee Vang made the trip out from Washington to show his support at Nisei Showoff. Here he is with Big Mike in a rare photo of them together…
Jeff Campbell’s DC2 and Mike Schietroma’s EM1, both blue, both on Rega EVOs…
Ejay and Parnell’s DA Integras…They both dropped off their cars and quickly left to attend to family matters…
May usually brings out treats like cookies and what not for The Chronicles booth but she brought all kinds of fruits and juices to make drinks for everyone…
The ice cold fruit drinks were perfect being that the day ended-up hotter than anyone had imagined. The photo here is obscured because I took it through the mesh netting from our canopy…
Norman from AS1 probably saying something dirty to Fred Chapman from ATS…
DPK David and Ryan Der made sure to represent their sponsor, Falken Tire….
The two S2000s from our GENERATIONS line-up…
WheelFlip.com model Tina posing for a photo…
Danny from PlusOne was one of the guys that I should have asked to be a part of our line-up. I thought he would be with his crew so I didn’t even think to ask. It all worked out though because he ended up parked directly across from us…
Danny’s custom PlusOne Mugen MF10s sitting over his custom purple Spoon Sports calipers…
Chris Sakai showed up to Nisei Showoff with a set of Mag Blue TE37s and a couple of new touches under the hood…
Anh was on vacation so Fred Chapman brought his ITR out to Nisei…
Loved this slammed Radio Flyer that a loyal Chronicles reader brought by the booth…
Also across from The Chronicles booth was the WheelFlip.com booth… Alex had 3 different sets of M7s on display…
Nisei Showoff 2011 also marked the debut of the new Hershey brand DC2R bumper, seen here on Arn Reyes’ Integra… I’ve been following the build-up of this bumper since Alex Zhao started work on it and I have to admit that while I was sketchy about it in the beginning, it looks much better in person…
My only criticism is my disliking of the L.E.D. turn signals. Being that the original design is based off the GR-chassis Subaru STI, I felt that he should have left the OEM foglights intact…Still a novel idea either way though, and it’s definitely different…
DPK Jared and Big Mike spending a moment in the shade and having a drink…
Anh’s ITR proved to be one of the most looked-at builds in our line-up…
Arn not only debuted the Hershey bumper on his Integra, he also brought out his baby boy for the first time for everyone to see…Meet Anthony Reyes…
Little Anthony didn’t really appreciate the idea of someone picking him up…
Murdock and Sam Ip hanging out…Sam was a part of The Chronicles Nisei line-up last year. He had the white 8th gen. Civic SI sedan that he ended up wrecking later on in the year and now he’s building a black, all J’s Racing-themed, sedan…
My cousin Tim aka Timscribbles came out to Nisei to check out the rides…He’s a younger guy in our community but he’s a lover of all kinds of different automobiles and his blog shows all his adventures…
A couple of shots of Angel Ramos’ S2000….
Lowfat Pie with ekfour Tony Huynh’s daughter…Tony and family came back to Cali along with Steve Kwan (dagreenek) to hang and check out Nisei Showoff…
Tony from ItsJDMYo!!! rocking his old school 13Devils pit crew shirt…Tony and I used to be from that crew back in the day and I even had the banner on my car when my car was featured in Honda Tuning back in 2006…
I still miss Ryan Der’s kit on his EK but it’s looking slightly better with the black TEs back on it…
Again, Nisei was the debut of Sportcar Motion’s 330whp K24-powered Civic hatchback…this thing is a fucking beast…
RC Chacon also debuted his new 4-door EG sedan at Nisei, alongside Sportcar Motion’s red EG…You should remember RC from his previous build, which was the white hatchback with no hood, bright orange valve cover, and dump tubes exiting through the (non-existent) hood…The 4-door wasn’t anywhere near completion yet so he decided not to compete at Nisei, but it was cool to have the car out there nonetheless…
That’s all for today…gonna close it out today with another shot of Angel’s S2K….stay tuned for much more. I’ve actually gone through the majority of the photos already and we are looking at a 6-part series of Nisei 2011 Coverage. Make sure to come back tomorrow for part 2 and tell everyone out there that they will get the best, most comprehensive Nisei coverage only here on The Chronicles….
Super Street FF Battle 3 Coverage…Part 3…
Track photos? We talkin’ about track photos? At a track EVENT?…Of course I don’t have track shots. It only makes sense that at FF Battle 3, an event held at Autoclub Speedway, that I wouldn’t have bothered to take any photos of the actual Hondas on the track. I really wanted to but time just didn’t permit it. When I initially got to Fontana at around 11am, the first practice sessions had ended and everyone was already working on their cars so none of them were on the track anymore. Then DPK David, Big Mike, and I headed out too lunch a couple hours later in hopes that we would be back for the first official recorded runs. Lunch ran a little long but we had got back right when it started so I grabbed my camera and headed to the stands to watch. Apparently, unlike years past, not all the gates to the stands were open and the two that we went to were locked up so we couldn’t even get to the stands to watch. Everyone had gone all the way around to the other end where the lone gate was open and if we were to make our way over there, we would miss it all completely. So I just decided to stand at the most elevated part of the staircase leading to the gate and watch from there. If I were to take any pictures, the cars would look like ants so it was pretty pointless…
Never fear though, because Loi Song from Sportcar Motion took some track photos and he told me last night that he would send them over to me so that I could post up here on The Chronicles. Once I get those, I will toss those up. In the mean time, continue to enjoy the pics from the pits as well as other vehicles that I spotted while walking around the “meet” portion of FF Battle 3. When we last left off, I was busy taking shots left and right of everything that I found interesting. Like the previous two installments, there are many detail shots included and not just exterior shots of the cars. And as always, the people that were involved with the entire event…enjoy…
Gilbert Corona’s EF ran into some minor problems after the first practice session…When I say “minor” I mean that he threw a rod and it went through his engine block…Nothing serious, right? Haha…it made for some interesting photos though when it looked like it was doing a rear wheel drive burnout on the oval of the Speedway. I talked to Gilbert about it while he was showing me shards of his block that were scattered throughout his engine bay. I told him to cheer up because it gave him instant street cred points and he told me to get the fuck out of his face…haha…okay he didn’t, but he was pretty bummed about blowing another motor…
Saw this clean hatchback roll up so I took a quick shot of it. Really simple, nothing too wild, and sitting on what looks like Blitz BRWs…
Morgan’s CTR with newly mounted “duc tapes”, at least that’s what Loi calls it…Why? Because Duc Tapes…
Lee Randle’s Integra Type R on Enkei ES Tarmac wheels…one thing that I’ve noticed about the FFSquad guys is that they love this particular wheel…
Was messing around with the camera and thought this was a pretty cool shot…owner and car both in the same shot…Probably would have been better if you could see the entire car but you get the point…
Phaze2 Salem’s J’s Racing front tow hook…
Jonathan Wong from Super Street chatting with FFSquad’s Jason Katman…Mr. Wong’s wife beater was a little transparent so I’ve taken the liberty of making this photo safe for work…
ATS FCB aka Fred Chapman and his son made the trek down from Norcal with a couple other ATS Garage members to show support to fellow ATS member, Ryan Der….
Ryan taking his passenger Bride seat out for some weight reduction…
Our buddy Mauricio drinking hot ass soup out of his gigantic thermos in 93 degree weather…
Henry Ng drove all the way down from Canada to participate in FF Battle 3 and his sideskirt probably regrets it…props to him for making that crazy trip…
This one is for the midwest/east coast guys…Rywire prepared for FF Battle 3 with a gourmet meal from the best restaurant in the world…..JACK IN THE BOX!…
Loi Song, Sean K. from Super Street, and Robert Green from Blueprint Racing…
Sergio’s H22-powered Civic…I wish I would have taken a photo of his bay because he actually has a Papa John’s pizza box blocking the opening next to his radiator to help direct airflow straight to it…pretty interesting idea…
Katman’s daily Accord…
Big Mike showed up an hour or so after we got there to check out the event…
Ryan Der sitting in his EK…
I guess he had some minor kinks with his AEM EMS that needed to be adjusted before he made his official run…so he called up Bisi…
…and the Bisimoto Roadside Assistance Mercedes G-wagon arrived…
Bisi Ezerioha making some fine-tuned adjustments to Ryan Der’s tune…
Salem’s TSX surprised everyone by doing very well at FF Battle 3…I’m proud of this guy for getting his car together and actually competing. When he called me the Thursday night leading up to the dyno sessions, his transmission was still in pieces so it was great to see that he made it and how well the car ran…
For those of you who have known me for any length of time, you know that I drive a 4Runner everyday…mine looks nothing like this one…haha. I can always appreciate a nice, clean 4Runner. With the one I’m driving getting older by the day and with the mileage nearing the 280K mark, I’m thinking about getting another one, same body style, but in much better shape. Throw a TRD supercharger on the 3.4L V6 along with some TE37s and call it a day…
After that the three of us headed out for lunch down the street at Farmer Boys. I didn’t take any photos there because I was hungry as fuck, so we will just move on. As I stated in the beginning of this post, we had a bit of a debacle trying to make our way to the stands so we just watched from afar…the next couple shots are when the competitors had finished and were coming back to the pit area…
Oscar Jackon Jr. rolling back to the pit area in Morgan Jade’s CTR…
The TSX back from it’s run…
This 4-door DB didn’t compete, but it did look good on the 949 Racing wheels…
There was a NASA event going on that day as well so there were all kinds of crazy cars littered throughout the track…this Mustang was parked in our lot so that was a little odd, but it looked pretty sick…
Tom-Attak in the most exciting shot of this post…
Sportcar Motion rocking the Skunk2 tent…
Transponder zip-tied to Salem’s tow hook to record lap times…
6 dudes watching Ryan check the air on his tires…Pictured are the Supertwinz, ATS Ron, Charlie from Top Setup, Matt from ICB, and Big Mike…Ryan is self explanatory…
Gary taking the TSX for a drive to make sure that the fix he made on the transmission cable was holding up…
A couple shots of Raul’s EG4 Civic…
Great build…weird how he didn’t have the 949 wheels on there…probably didn’t want to dismount the tires he already had on there…
+30 street cred points for having dirty TE37s…
Mike Chang from Evasive didn’t compete this year but he did bring his Civic Si out to show support…
Hugh Le’s NSX was easily one of the best looking Hondas at FF Battle 3…
The Tom-Attak family…
For those of you who stumbled onto this site looking for Christine Mendoza nip-slips, this is the site you’re currently at and no I don’t have any new pics…
DPK David talking to our buddy Jimmy Harris from San Diego…
OldManJames’ S2000…
One more Tom…
Salem knows that I’ve never been a real big fan of his black Desmond Promedas on his TSX but at this new lower ride height, it actually looks much better…
The Raceline USA Civic coupe was another car that ended up breaking on the initial practice run…It had transmission problems so Elton just decided to shut it down and not risk any further damage…
Rywire Rex…
Gonna close it out today with this shot of Nick and Ryan’s cars….Hopefully Loi gets those track photos to me and then I can throw them up for you guys. Other than that, Spocom is this weekend and I’ll be attending to see what the new Spocom is all about. I figured that I should go because they stole a photo of Amy Fay that I shot and used it on their Spocom tickets/flyers without asking me so I might as well go anyway. Maybe when they ask me for my ticket I’ll bring it up, haha…anyways, that’s all for today, thanks for looking…
Super Street FF Battle 3 Coverage…Part 2…
Back with part 2 of the Super Street FF Battle 3 Coverage…Today we will be taking a look at the final hours of the dyno portion of the competition on day one and then jump immediately into photos from the second day, which was the actual race portion. It’s been cool to hear all the positive feedback about the event throughout all the social networking sites. The previous two events were good but the overall response from this years FF Battle was by far the best. Hopefully next year we can get even more cars out there to compete and have a bigger variety of FF Hondas…
Moving on…
A up-close look at the General Tire G-Max AS-03 on Gil’s white-faced Volk Racing GT-N…
Quick look at some of the custom fab work by ASC Speed Metal on Gil’s DC2R… The bezel holding the Racepak unit is sick with the curves and indentation to match the cluster and it’s hard to see here, but the metal inside door panels are done very well. No more windows or anything but it’s okay…. “Because Racecar”…
J’s Racing hood and wing also on Gil’s R…
More ASC fab work in Gil’s bay such as the shock tower bar, valve cover, valve cover breather, the smaller reservoir is for the power steering unit I believe…just loads and loads of custom fab work in this bay. I think people some times are so hung up on the great the car looks aesthetically that they don’t notice all the crazy amounts of work under the hood…
R-Crew shifter box, Circuit Hero shift extender and knob…again on Gil’s DC2R…
Vision side mirrors…
New custom front splitter on Sportcar Motion/Morgan Jade’s CTR with ARC winglets…
Loi doing his best to apply decal’s on Morgan’s CTR…
The cage in the CTR…
Loi and Supertwinz John showing the incorrect way of peeling the backing off a windshield banner…
…and then putting it on crooked…
The CTR making it’s way onto the dyno at Raceline USA…
CR-X BFFs…
Jonathan Wong from Super Street doing the asian squat and having a drink…
Brian from Hasport taking a sketchy approach at recording the dyno runs on his iPhone…
Elton and crew from Raceline USA setting up the dyno for Sportcar’s CTR pull…
Raceline doesn’t have the biggest facility so the drones and screams of the exhaust were further amplified by the small space…
I’m pretty sure I fell asleep while I was trying to process this photo, that’s why it looks so dramatically different than the others…oh well…made for an interesting shot…
Once the CTR dyno was completed, it was time to call it a day. It was the last car on the list that needed to have a dyno run recorded so we all stuck around for that, then we hopped in our cars and braced the heavy 5pm L.A. traffic home. Traffic was so bad at that point that we ended up taking the side streets all the way back to DPK David’s house, and it’s not exactly a close drive. It was cool though, Ryan and Nick hardly get to cruise around in their CRXs together so it was nice to watch these two on the streets…
Once we got back to David’s, we just hung out on his front porch to enjoy the summer breeze. It was hot throughout the day so the breeze towards the evening was a welcome feeling… I’m sure Ryan is set on having the Mugen MF10Ls on his CR-X but I love how it looks on the 949 6UL wheels…
Nick’s VTEC-killer CR-X looks so good on the SE37Ks…
Not much else happened that night, we went out to eat some dinner at a local Hawaiian spot and then just hung out at David’s. The girls were getting packed for the trip to Las Vegas so we made sure to spend some time with them before they took off later that night. I hadn’t really slept the night before because I was working so I was pretty beat. I usually stay up pretty late as you all know but the lack of sleep was making my head hurt so I just went home and knocked out. I wanted to be back at FF Battle 3 by around 10am so I had to get as much sleep as I could squeeze in in one night…
Saturday morning rolled around and it was time to head to Autoclub Speedway. I stopped by David’s to pick him up and then we took off… When we arrived, the first practice run had just been completed and the competitors were making various adjustments to their cars…
Right when we arrived, I saw that Darren Wong was staring at his Civic with a disappointed look on his face. I missed him at the dyno day so I didn’t even know that he was competing in the FF Battle. I guess he had some issues with the wiring to his C.O.P set-up so he ended up shutting it down and having the car towed home instead of trying to run his car on 3-cylinders…
Nick and Ryan’s cars cooling down after the practice session…
Salem’s TSX had an issue with the transmission cable binding but luckily Gary and Norman were around to help him fix it…Gary ended up using zip ties and some super glue to keep the cable in place and it actually worked…
Tom-Attak ready to roll…
Rywire CR-X…
Loi and Morgan ran into some problems with the front tires hitting the end of their diffuser so Loi was hard at work trying to duct tape everything together…
Ryan Der aka Airbag Club…
No more wild bass boat glitter green valve cover for Ryan, just back to a simple white on blue on white look…
I really liked how this shot came out with David and Ryan…
FF Battle alumni Kane Chan brought his Ej1 coupe out for display. He ran his coupe the previous two FF Battles and decided to take a break and just enjoy the festivities…
Lee Randle’s ITR…if you don’t know Lee then your knowledge of the Socal Honda community and it’s rich history is lacking…
Supertwinz/Old Man James brought out his red S2000 for the meet portion of the FF Battle event…
His brother John here with Ryan and Charlie from Top Setup…
“Aero are done” with Loi adding aerodynamic duct tape to keep the aero in place…
Jade’s son chillin on a Ruckus…
Arizona native Gabe Ortega’s Civic rocking a SCM front bumper…
Rhett’s ITR…
Gil’s Integra Type R…
A better look at Nick’s front aero set-up…
Nick’s bay…
Gonna close it out today with a shot a I really liked… Father and son shot with Phil Robles and his son Jesse Robles. Phil piloted the white ITR which belongs to Matt from ICB Motorsports and the black one is Jesse’s…It’s cool to see both sharing mutual interests and tearing it up on the track…
Back with the final installment of the FF Battle 3 coverage tomorrow…thanks for looking….
Super Street FF Battle 3 Coverage…Part 1…
…And the winner is….
…uhhh…
…let me make sure I have this correctly, because inquiring minds want to know…
…yup, my initial hunch was correct…
…I have no idea.
I mean, I have a very good idea of who won but we are sworn to secrecy when attending an event of this caliber so I am not at liberty to really release any details on it. All you need to know, is that it was a fucking BLAST. Alright, that sounds a little far-fetched, but seriously though, it was a great time. It’s always good to get with the Super Street gang and get an event like this together. I contributed this year by creating the amazing flyer that you’ve seen used to advertise the event (mild sarcasm) as well helping to get the word out to the masses. The past two years, general attendance has been smaller than we have liked because it’s hard to get spectators to come out to a race event that they don’t know too much about. I mean, it’s a Super Street event, so it’s a big ass deal, but race events are always hard to promote because the majority of the crowd of Honda heads are still into appearance, style, meets and car shows. Race car shit is just not stuff they’re into because many of them don’t know too much about it. What’s cool about the Super Street FF Battle is that it’s a race event, but it’s a race event for the enthusiast…and by “enthusiast”, I mean “you”. The cars are all privateer builds that are primarily street/weekend Hondas and some of them may have sponsors, but they are privately owned. The original goal was to set-up a competition where front-wheel drive street Hondas hit the track and duke it out for the fastest lap time. It’s pretty straight forward. The first year was dominated by Loi Song and Sportcar Motion in his Integra Type R and last year a turbocharged 8th gen. Civic dominated because it’s high horsepower numbers just proved too much for other competitors to deal with. Autoclub Speedway is definitely a power-oriented track so when we found out how much power that car was making, many of us already expected that car to take the crown. To even the field out this year, Super Street implemented a new rule….that all Hondas in the competition be naturally-aspirated. No turbo, no supercharger, no forced induction of any kind. This was done in hopes of putting everyone on a level playing field and to keep the lap times closer. I heard some of the guys complaining that it wasn’t fair last year and throughout this year’s event, I didn’t hear one complaint from anyone. The competition was definitely close and it seemed everyone was stoked about how everything came together….
General Tires also rejoins the competition this year as a title sponsor, but this year, they debuted their new performance street tire, the General G-Max AS-03. Overall, I thought it all came together perfectly. General attendance was up during the Saturday event/car meet and everyone that competed was all smiles throughout the day. It is a competition but the bottom line is that we all wanted everyone to just go out there and have fun, and it seemed like that’s exactly what happened. Everyone was communicating with each other and talking to one another about the track and how they went about getting through the course. Nobody was trying to be overly competitive and making things awkward for others. On Saturday, which was the race day, I didn’t get a chance to stay until the close of the event but I did get quite a bit of photos for you guys. Again, I can’t release the results but from the time I left, after the first run, until the finish of the second run, the positions and best overall times shifted dramatically. The guy that I had as a favorite to win the whole thing ended up not even taking the 1st place finish so things were definitely unpredictable, which made this year’s FF Battle such a great competition. There were no “locks” to win, if you catch my drift. It was up in the air all the way until the final run and when Big Mike called me to tell me what happened, I was very surprised.
Anyways, there are going to be a couple parts to this coverage. Nothing too crazy, maybe just 3-4 parts or so (I haven’t gone through it all) but I am very happy with the photos. I think I’ve restricted myself lately with my photos and just done all the same angles and shots because I’ve been running around everywhere getting what I could for the site. For FF Battle, I decided to change up some things and I think the photos will show just that. I just decided to go out there and have some fun with it. Photos were good, event was great, I couldn’t ask for more…Today and tomorrow we will be looking at the first day of competition, which was the dyno portion of the competition held once again at Raceline USA in Temple City, CA. Elton is the man over there and spent the entire day throwing Honda after Honda on his dyno to see who produce the best numbers. While that was going on, I was walking around chatting with the competitors and trying to get some good photos of the Hondas that participated. There are some good ones in this 20-car line-up. Some you have seen before, some you haven’t…hell, some that I haven’t even seen before. One of the guys that competed actually drove all the way down from Canada just to compete in the FF Battle so a huge shout out goes to that guy….With that said, let’s move on with the photos…
Some of the competitors and friends of the competitors chatting it up outside of Raceline USA while a Honda was being pulled in for a dyno run…
The homie Nick Caster brought his CR-X down from Norcal to participate. I’ve never seen a clean set of Volk SE37K on a CR-X before and I think it’s a good look…
In the background is Ryan Der’s Civic, followed by “Tom-Attack” Tom Liang’s EF hatchback, and the ITR belongs to Henry Ng, who drove all the way down from Canada…
The heart of Tom-Attack’s EF…
Ryan Der aka Airbag Club’s new kit-less look…Now more of a CTR-feel with a Mugen-lip…
Rywire and DPK David scoping out Tom’s set-up…
Nick Caster’s front bumper just chillin after his dyno session…
I already miss the kit…haha…
I thought this was a cool shot of the Canadian ITR…
Ryan only knows how to rep The Chronicles one way…which is slightly crooked…compared to his Franklin Autobody banner…
He left around the time I arrived so I didn’t get a chance to get a closer look at the car…
Nick looking at his invisible watch in front of Tom’s EF…
Speaking of Tom-Attack, this EF was straight-gutted….no sunroof or anything, just a bare hole now…
…just look at the interior…he even removed his steering wheel to reduce weight…haha…why? Because Race Car…
You already know with this K-motor in there, that this EF was going to be beast on the track…
The man behind the magazine, Jonathan Wong, sharing some laughs with Kane Chan and another friend…
Big Mike and others trying to stay out of the sun by standing behind an ancestor of the Honda S2000…
The official FF Battle 3 sticker…
Mr. and Mrs. Phil Robles arrived to check out the dyno festivities… Phil actually came down to pilot ICB Matt’s Integra Type R…
Rywire CR-X on 949 6UL wheels…
Tom-Attack, Nick Caster, and Big Mike…
NWP4LIFE.COM…
Ryan Der’s white TE37s filthy and battle-ready…
Matt from ICB’s pristine Integra Type R…
Around noon time, everyone took a break for an hour lunch so we hopped in whatever support vehicles were around and ventured off to look for food….
In that area of Socal, there is fine asian cuisine everywhere and I’m not talking about no P.F. Chang bullshit…We always eat at Baccali because it’s one of our favorite spots and the food is delicious there. It’s more like “American” style cuisine made by asians…You have your pastas, rice dishes, seafood, BBQ chicken, etc….shit is DELICIOUS…
Iced lemon tea is perfect on a hot summer day…
Grilled chicken steak with black pepper sauce and vegetables…
Big Mike talking about the nation’s debt-ceiling and shit like that…
Rywire conducting Rywire business on his phone…
Ryan Der killed his chicken steak…
After we finished eating, we headed back to Raceline USA to continue the dyno day…
This red hatch arrived when we got back…the owner’s name escapes me at the moment…
Raul from Checkerd Sports and his JDM right hand drive EG6…
My boy Salem’s TSX was the only non-Civic/Integra to participate in FF Battle 3…
Tom-Attack reppin’ JHPUSA…
Rywire, DJ Murdock, and Salem…
Ryan and Nick’s CRXs…
Phil’s Civic is in the shop getting a makeover and some new upgrades but he was still all smiles at FF Battle 3…
Circuit Hero EF and Rhett’s black ITR…
When Circuit Hero Gil showed up… I noticed from a distance that he had a new set of wheels on his ITR…I walk up to take a closer look and it’s an old set of Volk Racing GT-Ns…Man, I haven’t seen a set of these wheels in years. I owned a set of gunmetal GT-Ns back in 2003-04 and have always been a huge fan of the wheels…Gil’s set wasn’t by any means “pristine” but they were still in very good shape, especially since they were white…
Here’s a closer look at his GT-Ns and his Stoptech big brakes…mounted on (shameless plug) General G-Max AS-03…
A shot of his intake set-up and his custom front bumper brackets, that serve pretty much as a quick release so the bumper comes on and off quickly…
Gil’s DC2R making it’s way onto the dyno…
Since the entire event was sponsored by General Tire, all participants were required to rock the General Tire name on the windshield and on the fenders…
Roped off for safety reasons…
Interesting to see that even though you own the car, you never get use to the sound of it screaming on the dyno…
Sportcar Motion/Morgan Jade’s Civic Type R ready for the battle ahead…
Elton Lo from Raceline USA backing Gil’s DC2R off the dyno and back onto the trailer…
Apparently we also have celebrity appearances at FF Battle 3…I don’t know where Lil Wayne was but here’s BIRDMAN…haha…so stupid…
Anyways, that’s all for today, thanks for looking, back with part deuce tomorrow…
Import Alliance 2011 Coverage…Part 7…
Welcome back to the 2011 Import Alliance coverage…we are definitely winding down to the close of the IA 2011 photos and it’s been quite a ride. There aren’t too many photos left, so today you can consider this one the “lifestyle” portion of the coverage where I give you guys who didn’t attend IA a glimpse of the people, the food, and some other random things that I saw along the way. The previous posts, minus part 6 of course, was heavy on the cars and if you guys follow The Chronicles regularly, you know that I try to cover everything. I saw some people on the forums asking about the females or whatever at the show and while I’m not real big on just taking a bunch of photos of random ass girls, I tried to get some shots just because inquiring minds want to know. I think after this post, there should only be one more batch of photos I need to post up and that will conclude the coverage. I know many of you are viewing The Chronicles for the first time because of the IA 2011 pics, but I do hope that you guys stick around for the long haul and continue to see what this site has to offer. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised…
Okay, so after we last left off, we were at the close of day one and people partied, cops showed up and just hung out with people instead of enforcing the law, and Ben Torres aka B.L.T. was sodomized and date raped in a bathtub by Mexi Zac Efron Downstairs Bolt Guys Frank. Then we went to Waffle House where we ate and talked to some of the locals and then retired to our rooms to get some rest. Oh, before I go any further, I think I should address the hotel that DPK David and I stayed at. Originally the plan was for everyone to stay together in a room but once I decided to go to Nashville for IA, I opted to get my own room. One of the main reasons was because I actually wanted to sleep and not deal with crazy asshole party people knocking on my door every 20 minutes and the other reason was simply because I don’t want to stay in a room with like 5 dudes and two beds. I’m a little bit older now and I guess you can say that I’ve lived with certain “expectations”. Meaning that I’d rather pay extra and just sleep in a bed on my own and not on a floor. The whole idea of sleeping in rotation just to share a bed to save some money is just ridiculous to me. The airfare to Nashville was bad enough as it is but still, a room isn’t even that much. It’s just a personal preference of mine, if you like to do that to save money that’s fine. A room next to the La Quinta, aka The Ramada, is $60 dollars per night. How much was the La Quinta that was trashed? Uhh…like $90 a night. If you split that room with 4-5 people, what is that, like…20 bucks each person to stay in a shithole per night? No thanks. I’ll pay the extra 40 and go sleep my ass in a bed and not have to worry about all that shit associated with staying with other people. I split with David because there are two beds, so you know how much I paid to stay at a hotel for that weekend? $60. 20 bucks per night at the other hotel with other dudes..for two days…is 40 dollars. So you stayed at a hotel that was trashed, went through random fire evac because some asshole was pulling the fire alarm, and if you decided to walk outside for any reason, possibly got hit in the head with a glass bottle……..just to save TWENTY DOLLARS. The Ramada wasn’t anything to brag about though, the room was pretty old looking, but it had a living room and kitchen so even if someone else decided to stay with us, they could have had the couch to sleep on. The fridge looked like a serial killer once used it to store body parts, but we just used it to keep our Gatorades cold, so that’s fine. It even has one of those oblong toilets, you know, the ones that aren’t small as fuck? I am not packing any kind of crazy heat so I’m not even going to attempt to act like my dick is huge but you guys know what I mean; when the toilet is so fucking small, that you have to hold your penis up just so your shit doesn’t touch the rim of the toilet. I fucking hate that and The Ramada was kind enough to accommodate me with a toilet that was “touch-free”. Other than that, the A/C was blasting cold and I didn’t have a fucking drunk Honda enthusiast passed out in my fucking tub, which is wonderful. They even had these little donuts and waffles for breakfast in the mornings so if you ever decide to go to Import Alliance, stay the fuck away from the La Quinta unless you want to sodomize a drunk person, drink 14 30-packs of Bud Light, and get glass hurled at you. The Ramada is walking distance and it’s quiet. There are also other hotels near the La Quinta as well, like a Courtyard Marriott and some other random ass hotel across the street from the Waffle House. I think it’s called the Avery or some shit but that motherfucker looks haunted as hell so I don’t recommend staying there at all. Ramada is kind of shitty, but it’s 60 bucks and you can’t really argue with that….
Okay, so on to the coverage. We woke up the next morning super late, because DPK David decided that it was a good idea to forget how to use his iPhone alarm and slept through it. Big Mike and Ryan were already back at the event, so we hurried and chowed on some donuts and headed back to day 2 of Import Alliance with our Canadian friends Arthur and Chris. Another thing that I should mention that I learned from my IA trip, is that Canadian people not only talk very differently from both Cali and Midwest folk, but it’s also apparently okay for them to turn around completely when they’re talking to you while driving. This is a blatant generalization that is incorrect on many many levels, but our friend Arthur Malczewski, was driving us around the whole weekend and whenever we were talking to him, he would literally turn around completely and talk to us like he wasn’t behind the wheel. In all honesty though, he saved our asses and drove us around everywhere so we didn’t have to rent a car. Much love for that… So we cruise up to the show and on the second day, Import Alliance is significantly smaller in size. People either partied all night the night before, or they just go to IA for day one and then head home. There was still a very large crowd of cars there, it just didn’t cover the entire Nashville Super Speedway. There was also free track runs going on so cars could no longer just park on the track. I kinda looked forward to a smaller grouping of cars because it gave me a chance to see everything. I still didn’t though, but I saw as much as I could. I didn’t worry so much about getting photos the second day because I had taken so many the day before so I was more relaxed…
Spotted this EG that I don’t remember seeing the first day…Nice and clean with Mugen RnRs…
Big Mike wearing his “FURK” shirt…haha…no really though, you know what it means…
I thought this was a cool shot…
This FD3s was posted up behind the paddocks just begging for a photo so I bit…
Just can’t get enough of Anthony Smith’s EG6…
….as well as this S14, which caught my eye the moment I got off the plane and saw it in the La Quinta parking lot…
Yellow DC2 on Stark Rennsports…
This NSX needs no introduction…
Big Mike and DPK David walking…
“Minty Fresh” Civic on CCWs and silver bay…
Another shot of this Integra at the Track.One booth…
LS1-powered FD3s RX-7…you can spot DPK David chatting with Kyle Smith and Damon Young, the owners of the two S13s I posted up in Part 6….
Damon’s S13 with 180SX Type X front…
“Flush” Honda Fit on CCWs…
Speaking of wheel fitment…we spotted this “stanced-out” Prelude and I was staring at the wheel and thought to myself…
…”Wow that’s a pretty intense stretch…”…then I thought something looked weird, took a closer look…
…and uhh…is that the inner lining that protects the bead of the tire BURSTING OUT? The fuck? That’s pretty dangerous…Whoever mounted this wheel really didn’t notice that the tire was so stretched that the inside of the tire is forcing itself out?…
There were definitely some random ass looking people there at IA…I saw a dude that even had the Password: JDM logo tattooed onto his chest but that doesn’t beat this dude…he looks like the guy from that one Billy the Exterminator TV show…
8th gen. Civic coupe on red BBS wheels…
Spotted this green DC2 on gold Volk CE28s…has every rear suspension brace in existence apparently…Good looking car though…
Mazda Miata on gold Work Equips…
Never been much of a fan of the whole splatter paint thing, especially on stock Civic DX steelies, but this one contained some pretty “interesting” designs…haha…
Some of you guys were wondering what the females looked like out there so here you go…
I apologize because the shots weren’t that great but I really wasn’t there to take photos of random girls…
During the first day of Import Alliance, we didn’t really get a chance to eat because David and Ryan were busy running the Rywire booth and I was so busy standing in the dreadful heat that I didn’t even feel like eating. Big Mike ended up going to a private lunch with Don Napier, one of the founders of IA and the Canadian homies we were with were running around doing their own thing. Since it wasn’t that busy on day two and we were hungry, we all decided to try out some of the food at the track…
Saw this dude rocking some pulled pork nachos and that shit looked really good, so I ended up ordering the same thing…
DPK David can never make up his mind on what he wants to eat…
…so he ended up ordering what was probably the worst thing on the menu…chicken strips and french fries…
Had no idea that they were actually called “Sammiches” out there…
Ryan with his fried chicken wrap or some shit…
While we were eating and people watching, I saw this crazy ass shit…Some dude mounted a shopping cart to his roof rack or whatever and then had this girl climb inside of it, and then she actually got up, and the dude walked on the roof of his car, and sat in it…why they thought it was cool? I have no idea…
After we ate and chatted for a bit, it was back to cars…
Dave from Hybrid Racing’s 370Z on Wedsports…
180SX taillights with carbon kevlar RPS13 light garnish…
Rear shot of the S15 Silvia on aggressive Volk GT-Us…
Sorcery NSX cruising around the paddocks…
Boosted 4-door on CCWs…
Jay from PG+K and his creepy moustache…
This dude stood on his head for like 20 minutes just to get a free t-shirt or some shit…I was really banking on someone walking by and just ripping a fart into his mouth but we can’t always get what we want…
Really liked this engine bay shot of Cristian Loza’s EP3….Mugen everywhere…
Jay’s J’s Racing wing…
Ben’s friends didn’t want him to miss day two of Import Alliance so they made sure to bring him along…here he is passed out comfortably on this dude’s legs…
Closing it out for today with two more shots of the K-swapped Jackson supercharged Integra that was recently featured in Honda Tuning magazine…
That’s it for Wednesday…thanks for looking and check back tomorrow for the shocking and unbelievable (not really) conclusion of IMPORRRRRT ALLIANCE 20-ELEVENNNNN…
Import Alliance 2011 Coverage…Part 6…
Somebody jerked off in the parking lot….
That’s all you really have to know about the type of shit that goes on at one of these post-IA parking lot parties at the La Quinta. Apparently, somebody thought it was hilarious to beat off in the parking lot in front of everyone…and that was just on the first night before the event even took place. Haha, whether it’s true or not, I’ll never know. I actually don’t want to know. If somebody decided that it was cool to whip that shit out and start attacking it like it owed him money, then be all means, have at it…but I don’t want to see or hear about it, haha. The fuck is wrong with people these days? Really…For the most part, the partying the first night was pretty uneventful. Hotel management asked the police to come by and shut it down and again, for the most part, people chilled after that. The second night was a bit different, and I’ll tell you more about it further down in this post. May actually really wanted to come to IA with me but since my whole trip was so poorly planned and airfare wasn’t exactly the cheapest, I thought it was best to just tread the IA waters with a couple of the guys, just to see how it was like. Plus I really wanted to get that “complete” experience you know. Figure out how everybody else does IA and see what they were raving about. When it came to Import Alliance, I couldn’t have been happier with the event. When it came to the parties and extra curricular stuff outside of the actual meet itself, I was less than impressed. It wasn’t like the dude jacking off in the parking lot or whatever turned me off from the whole thing, don’t get me wrong. I think it’s just because I’m a bit older now and I’m over the partying stage. From 21-25 or so, I did it all you know. What these guys were doing at the hotel is pretty much an equivalent to like the “college” experience, where you get drunk and go to frat parties or house parties and just act like complete assholes. It’s cool, I get it and again, more power to you but it’s just not for me anymore. Some of the stuff was humorous but the other stuff was just plain juvenile and childish…oh and also pretty dangerous. I think if we had brought the girls along with us for the trip, they wouldn’t be having more than 15 minutes of that shit. Not that they aren’t down, because these girls know how to party too but being in a crowd of what is probably 80-85% males who are drunk and acting retarded is not the best environment for women to be in. I really just wanted to get a sense of what things were like so we stuck it out and hung out with everyone to experience the parties at La Quinta…
If anything I feel bad for the manager of the hotel. We actually stood at the front desk and talked to her for awhile just to see what she had to say about it. She admitted that she knew what she was getting into with the whole Import Alliance thing since this was her third straight year hosting a majority of the crowd. The money is good. I don’t know how busy that part of Nashville gets but I doubt they have that significant of a crowd every weekend booking up all the rooms there. We asked her if there were other people staying there that weren’t apart of the IA crowd and she said that there indeed was. I ran into an older couple who were waiting for an elevator and some dude like blew one of those plastic trumpet-style horns right into her face and she was pretty upset about it. The manager said that when people book rooms that weekend, they are notified of the “conditions” and what goes on there so they have fair warning of what’s going on. So the people that chose to stay there, I don’t feel bad for, because they knew what was going on and less than a mile down the way, there was a hotel that’s nice and quiet and half the price (where I stayed). They could have easily stayed there but the manager said they opted to stay there anyway. What’s terrible is the amount of clean-up that goes into these type of events there at the hotel. One of the elevators broke after the first night so everyone was stuck riding one elevator where the lights were pulled out so people were crammed into one elevator and stood there in the pitch dark. Fire extinguishers were all fucked with, the parking lot was a mess, and the list just goes on…I can’t even imagine what the rooms looked like. But apparently it’s worth it to the La Quinta management because they continue to put up with it…
Anyways, let’s start the coverage, I’ll tell you more about the parties later on. We’re picking up around the time when Big Mike, DPK David, and I were walking on the other half of the lot right next to the main section. This section as I mentioned in Part 5, hosted some of the more uhh…”whatever” cars. There were some gems in there but you had to look for them. The rest of them were either incomplete or like, relics from the early 2000s style of imports. Halfway through my walk, I indeed found some gems. And these three cars were perhaps some of my favorites of the entire weekend. Nothing too crazy, but style doesn’t always have to come in brunches. You can build a nice, simple car, and it’ll send a bigger message than any crazy over the top project…
Love at first sight…man, you know how you go to a club where there are like tons of wack ass looking girls and you see one that’s decent-looking but in that moment, she’s incredibly hot? Well that’s called “hot by association”. When you come back to the real world she’s no longer that hot anymore but in that moment, she’s a 10/10. There were a ton of builds like that at IA. Not “great” by any means, but in that moment, it was one of the best builds there…these three cars…are by no means “hot by association”. These cars are the ones that you can appreciate at any event, in any state, on any coast. Very strong words, I know, but simplicity is the key…
FD3S, nothing crazy on the aero-side, just Volk TE37SLs without the red spoke decal and under the hood…
..GM LS1-swap…don’t really need much more after that. It’s a beast…
This was actually the first car I spotted out of the three. I went up to it and just stood and stared at it, then the owner, Kyle Smith, came up to me and asked me if I was StickyDilJoe…I said I was and he told me he was a big fan of the site, which I was kind of surprised by and said that he’s been following it for quite some time. I told him that I appreciated it and he was just a real quiet, humble type of dude. I told him how much I liked his car and how it made my day to see the three of them parked out there. The car is very straight to the point. It has an SR-swap, which he said looked terrible so he didn’t pop his hood, bronze TE37s, and a complete JDM OE 180SX Type X kit. I don’t know if many of you are familiar with this but the 180SX (or our 240SX hatchback) was in production in Japan up until 1998 when it ceased production. The Type X (and also a Type R model) was the last incarnation of the 180SX and had this front bumper, front lip, sideskirts, rear valance, and taillights. You want to talk about “JDM” style, it doesn’t get anymore “JDM” than this right here…and he doesn’t even have to wear a stupid ass t-shirt that says JDM on it…
The front end with the Type X front and what I call the “double Forest Whitaker” …you know, the lazy eyes…haha…so fucked up…
Late model 180SX JDM tails and rear add-on pieces…perfect wheel fitment too…
Kyle’s buddy was the owner of the black 180SX convert, which was featured in Modified Magazine awhile back…this one is probably the more refined one of the two but both are great looking S13s…
TE37s in what looks like “Formula Silver” finish…
Ever seen a Nissan with a NEXT! Miracle Cross Bar?…
The interior…note the APEX’i Power FC control unit, Bride door panels, floor mats, and gauges…very nice…
This photo came out kinda shitty cuz I had high hopes for it…
After stopping and chatting with those guys for awhile, we moved on to see what else we could find…
J32-swapped CR-X…I wish I could show you a close-up of the motor, it was so worn down and corroded…looked like the car that this motor came out of was submerged in water for a long time or something…still cool nonetheless…
This was cool…I think at that point CCWs were like a sharp pointy knife slowly digging into my rib cage but it look good on this hatch. Bay is decent, tucked but still needs a couple things here and there like a custom fuel set-up and some moving of certain items. Good looking car though…I have another shot of it from the second day of IA that I really liked but I’ll post that later on…
240SX drift car (I’m assuming) on a trailer…
I thought the wheels on this Civic were cool…even the smaller bolts along the lip were spikes as well….
Accord wagon and Civic from V Race Works…
Widebody S2000 from Illmotion…uhh, I’m sure there’s a joke or caption I could toss in here with the girl hold the pole and her hair waving around in the breeze but I’m just going to leave it alone…
Joe Maguschak once again…At this point a lot of people had left so I could finally get a shot of this car from a distance…
Really liked this shot of the firewall on his coupe…
I’ve always had a vested interest in this NSX because it resembles Phaze2 Tony’s NSX in many ways. Both were red at one point and both are rocking Sorcery aero, with this one being different because of the flip lights… I didn’t really expect it to be at the event but when it showed up I went over to take a closer look at it…
Great looking build overall, in many ways it’s much more refined than Tony’s. Tony’s NSX is more raw and just sounds really intimidating. This one is much more subdued, and everything is more streamlined. I really like the rear diffuser on it as well…
19-inch Work S1 2-Piece wheels…the true 3-piece has a different face with exposed bolts…
One of the rare VIP-themed rides at IA. This one is a Y33 Q45 with a Version Select kit and AME Shallen FX wheels…
…next to it was an even rarer sight…a VIP styled Acura RL…
Subaru STI on some aggressively sized Enkei RPF1….
Boosted single cam Civic…
C-West-kitted RX-7 getting worked on…
Honda Fit on some purple Mugen wheels…
Civic on some 949s…
The IS300 that I took a bunch of photos of outside moved into the paddocks towards the end of day one…
Supercharged RSX on Wedsport TC105N at the Hybrid Racing booth…
LS1-swapped G35 at the Chasebays booth. I didn’t take a shot of the rest of the car because it was like stock height and incomplete…
Matt Tucker’s EK9…Someone told me he had like 5000 friends on Facebook so I checked….this dude now has his own fan page…haha…Guys got more friends than Big Mike and HeyMikeyyyy. He’s like the Tila Tequila of Facebook…
K-swapped DC2 at the K-Tuned booth…
One of my favs again…Anthony Smith’s EG6…
PG+K Moe…
Zerolift booth with stock that on the west coast, would be the seized-property of the state of California…haha…
BonB from PG+K’s Civic as he was getting ready to take off to go eat at Tiger’s Pho spot…
Shot with my 10mm lens, that’s why it’s all crazy distorted looking. It’s actually just a normal Work S1 wheel used to hold Mike Zusin’s business cards…
Corvette at the Track.One booth…
Mike Burroughs and friends…If the name doesn’t sound familiar, you’ll probably remember one of his more recent builds, which was the rusted-out Bimmer that’s been posted all over the web. I guess his garage or something caught on fire and he’s been rebuilding that car, but he recently picked up this silver 2800CS coupe…
Every time I tried to get a good shot of it he was driving away so here’s a shot of him driving away…
S2000 on classic Work Equips…
Jordan McCord putting his hood back on as the day was coming to a close…
Thus ends the first day of Import Alliance 2011…can you believe we’re already at part 6 and it’s barely the close of the first day? Haha…there’s more to come but definitely not as many photos as day one. The second day was a smaller event so there weren’t as many cars and a lot of them were the same from the first day. There’s still a couple parts left but not as vast as the previous. So anyway, after the event came to a close, we hopped into our friend Arthur’s CR-V and headed back to the hotel. There we took a break, showered, and regrouped for the rest of the night. DPK David and I were at the other hotel down the way, but we changed and what not and walked back over to the La Quinta to see what was going down…
…and the party began…
This was what the La Quinta parking lot looked like when we got there. The whole lot front, side, and back were filled with cars and people. Even the Holiday Inn or whatever lot next door was filled with people. Guys and gals were drinking, hanging out by the pool, etc…You can see how close people were to the cars. To the left of this photo you can see Jay’s S2000…
For the most part everything was pretty chill. The Nashville Police cruised up just to see that everything was cool and it was… but it got crazier later on in the night…The further the night progressed, more drinking occurred, and more drunk ass people were walking around in the parking lot. At one point some drunken fool got right up in DPK David’s face all belligerent and said “Hey you got a cigarette or am I gonna have to slap a bitch?!” All crazy and shit. I mean, it doesn’t really matter who you are…if someone is going to be inches away from your face shouting drunken bullshit at you, the first reaction is obviously just to crack the dude in the face and be done with it. We weren’t drinking, but it doesn’t mean it’s cool to get in someone’s face and act like a punk bitch. David, is not one of those dudes that just lets things slide. In fact, when he gets angry, he’s almost down to do whatever it takes to fuck someone up…that’s just the type of guy he is. I was really close to putting the camera down and just locking down a nice rear naked choke until the dude passed out but I saw that David remained calm… We were in a different state, with younger people who were drunk, and didn’t want to ruin the “ambiance” of the La Quinta party so David got right back in the guy’s face and said “Why the fuck would I have a cigarette for you?” and then the dude gotta got the hint and backed off. DPK David said he thought that he was trying to call him a bitch at first but apparently the dude was already mad at some girl so that’s why he went off in grand fashion, too bad it was in the face of the wrong guy and it almost got him a good stomping. This is the same guy later on, that thought it was a funny idea to dance in front of a police car when the police were trying to get through the lot and then ran away like a little bitch when the cop got out of his patrol car….
At one point, the hotel management told the police to shut it down and so the police attempted to do so…Before that however, there was racing on the freeway on ramp next to the parking lot and everyone was drinking and watching….even the police. DPK David walked over to the officer and asked what he thought of all the racing that was going on and the police told us that he loves drag racing so he didn’t have a problem with it… Go ahead and re-read that last sentence, I’ll wait…
Okay, he said that he was cool with people racing on the highway. This was when the Civic coupe was running down a street bike. The officer was even telling us that he knew the street bike was going to lose. David then told him that if this was going on out in Cali, people would be getting shot at by the police and shit would get shut down immediately. Realistically, you can barely even drive a lowered car out here and not get fucked with by the police, let alone drinking in public and racing on the freeway…or even beating off in the parking lot…shit is definitely different out there… The cop was just like “we’re the nicer folks” (compared to the cops out west) and that they are more chill and just let things slide unless hotel management says something to them, since it was there property. I can dig it though, I don’t know how much shit the cops have to deal with on a everyday basis but that part of Nashville seems so quiet without IA being there that they probably don’t have much shit to do normally. I mean, during rush hour traffic there was a total of like 6 cars on the highway, the other cars were people arriving from whatever state they were coming from for Import Alliance. It’s just slow there so I don’t blame the cops for enjoying some illegal street racing and letting kids drink publicly and make asses of themselves…
Eventually when more Nashville PD showed up, people retreated to their rooms. It took awhile for that to happen though because kids were busy trying to put stickers on the police cars as they drove by, dance and act like assholes in front of the police, and do that stupid fucking planking thing everywhere. One dude even got arrested for trying to plank on top of a police car. I’m pretty happy that these kids weren’t on psychedelics or cocaine and shit cuz who knows what they would be doing if they were on some mind-altering shit…haha. We actually listened though and went back up to Rywire Ryan’s room to watch the mayhem ensue from above…
This is a shot from the balcony before the police started rolling up from each side. This shot is kind of deceiving because you don’t see the rest of the people that are spread out throughout the rest of the parking lot…
Ryan looking shocked as people raced back and forth on the highway. There was actually a race happening on the highway at one point, and on the other side of the highway, there was a police car pulling over some random person for speeding…how ironic…The officer that we spoke too even admitted that they love pulling people over for just having a taillight out or something stupid and minor like that. Apparently it’s okay if you want to race people on the freeway and drive like a fucking maniac….as long as all your taillights are functioning…
Here’s a shot from above when one of the police cars started circling the lot and had the lights on, in an effort to get people to go to their hotel rooms. It’s funny to see that when the police shows up, a bigger crowd forms…that’s some shit that you will never see here because police would have riot gear on and would be busy firing rubber bullets at people…haha…
One a majority of the people went back inside, that’s when the mayhem inside the hotel started. The majority of the people went to their rooms to hang out on the balconies. There they heckled people and hurled GLASS beer bottles at people that remained in the parking lot. One of the bottles even went as far as to hit one of the 350Zs in the lot. If you cherish your car, don’t ever bring it to the La Quinta because there is a highly possible chance that some shit will fly at it… Not really sure how people came up with the notion that it was cool to throw glass bottles at people, 3-4 stories up, but at these La Quinta parties, anything goes. Some guy actually tried to be a tough guy and was taunting others into throwing bottles at him so that he could go kick their ass. That proved to be a stupid ass idea of course, and the guy left his cell phone on the ground as he tough guy-walked his way upstairs looking for someone. We were just in the balcony staring at the dudes cell phone sitting on the parking lot floor before one of the PG+K guys ran down there to grab it…
The shit that was going on was just absurd. People than ran around in the hotel damaging hotel property, taking fire extinguishers and spraying them, etc. I looked at the ice machine on the floor where Ryan and Big Mike were staying and that shit was fucked up. Then people started setting off their car alarms randomly because they thought it was cool…
Here are Arthur, Chris, DPK David, Rywire, and Big Mike watching everything go down from the balcony…If pictures had sounds, you would probably hear someone banging on the door at this point. Zach “Rogue” Poland was screaming at me from another balcony to open the door for him so he could come hang out with him but he was so drunk that I just told him that he was an unpleasant drunk and we didn’t like him, and told him to go away…haha…We met up with him later on though when he told us that someone stole his beer cooler. We all actually watched this happen but we just thought the people that rolled his cooler away were his friends. I just thought it was weird how his friends looked like the limp-wristed dudes from 30 Seconds to Mars…
Over on the balcony next to us was Mexican Zac Efron aka Frankstar, aka Bolt Dudes aka Downstairs Frank. We call him “Downstairs Frank” because someone at the show really asked him why he was selling stickers that said “Downstairs” (when it actually says Downstar Inc.) on them, in which I replied “because that’s where your nuts go”….anyways, he was yelling at us from his balcony and wanted us to go over to that room because Ben Torres aka B.L.T. was just fucked up out of his mind…I really didn’t know what he had been drinking the whole night, but the fact that there was someone fucked up and passed out meant that it would make for good photos… Now to truly grasp what Ben had been doing with his free time the whole night, I had to turn to PG+K member Stephen Burke, who recently uploaded these photos of Ben…
Oh Ben, drinking Crown Royal like it was a liter of nice cold Coca Cola…
Here is Ben partying it up in the Elevator with people whom I’ve taken the liberty of protecting the identities of, just because I don’t know if Ben had did anything to them in his inebriated state…
So we know the culprit was a bottle of Crown Royal and probably like 6 30-packs of Bud Light…Now throughout my years of drinking, I’ve always known one rule to be true….“Beer before liquor, makes you sicker…Liquor before beer, you’re in the clear…” I had seen Ben walking around with a couple of beers throughout the night, so when I saw him downing a bottle of Crown, we all had a pretty good idea that he was going to be fucked…
Hi Ben. The first thing that came to mind when I walked into the bathroom was why he was sitting in a tub of water. Not even a full tub, just a little bit of water, like enough to just soak the backside of his body, making it easier for someone to take his kidneys out and sell them on the black market. His friends told me that they wanted to cool him down…I don’t know how laying him in a little bit of water was going to really cool him down, but I stopped asking questions…The other thing you should be asking yourself, is are those Durex condoms photoshopped into the photo, or are they actually there? Haha…
Frank was in the bathroom and was all smiles, so I asked him how many times he planned on having sex with Ben and that above, was his response. I reminded him that sodomy with a passed out male was still date rape and highly illegal…but Frank replied with “Come on homie, they’re street racing and drinking outside like everything is fair game…Bankhead shawty CAW CAW!!”….He’s from Cali so why he always reps Bankhead and makes bird sounds, I’ll never know…. He then wanted to know if I wanted to photograph the events that followed and then I threw up in the tub where Ben laid, and then I ran for my life…I found the officer that we watched the races with downstairs and told him what was about to happen in the bathroom of room 267, and he said “I got next”….
Good thing they got condoms to protect themselves…
All in all, the whole night was pretty fucking ridiculous. In Nashville, from pure observation…you’re allowed to street race, drink in public, violate private hotel property, and hurl glass bottles at unsuspecting people…oh but you can’t plank on top of a police car because that is wrong. The parties remained inside until the police left and then someone thought it was a good idea to pull the fire alarm inside the hotel, which called for an evacuation, that then allowed everyone to once again drink and party in the parking lot of the La Quinta. Was it a cool experience? Ehhh…Would I do it again? Probably not…I think next time I’d rather just prefer to have a quiet night and go explore downtown Nashville or something. As exciting as it is to hear that someone got impaled by a bottle of Corona, it’s not worth losing sleep over and putting yourself in danger just to have “a blast”…
We didn’t really want to deal with all the bullshit that was going on at the hotel anymore so we just headed over to the Waffle House down the street to kill some time before we called it a night…
When we got to the Waffle House, we were greet with trail of puke that was trickling down the sloped parking lot and that was definitely the first thing we wanted to see before we ate…I ordered the biscuits with country gravy because that is certainly the thing that resembled vomit the least…that is called sarcasm…but yes, I did eat that and it was fucking delicious…
The people that worked there were super generous and asked us about Import Alliance and what it was all about. I told him that there was a guy named Ben Torres in the hotel getting sodomized by a guy that sells nuts and he smiled…Then he went on to talk about how great his Corolla FX16 was for what seemed like 4 hours before we finally managed to escape and go back to the rooms to get some rest…
That will draw a close to today’s coverage. Hope you enjoyed it…Everything I said was factual about the parties at La Quinta, except for the raping of B.L.T. I don’t really know what happened because I left. It could have totally happened though. If a man can jack off publicly in a parking lot thinking that it was entertainment for the masses, anything is possible at the La Quinta IA parties…
Back with more tomorrow…haha…thanks for looking….
Import Alliance 2011 Coverage…Part 2…
Hmm….let’s see what should we discuss today about the trip…Ah, yes… I got it. I was eating lunch earlier and something came to mind that I thought I should touch on. Today, we’re going to talk about two very interesting topics from the Nashville IA trip; The culture and the food…
Culture Clash…Now I have done quite a bit of traveling in my lifetime, don’t be mistaken but traveling to Nashville, Tennessee was a completely different experience. Thanks to my parents, I’ve been able to see Hong Kong, Japan, China, and many parts of the United States. I’ve been to the tri-state area as well and even Canada, but Southern folks are very interesting people. Los Angeles and Cali in general is a pretty diverse state with many different ethnic groups and cultures, but we still have that general California/West Coast attitude. When I got to Nashville, I was really surprised by how nice people were and got a sense of what true “southern hospitality” really is. This isn’t really from talking to the enthusiasts of course, because they came from all over the central and east coast. I’m talking more about the people that were actually from the south. The people that worked at the Waffle House I went to and other restaurants were really nice, talkative people. I guess it’s because things are a lot slower out there and people aren’t always in a rush to do something or get somewhere that they actually take the time to be human. Over here, everyone almost seems as if they are always in a constant state of panic because there is so much going on. In the south, people are more patient and willing to just talk to you and give them a sense of what they’re like. Even the police out there are unbelievably nice (I’ll discuss this more later on) and let people get away with practically anything. I can’t even think of one person I spoke to out there that gave me a hard time. The manager of the La Quinta hotel that everyone was literally tearing apart was still very kind despite watching her property being destroyed at the hands of drunken morons. I’m just saying, it’s just different out there…
The southern accent is also something that was very interesting to me. Everybody talks that way out there so it didn’t seem unusual to them at all but for DPK David, Big Mike, Ryan, and I, it was a crazy to hear everyone speak that distinctly. It was really easy to pick up though and like I was telling David, if I somehow stayed here two days longer, I swear, I would start speaking with a southern accent too because it stays in your mind. It still trips me out sometimes how guys like Jay and Bon from PGK have a southern accent because we never hear asian dudes out here with accents like that.
All in all, the people were a great experience for me personally. Everybody was willing to give us a ride whenever we needed one, which was great because we saved some money from not having to rent a car, and all the people we encountered while there treated us like we belonged there. Well, except for one guy who was drunk and got in DPK David’s face and almost got his life unearthed from his body but again, I’ll talk about that later…haha…
Fine Dining…The food is definitely something I should touch on. They fucking love sugar, goddamn. I thought people out here for crazy about putting sugar in there shit but people in the south love their sugar. Everything I drank tasted like I was drinking a bag of sugar, and trust me, I love ice teas, and what not that are flavorful. The asian food is really good out there too surprisingly. I never imagined that I would go to Nashville and eat Asian food but some of the spots we went to were so good that I ended up going back. With that said however, I really wanted to speak on the food out there because people FUCKING LOVE JACK IN THE BOX. Holy shit, it was one of the most random fucking things ever. When I got to the hotel after Jay picked me up from the airport, I was hanging out in the parking lot with them by the pool and saw a couple empty Jack in the Box wrappers and boxes, etc. I didn’t think anything of it other than the fact that I found it interesting that they even had a Jack in the Box out there. I still remember the days when Jack in the Box was exclusive only to California and parts of the west coast. Anyways, after Big Mike arrived, he was hungry and was asking some of the people there about what was good in the area. PGK Jay’s cousin was like….”Well Waffle House is pretty good but you guys gotta try this one spot…it’s called ‘Jack in the Box’…” Big Mike and I looked at each other with a non-vocal “what the fuck?” We didn’t say anything after that and just went to Waffle House but while we were there, I brought it up and he too thought that it was strange. After we finished eating, we went back to the hotel again to hang out and some people asked what we ate and we told them that we ate at Waffle House. These guys were like…”Oh yeah, that place is good….but have you tried JACK IN THE BOX?” Ahhhhhh….mind fuck….haha. When David and Ryan arrived, they were sort of hungry and asked what there was to eat and at that point, I explained to them the fascination with Jack in the Box out there and they didn’t believe me.
The next day while we were at the event, DPK David, Big Mike, and I were helping Ryan set up the Rywire booth that was apart of Loi from Sportcar Motion’s Skunk2 booth. One of the guys from Function Garage, Brian, walked over to the Skunk2 booth and asked Loi if he wanted to do dinner after the event. He was like…”Hey, you wanna do dinner tonight?” Loi said he was down and then Brian was like “I gotta take you to this one spot, it’s called….JACK IN THE BOX.” And the dude was like super excited about it…It was one of the craziest things I witnessed while I was there. Loi had no idea so he kinda just looked at him and smiled and then turned over to our direction and we kinda laughed. Shit is wild man, I mean, don’t get me wrong, I fucking love Jack in the Box, but I’ve had it all my life and it’s like a typical fast food spot for me. It’s a preferred spot for sure, but they talk about it like it’s gourmet dining…seriously, I can’t even make that shit up. We had other moments out there where people came and asked us if we had tried Jack in the Box as well. I almost wanted to go to the Jack in the Box out there to see if there was anything different from the one we have out here. Do they serve you two 99 cent tacos and an Ultimate Cheeseburger on a plate or something? I literally got one like a mile from my apartment…shit ain’t that fancy, haha. I guess it’s like a new hot spot out there for them and it’s just one of those things that shows you just how different the culture is out in middle America…
Another thing I noticed is how much people love to drink beer out there. Holy fuck, everyone was walking around with a Bud Light 30-pack like it was attached to them at the hip. I’ve done my fair share of partying when I was younger but my friends and I never consumed this much beer. We were always more into drinking hard liquor because it got the job done quicker… I think Import Alliance is the sole reason why Budweiser is still in business down south cuz people drink that shit like it’s water…. I thought when I heard stories of all the crazy partying at the La Quinta it was because people were on some hardcore psychedelics like mushrooms or something or pounding down bricks of cocaine but it’s all the product of Bud Light consumption…haha. While drugs would have made the night much more interesting and outright dangerous, I’m glad to see that these guys are drinking only beer and not partying like they were at a club in Hollywood…
Okay, on with the coverage. When we last left off, we had just finished eating at the Waffle House and headed back to the hotel to hang out while we waited for DPK David and Rywire to arrive. Jay’s cousins had dropped us off and went back to hanging out with some of the other folks there and Big Mike and I were just walking around and looking at the cars that were there. It was already hot but we got tired of standing in the sun so we headed up to PGK Jay and Franks hotel room to hang out. Jay was at the car wash with some of the other PGK guys but we had the room key so we could put our bags up there. A fully air-conditioned room sounded amazing so we just hung out in the room and looked out of the balcony while people continued to trickle into the La Quinta lot…
This couple that Jay knew came up to the room as well and brought some ice cold Bud Lights. Big Mike and them hung out on the patio but it was hot as fuck so I stayed inside where the A/C was and pretended to be a part of their conversation…
Eventually I sucked it up though and stood on the balcony and got some shots of some cars…this is that widebody S14 that I posted in part 1. You can really tell how much wider it is than stock with this overhead shot…I really liked this S14. I was going to hit up the owner to see if he would have been down for me to shoot it possibly for a future story in Super Street but I later found out that he was in the latest issue of S3 magazine…oh well…
A couple of PG+K vehicles…The STi belongs to Stephen and the blue RHD Integra belongs to Be and this was actually the car that Jay showed up at the airport with to pick my ass up…Seeing this car reminds me of bad the roads are in Nashville. Be’s got a pretty stiff suspension and there was a point when Jay hit this bump so hard that I almost flew out of the car…
The dude on the far left is Zach “RogueEG6″ Poland. This dude talks so much and is so loud, that I swear I can still hear his voice in my head…haha…Seriously though, he does talk a lot. Nice guy though…
A couple minutes later, Ryan and DPK David show up with Arthur and Chris, who are friends of Ryan’s from Canada…Throwing down the beer in this photo is Stephen from PG+K…
We hung out for a little bit and got Ryan and the rest of the group caught up on everything that we had done since we got there. We then headed out to the balcony and saw that the “Civette” showed up. If you guys are unfamiliar with the build, it’s a Civic shell that’s been mated to a Corvette chassis. We went down stairs to take a closer look at it and here’s a shot of the engine bay. The rest of it is outright hideous so I didn’t get a shot of the whole car…
The others were hungry since getting in from their flight so they took off to go eat at the Waffle House while Big Mike and I stayed behind to walk around.The weather was starting to cool down a bit so it wasn’t totally unbearable…
Another shot of Nick Weir’s K-swapped VW truck…
Here’s another shot of the silver track-prepped EK who belongs to Justin or username; “wEaK Squad” from the NWP4Life forums…I’m showing you this shot because I wanted to show you…
…his massive rear shock tower bar…shit is beefy-looking…
I saw this S2000 a couple days before I left for Nashville on the web so it was cool to actually get a closer look at it in person…
The rear fender treatment isn’t for everyone but it’s wild in person. The bodywork looks pretty good too and makes the rear of this S2 extremely aggressive…It’s so wide though that I think it almost throws off the front end of the car. It’s definitely different though….
Color-matched Cusco cage is a nice touch…
Rear quarter shot of Jay’s S2000…
Seen It! S2000…
Matte Red Volkswagon GTI…
Big Mike discussing engine bay ideas with the guys from Grade A Garage…Zach Poland taking a beer nap in the background…
Joe Maguschak’s engine bay…Had to be one of the cleanest, best assembled engine bays of the Import Alliance event…more on that later…
DPK David talking to Matt aka “Bad 350Z”. Matt is the one that did the bulk of the work on the engine bay above…
Jay’s S2000 was pretty dirty but he’s a track guy now so it’s okay to be filthy. Just ask his dirty mustache that he grew out for the weekend…
Honda Fit on some CCWs…
As soon as DPK David and the rest of the guys came back from eating, David and I grabbed our luggage and went to our hotel to check-in. We had heard all the crazy stories about the parties at La Quinta so I wasn’t about to try to sleep over there. In hindsight that turned out to be an amazing idea because it got pretty bad over at the La Quinta pretty quickly. Our hotel was walking distance to the La Quinta so we had the best of both worlds. We got to hang out at the parking lot party and also got to sleep peacefully after…Name the wheel in the above pic and you win absolutely nothing…
The first night of partying wasn’t so bad. There was some debauchery that went about but for the most part it was pretty chill. Just people drinking beers in the lot and talking…
The Nashville Police were present the whole time but were only there to keep an eye on things and get cars to move if they were blocking the flow of the parking lot. They just drove around and hung out with people there….
A couple hours went by and the cops were asked by hotel management to shut down the party outside early so people retreated to their rooms. I didn’t really take very many photos at this time because it was pretty dark in the lot. The last couple hours consisted mostly of people drinking beers and staring at cars and shit. It was pretty uneventful. At around 10:30pm, we decided to head out to downtown Nashville to grab some dinner…
The Hard Rock sounded good and was one of the first spots we saw so we made it our dinner spot…
It was kinda late in the evening already so the restaurant was pretty dead. We ate, talked, and then went back to the hotel to get some rest. We only had a couple hours to sleep so we made the most of the 3-4 hours that we got…
I guess the parties continued on while we were resting, including some dude who apparently was just jacking off in the parking lot or something in front of everyone. Whatever the case, I’m glad I wasn’t a witness to any public male masturbation…fucking weirdos…
The next day, we got up at 5:30am, got ready, ate some breakfast, and set off to Nashville Super Speedway for the first day of Import Alliance 2011. The lines rolling in were massive but we had vendor passes so we just drove right in and parked…
Right when we parked, I looked outside and spotted Bon B’s Civic, which I haven’t seen in over 3 years. I still remember the first time I met Bon when his Civic was still blue. He had driven out to Eibach and blown his motor then and I met him at Do It Dyno. Crazy to see how far the car has come and how it’s now finally close to completion…
He’s now K-swapped and his entire car has been repainted a Porsche GT3 green…
Looking good so far but Bon was the first one to admit that he still had a lot to do before it was finished. The engine bay that connects through the firewall still needs to be completed and his intake manifold has been left untouched because he soon plans to acquire a set of Kinsler individual throttle bodies…
One of Bon’s axles was binding as he was driving, which resulted in the C/V boot ripping and grease spraying all over the bay. Here he is attempting to wipe it down before the gates opened…
Tim Shultz from Hybrid Racing chatting it up in front of Bon’s Civic…
I found out from a Chronicles reader that this yellow CTR belongs to Matt Tucker. Here he is wiping his EK9 down…
I wanted to give you guys a glimpse of what was behing the vents in the rear bumper but I suck at that…
Really liked this Nissan 370Z from Import alliance…The Wedsport SA55M with the matching color inserts and the overall stance of the vehicle is just a great look…
Walker Japan…
Matt Tucker’s K-swapped CTR engine bay…
Not really sure why this happened or what purpose it serves…
The engine bay of Nick Weir’s K-swapped VW truck…
Big Mike chatting it up with Shocker Joe Coville…
Gonna close it out today with one of the best IS300 builds I’ve ever seen. I still think my boy Billy Shea’s HKS-themed IS300 is the best of all time but this one is right up there with him cuz this shit is the business…I remember seeing photos of it floating around on the net from various events in the past but it’s crazy to see it in person….
Lots of custom bodywork on the outside and you can already tell from the cut-out on the hood that this turbo is pretty massive…
Right-hand drive Toyota Altezza conversion…Vertex floormats, Bride seats, custom center console, color-matched trim, etc…shit is sick…everything that you would want an an award-winning show car…
Shaved and tucked engine bay with a 2JZ-GTE swap…
Big Mike talked to him and I believe this IS made around 1048whp….
That’s all for today…thanks everyone for looking and I hope you guys come back for more…
Japan Relief Gathering Coverage…
Just a couple of shots from this past weekend’s Japan Relief Gathering which was hosted by Jimmy Doan and the rest of Team Praxis. I got there at a completely random ass time and I heard a bunch of cars had left, but when I got there with May, it was still pretty busy. I mean, it wasn’t totally crazy or anything but there was a decent turn-out. I was talking to Big Mike when I got there and he mentioned that a raffle had just ended and some people took off. Jimmy did a great job putting this thing together and getting a big variety of cars to show up to show support for Japan. Donations were taken throughout the day, raffle tickets were sold in which the money went to charity and there was generally a good, relaxed vibe. The weather was a little hotter than it has been lately and the sun was beating down, so I didn’t want to get burnt again like I have the last couple of events we have been too. Shout out to the Praxis guys and VIP Modular wheels for putting the event together. On with the pics…
A shot of May with Phaze2 Bert and Dabbie in front of the Dos Chinos food truck. Big Mike, who is pictured, didn’t give a shit about the picture because his food had arrived so he subsequently ignored all attempts to be in the photo…
Big Mike’s Prelude of course, nothing really new with this thing lately other than a repaired oil leak which stopped the vomiting of motor oil all over Rywire’s floor…
The Team Praxis line-up… Above is Linda’s Matrix and below is Jimmy’s FJ Cruiser and the rest of the crew…
What a world of difference air suspension made on this TL…looks really good now…
Tony from It’sJDMYo!!! and Ken Myoshi, the man behind Import Showoff…
Spotted this NSX behind Big Mike that I don’t think I’ve seen before…
Not really sure how I feel about the wheel/brake color combination. I mean, with a white base you can match anything with it pretty much but the blue wheels on the tealish Project Mu brakes just looks a little odd together. Would have been cool if he color-matched the TE37s the same as the brakes but what do I know…even white TEs would be cool, or black,…it would just really make the brakes stand out so much more. If you have Project Mu brakes, you better be sure somebody sees that shit you know…I guess in that case the blue wheels work cuz it makes you look at it but I’m just saying in terms of color flow..eh, again, what do I know…
Hyundai Genesis reppin’ Prestige Marketing…
This was cool to see because DPK David has been talking about doing something to his daily GS300 for awhile now and this is the type of simplistic style that he was aiming for…Has the front add-on lip that he wants and all and even has the same AME wheels as I do so he can see how his GS would look with them on…
Speaking of GS chassis, this one had to have been one of the best builds at the event. Custom red GS built to full track-spec. 2JZ-GTE swap, interior is gutted out, caged, everything…this thing was SICK. Interior is battleship grey too, really nice build…
Engine bay is wire tucked and everything…
I’m a huge fan…
This one was also very well-built. While the red one is built to be a track car, this one is dedicated more towards the aesthetics and VIP-theme with the custom widebody and wheels. I’ve seen this GS before and never even realized it had swap…
So cool to see VIP build with swaps and customized engine bays…
Spotted this 1GS as he was leaving the event. I believe this GS belongs to “CubanGS” on the VIPStylecars forums and it also used to be green…
Phaze2 Noel and Travis…
Here’s a shot of DPK David’s engine bay. You should all be familiar with it by now. He did some minor fender work recently so that his car could go a little lower and not rub when he takes hard turns but the only shot I took of it at the event came out absolutely horrid so I’m not going to post it up…haha…
Clean LS on Leon Hardiritt Ordens…
NSX with what looks to be a VeilSide kit…
Z33 on Eurolines…
Civic hatchback with a Domani front-end conversion…
Acura TL on classic Work Equips…if I had a daily that was a TL, correction, if I could afford a TL to drive around in…this is probably how it would look…maybe without the Equips though. I love Equips and they are one of my favorite wheels of all time but I figure if I could afford a TL, I would be in a lot of debt and couldn’t afford the wheels. Yes, I thought about it thoroughly…
This S13 fastback was nice but every time I look at this picture it fucks with my mind because I can’t figure out why that a-pillar is purple and the rest of the car is grey/silver…
Seen this Celica a couple times, not bad..
Milt’s 350Z on Garson (Deep Racing Ryugi?) wheels…Too many fitments cuz his fender is cracked…
Really liked this TSX…
I was walking around with Rywire Ryan and he was telling me about this Mini truck. He said he peeked through the hood vent and could see it was a K-swap but didn’t get a chance to see it with the front-end of the car off. Cool little build…It even has a S2000 cluster in the dash…Not sure where it’s from or who built the car but it would definitely be cool to get a more indepth look at it…
The hardest working import model in the business…Natalia Marie was out all day at the charity car wash for Big Abe washing all kinds of cars in the sweltering heat and the next day she was at this Japan Relief event handing out NOS drinks and MCing the raffles…
Big Mike putting his front license plate back on his Prelude as we were getting set to leave…
Ms. Natalia reading off some raffle numbers…
Tony and Big Mike talking to DPK David as we were leaving…
That’s about it. After we left we just all headed back to DPK David’s house to hang out for the rest of the day. May and I had to do a oil change on her car but that was really the only thing we had to do. Big Mike and Ryan were over to chill too and we just chilled and ate dinner and what not. You know, the usual stuff…
Thanks for looking and have a good week…more content for you guys this whole week…
Wekfest Los Angeles 2011 Coverage…Part 6…The Finale…
Here it is…the last and final part of the 2011 Wekfest Los Angeles coverage. By this time, the event was winding down and the awards were starting to take place. There has been a shitload of photos but hopefully you guys enjoy the indepth coverage that I usually do for all the major events. Today’s closing coverage will include the rest of the cars that I missed, the awards, and what we did after the show. It’s always good to see the guys who come in from out of town so I wanted to make sure to spend as much time with them as possible since we don’t see each other that often…
Lambo Murcielago LP640 from ProMax…
Voltex-equipped EVO…
F50 Q45 that Ross from Midnight Garage did quite a bit of work on…I believe they even had custom rear arms made so that those VIP Modular wheels could fit under the rear quarters…
Goldmember Anthony used to have a white Scion xB on yellow/gold BBS wheels but he has since ditched that project for his new Toyota “Lowlander” equipped with Rotiform wheels…
Junction Produce Previa…
Reza Yaghoubi and his lady friend…
My better half and the future Mrs. DPK David…
…and now for some of the winners…
Phaze2 Tony hasn’t brought his NSX out in awhile but he showed up with a set of bronze TE37s and won 2nd Place Acura Class…He actually had his eyes closed in this picture so I threw on some Ray Charles sunglasses to make the picture less awkward…
Jeremy Duarte and his DB8 Integra won 1st Place Integra Class…
Chris Sakai surprised no one by winning 1st Place Civic Class…very much deserving of the honor…
Mike G. placed third in the Civic Class and Bolt Boys/Downstar Frank (Not pictured), placed 2nd in the Civic Class. I would have flip-flopped those two in 2nd and 3rd place, respectively, but I wasn’t a judge…Congrats to both though…
Big Mike won a 3rd-consecutive 1st Place in the Honda Class at a Wekfest event, which now qualifies him as a Wekfest Dynasty…on another note though, I really like those F2 Autolife t-shirts….just a simple yet genius design…haha…I dig it…
Anh Truong from ATS won 3rd Place Acura Class and was all smiles…
Ejay pictured here with Big Mike and Sheeps…Ejay won 2nd Place in the make-specific Integra Class and Sheepey won 2nd Place in the Honda class behind Big Mike…All deserving and a huge congrats to all the winners…
After the awards ceremony came to a finish, people began to get in their cars and take off so I scrambled to get whatever else I could, especially some of the cars around our area that I overlooked…
GS with a Job Design kit…
Another GS, this one featuring my huge shadow, which ultimately fucked up the whole photo…
Sheeps taking off in his S2000…
Angel and Fred Chapman taking a different approach to helping Ben re-install his hood…
While Angel was doing that I was busy snapping more shots of his S2000….which I have also included Larger Versions of (1400x933px)
…and another… Larger Version (1400x933px)
Mike and his wife Renee taking off in his Ferio…
A couple more shots of Tony’s NSX…
…and another one of Chivas’ coupe…
DPK Jared’s S2000, now with the hood back on…
Ka Wong’s AE86…
Loved this RX-7…
Travis Mercado’s Honda Fit…
Phaze2 Corollas…
May really liked this shot of Chris’ EK…
F20C-swapped 1st. Gen Toyota Celica…
Andrew aka Slappy from MayDay Garage holding up Chris’ hood…
Noel’s Corolla…
Mikeyyyy looking at the Jayde Nicole Playmate of the year issue of Playboy that he found in my Q45…
DPK David and Salem staring at some big girl that was rocking booty shorts and roller skates…seriously though, that happened…
Henry from Phaze2 talking to Big Mike…
A trio of ATS S2Ks…
Big Mike rolled up to our area after the guys from Function Form shut down their booth… You can see how the grass field was mostly empty now. The only people that remained were either getting photos still or just hanging out and talking…
May, our friend Chris, and HeyMikeyyyy hanging out in and by my car…
One final shot of the Phaze2 NSX… Larger Version (1400x933px)
DPK David with Long Beach in the distance…
Getting set to leave the venue…
Keith aka Keychain from Its JDM Yo!!! rolled up to chill for a quick minute before we left…
Angel set to take off in his S2000…I really liked this shot so I included a Larger Version (1400×933)
After we left Long Beach, we all separated and went different directions to go drop off the cars as well as shower and get ready. Since it was going to be the last night most of the ATS guys were in town, we decided to hit up a local favorite of ours, Brodards in Westminster, for dinner. They have the best vietnamese spring rolls there and everyone loves that place and hardly has any issues with eating there…
All of us eating at Brodard…it’s hard to get a table at that place even for small parties, let alone a party as large as ours so May, David, Jackie, and I got our own table right next to the large party…
After dinner, we all decided to go to Tastea right down the street so that Chris Sakai could get another shot at trying to get our favorite Gone Bananas drink. If you don’t remember, the last time we were there after the 2011 Eibach event, we all got the Gone Bananas but Chris got the last drink, which turned out to be the most watered-down one. He got the short end of the stick and was left with just ice coffee so he wanted to redeem himself…
..and then we got there…
…and well…
…they ran out of bananas…
Haha, we honestly had like probably 20 people trying to get a drink and they only had probably one banana left so we all let Chris cut in front of us so that he could get the actual Gone Bananas drink with bananas and all…So hopefully he got a chance to taste the deliciousness that is the Gone Bananas from Tastea…
Big Mike chillin while everyone ordered their drinks…
Nick disgruntled after hearing that there were no more bananas…
ATS Fred waiting for his drink…
It got a little crowded inside so we got our drinks and hung out in front of Tastea…
Once everybody got what their order, we all headed back to the Rywire facilities to hang out…Here they are looking DPK Darryl’s engine bay of his EM1 coupe…
Nick and Ryan Der discussing aero efficiency…
DPK David, Chris, and Ryan discussing important matters…
It was getting pretty late and May had to go to work the next day so we headed home. The guys stayed behind for a while longer and then also went home to get some rest before their early morning trip back to Norcal. That’s pretty much it. Hope you guys enjoyed all 300 photos of the Wekfest Los Angeles 2011 event…thanks for looking…
Wekfest Los Angeles 2011 Coverage…Part 3…
Back now with part 3 of the Wekfest LA 2011 coverage…Hope you guys are enjoying the coverage so far. There’s plenty more to come and I’ll try to get as much of it up as I can before I take a little vacation for the weekend. By this point in the coverage, the gates had opened and people were starting to trickle in. I made sure to cover most of our area and the surrounding areas before the crowds got too big. Today we’re going to be taking more detailed looks at certain builds and pics of some cars that were new to me…
ATS Angel’s S2000…
Figure I’d take a pic of my own car for once…
The new Phaze2 logo that I designed recently. I really wanted to do something with a more classy look for the guys with the VIP-themed builds in the crew and it got a lot of positive responses…
Phaze2 Tony, who you’re probably more familiar with as the owner of the Sorcery widebody NSX, brought out his daily 1st gen. Lexus GS300…I like how he accidently put his WF*LA on his windshield upside down and didn’t even notice…
Tony’s NSX of course, now on some aggressive bronze Volk TE37s. He wasn’t too sure about the look when he first got the wheels but everyone agreed that it looked great…Can bronze TEs really look bad on any car though? Seriously…
HeyMikeyyyy decided to change things up and redo his CCWs in two different colors. It totally changed up the whole look of the car and he’s been wanting to add color to his wheels for awhile now. The white on polish/chrome look was cool but it was a little too plain, especially since Mikeyyyy’s always trying to do some wild shit to his car…
Phaze2 Bert with a random white vinyl wrap job on his car that he got for free. I told him to either add a red stripe in between to break up the colors a little bit or just have the whole car wrapped in white…I think the whole white on white look would be nice, we’ll just have to wait and see what route he decides to go…
Bert’s brother Noel and his Corolla…you should be pretty familiar with it by now if you follow the site since I took some pics of it with model Sheila not too long ago…
ATS Anh’s Integra. He recently added a custom roll bar that was fabricated by ASC Speed Metal in San Diego, but of course, I didn’t take any pictures of it. Why? Because I just remembered at this exact moment that I should have taken some pics of it…haha…
A classic DA from ATS Garage that I did a story on about 2 years ago…Good to see that it is still in the exact same pristine condition as it was in the early 2000s…
When you mention DAs, you can’t forget Ejay’s Integra. If the above shot of Ejay’s Integra looks familiar to you, it’s probably because I took the exact same pic of it probably an hour before I took this one. I’m pretty sure I posted it up in Part 2 of the coverage. I took another one just because I didn’t want to forget about Ejay like I usually do and this last statement makes the first sentence pretty irrelevant….haha.
Speaking of Ejay, he’s in the background of this pic I took of Chivas’ Civic…
Speaking of backgrounds, here’s an engine bay shot. Related? Not at all. In all seriousness though, I thought this shot was pretty cool because you can see the color shift in Chivas’ chameleon bay…Car looks good, I would suggest him doing a little bit more to the bay like hiding and tucking some more things, like the A/C but I know he lives in Las Vegas and not having A/C over there would be terribly stupid…
Speaking of A/C, okay I’ll stop, haha…here’s another shot of Sheepey’s S2000…
Here’s Ryan Der, yay…
Der bay…
Der interior…
Der Recaros…
Der wing…
Der licious…
Chris Sakai’s EK…
Overhead engine bay shot of his EK…
….Bride seats and Crow harnesses…
…and a shot of his dash…
DPK Henry…
DPK David…
DPK Ryan…
Our buddy Nick Caster’s CR-X on Regamaster Evo Final Versions…
Jason from ATS Garage…
Somebody on the NWP forums requested a shot of DPK Jared’s engine bay so here it is…there’s still a couple things that are going to be added and touched up. The whole bay is going to be resprayed actually so it’s definitely still a work in progress…
S2K heaven…
Fit on Mugen MF8s and a random trophy…
Teddy’s Civic…
Always a big fan of this STI…
Never seen this turbo S2000 before. Pretty wild set-up with the custom v-mounted radiator and all…
The bay…
…and BRM finish Wedsport SA55M…
Enrique…
…and his homie…
Ryan O’s bro’s DB8…
Always enjoy seeing this S2000 on two different set of Volks…
Well that’s another 50 (49) so I’m gonna cut it off here for the day. Thanks for looking and back with more tomorrow…
Eibach Honda Meet 2011 Coverage…Part 2…
Alright, back with part two of the 2011 Eibach Meet Coverage. Hope everyone is enjoying what they are seeing so far. So far, the response has been overwhelmingly positive and I couldn’t be happier. I try to bring you guys, what I feel, is unprecedented coverage of one of the best events in our community and hopefully that translates onto these pages…
When we last left off, the rain had started to die down a bit and more people were starting to make their way in. What was crazy was the clouds all of a sudden just went away and we were thrown into weather that was the complete opposite of what we experienced minutes before. It didn’t look like it was going to rain at all again for the rest of the day but i didn’t want to take a chance on missing prime shooting time so I made my way towards the main VIP row of the event. Hoards of people were starting to come in so I wanted to get some solid shots before I had all kinds of random ass dudes and ladies standing in my shot…
I walked by the vendor section inside the building but didn’t want to hang out in there yet because the sun had just come out…speaking of random ass people in my shot, there you go…haha…
Spotted Black Pie with his half hipster/half sailor look…
Saw this little R/C car that matched the actual car of the owner…You’ve probably seen the car before but I couldn’t get a full shot of it since people were standing around and I was rocking the 70-200mm lens and I would have to have a considerable amount of distance to get the shot…
The front end of Frank from Bolt Boys’ Civic…He had busted up this bumper pretty badly a couple months back but it’s all repaired now along with the wheels that he had bent…
As you can tell, the last couple images have been pretty random. That’s because I couldn’t really get any good shots with the lens that I had with so little space with all the people so I headed back over to the booth so that I could switch to my wide angle lens. On the way back, I passed by Salem’s TSX and saw this dude dislocating his left leg so that he could crouch down in position to get a photo of Salem’s J’s Racing big brake kit…Looked like he was going to blow out his knee or something…
This dude couldn’t get into the Eibach facility so he had his own little display outside with the hood propped up and all. Cool to see another right-hand drive EG with silver moldings…So far, I’ve only spotted DPK Henry and Bolt Boys Frank with them…I’m sure there are more floating around out there but sometimes the cars are in such shitty condition that you can’t even tell if they’re actually silver or just faded black…That and you have guys repainting their entire chassis so even if they had them, they just paint over them…
Okay, so I walked back over to the booth, got in my car and was able to switch to my wide angle lens. I haven’t really used this thing in a while so it kind of took some getting used to… Here’s a shot of the Honda Tuning CR-Z… in the background is a guy that thought it would be a cool idea to just stand in the mountains and try to get the worst shot ever. If you were there you’ll remember that in front of the booths in this corner, there really isn’t anything to look at. It’s like the empty area where cars roll in and what not. The guy probably got a picture of some shrubs, a bush and me staring at him wondering how terrible his picture was going to come out…
It was good to see Phaze2 Arnel again since he has been MIA for awhile… Even though there still hasn’t been much done aesthetically to his 4-door, it still draws in a considerable amount of people. You’ll have to take my word for it though because in this photo, it’s a fucking ghost town. That’s the great part of having a wide angle lens though. You can’t see it but there’s like 46 people standing around me and a dude sitting on my shoulders with his iPhone trying to take a crappy picture…
Okay, so back to the front VIP area. This S2000 was the very first car in that section. Nice little look with the Spoon/Mugen mash-up. It’s crazy to see that guys do that nowadays because back in the day, it’d be almost sacrilegious to mix those two together…
Mugen-equipped TSX… Pretty interesting how much it cleared up considering how badly it was pouring. Just looking at the first part of the coverage and now makes it seem like it’s two totally different events…
Interesting S2000 that I got a pic of just before I stopped to talk to my boy Jimmy on the right…
I don’t think I’ve ever seen this red EK before. It’s pretty clean…still has A/C and everything…
Gil from Circuit Hero has been keeping me up to date on all the progress with his brother’s rebuild of his Civic and it finally made it’s debut at Eibach. All the pics he had shown me weeks before were just in-progress shots so there wasn’t really any completed shots of the car. I finally got to see it in person and the car looks real good. Sorry the pic is super distorted but there was this dude that was looking at the exact same cars I was and he was like, all up in my shots…
Really simple K-swap with custom touches from ASC Speed Metal. Check out the air intake that they made…
Oh here’s the guy. Dude was around the Circuit Hero cars for awhile. I think I have a shot where it’s just like, the back of his head. Haha, I don’t blame the guy. You guys know how it is, there’s always like a couple people who are in their own little world trying to study the cars and are just totally oblivious to anyone that has a camera around them…
Gilbert’s EF looks the same from the outside but he changed up his engine bay a lot. I have some better shots of it that I’ll post up later on when I get to those pics in my memory card…
Gil’s DC2 of course, always enjoying seeing this build because it’s one of the best Integra builds out right now…
Nit’s S2000…
Reza’s Integra now sporting a much more subtle look without the canards and front diffuser…
Really nice engine bay on this RSX…I think this car belongs to EncoreDC5 but I could be mistaken…I have more pics of this car as well but that will come later…
It was a little surprising to see how many RSXs were at the event. You only usually see a couple of them but Eibach 2011 had a bunch of them… It’s nice to see guys doing different things to these cars now and not always doing the same cookie cutter stuff…I mean they make so many different parts for these cars that there should be more of them floating around with different aero and what not but you just don’t ever see it them….
The Seen It! S2K from the midwest. He has photos up now of his trip back home where he hit a raccoon and destroyed his front bumper…pretty crazy stuff…Look around for it on various forums, I’m sure it’s spread like wildfire by now…
Gonna close it out today with a heavy dose of ATS Garage and DPK. I didn’t really plan it out that way but they pretty much had the rest of this whole row in the front VIP area. If there’s something that you wanted to see of these cars that you don’t see in the pics below, stick around because there’s plenty more of it later on. There was a big crowd around the cars all day and at this particular moment it was kind of hard to get everything I wanted…
Sunny from Franklin Autobody’s Honda Insight. I don’t really think he’s affiliated with anyone because of his business but he’s always with the ATS guys so I’ll just throw him in here… Apparently the ATS guys overheard some people trying to figure out what car this was. Some dude told his homie that it was a “stretched CR-Z”….yeah, just wait there’s plenty more.. haha…
DPK David of course…It’s nice to see his front lip finally back from the bodyshop and back on his coupe…That Mugen lip that he has just doesn’t really do anything for me. I feel the same way about it on Will from Circuit Hero’s EG…
I was surprised to see that Carlos aka Mugen Boy didn’t bring out his S2000 CR on Mugen MF10Ls and instead brought out his Civic. When I say “surprised” I don’t mean like, “shocking disbelief” or anything. It’s more like a “oh, he didn’t bring the S2k out” and not “OH HE DIDN’T BRING THE S2 OUT, SAY WHAAAAT?!!?!?!”….haha…
DPK Henry aka Rick Fox and his legit RHD EG…I know a lot of people didn’t like his 3-inch short ram intake he had before so he took it to L-Con and had a new cold-air intake fabricated….
I really like Jason from ATS’s CR-X. The engine bay is fucking immaculate…I didn’t get a chance to really take a good look at it during Wekfest a couple months ago but when he brought it down a couple weeks ago, I finally got a chance to go through the car and I am a fan…
Like I said, immaculate….I’d say it was so clean that I could eat off of it but I don’t ever eat off machinery with moving parts so I don’t know why I would ever say that…
Interior of the CR-X…I also wouldn’t eat off or in here… You add a “B” in there and take out the “or” and we got a totally different story…get it? Haha…har har har har…
Oh during this time I also ran into Tim Shultz from Hybrid Racing and he was not happy to see me at all…ohhhhh welllll…
If you hit up ATS Anh on Facebook and told him; “Missed you at Eibach homie, car looked sick!” then you have a problem. Anh was not even there and he has no idea what his car looked like. You could have told him “Saw you there Anh but you completely ignored me and your car looked like ass”, it would be just as meaningful and invalid… Just kidding, I have more pics of Anh’s car later on as well. The sun was beating down kind of hard at this point, which made the candy teal look like it was some sort of glowing pastel turquoise color…I think the other shots I have of it are later on in the afternoon when the pics didn’t come out so overexposed…
Super distorted shot of ATS Fred and Chris applying the roll call on Chris’ EK…DPK Darryl just stood in the shot and allowed for his head to be distorted…
Loving the white Regamasters on his car. I didn’t think it would work since the black Volk CE28s he had on there matched up so well with everything else on the car but the white EVOs changes the whole look of the car…
Engine bay shot…While I was taking this pic, I overheard a guy behind me ask why Chris has a “Mustang strut bar” on his car…yeah…Mustang…Strut bar. You’d be surprised by how uninformed people are…
…speaking of uninformed, there was also a guy that thought that Ryan Der’s Civic was a CR-X, yeah…read that again. It’s probably the same guy that told his friend that Ryan’s “ATS Magic” wing is super rare…It’s madness I tell you… In any case, always a huge fan of Ryan’s EK…It’s one of my favorites out right now and Ryan Der is one of my favorite people. Dude is super cool and always seems really excited when you talk to him about anything….
Anyways, back again tomorrow with more coverage. Thanks for looking and reading my stupid ramblings…
Nisei Showoff 2010 Coverage…Part 3…
Damn, I still have so many pictures to post from Nisei 2010. I had no idea I even took that many pictures. I have even taken the liberty of getting rid of a couple that I thought would be better off not used. Traffic has been amazing on this site lately and I couldn’t be happier with the feedback from the event. The pics above is actually Loi posing in front of this old crackhead white guy that was dancing to hip-hop provided by the Autofashion booth. Nobody had any idea how he got in there or why for that matter, but he was taking all the free shit from various booths and was just acting a fool by himself. He looked like he was on a good trip. He even took Yee’s water from him…
Here’s another cosplayer from some other cartoon I don’t give a shit about…I showed May this picture and she said it’s the guy from Bleach. I don’t know or care so I’ll have to take her word for it…
Today’s portion of the coverage will be based more on the Hondas. Around this time of the meet I actually took some time to walk around and take a more indepth look at the builds along with Big Mike and Tony…Here’s another quick shot of Salem’s TSX…
Tony’s NSX and his engine bay…the sun hit pretty hard at this time so the pictures have been processed slightly differently so that the light doesn’t take away from the detail of the cars…Hope you guys enjoy it this way…
Big Mike’s Prelude…
Jared’s S2…
Arnel’s hatch…
Another random shot of Sam’s RE30…
CR-X that looks like it makes huge power…
Kane’s timeless coupe…
Mr. JDM Wong of Super Street fame finally got the Nisei win that he has longed for…I believe he won the equivalent of a “Best JDM-themed vehicle” award…
TL with some crazy fitment in the Autofashion booth…
Loved the brake and wheel set-up on this GS…
Beautifully-done drag Civic…
Anthony from Infinit Wheels owns this clean Toyota Corona…
Kingdingaling’s bay…Fucking thing was spotless…
Jorge’s Civic…I believe he won the Best EG Civic award later that day…
A quick look at Auto Concept Elite’s display and their award-winning cars…
Levin from Infinit Wheels…
Abe’s bay…
Ejay’s, now with the H back in it after he blew it up last time…
ATS*Ferd’s…
DPK David…
ATS*Ron I think…
DPK JP…
One of my favorites of all time…Airbag Club aka Ryan Der’s EK…
Another personal favorite, Chris Sakai’s EK… I think I’ll be seeing this EK in the near future…Between Ryan and Chris, it’s a toss-up for best EK build of 2010…
A closer look at Anh’s Integra and his new system with red stitching and all…From a pure car show perspective, in terms of points and overall build, Anh’s Integra is basically untouchable at this point. He’s got all the facets covered except for custom paint. There isn’t anyone out right now that would even come close to being competiton for him…yeah, you heard it correctly. Just overall theme, build, parts, system, everything…you can’t touch him right now…
Jason’s wife Integra…I did a feature on this car not too long ago and now it looks completely different once again. Bay has been redone entirely and it looks great…
Sunny from Franklin Autobody in Norcal came down with the ATS guys and he brought out his bagged Insight…
I couldn’t get enough of ATS*Angel’s S2000…this thing is absolutely amazing! So aggressive with the custom widebody, the concave mag blue CE28Ns, and ITBs. Can’t forget the J’s Racing pieces either, and the beauty washers on the fender…Amazing…They said he drove all the way down from Norcal with on those ITBs with no issues…I love this car, no joke. He ended up winning the Best S2000 of the show too. Antonio said he didn’t know which S2000 it was when he announced the award but seriously, how can you not miss this car?…
As I walked over to snap a shot of ATS AJ’s Integra, I ran into none other than Gene Tjin. Nice to see that a guy who has built so many great cars of all makes and models and still come out to Nisei and appreciate a nice Honda build…
AJ’s bay…
Can’t forget about Darryl from DPK…I didn’t even know he was showing but I guess he decided to show up and whore his Mugen…
That’s all for today, hope you enjoyed the actual car side of the show…haha. Make sure to look below too because there’s another post below with a couple of larger desktop-sized images of some cars from Nisei. These were the pics that kind of stood-out to me while I was processing them and decided to post these up for you guys in appreciation of 2 consecutive record-breaking days of hits. We shattered the mark the first day and then followed it up with even more hits. Thank you everybody and enjoy the larger pictures in the post below…
Back with more tomorrow. Still plenty more to come…and I mean PLENTY…
Super Street FF Battle 2010…Day 3…
Back for more…this is the last batch of pics from the FF Battle. I didn’t stay very long because I had a prior engagement and had no idea what other cars came out. If you’re not pictured, sorry, I wasn’t around…
The competitors at FF Battle minus the Hasport Civic, white coupe, and Morgan’s CTR. The playing field was level and much more interesting from last year. Runs were close…
Jared finally put all four of his wheels back on and decided to come hang out…
Big Mike’s Prelude of course…
Morgan’s CTR…
Everyone was interested in the J32 swapped Civic from Hasport…
Henry Dekuyper and the SS crew were doing bay shots for the FF Battle spread that’s going to be in a future issue of Super Street…
Circuit Hero DC2…and my cousin came all the way from San Diego to check things out and probably snap pictures for his site…
949 wheels up front, Mugen in the rear…
Circuit Hero tent…
DPK David decided to roll up along with…
…Darryl from DPK…kinda rare to see his car out because he usually riding along with Carlos aka Mugen Boy…
The two of them looking at something…probably listening to Sheepey talk about how confused he was with the concept of racing where cars turn…
Sheepey…
Jared…
Ryan aka Rywire…
Whatever Ryan was saying, Morgan apparently was entertained…
More Circuit Hero DC2…
Still looking pretty good after battle…
Parked for a photo…
Jonathan Wong going over some results with Elton from Raceline…
Big Mike…
Knight Rider program in the Raceline Civic coupe…
Phil and his wife…
Circuit Hero family…
Synchronized walking…
Ryan Der making use of his General Tire tee…
Just one more wouldn’t hurt…Can’t get enough of this thing. Can’t wait until he gets his Chargespeed fenders on and new wheels…
Random shot…
Another one…
David meets Phil…
As I was leaving, I saw this yellow hatch roll up… Pretty nice car, just needs a front lip to really set it off…
That’s about it. The event wrapped up later that day and the official layout and results should be available in a couple months to everyone. Then you guys can find out who won and what car ran what and how they performed out there. I honestly don’t even know but from what I saw I think I had a fairly good idea of who eventually took the whole thing. I could be wrong though. All I know is that this years was much closer than last year and overall the cars were a lot more competitive. I talked to Charles Trieu for a little bit and asked him how he felt about the event overall and he felt that the cars were “much cooler” than the year before. I gotta agree with that. This is just the second year and it looks to be on the rise. It’s gonna be cool to see what kind of Hondas come out for 2011…
DPK David’s EJ1 Civic Coupe…Exclusive Content…
As promised, here are the final edits of the photos of DPK David’s coupe. Seems like only yesterday when David had no idea what the Chronicles was and thought it was gonna be wack…haha. It also seems like only yesterday when David decided to tear his car down and rebuild it. Little did anyone know that it would be down for about 3 years before it finally made its return at Nisei of 2009. When I saw it at the show, I was pretty impressed but I don’t know, something about it…left me with a weird feeling, like it was naked. Just something missing you know? Nonetheless, it was a great car and I was very fond of it. It wasn’t until he brought it out again for the Norm Reeves show in the winter when my view on the Civic completely changed. He doesn’t know what lip it is and no one else seems to know (we’re thinking 5Zigen) but the front lip changed the whole look of the car for me. I guess you could say that it was the perfect finishing touch. He would go on to win best of show at that event and for good reason. David is a hell of a picky guy, and I’ve said on more than one occassion that he’s the most undecisive person I’ve ever met, but it’s quirks like that that often make for great builds. Undecisive, picky, whatever you wanna call it, the final product is definitely worth it. When we had finally come to an agreement on the time to actually go and shoot this thing, I wasn’t sure how I felt about his wheel choice because I had it in my head that it would be on the CE28s but when I actually saw the car in his garage with the CPRs on it…oh man..I knew we had our choice. Something about the green and the Sprint Harts that remind me how much I miss my car, and I take great pleasure in presenting this Civic to you all…
I’m not gonna include all the specs of the build, because well, I usually get paid to do that…haha…but you can see the goodies…
You know the routine, I’m compressing the images to fit the layout of the site but below each image is the link to the original size. At the end I’ve included some widescreen edits for you all…1920×1080 and 1600×900…that’s right, big as fuck in 1080p. Only seen here on the Chronicles…
Random fish-eye…
Extra widescreen shot for the ones with the big screens…
Widescreen Version 1080p (1900×1080)
Hope you guys liked it….PEACE.
Behind-the-scenes look at the DPK David photo sessions…
Over the weekend, I met up with DPK David so that we could finally take some updated pictures of his Civic coupe. We had set this thing up like almost 2 months now or so and just had conflicting schedules so it never happened. That and he was working out little kinks with his car that he wanted ironed out before it happened. I’m still finishing up the pics but here’s some behind-the-scenes stuff. There’s a couple random videos at the bottom too of David just rolling around and setting up, pretty random but hey, it’s Tuesday and it’s something to look at…haha…All point-and-shoot pics here by the way if people are wondering…
I always like going to this spot. Nice and quiet with not many cars around or other distractions. No people either to walk up and ask dumbass questions or to bother us. The cops are really cool there too. One even passed by just to see what was going on and he went on his way…
It’s also really cool because it’s near an air field where you can see small planes going back and forth. The spot is also huge and pretty random so I don’t have to worry about burning the spot up and always taking pics in the same section. The area is so large there that I have a bunch of different places to move around…
David and Mikeyyyy cleaning up the bay and what not…
That sexy guy would be me, trying to figure out how to use a camera…
Human tri-pod…
The pics came out pretty good. Usually when they look good at the shoot and when I get home they’re garbage…but I was pretty happy with the outcome. I know David is waiting to see the pics so I put these up first because I know he’d probably get frustrated knowing that I told him that shit would be up by today…haha…
Oh here’s the videos…make sure to watch them in HD…It’s jam-packed with excitement and explosions and shit…
Here’s me acting like I know what I’m doing. I made David move like a milimeter front and back for like 20 minutes and he ended up in the same spot as where he started haha…
There’s also a video of Mikeyyyy rolling up in his Corolla but that’s not really worth the time…haha…back tomorrow with the final pics…
4th Annual Norm Reeves Honda Car Show and Toy Drive…
Finally had time to go through these pics. I wasn’t really there that long, maybe like two hours? But the Norm Reeves shows are always good. I’ve done them in the past when I had my car and I still enjoy coming out to them. It’s really small compared to other events but Honda guys love when they have events specifically geared towards them and it’s for a good cause, so there’s nothing wrong with that. It was relatively close to me too so I wasn’t in any rush to get over there. I brought all my camera gear and everything but managed to somehow forget my memorycard so I had to use May’s handheld digi but it’s all good. It’s a really nice camera actually…
May picked up some donuts on the way so of course our first spot was to go see Tony and his NSX. Ojay was already there to hanging out so we just chilled and ate donuts and people watched…It was nice and cold so I’m sure Tony’s NSX ran great that morning…
Ryan aka Rywire was there too as he was already down in Socal to hang out and he decided to show his daily NSX. If you know Ryan then you know his CR-X so that license plate frame makes perfect sense…It was probably made in some random mall kiosk too haha…
Hmm…
Arn’s bay in his DC2 is a masterpiece, for real…
That infamous Zeal front bumper appears again…Last time I saw it was at last year’s Norm Reeves…
I was gonna say that there were alot of Integras that day but I forgot that they organize the show by make and model…:P
Those are some big ass tires by the way…
You’re all familiar with DPK J.P.’s Civic…Expect to see more of this car on here very soon…
DPK David finally…FINALLY…FINALLLLLLY…finished his car and decided to bring it out. Finally. Good thing he did too because it looked amazing and people were all over it…
…Finally!…
The ever mysterious 5Zigen lip…
FINALLY…
Clean…
Next up are the S2000s…
JHP Time Attack S2000…this thing is badass…I love it. Fast as all hell too from what we witnessed at the last event…
Spoon’d out S2k…
Rodrez S2000…
I believe this car won Best S2000…
Concave Advan TCII…
BOWL’s also had a Ruckus display at the event…
Kraftwerks Supercharged Fit…very nice…
Some EFs…
CR-X with excellent wheel fitment…
EKs…
Another Fit…
…and another hatch on Dori mesh wheels. I’ve always been a fan of these wheels and they look right at home on this Civic…
Around 11:30am or so they started doing the raffle prizes and awards of the day. The event was only 4 hours long which was cool, because sometimes events go on for too long…
We really weren’t expecting anything…
…but Tony and his NSX took home the Best NSX award as well as the DSport Magazine Editor’s Choice Award…
…and after getting passed up for the Civic awards, David ended up winning Best of Show, which was awesome. First big award for him too so big congrats go out to him and Tony for doing big things…
…and Ryan was happy about it.
That’s it, it was a cool little show overall. Great to come out and support a great cause and see some really nice rides. Again, congrats to Tony and David for winning and hopefully it’ll carry over to next year and success continues…Thanks for looking.
Inline Four Expo 2009…
I’ll be honest with you, I wasn’t too impressed with this meet. I also didn’t stay too long because their wasn’t much to look at. I give the Inline Four guys credit for trying to putting on this big production, but it kinda fell short of what I think they expected. The $5 registration, though questioned by many, made sense to cover the expenses of food and what not…so no real complaint there. I guess I was just expecting better cars? I mean, it is a meet after all though and not a car show, but I guess I’ve been spoiled lately from other meets and their turnouts. I thought about it and I remember alot of people not having very many nice things to say about them so I guess those people chose not to show up. I can’t judge because I don’t have any experience with the place, but people have come to me and said some not so nice things about them. The turnout was actually alot smaller than I thought too with all the vendors their and all.
I stayed for a little bit just to look around but left to go eat. I guess the cops showed up later and shut the meet down because it was too big and they needed a permit. Cypress isn’t exactly the best city to be throwing meets in the first place and I’m sure all the kids that were revving and hauling ass down the street didn’t help. I don’t know why people want to fuckin smash down the street in front of a meet anyway. It’s fucking stupid. No one cares. I checked the meet thread on NWP also and I guess the organizer also complained about people drinking alcohol and girls pissing in public and shit. Haha. Wouldn’t been funny to capture the pissing on camera though. Don’t really know why girls like to squat and piss on the ground in public though, usually just back splashes all over their feet and ankles and shit right? Real classy haha….In the end, the lack of a permit, kids doing stupid shit on the street, drinking, and girls pissing in public was the downfall of this meet. For me it was just the quality of the cars but I can’t blame them for that. Hopefully if they decide to do it again next year it will be better. Just seems like a big production with the registration and then the “IL4 Expo 2009″ stickers they made. I wonder if the organizer was happy with the turnout or not. I applaud their efforts but it just wasn’t that memorable of a meet. I usually love going to meets and I was actually looking forward to leaving…Fuck maybe it was just the heat…Man I sound kinda angry about this shit. It was a decent meet, that’s all I’m trying to say. Just not anything great. Guess I just expected more….
Alright, on with the pics of cars that caught my eye, and the usual homies of course…
Crowd was pretty decent by the time I got there in the early morning. Norman was there again and for some reason his head looks bigger than usual…
Meaty ass tires…
This is the Fit that Honda Tuning magazine is building. Honda supplied the car and HT mag is just responsible for modding it and doing tech articles on it. Looks pretty nice now with the new JDP front lip and Mugen grill. Makes it look like a complete front bumper replacement…
Speaking of frontends, here’s something I haven’t seen in oh…8 years? Haha. When was the last time anyone saw a Zeal front end? Crazy…
Really nice hatch. I saw it in the last issue of Import Tuner and it’s a cool build with some neat styling cues on it. Yeah, I said “neat”…
Mackin showed up and had a big display going. Love those limited edition CE28s…
Rolled up to the meet with this S2k in front of us. Like the LMs…
The As1 buddy friends where there and they rolled pretty deep….
Seeing this car makes me miss my Accord when it had the CPRs on it…
Finally got a non blurry pic of Nit’s S2000…
This coupe caught my eye. Pretty nice build. Just needs to fix a couple things here and there and it’ll be set…
Sick little track EF right here. Full function inside and out…Love it.
They had dyno sessions going on that day too which drew a decent crowd…
Really liked this white S2000…
Only Phaze2 dood there…
Crazy hatch right here…K-swapped and all…
So after walking around for a little bit, we decided to take off to NWP for some pizza. Mikeyyyy mentioned that he wanted to go since he missed out last time but we got tired of waiting and just took off to wait for him over there. Rodrez was hungry and went along as well so we cruised to Irvine for some food. I didn’t take pictures this time around but it was about the same…pizza was eaten. Big Mike also showed up too and ate a sandwich with a side of bread. Yeah I know. Good thing we went to eat there because we found out that someone had bought Northwood Pizza and they were gonna be changing owners real soon. Had to grab a slice before it changed hands….We went to Yogurtland afterwards to eat some yogurt. Turns out that the Yogurtland owner was the one that purchased Northwood Pizza. Wonder if there’s gonna be any dramatic changes…
After we gorged ourselves with food, we headed over to DPK David’s house to check out the progress on David’s coupe and to chill with the rest of the DPK guys. It was fucking hot that day so it was nice to just be able to chill in the shade and relax…
Here’s how it sits right now. Just waiting on a couple little things here and there and reassembly will be complete. Looking forward to seeing the final result. Alot of detail in the bay. I wouldn’t expect anything less from the DPK homies….
It’s another build that you have to see in person to catch all the details. One of the homies said that you could stand there for hours and not catch everything…
Here’s a preview of the shaved bay….so shiny and smooth.
After we talked about cars for awhile, we kinda just sat on the porch until the evening…then I went home and crashed out…
All in all not a bad day. The meet was kinda blehhh…but the pizza, hangin out with the homies, and relaxing afterwards saved the day….I’m sure I’ll probably hear some backlash for the comments about the meet. Oh well, been awhile since any controversy or arguing occured on here….haha…
