Sportcar Motion 2012 Open House Coverage…
After all that USDM Jam coverage, it almost feels a little odd now to go back and post some actual builds from America, haha. I know the annual Toyotafest event was this past weekend, but there was just so much going on last weekend that I could only squeeze in enough time to attend one event, which was Sportcar Motion’s open house/meet. Sportcar hasn’t thrown a meet in like 3 years now but Loi decided one day a couple weeks ago to put a meet together at his shop. It wasn’t very heavily promoted on the web so I didn’t expect too big of a turn-out. SCM is also in sort of a random location as well so if you haven’t been there, it’s not the easiest place to fine. I chose to go to the Sportcar event instead of Toyotafest because Loi is a good friend of mine and he’s always been an essential part of this site’s success. In the beginning, I had no real idea how to use a camera or how to shoot and Loi was one of the guys that really helped me get my photography to where it is today. I am pretty much self-taught but Loi has always been the guy to supply the equipment for me. He was a photography major in college so he just always had camera gear laying around that I could use. He’s so busy these days building his time attack Hondas and running a business that it doesn’t leave him a whole lot of time to shoot anything. He just goes to events now with his Canon S90 digital camera and gets photos with that. When I first started, I didn’t even have a camera. Loi had an old Canon Rebel XT that he wasn’t using because he had upgraded and basically gave it to me to use for whatever I wanted. If it weren’t for that old camera, I wouldn’t even know how to operate a camera today. All the credit goes out to Loi so I always make it a point to help him out whenever he needs something. I originally met him a couple years ago through mutual friends and started hanging out at his shop when I lived in San Diego. We formed a friendship and I am happy to see all the success he has achieved now with his time attack builds. Back when I first met him, he hadn’t really even got that heavily involved with time attack yet so it’s crazy to see how much Sportcar Motion has accomplished in such a short amount of time…
When Loi first mentioned that he and Morgan were putting a meet together, I didn’t think we would be able to make it down there because I thought it fell on the same day as DPK David’s wedding shower. I told him we might not make it and then I checked my calender and found out that it was the day before. Even still, the girls had a lot of stuff to prepare for the shower so we had to set aside some time to make the drive down to San Diego for the meet. At first I didn’t think the girls were even going to come but I guess with all the hectic preparation that had been going on the days leading up to the shower, they needed a little break and the girls decided to come along…
Rodrez getting some gas for his side project FA5 Civic SI before we headed down to SD. DPK David rolled out in his Civic coupe as well and I drove May’s three hub-capped Yaris…haha…
When we got there, I really had to pee so I ran inside to the bathroom and on the way, I spotted Ryan Novak’s R33 Skyline GT-R. You probably know that name more for the Honda projects that he has but when you’re ballin’ out of control like him, you can occasionally drive a Skyline too…
I don’t see too many R33 GTRs nowadays after the U.S. government seized a majority of them…
Shot of the engine bay on Novak’s GTR… The R35 GTR is definitely an amazing car but there is still an indescribable feeling whenever you have a R32, 33, or 34 in front of you…
The interior of the R33 Skyline is as mint as can be…
Outside of the shop, the first two cars I took a close look at were Enrique Rosario and Alex Colon’s Civics…
Enrique’s Civic has made huge strides since I first saw it a couple years back… he recently re-did somethings and the car is looking really good these days…
The engine bay is about as clean as it is going to get without deleting the brake booster and redoing the brake hard lines…
Alex’s Civic rocking the SCM front bumper sold by Sportcar Motion…
His bay is looking pretty good as well. You can spot his Rywire mil-spec harness and plate against the firewall… Also spot a lot of Skunk2 accessories…
Loi Song from Sportcar Motion snapping some photos of Rodrez’s baby…
A rare photo of father and son…
FA5 Civic with FD2 conversion and Mugen RR (or RR-style) front bumper…. Also has TE37s on it but it would probably look slightly better (opinion) on some thicker tires. Just seems a little unnecessary to have such a skinny tire with all that room to play with…
The rear is also converted but with the ’09 and up FD2 Civic taillights. They are slightly more angular and less round than the taillights people usually use when doing the conversion…
Never seen this trunk before… Looks to be a “CSL” style trunk that you usually see on BMWs…it’s an interesting look…
Renzo Marsano’s FA5 Civic sedan that recently ran 1:59 at Buttonwillow. Anything below the 2-minute mark is pretty impressive, especially for a street car with full interior and no real aero upgrades…
17×9 WEDSport TC105Ns and Endless brakes…
Supertwinz John and Lost is Black aka Brandon…
Rywire NSX on matte black Regamaster EVOs…
Alex Peng’s S2000 that recently ran a 1:58 lap time at Buttonwillow during the Global Time Attack event…
“Big Red” aka Ken Suen’s FD2-converted Civic sedan and the Sportcar Motion Integra Type R…
Ken’s Civic has changed drastically from when I first spotted it in the parking lot of last year’s Spocom 2011 show… I heard he is making huge strides on the track as well and running some really good times…
Rays 57Motorsport G07WT wheels on Hankook RS3 tires… also note the Brembo brake caliper and the brake temperature strip on it…
If you haven’t noticed by now, the old ITR bumper is now temporarily back on the Integra after the custom-built front end from Evasive was destroyed during Global Time Attack…
World Racing’s Scion tC time attack car…not the one with the crazy wing on the front…
Lotus on black Volk CE28s…
Sportcar Motion’s “Dirty Hybrid” CR-Z on gold Advan Racing RG-Ds…
Loi recently got his other project, “LRRH”, back from World Racing. It was there for some fab work in the engine bay as well as the full cage…
The bay is nearing completion. Just a couple things here and there and it should be up and running again…
The dump pipes still need to be made as well as the rest of the plumbing for the intercooler…
Engine breather and oil catch from AFI Turbo…
AFI Turbo K-series intake manifold…
AFI turbo manifold… Can’t wait to see this thing running…
Morgan’s EK9 Civic Type R…
Another Sportcar Motion project that will eventually be finished…
Another shot of the “Dirty Hybrid”…
…and a shot of the K-swapped bay. I guess you can classify this car now as a “KR-Z”…
Jose Guzman’s RSX is coming along… He recently added J’s Racing front fenders to go with his Backyard Special bumper. He just needs to get his suspension dialed-in and the car should be hitting the road once again…
DPK David’s EJ1 coupe…
GRETS_ONE aka Joseph Riofrir used to own a gold Integra coupe a couple years back with an ITR front end on GAB Sport wheels that you guys may or may not remember. These days, he’s working on this 4-door Integra on Enkei J-Speed IIIs…
David Nguyen’s Integra on Volk TE37Vs… Not only does he have an ITR front end, he also has a right-hand drive conversion that has all the necessary paperwork…
I was wondering where his ITR wing went but when I spoke to him, he mentioned that his wing was getting painted…
PingPing’s authentic Canadian Acura CSX with Voltex wing and J’s Racing FD2 front bumper… I shot this car a couple months back when I encountered the abandoned puppy that Arn Reyes eventually took home…
If I remember correctly, he used to daily drive this CSX but now he uses it more for track events. He hasn’t added much else to the car since I shot it, the only thing I noticed was the orange ducting in his J’s bumper…
That pretty much wraps it up. We had a lot of stuff to take care of back at home before DPK David’s wedding shower that Sunday. We hung out for a little bit more with baby Maddox and then headed back up to LA…
Thanks to Sportcar Motion, Loi Song, and Morgan Jade for hosting the event and also providing stacks on stacks of pizza along with cold drinks…
Nisei Showoff 2009 Coverage…Remastered…
For this week’s edition of Throwback Thursdays, we’ll be taking a look back at Nisei Showoff from back in 2009. As stated last week, I still have a small portion of unedited, untouched photos that I kept back then and now I can “remaster” them to suit the format of the site and provide larger, higher resolution versions of shots from the past. Nisei Showoff is and will always be a highlight of my year and I’m happy to have been a part of so many of them. Today I have a large group of photos that I’ve gone through and re-edited for your viewing pleasure. Like last week’s post, many of the cars aren’t around any more or have been redone. You’ll recognize most of them and for those of you who are younger or newer to the Honda community, you can now get acquainted with some pretty nice builds from 3 years ago. I won’t do too much more talking, you guys know the routine, enjoy the photos and click the links below each photo for higher resolution versions…
Tony’s Sorcery widebody NSX after he pulled it out from his garage after a couple years… The front bumper at that time had been broken from an accident on a trailer and it had to be repaired. Luckily he had it done just in time to roll into Nisei Showoff that morning…
HeyMikeyyyy’s Integra back when it was in its prime…
Brian Nguyen’s Mugen-everything DC5 RSX…
Nisei 2009 marked the official re-debut of Big Mike’s Prelude…the exterior wasn’t nearly as finished then so I just took a nice shot of the bay…Notice how his Bisimoto header is nice and shiny…
HBK Jon’s Civic was a hit throughout 2009…
Joey Abundiz’s EM1 coupe was one of the more unique builds of 2009…
Not only was his bay a different color than the body, but he pulled off the paint splatter look very cleanly. It wasn’t for everyone but it was definitely different…
Sid from Phaze2…
Tony’s widebody NSX had to have been the biggest hit of the show that year. When this thing came roaring into the lot, everybody stopped to look at it…
His NSX is still around and its one of the cars I miss seeing the most these days…he could easily put it back together and bring it out again but he probably just needs some motivation…
Spotted this thing on the street on the way to grab some lunch back then…
HBK James’ EK on CCWs…
Bryan Leon’s RHD DA Integra on Sprint Hart CP-R…
Alex Zhao’s S2000 was one of the more controversial builds back then…Not a whole lot of people liked his car because it was deemed too over the top in terms of wheel fitment. Pretty crazy to think back now and how ridiculous the whole wheel fitment thing has gotten since then. This would almost seem tame these days and Alex actually took the proper steps and got metal fender work done to house these wheels. Since then, he’s moved on from the S2000 and runs a pretty successful business called Wheelflip where they refinish and re-barrel wheels…
Jared’s S2000 is one of those builds that are just utterly timeless. You can see now that aesthetically, his S2000 has remained the same even in 2012 and it sits just perfectly in any time period…
Many of you probably recognize this Integra…it later went on to have quite an interesting makeover. You can take that however you want, haha…
One of my favorite valve cover ideas of ’09…
I really wish that I had a better shot of DPK Jimmy’s del Sol from that day but back in ’09 I didn’t know how to crouch down to take a picture, haha…
Not sure why but I really liked this photo I took of JP’s Civic…
Alex “Sheepey” Soto’s turbo Integra on RE30s… You recognize this car more as a full-blown drag car these days but back then it was just a street car that he cruised around in on weekends… I liked these wheels on his Integra the best back then and I was actually the one that found these for him online back when he still had some 15-inch Mugen wheels on his car… You can also spot Big Mike’s Prelude in the reflection on his front bumper…
Alex reppin’ an old Chronicles decal faithfully…
Parnell’s DA from Kosoku, back when it had the turbo kit…
Arn Reye’s K-swapped bay…
Arn’s interior…for whatever reason, I couldn’t get a clean shot of his car that day…
Phaze2 Arnel’s Custom BBS RS wheels…
Danny from PlusOne couldn’t get his car running at that time so that’s why you see rust on his brake rotor because it was pushed into the show…
Son from Hasback’s engine bay…
Okay, so that wraps it up for the Nisei ’09 coverage but below, I’ve also attached some photos from the Mega Matsuri event, which took place just a week after Nisei. It was also put together by Ken Myoshi and was a smaller event where people could like buy and sell car parts or something, I don’t remember, haha. Just enjoy the photos…
Arnel was supposed to have these red caps in time for Nisei the week before but they weren’t ready in time so he showed them off at the Mega Matsuri event where he won an award for Best Wheel Fitment…
The infamous…
Bryan Leon’s DA at Mega Matsuri…
Alex Zhao’s S2000 on HREs…
Project Car magazine’s CR-X…
Mega Matsuri 2009 marked the debut of Ejay Adriano’s H2B DA Integra…
That’s a wrap for this week’s edition of Throwback Thursday…thanks for looking everybody…
Formula D Long Beach 2012 Coverage…Part 3…The Conclusion…
Welcome back to the final and concluding portion of our coverage of the Formula D Long Beach 2012 season opener. As you can tell from the shot above, it was an absolute madhouse there and people were standing shoulder to shoulder to try to get a glimpse of their favorite drifter in action. I couldn’t even imagine what those people look like now because I didn’t stay half as long as they did and my skin is already peeling today from being sunburned. It was a great event overall and I really enjoyed the variety that exists throughout. I thought it was meant to cater strictly to hardcore drift enthusiasts but it turns out that there is a vast amount of cars there of all makes and models. Of course with it being a drift event, stance and wheel fitment are heavily emphasized and that’s why you see so many cars with aggressive wheel fitment. The show portion of the event was called the “Slammed Society Showcase” after all and the name alone would deter many none “stanced-out” cars from showing up. I had a good time and I would have stayed longer had it not been for the unexpected heat that day. In any case, here are the rest of the photos from that day. I snapped a couple more around the paddocks where drift cars were being repaired and on display in between rounds and then I closed it out back at the Slammed Society Showcase side… Enjoy…
The Boso Garage S15 drift car had a strong political message represented on its front bumper…you can see from the gashes on the lettering and graphic that this car meet the wall once or twice…
The rasta colors from Ross Petty’s previous livery continue on to this new rendition…
18-inch Work Meister S1R on Falken Azenis tires…
A glimpse of the NOS Energy 370Z drift car which is piloted by Chris Forsberg and rocking a VK56 V8 motor from a Nissan Titan…
APEX Integration’s SC430/Toyota Soarer drift car…
JDM school girl action…only thing missing is the pixelated vag area, haha…
A shot of the Prodrive wheel on Daigo Saito’s Soarer drift car that I had shots of when it was in its naked state at the Formula D Tech Day… I couldn’t get a clear shot of the car since there were so many people hovering around it but I can honestly say that the car looks much better without its current livery….
If you remember the car from the tech day coverage, it didn’t have this flare either with the round cut-outs….
Holly Lee striking a pose over at the Performance Auto & Sound booth…
Fatlace’s R32 sedan drift car on Work XSA….
I’m a huge fan of Jon Sibal’s Dodge Challenger… Love the overall theme to it as well as how it sits on Japanese SSR Professor wheels…
As I was snapping a shot of Jon Sibal’s Challenger, my cousin cruised up with this gigantic Canon L lens and I thought it would be a ridiculous shot if he posed like he was getting a close-up shot of this Rotiform wheel…Haha…in reality, he was really trying to get a shot at that distance, he could probably pick-up the dust particles on the tip of one of those lug nuts….I tried taking a photo of it and that thing is so heavy that it’s hard to get a still shot because I was shaking so much…Perfect I’m sure for getting action shots on the track though but good luck trying to balance that thing…
Karl’s S2000 on CCW Classics…Nice to see some aggressive fitment and a meaty tire…
Leon Casino’s Honda CR-X on Spoon SW388…
DPK David’s EJ1 coupe on Volk TE37s….
My Q45 on custom step-lipped Work Equips…
Another shot of this pristine VW GTI…
Just had to get more shots of this Audi A3 on BBS LM…
Nissan S13 vert on what I believe to be AME Tracers…
S13 coupe from part 1 that was dragging its front bumper around driving static at this height…
This Z33 was looking pretty good on Euroline wheels…wish the height was even front and back though…
Subaru STI on custom step-lipped Work Equips with gunmetal faces…
2GS on very aggressive Work Euroline wheels…the rear was so pushed out that the rear quarter had a huge crack on it….
RHD Datsun/Nissan Bluebird sedan or what you might know more as a Datsun 510…
A Y33 Q45 like mine but without a kit and also sitting on more aggressive custom Work Equips…
Acura TSX on CCW LM20 wheels…
R32 GTR on a classic set of 5Zigen Heidfeld wheels…Haven’t seen a set of original Heidfelds in ages…These are the original 3-piece versions too and not the one-piece from later generations…
The engine bay of the R32 Skyline…
Vortech supercharged Z33 on Meisters…
The original U.S. Junction Produce GS400 owned by John Liwanag….All JP-everything still representing the original Endless Projects crew…
5Axis Scion iQ on Airrunner suspension…
Rare to see a R33 Skyline these days but here is a non-GTR Skyline GTS-T on AME Circular Spec-Rs…
On the other hand, here is an actual GTR, but of the R35 variety from Rotora…
Hoonigan RWB Porsche with Bisi’s 911 lurking behind it…
Sportcar Motion’s time attack monster DC2 Type R….
Kraftwerks supercharged K20 motor underneath the hood of the SCM ITR…
Bisimoto Engineering’s 1004HP 2012 Civic Si coupe on display at the Falken Tire booth…
GReddy’s R35 GTR looking mean….
That pretty much wraps it up. I would have taken more photos but I was just over being there the entire day. We noticed that they were letting the car show participants leave if they wished so we decided to head out. We had all been there since 7am and around 4:45pm, I just wanted to go home and shower because I was so burnt-out…. Thanks for looking….
Formula D Long Beach 2012 Coverage…Part 2…
Moving along now with part 2 of the ongoing Formula D LBC 2012 coverage. Today will be much like part 1, where coverage consists of both the “Slammed Society Showcase” and the vendor section where the drift teams also set-up shop in between rounds. Again, if you are here to see crazy action and drifting shots, I apologize as I did not have the proper media credentials to get into the section where the other photographers were. I simply brought my car into the show and took whatever shots I saw while walking around throughout the day. I didn’t expect it to be that hot either as the days leading up to the weekend were nice and cool. The sun was beating down hard that day at FD and we often found ourselves looking for cover to get out of the sun and to prevent getting sun-burnt. Luckily the NOS Energy section had a huge tent that provided shade for us and we hung out there for the majority of the day. The Slammed Society Showcase area was blazing hot and since I didn’t have a booth this time around, I didn’t bring a canopy or chairs. In any case, here is the coverage from the early afternoon and tomorrow we will close out the coverage with part 3…
Great looking FD RX-7 on Mag Blue Volk Racing TE37SLs…
Z33 drift car from K-Sport…I remember seeing this thing at the SEMA show last year but had no idea it was an actual drift vehicle…
Another shot of James Oliver’s BB6 Prelude…
As well as another shot of Jackson Wong’s S2000…
Wouldn’t be a “Slammed Society Showcase” if I didn’t throw in the occasional aggressive wheel fitment… I see this style quickly taking over the U.S. VIP scene and I’m not really a big fan of all that oni/demon camber….I prefer to have more than 30% of the tire on the ground at all times but what do I know? haha…
A slammed skateboard…
Speaking of wheel fitment, here’s a closer look at the Audi A3 wagon from part 1…
Note how the owner specifically set-up his wheel sizing and offset in a way where, when the car is airred-down, the rear fender sits in between the tire and lip of the wheel…If you take a closer look, you can even see how the lip of the wheel is pushing the lip of the rear quarter panel inward…
Here’s a look at the whole BBS LM wheel on the Audi…
Z33 from Team Hybrid on some cream Meisters…
My only attempt at capturing some live drifting…
Don’t know why but I really liked this shot…I was walking around and this rusted drum caught my eye so I snapped a photo of it. I had never seen an actual drum of HKS Racing Fuel either so I just had to take a picture… If you want to see a larger version of a similar shot, click here (1400×933)
A couple of guys working on an RX-8 drift car….
Random shot of some AEM coils on Bisimoto’s turbo Civic coupe, which was on display in the Falken Tire area…
I thought this Infiniti M drift car from Hankook Tires was really cool…I didn’t get to see it in action but it was on display all day by the NOS Energy booth…
I love how it still retains it’s sedan-characteristics and now sports four Recaro bucket seats…
It still retains the top half of its dashboard as well, with the wood finish and everything….
Another shot of the Sportcar Motion time-attack DC2R…Can’t wait to see how this thing does when it participates in the upcoming Global Time Attack event…
We were hanging out in the NOS Energy area when all of a sudden, a hoard of rollerskating gypsies showed up and took over the DJ area with their creepy roller-dancing…it was quite strange and random…Then they tried to hand us some fliers for some skate demo or something and DPK David signed one and gave it back to one of the girls…Shocked and confused, she rolled her gypsy-ass along and got away from us…
NOS Energy girls were busy posing for photographers throughout the day while they also gave out NOS Energy Drink samples to patrons…
Corissa Furr served as the spokesmodel for Mishimoto’s booth…
Jonathan Wong and Sam Du from Super Street magazine…Also in the shot is Paul Wall, who apparently gained some weight recently…
I really liked this shirt that was on display at the SSR/Tanabe booth…if anyone knows how I can get one of these bad boys, please let me know…
Low Fat Pie was bored so he sat down to play some video games at the NOS Energy booth…Mischa Barton from the OC thought I was taking a picture of her, that’s why she’s smiling in the background…
Ms. Julie Mai was enjoying her new gig as a NOS Energy girl…
Titla McBoob was hanging out with the Me Gusta guy at the Pasmag booth…
Here’s another shot of her with Hover Hand guy…if you don’t know what the Hover Hand is, read more about it HERE… So close, yet, so far…
After staring at Titla McBoob for awhile, we all suddenly had the urge for milk and got hungry, so we decided to take a break and grab some lunch…
As we walked out of the venue, we were shocked by just how many spectators were in line to check out Formula D…Honestly, I had no idea FD was this big and how popular it was. It’s crazy… I want to say it resembled Wekfest SF to an extent but the venue is so vast that it’s hard to compare. People are down to watch drifting though and I think I’ll be attending more of these events in the future, knowing how big it is now…
We headed over to The Pike, which was a well-known strip of restaurants in Long Beach. There were options but we ultimately decided on Hooters since we wanted to grab some cold beers and get out of the blazing sun… When we arrived it looked like it was closed so we had Pie call them from across the street to see if they were open, instead of just walking over to look inside. It turns out that it was just slow because a majority of the streets were closed for Formula D so we got a table and relax for a bit…
I didn’t take any photos while inside because I was busy eating and my hands were greasy from the Hooters chicken wings, but here are a couple shots that the guys took with their cell phones…
It was nice to get out of the sun for awhile and Ryan also met up with us before heading to FD….we stayed for about an hour or so and then walked back to check out the event…
Back at the NOS Energy booth, Natalia Marie was hosting some freestyle hip hop battle and it was kind of cheesy, so we went to the Slammed Society Showcase section to see how our cars were doing…
DPK David decided to pop his hood for a little bit and it drew a small crowd of onlookers… Some guy even asked him if the car had been there the whole time because he didn’t recognize it with the hood popped….
It’s obvious that everyone is a photographer these days with their DSLRs, but what’s become more popular as of late is video…there were people there with all sorts of elaborate equipment to capture video coverage…
Love this VW…such a clean and timeless appeal about it…
Yet another Amuse or “Amuse-style” widebody kit…This one is wingless and has a carbon hardtop….
Bright green HREs on Vaughn Gitten Jr.’s Mustang…
A random shot of his seats and door graphic…
Gitten Jr.’s helmet hanging from his rear view…
I noticed that the rear bumper was removed from the car and upon closer inspection, it looked like he had crashed that took the bumper clear off the car…Again, I didn’t catch any of the actual drifting but here’s a video of the tandem run where he clipped the rear…at around 37 seconds in is when he lost the rear bumper…
Daijiro Yoshihara’s 6.7L V8….peep the 102mm throttle body…
Dai’s DY Signature wheels…
Gravel…
Falken model Olivia Korte…
Battle-scarred S15 Silvia drifter from RS*R…
Steering and alignment repairs were being done on the fly on this Scion tC drift car…
Stephan Papadakis and the Scion Racing crew handling some work on the tC’s steering rack…
Gonna stop here for today….come back tomorrow for the final installment of The Chronicles coverage of Formula D Long Beach 2012…thanks for looking. If you missed part 1, just look below or in the previous posts…
Formula D Long Beach 2012 Coverage…Part 1…
I originally planned to attend this event because there just haven’t been very many other automotive events going on down in Socal and I needed some content for the site. After working on some stories for various magazines the last couple weeks and just lounging on the weekends, Formula D was the perfect event to go out to get reacquainted with the latest happenings within our community. We had gone down to Irvine, CA to check out the Formula D tech day and I was intrigued by some of the new drift cars that were debuting this year. I haven’t been heavily following the drifting scene since the days when the Japanese D1 Grand Prix was huge here in the states so I will be the first one to admit that I am unfamiliar with the state of things today. Anything I see in regards to drifting is either something I am working on for that magazines I work for or stuff I see online. I’ve been trying to get down to the Long Beach Formula D openers for the past two years now but things came up and for whatever reason, I just wasn’t able to make it. This year, I was committed to going, the only problem…was getting passes into the venue. I’m not going to lie to you, I don’t have very high expectations or want anything handed to me without hard work, but after being apart of this great industry for so many years now, I am not down to just stand in line all day and pay full price to get into an event. You can take that any way you want to, but other guys that have been in this industry for any length of time will tell you the same thing. I did it as a youngster and went through everything already and I would rather just not have to deal with waiting in lines anymore and just going into places with either a media pass or register to bring my car in. The only problem was that I hit up Source Interlink (The company I freelance for if you are new to the site) too late and Formula D wasn’t offering any media passes anymore. The downside to that was that I wouldn’t have the cool neon green vest and be able to go into the media area to get super close-up shots of the drifting. So…if you are here to see amazing action shots of car going sideways, I apologize, because you won’t see any of that here. I covered the cars in the paddock area and mostly in the Slammed Society Showcase, which was the car show portion of Formula D. It would have been great to get some action shots but from the areas where I was standing, it was all fencing and all kinds of other random objects in the way…
So anyways, the days leading up to the event, I had to figure out some way to get into the show. I was going to just eat it and purchase a ticket online, but good lord, that shit is like $37 dollars now for a single day. You add that with the 8-10 bucks parking, man, that’s almost $50 to attend Formula D! And I don’t even watch the drifting so it doesn’t make much sense to spend that kind of change. There was an option to register the car for the show, but my car has been sitting so long that it’s just filthy. Registration for the car show was $45 bucks, but then you get to go in early and you also get a prime parking spot…it just makes sense to be in the show… I hit up my buddy Yogi from Fatlace and he said that if we could get a couple more cars together, he’d give us a discount on the spots. I of course lagged on it and couldn’t get a solid group together. DPK David was down to show just to make his sponsor, Falken Tire, happy but it seemed everyone else’s cars just weren’t ready. I was at Rywire probably on Wednesday or something and J.P. from DPK mentioned that he was going to show his Civic, but with a shop called FX Auto Design. J.P. said he didn’t really have to show and was willing to give up his spot to either David or I. We called up our friend Teddy who works over at FX Auto Design and he notified us that he had some extra spots that we could have as well. We just told him that we were going to bring DPK David’s coupe down along with my car and he confirmed with us that we could be a part of the show. David and I prepped our cars on that Friday and set off for Long Beach in the morning…
So a huge thank you goes out to Teddy and the guys over at FX Auto Design, without them, we probably wouldn’t have even gone to Formula D Long Beach. Now, onto the coverage…
Since David recently moved into another place, he’s no longer that close to where I stay at. It didn’t make sense to meet up and cruise down to Long Beach since we were going in opposite directions, so we decided to just meet up down in Long Beach. Black Pie aka Low Fat Pie and PG+K Jay already live in Long Beach so they carpooled together to meet up with us as well, since we were allowed to bring a passenger with us into the show. I woke up around 5:30am, got ready, and cruised down to LBC. David was already there along with Pie and Jay so we chatted for a couple minutes before driving over to the roll-in area…The event itself takes place on the streets of Long Beach so it was pretty cool to be able to drive through a small portion of the “track” before parking at our designated spots inside the show, which was held inside an adjacent parking lot…
A look at the stands when we arrived. This section would later be filled with attendees who were there to watch the action…
DPK David’s coupe and my Q45 on the track while we waited for everyone else to show up…You can spot Jay in the background probably posting a photo on Instagram…
Our friend Norman from AS1 on his cell phone checking where all the laggers were….
Jackson Wong from DTM Autobody and his S2000 arrived shortly after us at the venue…you probably remember this car more in a bright green but he recently had the car wrapped…
A shot of his Enkei PF01 wheels and AP Racing brakes…
I was just sitting in the car waiting so I snapped some more photos of the S2000…
Notice the cage…
A shot of DPK David in his coupe…
Karl’s S2000 on CCW Classics…He used to have the Laguna Seca Blue EM2 Civic coupe but got rid of it and this is his new project car…
Random interior shot of David’s coupe…
We got tired after waiting for awhile and our cars were starting to get in the way of other cars trying to get through so we just pulled inside…
Most of the cars were already set-up inside the Slammed Society Showcase section since most arrived the night before…
David’s recently acquired set of front-staggered Volk TE37s…
The guys looking on as show workers re-arranged some cars to fit us…
My Y33 Q45 at its regular driving height…Some guy came up to my car and was like “Oh damn, that’s sick! Is the car static?”…I was replied with a “Nah, sorry man..” haha…I understand how cool it is to be able to drive everywhere with just coilovers and be slammed but I’ve been there and done that. I’ll gladly settle for bags to avoid breaking my shit…
Falken was well-represented at this event, whether their tires were on display vehicles or competing drift vehicles…
It wouldn’t be a “Slammed Showcase” without it’s share of slammed cars…Not sure how this AE86 goes about making turns but props for attempting it…
This Audi A3 was definitely one of my favorite cars at the event…I think all of us were admiring this thing…just beautiful…
Mint set of Work Meister CR01 wheels on a 4-door Civic…Not sure who the owner was but he/she was rocking one of my old school Chronicles decals…crazy to see people still have those. The chrome was bubbling and everything, haha…
This S13 coupe was owned/driven by a female enthusiast and she apparently doesn’t give a shit about her front bumper because that shit was dragging everywhere when she was asked to move her car… pretty wild stuff…
These LMs looked perfect on the A3…
Formula D driver Mike Phillips didn’t get a chance to run on Saturday because he wrecked his S13 hatchback the day before during practice runs…Guile came and finished the job afterwards…
The damage is pretty significant compared to the video of the actual crash on Youtube…I’ll attached it below…Thanks to whoever uploaded it…
Milt from Low ‘N Slow wiping his Z down…
This guy was busy touching up the color on his Falken logo…
James Oliver’s BB6 Prelude…
After parking our cars and hanging out for a bit in the Slammed Society Showcase area, we decided to check out what was going on in the other side, which was the vendors area….
The first car that caught my eye was this FD3S RX-7 on an aggressive set of bronze Volk TE37s…
The Gates 311RS on display at the Nitto Tires booth…
Vaughn Gitten Jr’s Ford Mustang drift car rocking a new graphical livery….
Note the cut out rear bumper and trunk…
Gitten Jr. himself…I’m pretty sure he was picking his nose while I took this shot but we’ll just pretend that he’s putting a tooth pick in his mouth or something…
A personal favorite shot of mine from that day…Someone is bound to ask about the wheels so I might as well mention that they are Dai Yoshihara’s new signature line of wheels that are being released this year…
While we were hanging out in the Falken Tire section, I spotted Brad Lim from Falken trying to inhale this banana…
The 2013 Mustang you see in this photo is piloted by Justin Pawlak. He ended up winning the whole thing at FD Long Beach and since I don’t have photos of that, here’s a video of it in action…
Darren McNamara’s 790hp V8-powered Saturn Sky being unloaded off the Falken trailer….
Pretty interesting to see that his Sky was right hand drive…
…I asked some of the guys at Falken why and they said that he prefers to drive on the right-side and his car was built to suit his preferences…
Another shot of the Gates 311RS…This Ryan Gates-built Evo sports AMS engine upgrades and JRZ suspension, along with 18×10.5 Volk CE28s. 11 of these will be made and sold fully-warranted by Gates…
Another shot of Daijiro Yoshihara’s S13 coupe….Love the massive hood for the 6.7L LSx V8 motor…
One interesting aspect about this event was the amount of variety. There were all types of cars and not just limited to strictly drift vehicles or vehicles based on that style…here’s the Hoonigan RWB Porsche on display….
Even the Sportcar Motion ITR was on display, representing Global Time Attack…
Orange widebody Evo8 on display at the APR Performance booth…
Bisimotowerks twin-turbo Porsche 911….
One of two massive Turbonetics turbines sticking out of the rear of the Bisimotowerk’s 911…
The chassis of this 911 is from the 70s-era of production Porsches but the motor is from a 2000′s 997 Porsche 911…
Absolutely loved this Volkswagon GTI on classic BBS mesh wheels….
DPK David and my Q45….
Brian Arias’ EK on BBR Comps that I posted up photos of last week here on The Chronicles…
Teddy Timoteo’s EK with Sprint Hart CP-Rs, ARC Magic rear wing, and First Molding front lip…
Mark Sutakajana and Jay from PGK chatting…
Gonna close it out here for today…back tomorrow with more coverage from Formula D Long Beach and the Slammed Society Showcase….
Thanks for looking…
Wekfest SF 2012 Weekend Coverage…Part 3…
Okay, time for part 3 of the ongoing Wekfest SF 2012 mini-series. I really wanted to get this coverage up yesterday, probably around 1-2pm, but Flickr was mysteriously down for most of the day. It barely went back up late in the afternoon so we can finally move forward with the pics. I don’t know why there was a problem but oh well, let’s move on. I even woke up super early yesterday to try to get this update online early so that I could spend the rest of my day just enjoying my birthday. Everything seems to be working now though so I’m just going to get a super early start since we technically skipped a day. Hope many of you used that time to catch-up if you haven’t already. It’s crazy how we have already gone through two parts of coverage and the show hasn’t even started yet. When we last left off, we had just gotten through a majority of the ATS Garage cars and I had started to make my way further down the lot…
Today will be much the same, just a bunch of photos from me walking in and out of each building before the show started… No need to say much else, the captions and photos will speak for themselves…
Sunny from Franklin Autobody’s Honda Insight…
PlusOne Randy’s new DB8 Integra…
3rd Generation Lexus GS on air…
Another shot of ths AB Flug CHP-themed Supra since so many of you guys are fascinated with it…
Austin aka Amoney’s Y33 Q45 with side-exit exhaust and VIP Modular wheels…
Teddy Timoteo’s Civic is looking good these days with the First Molding front lip, CP-R, and ARC hatch spoiler…
Sloppy’s Honda Fit on CP-R…
Loved the aggressive set-up on this white Evo…The INGS bumper and Voltex wing along with the TE37SLs look great…
While the crazy aero is always a good look for the Evos, I’ve always been a really big fan of how Evos look without rear wings on them…This one has the Voltex sides, rear over fenders, but still looks great without the wing on it… The WEDSports with the colored spokes flow very well also…
Another wingless Evo, this one with an INGS+1 N-Spec aero kit…
Loved this IS350 from Sonic MS with Endless big brakes and VIP Modular wheels…
This E-Class on air with a complete Wald Black Bison kit had to have been one of my favorites of Wekfest 4…Even has a Wald brake kit…
This MX-5 Miata was one of the most talked about builds at Wekfest SF. It has a really oddball retro-style conversion that comes from a Japanese company known as Pit Crew Racing…
Jeremy Duarte’s new look…Same Chargespeed lip as before but now with mag blue Volk RE30s, Camaro Synergy Green color, no more neo-chrome stuff… It’s a big departure from his previous look but it’s not bad at all. He had been posting up some teasers on his Facebook page with the new exterior color cut-out but I was one of the few lucky ones that got to see it in full color before the show so it wasn’t much of a surprise for me, haha…
Mike’s Ferio also debuted at Wekfest SF with a completely new look. Not sure how I feel about it since I liked the old look so much but it’s definitely interesting to see him go with a completely different theme. All the guys from Bandits seem to be going with these really wild, bright colors this year. Danny, who owns the Laguna Seca blue 4-door, also had his car repainted but it wasn’t finished in time for Wekfest…
Not much going on here, just a couple guys eating ice cream together in the back of a right-hand drive Toyota Hi-Lux pick-up on Mitsubishi Starion wheels…
Older Datsun 280Z on Work Equip 03s that is RB-swapped….The caption would probably help if I included a shot of the bay, but I’m a pretty credible source so just believe me…haha…Really though, it had the swap…or did it…
Mark Sutakajana’s 4-door Integra looking good with the new front splitter…
…and a retro-fitted Mugen Ferio wing…
Another shot of Jeremy’s DB8R…
Mike Trevino’s engine bay, fresh with a K-swap….I heard he was having problems with his water pump so hopefully he got the car home safe…
Danyelle’s Mugen Fit on custom re-barreled Mugen M7 wheels that was once owned by MemoryFab…
Pretty sure I stood there for a good 5-10 minutes waiting for these guys to stop staring at Chris Sakai’s EK before I gave up and moved on…
How many ATS Garage members does it take to put on all of Anh’s sponsor decals??…
ATS AJ’s Integra is probably one of the more slept on Honda builds of the last couple years…
Nick’s J’s Racing front-end on his CR-X…I like how he incorporated the two-tone look to the new body parts even though he’s eventually going to have the whole car re-painted…Also interesting to see how J’s Racing incorporated spots in the front bumper for a front license plate, even though it was made for race applications…If I was Nick Caster I would have just had that area shaved and smoothed down but if I was Nick, I’d also be rich and successful and not as boyishly good looking as Stickydiljoe…
Kelvin Bulda’s EK9-inspired Civic from Speed Addicts…God I love and miss Advan RG1 wheels…They are still in my top 5 Japanese wheels of all time, ever since I saw them on the original Top Fuel turbo EK9…
Custom widebody Mercedes S320L from JDM Palace on step-lipped Work Equip wheels…
Nissan 370Z with satin black Volk RE30s and Powerhouse Amuse aero from Speed Element…
This flared Evo on teal metallic Work Meister S1s is another personal favorite of mine from Wekfest…passenger in the photo above looks kinda crazy though…Oh, note the implemented trunk spoiler as well…
VIP Toyota Previa from JDM Palace…
Bryant Nguyen and his bagged TSX came up all the way from San Diego to Norcal for Wekfest 4…
After saying what’s up to Bryant, I decided to walk back inside and chill at the booth for a bit…If you guys remember last year’s Wekfest, my booth was located up front and next to me was NWP4LIFE’s booth. Well, with Rodrez recently having his baby boy Maddox, he wasn’t left with much time or patience to do a booth this year so the spot for Wekfest 4 went to the guys from Canibeat. I had no idea who they were going to put next to me but Canibeat was cool with me. They generate all kinds of fucking foot traffic and even though both our sites generally have a different demographic, it was good to see how busy both our booths were even before the gates opened. It was also good to meet Cristian and Dave from Canibeat as well… Another reason why I knew our area would generate a lot of traffic was because of Canibeat’s official SF Wekfest model…
….Holly Lee…We had traveled up to Norcal with Holly so it almost seemed fitting that she would be spending the entire day at the booth next to our’s….
You can see how busy they were getting with Holly there…
…it didn’t stop her from taking a moment to say “hi” to Leon Casino’s baby boy…
I gave May’s Canon S95 camera to our buddy Dougie to snap photos throughout the day and this guy managed to take like 6 photos, 3 of them being blurry…
Danny Avina’s Mugen RSX looking good…
Some custom-fabbed pieces color-matched to the mag blue tone of the Volk CE28Ns….
The rear of Danny’s RSX…
Those two dudes finally walked away so I could get a better shot of Chris’ EK without anyone stepping into my shot…
DPK JP and ATS “Right Said Fred” Chapman… The newer generation won’t get the reference but ever since Fred Chapman took some time away from cars to do his own weight reduction, he was heard walking around the Wekfest show singing this song…
AE86 coupe with a Levin front end conversion and Honda F20C-swap…
Oh man, the Photoshop possibilities of this photo featuring one of the NOS girls is endless….
…but seeing as how she was rocking a wedding ring, I’ll just leave it alone, haha…
Another respectable young lady representing NOS Energy…
I was pretty happy with this idea I had to put up the banners on two light stands… It created a backdrop for people to take photos at and also created a wall that preventing millions of weird kids from staring into the back of my booth. I also had Moe from PG+K doing security and patting down visitors who wanted to sit in the canopy…
Saw an opportunity to take a shot of Big Mike’s Prelude without people hovering over it…
…when I got back to the booth Big Mike was hanging out with Jay from PG+K…It must be a southern thing but I don’t see too many dudes sitting down legs-crossed with their hands in their pockets….looks awfully uncomfortable… Go ahead and try it right now, I’ll wait…
While you’re busy trying to untangle yourself, take a look at the new Chronicles t-shirt…
Closing it out for today with a shot of the line right outside, moments before the show started… People outside were getting pretty restless because the gates ended-up opening an hour later than scheduled. When I first go to the venue at 7:30am, Junior was telling all of us that they had planned to open the doors an hour early since there were so many people already waiting. Of course that didn’t happen though because the fire marshal decided to show up and just fucked up all kinds of shit. They were trying to make people move their cars all over again, enforcing all kinds of ridiculous rules, etc., and the crowd outside was forced to stand there and wait until the fire marshal was finished and Fort Mason officials agreed to start the show…
Check back tomorrow with Part 4…Thanks for looking….
Wekfest SF 2012 Weekend Coverage…Part 1…
Man, what a weekend…
By now, I’ve become pretty accustomed to the way things work during the week of Wekfest San Francisco, but no matter what, it always manages to be quite the overwhelming experience. All I can really say to sum up the entire weekend was that it was just completely spectacular. The main difference with this year’s Wekfest event was that I was the most well-rested I have ever been. I’ve been going to these events long before it was even a Wek’Sos production and I’ve always been just drained going into the day of the show. This time around, I got everything done by the middle of the week and found some time to sleep. Even while we were all in Norcal during the weekend, I made it a point to not stay out too late. By that Sunday I’m usually walking around like a zombie with blood-shot eyes from lack of sleep and dry contact lenses. I’ll barely be able to make the drive back to the hotel and when I get back, I just crash out and don’t talk to anyone. It was almost the complete opposite this year though, as I changed my procrastinating ways and even showed up everywhere on time…if you know me, you know that I am notorious for being late. Hopefully entering my third decade of life, I can apply that to all aspects of my life so that I can be better rested and have more energy to do more things…
Another thing that I really wanted to change about previous years of being at Wekfest was managing my time hanging out with different groups of people. There are so many different friends from all over that come out for the show and I always regret not being able to spend time with everyone. It was virtually impossible because it didn’t seem like there were enough hours in the day to spend it with everyone in one single weekend. We have the usual Socal people that I love spending time with, and also the Norcal folks that I don’t ever get to see enough of. On top of that, we also had guys from the east coast/mid west making their way out and even the guys from Mayday Garage were going to be there. Luckily I was able to finish everything for the booth this year with time to spare so I didn’t have to spend too much time organizing it in the hotel room. This allowed me to have more free time to spend with others. I don’t know how it all came together, but we all managed to book rooms in the same hotel so I was able to see a lot of people by the time I got up for breakfast. There were some that I wish I could have hung out with more, but that’s just how it goes. It’s hard to really coordinate with so many others staying in different parts in the city but I think we all did a good job of hanging out. It seemed like everyone made a better effort this year. While we were in the city, it seemed like every time we stopped, more people were able to meet up and we had a big group of people from all over… In year’s past I’ve always had an amazing time in SF, but this time was definitely more diverse and I’m happy that I was able to see everyone and spend even a small moment to chat with them…
Now, as for the show itself…Wekfest San Francisco proved once again this year why it was the “mecca” of car shows in these last couple years. It was just bananas… I know a lot of people complained and many more couldn’t even get into the show because they were turned away, but that just shows you how big SF Wekfest has gotten. They outgrew the old parking structure and moved it to the Fort Mason/Herbst Pavilion, and easily outgrew that venue in just a year’s time. It’s tough guys, it really is. For everyone that complained about how crowded it was and how long the wait was, you have to understand that putting an event of this magnitude is an enormous amount of work and managing a crowd of that size is no easy feat. Just simply from being there in the morning to watching the entire roll-in process, organization improved by leaps and bounds. It was very well put together. I remember last year I was even a little annoyed by the roll-in process for vendors but I had zero issues this year. The main issue with using this venue is the people that run Fort Mason. They are incredibly strict and were not shy about making things inconvenient for everyone. There strict rules put a lot of pressure on everyone and they, along with the Fire Marshall, were the key reasons why the crowd was let into the show an hour late. You wanna know just how ridiculous certain things were? We were inside a large venue with hundreds of cars filled with gasoline (which isn’t an unusual thing for an indoor car show), and for whatever reason, I had to have a fucking smoke detector hanging from my canopy at my booth. It literally was tied and hanging to my canopy. If that wasn’t enough, I also had to have a fire extinguisher just to even have a fabric top on my canopy. I am not too familiar with how things work in San Francisco, but I have never set anything on fire selling stickers and t-shirts. If there was going to be a fire somewhere inside of the venue, believe me, my smoke detector wouldn’t have been much help in alerting me that there was a fire. In any case, the rules were ridiculous last year, and seemed to get more ridiculous this year. Whether or not they will use this venue again is unclear, but I don’t see it happening again, especially after how many people were told that they wouldn’t be able to get inside the show because it was at capacity. I heard people were turned away at 4pm because of the sheer number of people inside and they were upset. I too would be upset if I had waited in line for however many hours and then told I wouldn’t get in. That’s terrible, but I would also have tried to show up earlier, knowing how big Wekfest is every year…
It’s a shame that that many people couldn’t get in…it really is…Every year the organization is getting better and I am sure that the Wekfest staff is working hard on trying to alleviate the problems for the future. Over 10,000 people were at Wekfest, with the numbers maybe even reaching 14,000 maybe…you can’t please everybody. People have a right to be upset. But people also have to have a better understanding of how shows like this work. The Wekfest SF show has reached the levels of popularity that I haven’t seen since the old days of Hot Import Nights and Import Showoff. It took years for those shows to reach the point where they were a well-oiled machine and able to absorb that many people. Wekfest will get to that point, it just takes time. The hype around the event is just crazy right now. Hell, I don’t even understand how it got this big and I’ve been going to this show for how long now? Shit is just wild. If you didn’t get in this year, it sucks and I really hope you have a better time the next year if you plan on coming back. I wish I could sympathize with all of you but I have other things I need to worry about. I’ve been doing car show stuff for about ten years now and I would never wait in a line that long to get into a car show, and fuck, I LOVE car shows, haha…Best of luck to all of you who want to try again next year. It’s hard for me to gauge it and say that it’s worth waiting that long to get inside but my priorities are different. If you got the time and the patience, fuck, feel free…
I had a great time overall. I’m really happy that people were excited about the new shirts and the new merchandise. I didn’t go into it with any expectations but man, I was surprised by how much merchandise went out that day. I thank you for all of your continued support and it’s a great feeling knowing that you guys love The Chronicles. Stickers were going faster than ever and I ran out of a majority of shirts before the doors even opened that day. Thanks to Junior, Adam, and Ken for putting this event together and allowing me to be a part of it. These guys work their asses off and deserve all the success that is coming to them.
With that said, let’s get on with the coverage. If you are here to just see photos of cars, then you obviously are not a regular here on The Chronicles. I like to cover any and everything that is going on to give people an idea of what our experience is like overall. You can see photos of the cars at SF Wekfest EVERYWHERE. Everyone these days has a camera and is covering events like this. The way I am going to present it to you is more personal and like no other. This site has grown because of the idea of presenting the “lifestyle” to viewers throughout the world. Remember, it’s not about how many people are doing it…it’s how it is done that matters. Execution is everything. You want to see cars, scroll past everything else and look at just the cars or go to any other website to see car photos. You’ll see everything that goes on here, from the show, to behind-the-scenes, etc. Don’t like it? You’re welcome to leave, but buy a sticker first, haha…
Here we go…
The Wekfest SF weekend kicked off for many of us on Friday morning. If you saw last year’s coverage, we had a pretty large group of people to caravan with. This year was a little different… Some couldn’t make it this year, some were still putting their cars together, and some had babies so they couldn’t just up and leave right away. For the 2012 SF Wekfest road trip, May and I had just a couple of people to cruise with; Salem and Murdock in the J’s Racing Phaze2 TSX, Keith aka Keychain from It’s JDM Yo!!, Ms. Holly Lee, and a couple new friends in Jay Mayuga and his girlfriend, who apparently didn’t say a word all weekend, haha…
After meeting up for breakfast at Denny’s in the morning by Magic Mountain, we headed over to the Chevron across the freeway to gas up. I had to pick up an energy drink as well and buy tissues since I had a cold coming…why I needed a energy drink at 11am in the morning is a mystery but I probably purchased it by habit since I was usually going to bed around this time on a normal week day…
Jay Mayuga’s TSX with Modulo Voltage front bumper and Volk CE28s….Jay is also the only person who was down to blue tape his front end. Salem is Mr. Race Car guy now so his bumper is beat up anyways, and Keith apparently just didn’t give a shit… May and I rolled out in her Yaris. We didn’t blue tape shit because her car is so high that it usually does the job of kicking the rocks at everyone else…
Random thought but, it’s nice to know that even year’s after I sold my Accord, I can’t get away from them and they are still following me everywhere, haha…
Keith scratching his head and wondering how his freshly-painted lip kit is going to survive the streets of downtown San Francisco…
We got on the road and were overjoyed that there were no indications of rain…Last year, we drove through a storm and ended up taking the 101 north-bound all the way to San Francisco, which ended up taking us almost 9 hours…
We stopped at Kettleman City for a pee break and a stretch, then got back on the road immediately…
I didn’t take too many photos after that because there wasn’t anything very exciting about the drive. We got to our hotel around 5:30 or so in the evening and just relaxed for a bit before going out to dinner. There wasn’t any crazy pre-Wekfest private dinner party this year so we just rounded up whoever was in the city already and went out to grab drinks and eat. Those photos are actually on May’s camera so I’ll just toss-up those photos in part 2 tomorrow…
The next morning, we all got up early to eat breakfast downstairs in the hotel. One of the main reasons we stay at this particular hotel was because of the free breakfast. Most other places just offer simple fruits and maybe some travel-size cereal but this joint had everything…eggs, sausages, biscuits and gravy, bagels, etc…and all you can eat. It’s the best free meal of every day, haha…
Some of the homies from the other coast were up bright and early… Here’s S2kJay chillin with Widdy after breakfast in the patio area of the hotel…
Sloppy, Sam, and his girl Linh enjoying some free food…
Ryan, OldmanJames, Ray from ATS Garage, and DPK Darryl grubbing…Ray lives in Norcal and didn’t even stay at the hotel, but probably stops by the hotel to eat everyday because the people at the hotel don’t even pay attention…Actually, Darryl didn’t stay there either, haha…
After breakfast we all decided to meet up again and take the BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) aka a train down to the city to hang out. There were so many of us that it wasn’t even worth driving all the way down to the city and trying to find everyone so we all agreed to take the train and stay together…A couple of us had cars to show that weekend too and parking them in the streets of San Francisco is not something that anyone was down to do…
I hadn’t taken the BART in a couple of years so I forgot how to buy tickets and what not, but we figured it out with just a couple of minutes before the train arrived…
Ryan Der from ATS showing off his faux-camera iPhone case…
May doing her favorite activity, iPhone apps and Instagram…
Salem, who I am wishing the best for, since he was set to have surgery on his eye today, just a day after he returned home from Frisco…
Murdock doing what he does best…
Ryan “Rywire” Basseri was probably happy to have a moment to relax and is not trapped at the shop building engine harnesses…
Phil from ATS Garage hopped on the train a couple stops later and then we all got off the train on Powell St… it was pretty busy being that it was President’s Day weekend so happy shoppers were everywhere…
A couple of the guys wanted to check out the Ferrari store so we waited outside while Salem played around with the Ferrari FXX motorized toy outside…
May was just happy not to be doing car-related shit for a change… I know how much she likes to take the BART down to the city so it was good that we had the opportunity to take it again…
Outside of one of the stores, I spotted this guy across the street who was so fucked up off of muscle relaxers that he was falling asleep in the middle of the street…At one point he almost fell off of the sidewalk and into the street with cars approaching. I don’t know what this guy was doing but he was messed-up. Eventually he got halfway onto the street and then had to turn around to get his bags but before he could pick them up, he started dozing off and was just all over the place. We all stopped to see what was going to happen next but he eventually stumbled off so we moved onto Chinatown…
Ryan stopped for a photo op with the lions that stood guard at the gates of Chinatown San Francisco…
They had these cool bronze statues throughout Chinatown…this looked like a nice family gathering…
…nice until you see one of the statues playing a game of grab-ass…
Good to know that some Chinese guy decided to create this jade statue to honor the ancient Chinese sport of American football. I’m sure you guys know who Jeremy Lin is by now and how he’s been doing great things on the basketball court…well, here is his great great grandfather, Terrell “Sweet & Sour Fingers” Lin, who was the Michael Jordan of Chinese football. He lead the league in touchdown receptions and his team, the Beijing Fighting Communists, went undefeated for three straight seasons because nobody in China plays football and they were the only team. Lin was also the quarterback on his team and threw the ball to himself because nobody else was on his team. He retired after he realized that nobody in China plays football, EVER….
Only $10.99 for these apple bottom jeans featuring your favorite celebrities from the early 2000s…Nothing says “wear these jeans” then having Carmen Electra on your back pocket…
Chinatown still bearing decorations from Chinese New Year a week or two ago…
Deejay Murdock doing work…
The trolley system rolling through…
Our buddy Nick Caster arrived from Roseville in the afternoon with his CR-X and then took a cab down to Chinatown to meet up with us…
A piece from famed street graffiti artist Banksy on some random wall in Chinatown SF…He was down there not too long ago for the debut of his documentary and took to the streets early to knock out this piece. They even have a plastic cover over it to protect it…that’s when you know you’re doing big things…when you tag on a wall and steps are taken to preserve it…
One of the more interesting things beside the Banksy piece that we saw down in Chinatown were these crazy dragon knives/blades/swords…While I’ve never actually seen anyone try to rock these in a fight, I’m confident in saying that I’d run like I was on fire if someone chased after me with giant blades with dragon handles on them…
Elderly Chinese street musicians playing for by a busy intersection…
Sam and his girlfriend met up with us also and we decided to stop by a local Thai food spot to eat lunch…everything looked absolutely delicious and everything was also only 5 bucks a plate…
After eating, it was starting to get dark so we made the trek back to the BART station to head back to the hotel…
The train was pretty crowded by the evening but we managed to all get seats…
Sloppy dropped Sam and his girl off earlier in the day so he didn’t get to take the BART with us until our trip back to the hotel… Turns out that it was his first time ever being on it and he seemed pretty excited to experience it…
Speaking of Sam, it was his birthday on the day of Wekfest so his girl Linh had this cool birthday cake made for him…It’s a cake made to look like his Civic driving through the Golden Gate Bridge in SF…
We parted ways for the most part after we got back to the hotel. Salem and Murdock headed out to meet up with Junior from Wekfest at a local car meet, while the others bought alcohol and pre-gamed for the night. ATS Phil met up with them later that night to go party at a lounge in the city. May and I hung out in the room for a little bit before meeting up with Rodrez and his Fiancee’ for dinner. Not much excitement after that since we had to wake up early in the morning for the Wekfest show…
The morning of Wekfest, we got up early and got ready to head to the Fort Mason venue for vendor set-up. Rodrez didn’t have a booth this year but he wanted to roll to the event with us so he could cover the show before spectators got there. Breakfast was ready right around the time we got down to the lobby so we stopped to eat really quick. We weren’t in too much of a rush since I got back to the hotel early the night before and had the car loaded-up and ready to go…
On the drive to SF that Friday, Salem and I had joked around about putting the free hotel food in our pockets to bring to the show, so I thought it would be funny to put a couple sausage links into a styrofoam cup to give to him when he got there. The last sausage turtling-up out of the cup wasn’t planned but added to the randomness of having a cup of sausages, haha…
When I got to Fort Mason, I checked-in and drove right into the venue. There was no wait this year because they were much more organized….This 510 was one of the first cars I saw that morning rolling into the show…
I thought it was a little crazy to see people already waiting in line to get in, but I later found out that these guys had been camped out there since 1am in the morning….fucking crazy…That’s when you realize how big Wekfest has gotten, when people are camping out like they were waiting for a new shoe release or something…
Some of my favorite photos that I took last year at Wekfest were during the roll-in process so I was happy to have plenty of time to get more this year in-between setting up The Chronicles booth with May and Tony from It’s JDM Yo!!…
A wingless Subaru STI sitting on some red Volk TE37SL…
Adam from Wek’Sos giving some instructions to one of his staff members…
Junior directing the 510 to his parking space inside the show…
A boosted CR-X drag car making his way in…
DSR Loreto posted-up by his “Shark-teal” EK on new Volk TE37Vs…
R33 Skyline GT-R on Prodrive wheels…
Evos were represented very well at Wekfest SF 2012…
2GS on SSR Vienna Kreis wheels…
Subaru with Work Schwert SC4s…
I had no idea Mark with the white 4-door DB would be making the trip to Wekfest so it was a cool to see him pull-up….He made some more additions to his Integra like a front splitter…
…and a retro-fitted Mugen wing…
ATS Anh’s ITR with a brand new look….say goodbye to the BYS front bumper…
Here is Anh mounting a camera to his windshield… He had this nifty idea of doing a time lapse video during the event so it’ll be cool to see later what came of it…
I wanted to see what was going on in the other building so I walked over and saw Mark Arcenal’s Rauh Welt Porsche…
No new additions to the car itself…It looked about the same as it did during SEMA last year…
Not even sure if Mark was even there at the show but there were guys moving the car around while others set-up the Fatlace booth…
PG+K Moe and Bon made the trip out to Norcal…Here they are chatting it up with Rodrez in their brand new Chronicles Ver. IV tees…
I walked outside to see if anyone new popped-up and spotted DPK Slappy and Jay Powers in his CR-X…
Absolutely loved this Evo…Never really imagined how teal and brown would work together but for whatever reason, it does on this car…
Traveling all the way from Japan was Tetsuya Yamaguchi of USDM Jam-fame… Here he is chatting with Big Mike…
Lisa from ATS Garage and her always-clean Integra on Almight Grey Regas…
Her husband Jay and his timeless CR-X on SW388s…
Nick Caster debuted his new J’s Racing set-up on his CR-X…more on this later…
ATS AJ and his C-West Integra on mag blue Volk SE37K…
Closing it out for today with a quick snap of Rywire’s NSX…under-exposed but I thought it made for a cool shot…
That’s all for today folks, come back with WAY more. I shot about 650 photos at the show and am still in the process of going through all of it… Thanks for looking…
“So You Think You Can STANCE?” Coverage…Part 2 of 2…
Back now with the second half of It’s JDM Yo!!’s “So You Think You Can STANCE” event coverage, brought to you by The Chronicles. When we last left off, the competition had just started and people were gathered along the street and driveway to check out all the “action”. By “action”, I mean cars going up driveways slowly…haha. I know an event like this usually has it’s fair share of supporters, and also it’s share of people that just think that it is out right stupid. To be fair, it’s totally okay to think that it’s completely retarded because there is a growing number of enthusiasts within our vast community that is starting to dislike this whole “stance” movement. Any time you mention anything about low offset wheels and aggressive fitment, you will have a number of people that will detest the idea and show their disappointment with where the scene has shifted. The whole stance/hellaflush/fitment scene has become it’s own subculture now within the community and it doesn’t look to be going anywhere any time soon. It just goes with different people liking different things. There’s no definitive right or wrong because people don’t always like the same thing or share the same ideas as others. Being in the magazine industry opens my eyes to a lot of different styles of tuning and I’ve learned to appreciate them. I don’t necessarily have to agree or like what some enthusiasts are doing nowadays, but I also don’t have to always be vocal about it. If you don’t like the “stance” movement, just take a gander at the photos, read some of my stupid comments, and move on. This site isn’t solely devoted to wheel fitment and if you’ve been around for a lengthy-amount of time on The Chronicles, you know that I like to bring you a variety of things. Now let’s just move on with the photos and knock out part 2 of the “So You Think You Can STANCE?” coverage…if you want to read my thoughts on the event as a whole, I invite you to take a look back at part 1…
Now when we last left off, Milt had just kicked off the competition and did his run through the driveway…
He didn’t look like he had very many issues getting up the driveway…
…but coming down proved to be a little more interesting…
As I said in part 1, I don’t know the criteria for judging or what they were looking for, but on that particular run…Milt Salamanca garnered a score of 27 out of a possible 40…I didn’t even bother catching score after this because I really didn’t know what was going on. We all basically stood there to watch people potentially fuck their shit up…
A TSX narrowly missing the pavement as he was barely angling out…You can see Holly Lee and Tony from It’s JDM Yo!! standing in the middle of the driveway because they were basically the markers used to cut the driveway in half….Guy in the photo with the 49ers gear on is either whistling his favorite tune or over exaggerating his shock…
A strawberry-faced S14 240SX on Leon Hardiritt Ordens getting set to make his run….I thought the competition was a little unfair in that guys with aero or front lips already in need of repair competed against guys whose cars were in better condition…I mean, in terms of willingness to take a chance of breaking something to win, wouldn’t you have less to lose if your shit was already messed up already?…Then again, I don’t know how it was judged or scored so I can’t really say anything, just raising an interesting point….
People gradually started to get more into the event as more cars made their runs…Even Holly Lee was using the camera and trying to get some action shots…Tony for whatever reason, was showing off his hella hyphy THIZZ face circa 2006…
A clean white S2000 on CCW wheels stood next in line to make his attempt…
Antonio from Motormavens.com didn’t seem too impressed….Big Mike on the far left was taking a standing nap…
While I was happy to see that this S2K owner’s fenders weren’t fucked-up, his front lip has probably seen better days after this event…
Next up was the RHD CR-X from Infinit Wheels…
The CR-X’s run was one of the more interesting ones because they chose to drive the car straight up the driveway without angling at all and when it came down, it struggled to get traction and created some tire smoke…
Thanks to drifting, enthusiasts these days are conditioned to cheer and go ape shits anytime there is tire smoke so Infinit Wheels got some dap for creating the smoke show…
Armand with the TRD widebody MR-2 decided to participate/fuck his shit up…If anyone had anything to lose in this competition, it was him. His car is in pretty good condition and I don’t think damaging that kit would really be a good idea but he went for it anyway. During a test run, he mysteriously broke the wing off that he had just recently not replaced EVER, so this will be day 837 of wingless widebody SW20…
It didn’t look too bad as he was making his way down…
…but the more angles he had to make to get out, the more stress it was on his front end…if you look closely, you can see his fender cracking where it meets the sideskirt….
Next up was this S2000 with a CR lip and what looks like F-Zero Blue Volk CE28s…
If you ever wanted to know what a CR front lip would look like if it was driven into the ground with the weight of the car on it, here you go…
If that wasn’t enough scraping for you, here is a BB6 Prelude that also participated…Good to know that he had that plastic lip under his bumper to give the driveway more contact patch…haha…
This EF was one of the more ridiculous competitors of the day…not only was he making sparks under his car as he was exciting the driveway, he also was sparking when the car was driving normally on flat pavement. The guy decided to lower his car so extreme to the point where his car would flip over if he ran into a dime. The owner was also very serious about this competition and constantly asked later if he made it into the later rounds. Being low and fucking up the bottom of the car is serious business…
Last time I checked, IS350s weren’t cheap and neither are the parts made for them…Tell that to this guy’s front lip…
After most of the cars had finished their runs, out of nowhere, people decided to start acting like dipshits and revving their cars or driving really fast as they were leaving the venue to show off and/or mow people down who were spectating. Tony and many of us started to get kind of iffy about keeping the competition on an open street, so Tony and crew told everyone to get back inside where the parking lot was. The highlight of douchebaggery was when a 15 year old kid smoking a cigarette driving an STI his parents bought for him pulled in front of a crowd and started revving. Instead of just waiting for people to disperse, he felt it was a better idea to rev his shitty car at people and ask them to move. He was also accompanied by his other douchebag 15 year old friends who think that mounting two 25mm spacers on each wheel qualifies as “aggressive fitment”. The runner-up for master of douchebaggery was some jackass who was sitting on the passenger side window, hanging out of his car while his friend peeled out and hauled ass down the street. It’s all fun and games until someone gets hurt. Apparently these kids thought that they were participating in an event called “So You Think Your Parents Will Want to Visit You In The Hospital When You Are A Brain Dead VEGETABLE?”…
People acting like complete idiots sort of put a damper on the event, even though a majority of it went very well and without any real issues. There was a break during the competition to tally up the scores and see who would advance to the later rounds, but I was pretty set on going home. I had just driven back earlier that morning from my trip to Las Vegas so I wanted to get home to get some much needed rest. Before that though, I made the rounds and finished up the rest of my coverage of cars that were at the event…
Michael Mao’s Acura NSX…
G35 on DPE wheels…
A couple more shots of the Amuse-inspired S2000 from DTM Autobody…
…as well as the KE70 Corolla wagon parked behind it…
JonJon’s supercharged IS350 from Vanguard Collective/It’s JDM Yo!!….
Y34 M45 on air…
Oh this was cool…It’s virtually impossible to see a modified Lexus ES300/Toyota Windom EVER so it was refreshing to see one at the event with a kit and old school Work Equip mesh wheels…These cars are terribly unpopular to modify, because they are basically fancy versions of Camrys, but I’ll always have a soft spot for this car because my parents owned one when I was growing up…The last time I saw one of these ES300s modded was back around the early 2000s when I would spot the same one always cruising through LA. It had a HKS turbo kit and everything, shit was crazy and way ahead of it’s time…
Ryan Delosreyes’ Scion xB on old school Work VS wheels…
The Kouki S14 from part 1 with the crooked intercooler…As a whole, this car wouldn’t look bad if it was all one color…
FC3S RX-7 from the most un-intimidating car crew name ever, Nuisance…
Acura TSX from Low’N Slow on gold-faced CCW Classics…
3rd generation Toyota Celica from Low’N Slow…
Armand’s MR-2, post cracked fender…Aspiring breezies in the background doing hoodrat stuff…so hood that the guy photographing them is standing on the train tracks…
The BB6 Prelude on white-faced Work Equips that competed earlier…front lip scuffed up, but still intact…
The most aggressive S2000 ever to park in front of a dumpster…
Real clean EK with a iridescent hood shield…
Hubert Barnum male modeling on the Ruckus he and his brother built…
One more shot of the 350Z from part one on the SSR Gartmaier wheels…
The Barnum brothers’ Ruckus…draped in orange jizzum…
The IS350 that competed earlier on SSR MS1 wheels…
The S14 that also competed earlier…
DPK David’s EJ1 coupe just before he left…
Keith aka Keychain’s Accord sedan on polished MB Battles…
That’s about it…after that I left so I didn’t really get a chance to see who won the whole thing. I believed after things calmed down for a bit, they went back and finished the competition on the driveway where it started. Overall, a pretty successful event I would have to say…It wasn’t really meant to be anything taken too serious and I think that’s what people left with. At the end of the day, it’s just a couple guys showing off how they get out of driveways in their lowered cars. The meet portion of the event was cool. The diversity was good and wasn’t only limited to just beat-up cars on aggressively-fitted wheels. Congrats to Tony and staff for putting together a good event….
Thanks for looking… Back tomorrow with other stuff…
Oh before I go, I had to post this up. It was on Facebook late last night but I figured I’d post it up here since a lot of you don’t have Facebook accounts…
Haha, the expression on this guy’s face just made it too easy…
“So You Think You Can STANCE?” Coverage…Part 1…
Well this was different…haha. I mean, in terms of just being “different”, this event takes the cake so far. When Tony first came up with the idea to do this whole “Stance” competition, I was really up in the air about it. The whole name is something that we’ve been throwing around as a joke for the last year or so now, but when he decided to dub his event “So You Think You Can Stance?”, trust me, it was met with a collective “what the fuck are you thinking”. Tony is a pretty smart guy though with some pretty innovative ideas…he’s a massive pervert, but still, he is a smart pervert. If you don’t know which Tony I am referring to, I am talking about Tony from It’s JDM Yo!!. He’s always been a great friend and a huge supporter of mine so whenever he comes up with an idea, no matter how out of the box or random it is, I will support him….
Michael Mao’s Acura NSX on Volk CE28 Genesis…
The whole idea behind this “So You Think You Can Stance” event was very basic in principal…almost too basic. We were to have a pretty aggressively sloped driveway, in which people would sign-up and attempt to show everyone how they could go in and out of the driveway with their slammed/lowered/stanced-out vehicles. The original driveway that was chosen for the competition was over by the Rywire facility. It’s got a pretty big slant to it, but it wasn’t impossible to get up and down. DPK David takes his Civic coupe to work on occasion and has little issues getting in and out and even my Q45 aired down to about 40-50psi with a big kit and get out pretty easily. There are a number of cars that come through the shop and I’ve never really seen anyone have any problems. Being that the venue was also good enough to host a small meet though, Tony decided to use it for the event. What he would do would cone off a large chunk of the driveway, and as the competition progressed, the driveway would become smaller and smaller…
Linda’s Toyota Matrix on VIP Modular wheels from Team Praxis…
How it would be judged would also prove to be pretty interesting…There would be a panel of three guys who would determine the winner…Keith aka Keychain from It’s JDM Yo!!, Noel Barnum from Canibeat, and Yogi from Fatlace. These guys know about all things low so they would be good judges. Yogi I don’t think has ever really had a car that low..his Accord never moved and now he drives a Nissan pick-up, but still, he works for Fatlace/Illest so he encounters his fair share of lowered vehicles. I don’t know what was a point of emphasis for judging, nor do I know what they were looking at…I really didn’t want to know because then I would wonder if they were judging it correctly and with this being a first-time competition, there are a lot of unknowns. Even after the event has come and gone, I still have no real idea of how they judged this. There were so many different types of cars and they all went about going up and down the driveway different…it’s one of those things that can have real open interpretation. In the end, I believe a 1st generation Lexus GS300 won so congrats to the owner. I believe Falken Tires was a co-sponsor of the event and the winner got a set of tires. The other co-sponsor was VIP Modular wheels, which offered a significant discount (20-30% I believe) on a new set of VIP Modular wheels…
350Z on SSR Gartmaier wheels fro Royal Origin…
On the days leading up to the event, Tony realized that there was a chance that the event would be bigger than originally anticipated. I guess he had more than enough responses on social media outlets where he believed the event might be larger than the Rywire parking lot could hold, so he changed the venue entirely. Instead of having it at Rywire, he moved the event over to the city of Santa Fe Springs, inside an industrial section of the city that was quiet and had plenty of space on a Sunday. Overall, I think the event worked out great. The whole idea of it on paper just sounds kind of silly, but man, people fucking love all things “stance”. You can literally throw the word “stance” into any event name or website and there’s a high possibility of it being successful. As much as people love to talk shit about stanced-out cars, it’s become a genre in our community that has become quite popular. I’m a fan of everything as long as it’s done right in my eyes or in moderation. There are some absolutely ridiculous looking cars that showed-up… as with every stance-related event, there are often times when people just try way too fucking hard to be cool and somehow totally fuck up their cars in the process…
VIP Modular booth on display…
If you want my honest opinion of this event, I would kind of relate it to like pro-wrestling and figure skating, but without the excitement of wrestling and without the grace of figure skating…haha, if that makes any sense… I didn’t think that many people would be into the competition side of the event but damn, people were on edge after the first couple cars did their driveway sessions. I think many of us were skeptical but eventually we were also into it and wanted to know who was going to win. I knew that the meet portion of this event would be good because Tony’s events always have good turn-outs. He can bring a good crowd in just by blasting the event on Facebook. The competition was cool, but like I said early on, there’s a lot that needs to go into judging criteria if Tony and crew decide to put another event like this on again in the future…
Lowered cars going up driveways is something that every enthusiast has to go through practically everyday…turning it into a competition just sounds totally absurd…but you know what? It just works…haha. Congrats to Tony and the It’s JDM Yo!! crew for putting on another successful event…
Standard Functions brought out a couple of really nicely-built Ruckus’ for display at the Fatlace booth…
I spotted my favorite car early on in the day…DPK David and I were walking around while I did coverage and stumbled upon an AE86 on HRE wheels…
HREs are not a typical wheel that you see on an AE86…this one might be the first one ever actually…You don’t see these wheels on Corollas of any kind because they are often times worth more than the cars themselves. It’s a high end wheel that belongs on more appropriately high-end automobiles. Anytime you see something like this though, it’s definitely a cool sight…
Turns out that this beautiful creation is actually owned by Mickey Andrade who works at HRE. David and I were a little shocked at first to see a perfectly fit set of HREs on a Corolla but after speaking to him, it all made sense. The car itself was built by John Russakoff from JSPFab in Vista, CA…
John Russakoff’s claim to fame, besides being a talented drifter in Formula D, is performing S2000 F20C swaps on older Toyotas like the AE86. He has a whole kit that is made just for the swap and even has this custom made F20C spark plug wire covers with the Toyota 1600 insignia on them…pretty cool stuff…
I’ve seen this EK with purple Work Meister S1s various times before online…I believe it’s from Northern Cali…
The It’s JDM Yo!! booth with an assortment of the latest It’s JDM Yo!! gear…
The Z33 from above on SSR Gartmaier wheels…
Jay Borcena’s Acura TL on VIP Modular wheels and Accuair suspension…
The guys having a moment…(From left to right: Jay Borcena, Big Mike, Noel Barnum, DPK David, and Noel’s girl Emily…)
Ms. Sheila working the NOS Energy booth…
3GS on Auto Couture wheels…
A good-looking wingless Mitsubishi Evo X on concave Volk TE37s…
JonJon Usaha’s Job Design Lexus IS300 representing It’s JDM Yo/Vanguard Collective…
S2000 from Infinit Wheels sitting on CCWs…
2GS on Work Eurolines, also representing Infinit Wheels…
WRX rolling through with some aggressive blue Work Meister S1s…
Powerhouse Amuse-inspired Honda S2000 on Enkei PF01 from DTM Autobody…
Clean Boso-style Corolla wagon on really clean old school Super Advan Racing wheels…I dig the red interior on this thing…
Keychain cruising up to the event fashionably late…
Noel Barnum taking a seat on his Ruckus to check out the event…
I’m sure there’s a perfectly good reason why the intercooler on this S14 is cock-eyed…probably insert a “Because Drift Car” or something stupid here…
Antonio from Motormavens was in charge of MCing the event but also had his camera and massive lens on hand to do some coverage for his site…
This G35 on white-faced Work Meister S1 wheels was just stunning…Shows that you can have a clean set-up on aggressive wheels without making your shit look absurd with haggered fenders…
Yogi from Fatlace/Illest standing the in the middle of the street with a giant “Illest” flag…
A couple hours into the event, it was time to begin the competition and people got together by the driveway in anticipation…
Evo X on green Volk CE28s posted-up on the side of the street…
Here’s an incorrect way to be “stanced-out”….fake TEs, chewed up tires inside and out rocking two gigantic wheel spacers just to be “flush”…What is that shit, like 50mms wider now??…
Jimmy from Team Praxis rolling through before the competition started in his FJ Cruiser…
RHD CR-X from Infinit Wheels lined-up and ready to compete…
Milt from Low N Slow was the first car on hand to try his way up the driveway…he and his crew took the competition seriously and had their team flags and shit all up in Milt’s Z…
Milt’s license plate was a popular topic of mention at the event…
The judges and Antonio huddling-up and discussing the rules…
Milt and his Garson Deep Racing wheels ready to go…
…Judges ready…
…and….
…back tomorrow with part two of the “So You Think You Can Stance?” coverage!…
Stay tuned and thanks for looking!
Norm Reeves Honda 2011 Car Show/Toy Drive Coverage…Part 2 of 2…
Happy Thursday all…the holidays are fast approaching so I hope you can read this generic comment I have about Christmas and shopping and what not. Anyways, back now with part 2 of the annual Norm Reeves Honda Car Show/Toy Drive coverage. Just two parts to this series of coverage because there weren’t that many cars there and I think I covered most of the ones that caught my eye. One of you guys commented and asked where the del Sol coverage was and I apologize. Apparently I missed out on the del Sols so maybe I’ll catch you guys at the next event. The only del Sol that caught my eye was the one with the crazy Lambo doors and I try not to take too many photos of high-end exotics because they don’t fit my demographic so I didn’t photograph it. With that said, let’s get going with the second and final portion of the Norm Reeves coverage…
Let’s kick it off with some photos of the Bisimoto Engineering 2012 Honda Civic Si coupe…I hope you guys enjoy this build because you’ll be seeing a lot more of it on the cover of the upcoming issue of Super Street magazine…
Many of you won’t notice, a few of you will, but I’ve seen some comments on various forums where they raised the issue with the angle of how the turbocharger was mounted on the K24z7. Yes, Bisi was aware of the issue after the manifold was fabricated but with SEMA going on, he didn’t get a chance to assess the situation. Since SEMA, adjustments have been made with the manifold and now the angle of the turbo has been corrected…
Rywire Ryan’s NSX weekend toy on freshly powdercoated Regamaster EVOs…
After going through my photos from that day, I realized that I had not taken any photos of the exterior of ATS Anh’s Integra Type R….This is the only shot I have of anything related to the exterior aesthetics but trust me, it looks just about the same as it has the majority of the year. He did sell his Mugen Gen. II wing recently though so he’s been rocking the wingless ITR look. The car has been down at ASC Speed Metal for the last couple months getting some new additions to the bay and I’ll show you some pics of it right now…
An overview of the bay from both angles… you’ll notice right away that the teal-coated ITB horns are gone and there are a couple new additions. The front strut/shock tower bar has been re-done as well…
Custom engine breather unit made by ASC, color-matched to the same teal that exists in the bay…
Custom oil catch can also made by ASC…
ASC emblem on the strut bar…
Polished ITB horns…
…and a shot of Anh’s wheel and brake set-up…
A couple shots of DPK David’s EJ1 coupe…
After I finished walking around inside, I took a glance out the door and noticed that it had started to rain… People still stuck around though and didn’t let the downpour affect them…
I don’t really know what the deal with the blue tape on the corner of the bumpers was, but I really liked how this Honda Fit looked…The color and aero set-up just flowed really well with the wheels…
Volk TE37s have always been a popular choice among our crowd, but it’s not that often that you run into a set of TE37 Cup wheels…
Another shot of the JDM EF2 conversion on this white Civic 4-door…
Both CR-Zs stuck around even though it continued to rain…
Man, this is a blast from the past…Haven’t heard the name “Cyber Racing” in quite some time. If you don’t know, Cyber Racing is probably one of the original Honda car crews from back in the early 90s. I think it was around 1988 when it all started. Tony Fuchs and a couple others started that group and were drag racing before there were any corporate sponsors, internet forums, anything “online” in essence…Pretty wild to see that they are still being represented…They were known back in the day as one of the first “11-second” car clubs in our community…oh how times have changed…
I don’t know why, maybe because of the rain, but I decided to head back inside to take some more detail shots of Bisi’s 2012 Civic…
AEM’s high output ignition coils being represented on the Golden Eagle intake manifold of Bisi’s Civic…
Bisi’s Turbonetics 72mm mid-frame turbocharger….
I walked back outside and snapped another photo of the Bisimoto Honda Civic Wagon…
The crowd was by no means large, but there was definitely a steady group of enthusiasts walking around…
Michael Mao’s Taitec JGTC 2000-type front bumper…
His brother, Bay Mao’s Honda S2000 on custom Mugen M7…
A couple more of the Basis CR-Z on Spoon Sports CR93 wheels…
Umm… Jagged S2000 fender – 1, Nitto NT01 tire – 0….
Jerry-Built turbocharged FG2 Civic coupe…
Accord coupe with a massive Volk wheel and tire combo…
Acura RSX from Royal Origin…
Acura TSX with some Enkei RPF1s…
Saw this dude wiping his car down after the rain stopped and he mentioned that he drove all the way down from San Luis Obispo for the Norm Reeves meet…some real dedication right there…
Spotted this beauty parked across the street during the meet…owner was probably there to visit some of his friends from Japanese Nostalgic Car magazine, which had a booth at the show…
Oh I couldn’t end the coverage without displaying some of the more interesting Hondas at the meet….these guys took the saying “racks on racks on racks” to a whole new level…One dude had a motorcycle, the other a Gyno-chair, madness I tell you, madness….
That pretty much wraps it up for the coverage… after the raffle and awards for the show were announced, we gathered up our belongings and took off to go grab some lunch…
I don’t know if you guys are at all interested, but I included a desktop image for you guys….the shot was pretty random but I liked how it came out so I turned it into a 1080P-sized wallpaper…
Thanks for looking…
Norm Reeves Honda 2011 Car Show/Toy Drive Coverage…Part 1…
Norm Reeves Honda does one of these car show/toy drives annually and we have made it a point to head out there for the last couple years now to support them. I even went to the event a couple years back during the California wildfires and there were literally ashes falling from the sky. It’s not a big event by any means, but it’s for a good cause. That and it’s not often that a car dealership shows support to the aftermarket Honda/Acura community. Norm Reeves Honda has always been active in our community so it’s only right that we show them equal love…
There isn’t really much to say about the 2011 event that hasn’t been said before in the previous years. Nothing crazy happened, which is actually a good thing, because things have been so hectic lately that it was good to go to an event that was just laid back. The show featured a similar set-up from years past; show up, park, donate a toy or canned good, and enjoy the car show. There’s also a car show competition that goes with the event and they’ve been generous every year with some pretty big trophies. The only really notable thing about this event compared to the previous years is that this year, the car show was held in a different lot. It’s usually done in the Norm Reeves Honda dealership lot, but this year, it was a couple miles down at their used car lot. I don’t know how I feel about the area surrounding the used car lot, but I think I actually preferred this location. It seemed like there was more room and the entire lot was devoted to just the show itself. Over at the original Norm Reeves Honda lot, there are usually new cars parked next to the event and there are usually a bunch of car salesmen walking around or standing around and gawking. This lot, I think, just works out better for the show. They didn’t have to worry about disturbing walk-in customers who just wanted to look at new cars, and there didn’t seem as if there was a real rush to end it so that Norm Reeves Honda could resume normal business. In any case, that’s not anything we really need to be concerned about so I’ll just move on to the photos…
It was mostly overcast throughout the morning and it even started raining an hour or so into the show, so the photos almost look as if it were two different events but trust me, it was all taken within a couple hours time…
Stanced-out EF from a new crew with the latest and greatest crew name: “LOW LIFE CROOKS”…I fucking swear, you can’t even make that shit up. You know how to attract more attention towards your modified vehicle? Put a 3-foot banner on your windshield that states that you may possibly be a LOW LIFE CROOK…come on….kids these days… Maybe I should start driving my Q45 around with a banner that says “UNSUSPECTING DRUG DEALER”….haha…
Olive green-toned DC2 on some refinished, cream white old school Volk mesh wheels…
Acura RSX from Royal Origin on some Enkei RPF1…
BB6 Prelude on gold Volk SF-Challenges…
Red EG Civic on some gray SSR Type-X wheels…
EM1 on white Mugen NR…
Michael Mao, who owns the red NSX you’ve all been seeing lately, has a brother who messes around with Hondas too and this is his S2000…
Eddie Diaz’s Acura TSX…
Teddy Timoteo’s Civic on Volk Racing SE37K with a Mugen front lip and ARC rear wing…
DC2 Integra with a R conversion and Work Equip 03s…
Yellow S2000 on some 5Zigen FN-01R wheels…never really been much of a fan of those wheels but they seem to remain pretty popular…bay has the kevlar Password: JDM intake on it…
S200o on BBS LM…
White on white S2000 on Volk TE37s…
Honda CR-Z from Basis sitting on the brand new Spoon Sports CR93 wheel…I’ll be honest, I can’t say I really cared for these wheels, especially considering how iconic the Sw388 is in our community but in person, they don’t look that bad at all. Maybe it’s because the only examples I saw of it previously online were from Spoon and they were either dark blue or that retched yellow they love to use…. Still don’t know if they are worth the money though considering they are just cast aluminum…
Honda CR-Z with a JDP Engineering front lip and carbon grille piece on Volk Racing GT-Ns…
Jerry-built turbo Civic drag car…
Tan Nguyen’s ASM-equipped S2000 with Technocraft bucket seats…Technocraft is a branch of Password: JDM that develops products for more high-end vehicles like Lamborghinis and what not…
He probably doesn’t care too much for whoever his passenger is because his seat is padded and the passenger side is basically just carbon fiber…
Michael Mao’s Acura NSX…
…sitting on some aggressive Volk Racing TE37s…
Bisimoto Engineering’s turbocharged Shuttle…
S2000 with a J’s Racing (or “J’s Racing-style”) front bumper…
4-door Civic on old school Volk Group AVs….
EG 4-door Civic on Work Carving Stark IIs…
Really clean right-hand drive Honda CR-X with Mugen RnRs…
EP3 Civic with a Buddy Club kit on what looks to be MB Battle wheels…
Another clean 4-door Civic, but the owner of this one is faking the funk with some Rota C10 wheels and Mugen MF10L stickers…*tsk* *tsk*….
This Civic also has Mugen MF10Ls, except these are actually legitimate Mugen wheels,..Bay looks decent, would probably look much better if he had a different fuel set-up…this build deserves a thumbs-up because he has a Chronicles sticker on, haha…
EF Civic sedan with a JDM EF2 front end conversion and SSR mesh wheels…really clean 4-door overall, I’m a fan…
Oh man, this Civic looks like something straight out of the early 2000s…That’s not necessarily a bad thing though, especially if you were around back then and saw this style in it’s prime…Stillen front half bumper, shaved door handles and moldings, custom paint, and 17-inch Racing Hart Type-Cs…even has the Racing Hart windshield banner. This is early 2000s-period correct, haha…I wouldn’t be surprised if this is one of those builds that was completed back then and was just left in storage…
Oh I should mention that there was a portion of the Norm Reeves Honda show that was indoors. It’s a car dealership lot so there was a showroom that they made full use of for the event. It helped to have space for everyone when it started to rain outside…
Jimbo’s BB6 Prelude on gold Volk CE28…
A couple shots of DPK JP’s Civic because I’m not sure how much longer he plans to keep this car around…I heard that he was thinking about parting the car out or selling it…It’s been in this state for a couple years now and I don’t think he has much time to re-do the car or even bother to mess with it anymore. It almost makes sense to get rid of it…maybe then he’ll be motivated to try and start another build or something…
The guy that owns this yellow EG Civic is actually one of the car coordinators for the Fast and the Furious movie series…This Civic was actually in the funeral scene after Michelle Rodriguez dies or doesn’t die, or whatever the fuck they plan to do to her character because she’s apparently back in the next movie. I stopped to chat with the dude for a minute and he seems like a nice guy. He told me that they were filming both the 6th and 7th movie at the same time. I wanted to ask him why there weren’t any imports in the movies anymore but I almost feel that it’s better that there aren’t any, haha….keep the heat off of the import crowd, you know? That and a Civic can’t pull a bank safe all over Brazil and survive hundreds of explosions… His Civic is pretty clean though…it has some stuff that I personally wouldn’t do to that car but fuck it, it ain’t my car…The white lettering on the tires is also obnoxiously large. Would have been cleaner if he just highlighted the original logos on the tire…
Jay Borcena’s Acura TL on VIP Modular wheels…This guy has been everywhere lately, haha…popping up in every single event coverage that I do…
Anyways, that’s all for today…back with more tomorrow. There’s just two parts to the coverage so don’t worry about your computer being overloaded with photos…
Thanks for looking…
Autocon 2011 Coverage…Part 2….
Back now with part 2 of the Autocon 2011 coverage….today will be slightly different in that I plan to run more photos today than in part 1. I was in a bit of a rush yesterday so I didn’t get to put as many photos up as I planned but I’m about 95% finished with all the photos from the event and I have a better idea of how many I need to toss up per day to keep the different parts divided proportionally. The first half of it will continue to be like it was yesterday though and consist of random stuff that I observed during the day. I was hanging out at the booth with May and a couple others for a huge chunk of the day at Autocon 2011 and I didn’t plan on shooting until later on in the day. Reasoning behind this is because the sun was casting such a harsh light on the cars the whole day and everything would just look blown out in the coverage. Photos look better towards the end of the day when the sun is coming down anyway so if you’re looking for your car here, wait towards the end or wait until the following posts come. You’ll know when a majority of the car coverage is coming, believe me… Now, on with the photos from the first half of the day…
BEST. OPENING. PHOTO. EVER…Haha…while Autocon did feature some very well-built cars of all makes and models, there were a couple of these that were floating around…I mean, I’m not saying that “MUFASA 8″ is not built with the best of intentions and to the highest caliber, but it just doesn’t fit the style of the show, I guess you can say. The CR-X leaves a little bit more to be desired…especially considering the idea that the owner might be trying to fix his “Lambo” door and prevent it from slowly sliding downward and closing on it’s own…It’s just really odd to see him pull up with these other Dodge Chargers and what not…haha. It even had a Batman theme and the owner was wearing a Batman shirt… Imagine if every car had doors like this, Everybody would be opening their doors into each other and all their door dings would be on the bottom of the door, haha. That and if you tried to close your door at the same time as the guy next to you, the doors would like, scissor into each other and get stuck…
The only thing that’s really comparable to Batman is that they share similar facial expressions in this photo….haha…
Hot pink/magenta Infiniti G35 on gold-plated Leon Hardiritt Ordens from Import Fashion…
It’s JDM Yo!! had stacks on stacks on stacks of NOS Energy drinks to distribute, free of charge, to everyone at Autocon 2011…There were only two flavors available and not surprisingly, people complained about getting free shit and demanding other flavors…“Do you have the sugar free one?” No motherfucker, I don’t even know what flavors these are. I got purple and I got green, pick one. What do they taste like? Umm, it fucking taste purple and the other one tastes like GREEN…
Bryant Nguyen’s Acura TSX on SSR Professor SP3….
A pair of matching M3s on CCWs…
Really liked this yellow FD3s on bronze Volk Racing TE37s…Random but the owner that drives that Nissan Sentra next to him calls himself “The King”…He is the king of Nissan Sentras.
Mildly lowered Audi A3 on BBS CK wheels…sarcastic comment is sarcastic…
This MK2 VW Golf GTI had to be one of my favorite builds at Autocon 2011…I love the simplicity of it, the color, and the old school BBS mesh wheels…Also like the way he colored in the Falken logo on the tire. Great attention to minor details…
This isn’t supposed to be “Tiffany Blue” right?… Nicely assembled xB, I’m a fan, otherwise I wouldn’t have taken multiple photos of it…
A shot of JonJon’s WED’s Kranze Vishunu and his neo-chrome Endless brake calipers…
JonJon’s wheel invading his wheel well’s personal space…
What’s up copyright infringement? I actually attempted to go on “Hellaflushstuff.com” to see what it was all about and it wasn’t even a functioning site…that and this chick was lookin at me like I was crazy…Apparently when you’re hellaflushstuff, it means you need to have a Jumpman-style logo but the bitch ain’t dunking shit…She’s just flying through the air spread eagle…
Models from the model lounge section next to us were busy grabbing NOS drinks all day to give out to perverts…Somebody should tell this girl that she has a plexiglass sign with “It’s JDM Yo!!” stickers stuck to her head…
I was about to message Tony on Facebook to find out the name of this model for this caption, but when I got to his page, I saw her posting on his wall…Her name is Trinity Dang….I now know the purpose of Facebook…
My favorite Mercedes Benz from the SEMA 2011 show ended up coming down all the way from Norcal for this event and it ended up parking with us as well…I love everything about this build…
Big Mike, his beard, and Neil Tjin took a moment to exchange pleasantries….Meanwhile, horrified Batman can be heard screaming in the background: “They have an educational website about Urinary Tract Infections?!!”…
Big Mike’s new look featuring his Chargespeed front lip…We had a discussion about whether or not he should modify his bumpers in a way to delete the front turn signals and leave just an opening there…I said he shouldn’t but he seems pretty keen on the idea…
I am happy to see that he paint-matched his valve cover though…I normally don’t like color-matched valve covers, but in this case, it works…I don’t always drink beer either, but when I do, I drink Dos Equis…
Nitty Beat walking by the booth after grabbing some food from the food trucks outside…I’m sure that’s the same face he made later that night when he went home to SD to take a massive food truck dump…
The adult in me thinks that smoking is bad for you…the kid in me thinks that it’s funny that the tattoo on her arm says “Wang”…haha…her name is actually “Lily Zenna Wang” so the tat makes sense. I’m just giving her a shitty time because she didn’t have very nice things to say about the model lounge that Tony and crew set-up all morning and almost seemed demanding…
Unfortunately, I didn’t get a chance to take a photo of Julie Mai at Autocon, but I did catch her tying this kid’s shoelace, which I and everyone around thought was pretty cool…it was cool until I seen this kid walking around to like 3-4 different models and getting them to tie his shoes…The dudes that this kid was with were walking around using him as a baiting chip to get girls to go over to their cars to take pictures…stay classy car enthusiast!..
OHH….are you guys ready to see Amy Fay like you’ve NEVER seen her before on the internet???? Well peep game…
Get ready because this is one of those rare, once-in-a-lifetime photo opportunities…
Here is the back of Amy Fay’s head. She’s on the right by the way…haha. Amy Fay was at the It’s JDM Yo!! booth with her signed posters and what not and she received quite the reception when she arrived… Guys were coming over left and right to take pictures of her. I am probably in a majority of them. I went to go get food at the Dogzilla food truck and when I got back, everyone was trying to get a picture of her. I on the other hand, wanted to enjoy my food so I just ate at the table behind her…So if you are looking at photos of her and you see an attractive asian dude eating a hot dog in the background, it’s me…
Another shot of Lily Zenna Wang…
Man, Autocon 2011 brought out a fine crop of creepy fucking perverts….This little guy was posted up in front of the model lounge area exactly how you see him in this photo for a good 20 minutes. He was doing his creepy thing and peeking over the table at the models and made the models super uncomfortable… Eventually, one of the models got so creeped out that she called one of the security guys to come over and they made him leave. He didn’t though and just stood up, walked to the other side of the lounge and stared at the girls some more…
On a lighter note, here’s some photos of Ela Pasion…
Here’s the same creepy pervert taking a picture with Ela…
Titla McBoob was in the house…good to see she’s getting work consistently at different events. I think she’s been at almost every major event this year…
Ms. Holly Lee doing her thing and who also later won the Autocon 2011 Spokesmodel Search Award…
Cara Skye, who I committed an epic photo bomb on at HIN, chuckin the deuce up for me in this photo…
Big Mike chatting with Robert Chew from Falken Tire and his girlfriend Yuri…Robert did not want to be photographed, haha…
Norman and Sloppy from AS1…
DPK David and Preston Dawson from Function&Form Autolife…
Pretty fucking random shot of Jamarri Whiteside’s purple SSR Professor SP3 wheel…Didn’t know it had stickers on the lip….
Gabby Jeanne modeling for Auto Concept Elite…
I liked this shot of DPK David’s front wheel…
…also liked his new Skunk2 low-profile valve cover hardware…
Christine Vu liked it so much she ripped the bottom half of her shirt off…
Thanks to Sunny from Franklin Autobody for providing heel-safe paint…
At this point, I hung out at the booth for a while and put my camera away. Maybe an hour or so passed when the sun was about to set and that’s when I set out on a mission to walk the entire show and get as many cars that caught my eye as I possibly could. It was a race against the sun but I’m happy with how the photos came out…
Bryant Nguyen’s Acura TSX once again, on SSR Professor SP3s….
Ly Say’s beautifully done Acura TSX on Work Meister S1Rs….
Lexus 2GS on some newly released Work VS-MS wheels…
Christian Ruvalcaba’s “El Smurf” Civic coupe…I didn’t name it that…
Jackson Wong from DTM Autobody’s S2000 on black Enkei PF01…
1GS from Platinum VIP with a Job Design kit that was originally meant for a Lexus LS I believe…
Love this LS430 on WED’s Kranze Bazreias…
Celica that came up all the way from Mexico…It has nothing to do with what geographic location he’s from but I don’t believe those are real Work Meister S1s…
370Z with Powerhouse Amuse kit from Ar-Kan…
Preston Olson’s 350Z on VIP Modular wheels…
Autofashion USA’s new 2GS project car…coming along nicely…
Scion tC also reppin’ Autofashion USA, on Leon Hardiritt Ordens…
It’s nice to see M45s done up nicely with proper wheel fitment…
Big Steve had his LS400 teleported from his mansion in Dubai to represent at Autocon 2011…this would have been a better photo if his camel wasn’t casting a shadow on his car…
Another 2GS, this one on polished Ordens…
Many of you probably don’t know or care, but I sold my AME Shallen AX wheels a couple months back and they ended up on this 3GS…looks good and I want to say I miss these wheels, but I haven’t even put my new wheels on yet so I’m not sure if I even like them, haha…
Closing it out for today with this Dodge Challenger, designed, built, and owned by none other than Jon Sibal…check out his blog here since I still get consistent hits from his site to this very day…We have a lot in common. He’s a artist like me…the only difference is that he’s actually good at what he does and gets paid for it, while I’m busy occupying my time by having delusions of grandeur…
That’s all for today…back with more tomorrow…now off to Rywire to gawk at his Integra…
Autocon 2011 Coverage…Part 1….
Damn…I took a lot of photos at this event. I’d hope to be done going through all of them by now but there’s still a gigantic chunk of it in my memory card that I have yet to touch. I know many of you have come on here the last couple days since the event to see coverage so let’s just go ahead and kick it off today. I’m going into this not really knowing how many parts there will be, but it’ll definitely be more than just 2-3 parts. How I ended up taking that many photos I don’t know, but I think I did a pretty good job of covering the event. Obviously there is some stuff I missed but seeing as how I had a booth at this show, I think you will get a pretty good idea of how this show was…
Now my thoughts on the event…Hmm…I know many of you have already heard about the lack of organization and how the roll-in process was anything less than “hassle-free”. It probably was, I don’t really know because I got there early and set-up right away. A lot of people came by to the booth and brought it up to me, probably in hopes that I would mention it when I posted up the coverage. For all intents and purposes, shit, I have to say right now that it was a great event. I didn’t go last year because I made other plans, but I don’t think missing out on the 2010 Autocon show had any effect on how I felt about this year’s. Foot traffic was great, there was a diverse crowd of cars,…I don’t know, it looked to me as if it went well. If this was an event that I was putting on I’d be pretty happy with it. Okay, roll-in was probably a pain and I did notice how it was kind of unorganized, but you almost have to expect it with guys that are fairly new to putting on events like these. It was definitely under-staffed, but that can be alleviated pretty easily by just hiring more people. Organization just comes with better planning, and as time progresses, I think Justin Fong and staff will get better at it with time. It’s okay to bitch about it as long as you understand that it’s not something that can’t be fixed. I had a good time and it seemed as if everyone else did too.
There were some pretty beat ass looking cars that I don’t think should have been there but I don’t believe there was a screening process so it’s not like you can prevent people from PAYING YOU to show up, you know what I mean? Autocon is off to a good start….will it continue to get better? I would certainly hope so. Will they ever be as big as Wekfest and the other top tier shows of this current generation? Ehh, I don’t know if I want that to happen. I’m cool with the success and all but isn’t this show designed to be for a good cause? Justin originally put on this event as a simultaneously running toy drive. People bring in toys and gifts for children that are less fortunate during the holiday season. If this does turn into a major event, do they just continue to do toy drives at every location they go to, even if it’s not during the holidays? And if they don’t do they just move on as a major car show, leaving behind the original intent of the show itself? It’s kind of a grey area… I mean, if they abandon the whole Toys for Tots things, it would seem as if they used it as a stepping stone to move on and expand the Autocon name, and that doesn’t seem right at all…I don’t know….For now, I think we should all just be happy that this event was a success and everyone there enjoyed it. I also liked the idea of having all the food trucks outside the whole day. That I know for sure took some careful planning and it helped that people didn’t have to be there all day without food or eating some crappy, dry, convention center food…
Anyways, let’s move onto the coverage. Today we will be taking a look at the roll-in early that Saturday. I wouldn’t know about how painful roll-in was because I got there early and went in with It’s JDM Yo!!! Tony. If anything, if it was pain-free for me because I didn’t have to wait long and I took the spare time I had and shot photos…There are a lot of random photos mixed in with the cars because I had a booth and I tried not to leave it after it was set-up. Everything that you are seeing in the first couple parts are just things that happened around me and stuff I could capture from a distance….Enjoy… If you don’t like it, go log onto some other blog where they don’t know what the fuck they’re talking about and have no comprehension of sentence structure…
We rolled out early in the morning and got there around 7:30am. I had no idea where It’s JDM Yo!! Tony was so I just pulled my camera out and started shooting until he came and got us…This yellow BMW M5 on HREs was one of the first cars I spotted…
First generation Toyota Celica waiting in line to roll-in…
You can see here how the R35 GT-R dwarfs the original Mini Cooper….
Evo X on CCW Classics…
I’m a big fan of the Powerhouse Amuse kit on the 370Zs…I liked how this owner added the black on the sideskirts to add some contrast and also to match the black lines of the front…
BMW E46 M3 on CCW Classics…I’m not gonna lie, Autocon 2011 was probably the only show other than Import Alliance this year where I saw this many sets of CCWs…Most of them were found on BMWs too, which was really interesting because I never thought CCWs were that popular in the BMW community….
Big Mike used Autocon 2011 as a platform to officially debut his new look…You haven’t seen his car at various meets/shows lately because he’s been busy getting his Chargespeed lip molded to his front bumper, color-matching his mirrors, and getting his wheels powdercoated a high gloss black…
I eventually found Tony…he was busy going over the floorplan with one of the Autocon staffers with Freddie from Autofashion and we rolled into the venue soon-after…
Once we got inside, we waited to see where they wanted our booths to be set-up so I continued shooting…
Ryan Deguzman’s FD3s RX-7 cruising in…
DPK David posted up next to my crappy 4Runner…
The guns and DTA theme I get…what I don’t understand is why you would put crappy Varrstoen wheels on a Porsche…and I don’t really give a shit about the sponsorship argument either…
Buddy Club Honda Fit show/sometimes track car…
Andrew Lim’s DPE S20 wheels on his gold Toyota Supra…
Matte red BMW 5-series wagon from VIP Modular wheels…
S2000 on teal BBS LMs…
TSX on mag blue Volk Racing RE30s…
Another shot of the BMW wagon next to Team Praxis Jimmy’s FJ Cruiser…
Nimbus Grey BMW on custom bronze BBS LM…
We checked the weather forecast early that morning before we left and it showed that it was going to be a pretty cold day… May was all dressed in her winter gear but then we arrived to the venue and the sun started to beat down and it was actually getting pretty warm…
VIP Y34 Infiniti M45…
Another shot of the M3 on Classics…the one parked directly next to it looked almost identical to this one…
Stanced-out DB Integra on some black steel wheels…
Ly Say’s Acura TSX on Work S1R…
Jamarri Whiteside’s award-winning Subaru STI from Auto Concept Elite… This build just won “Best of Show” at Hot Import Nights just a week prior to Autocon 2011…
Auto Concept Elite’s ENEOS-themed widebody R35 GT-R…
Big Mike’s Scion xB…haha…just playing, but they share a similar tone…
Justin and Autocon had advertised that there were free hot-air balloon rides that day and sure enough, there was…
Man, I fucking loved this Toyota Tundra on Volk TE37s…That truck couldn’t look any better…
Scion xB on air and BBS wheels…
Big Mike prepping his Prelude…
Slammed Lexus SC300 from Royal Origin (I think…)….
Chivas rolled out from Vegas with his orange EM1…I just recently finished a story on this coupe for a future Honda Tuning feature so keep an eye out for that…
Gerald’s DC2 Integra on Work Equip 03s….also from Las Vegas…
DPK David all set-up and ready for the show…
JonJon was still busy prepping his IS300…
Step-lipped multi-piece Mugen M7s…
Jamarri Whiteside cleaning the door jams on his STI…check out the door panels on this thing…
Gonna close it out today with a couple shots of Michael Mao’s Acura NSX on aggressive Volk TE37s…
Back with much more tomorrow!! Gotta run for now…
Thanks for looking…
Autofashion VIP Festival 2011 Coverage…Part 1…
About a couple hours ago, I made the decision to go ahead and go through the photos from this year’s VIP Festival and get those up first before we get to the SEMA coverage. One of the main reasons behind that decision is because there are just so many photos from SEMA. I’m going to have to divide those up and it’ll take multiple parts before we can get through all of it. The Autofashion VIP Festival provided a lot of good photos so I figured it would be better to get those out to you first. SEMA photos are floating around already but the VIP Festival just happened on Sunday, so you probably haven’t seen anything up about that yet. There’s only around 70 photos or so from the event as well so we can knock that out in the next two days. The SEMA coverage will take up a bulk of the next two weeks so be prepared for that….
Anyways, let’s get going with part one of the Autofashion VIP Festival…
I try to make it a point to come out to any event that Freddie from Autofashion puts together. We’ve known eachother for quite some time now and we have always made it a point to support eachother. He’s taken time out of his schedule the last two years to come help me out at my anniversary meets so it’s only right that I make the trek down to San Diego to be a part of his annual VIP Festival events. I’ve been in love with the VIP-style of tuning since the early 2000s and I’m happy to see how big the scene has grown throughout the years. One of the main reasons behind it’s growth is due in part to Freddie and Autofashion. They laid the groundwork for the VIP scene years ago and Autofashion has developed quite the following since then. The annual VIP Festival happens the Sunday after SEMA every year because it’s easier to get everyone out to San Diego since they are already in the same general area. A lot of VIP enthusiasts are out in Vegas for the SEMA show already so it makes sense to make the drive down to check out the event…
I’ll be honest, I was pretty worn out from the entire week in Vegas but I wasn’t about to just lay in bed all day and miss out on the VIP Festival. We all made the trip out there last year and it was a great time so it was definitely something I was looking forward to. The last couple days in Vegas, it had already begun to rain so on Sunday morning, I woke up to check the weather reports and it showed no indication of rain until the evening. I called up DPK David to see if he was ready to roll and he didn’t believe me when I told him it wasn’t raining in San Diego. I don’t blame him because we were just about an hour and a half away from the event and it was pouring where we were at. I grabbed some breakfast with May and left with a sense of optimism because I really didn’t want it to rain. I was worried the event would be dead because of it so I looked online and was pleasantly surprised to see that it was not only busy, but it also wasn’t raining. I picked up DPK David as well as Rywire Ryan and the four of us headed down to San Diego. The whole drive down was pretty intense because of the rain in our area but we were looking forward to arriving to a nice, dry, VIP Festival. I kept telling everyone in the car that it wasn’t going to rain but a couple miles away from the freeway exit, the rain was still coming down pretty consistently…. Turns out that we were basically racing the storm the entire time and it beat us to the meet. When we arrived at Autofashion, it started to come down pretty hard but luckily for us, the guys at Falken Tire were there with a booth that provided us coverage from the rain….
All the cars were soaked by the time we got there but at least it made for some interesting photos…
It was pretty gloomy and gray which was a stark contrast to the Facebook photos we saw posted from the event earlier on in the day…
One thing that was really surprising was the sheer number of cars that were there and remained there even through the storm…
…it was a great example of how devoted people are to Freddie and the Autofashion family. Many of these cars would never even touch the rain on a regular day, let alone sit out in torrential downpour…
One of the cars that I was excited to see was the debut of this Aurora Flare Blue Pearl Y33 Q45, which belongs to VIPstylecars forum member Tony aka “Blitz”…I met him while I was standing under a random canopy hiding from the rain and he was a pretty nice guy…I was really hoping the rain would stop for just a quick moment so I could go take a closer look at his car but in the mean time, all I could do was look at it from a distance…
SL65 AMG pulling into the VIP Festival…Only way to out-floss all the nice Japanese VIP builds is to pull up in a 12-cylinder European beast…
Kevin from Autofashion and “Miss VIP Festival” Julie Mai checking out the event… Julie looked pretty upbeat walking around in the storm…
…while this dog wasn’t particularly happy to be drenched…
5&A Dime and the Dudeblvd crew were on hand to show support…
Enrique Rosario and Natalie attempting to stick it out…
Tetsuya Yamaguchi from USDM Jam/Yamaz Store flew out from Japan for the 2011 SEMA show and decided to stop by the VIP Festival…
The first couple shots are pretty random because I spent a chunk of time under the Falken Tire tent just getting whatever I could with the 70-200mm lens…I wasn’t afraid of getting drenched or anything, I just wasn’t really down with getting my camera wet but eventually I sucked it up and started walking around when the rain let up a bit…
I walked out and ran into my old high school buddy Dennis Kiyan and snapped this photo of Jay Borcena’s Acura TL while I was chatting with him…
Really love this TRD widebody SW20 MR-2 but I really wish he would just fix that wing already…
I’ve always had a soft spot for the Y34 Infiniti M chassis…I was trying to find one actually when I was looking for a car to build a couple years back until I landed on the Y33 Q45 I have now…
This Aimgain-equipped LS from Arizona was one of my favorite cars at SEMA so it was great to see it at the Festival…
Blitz’s Y33…I can’t say I’ve ever been a fan of Weds Kranze LX-Zs but they look amazing on his Q…The Aurora Flare Blue Pearl paint is a color from a 2012 Nissan GT-R that’s supposed to have a really cool effect when the sun hits it. I would not see that cool effect that day because of the obvious…
Even though Leon Casino has never personally built a VIP ride, it didn’t stop him from making the trip down to SD to show his support…
The Lexus 2GS chassis was definitely one of the most popular at the VIP Festival…
This magenta/fuscia/hot pink-toned G35 was definitely interesting, especially with the gold Leon Hardiritt Ordens…
Really liked this 2GS on Weds Kranze Bazreias…
Meanwhile back at the Falken Tire tent, Ryan was bragging about how he found a pair of dry socks in his snowboarding jacket…
Dennis Kiyan’s M45…
Absolutely loved everything about this LS….the attention to detail is awesome and something that many VIP guys overlook…More on this car in the SEMA 2011 coverage later…
I personally would never build a pink car on gold wheels but I have to say, I like this G35 a lot…the kit is not too over the top and the wheels aren’t poking out all ridiculously…
Silver 2GS on Eurolines from the crew “Royal Flush”…
Hakosuka Skyline GT-R that’s popped-up at numerous events this year…
JonJon’s supercharged IS350…
Oscar aka “Pancakes” Y33 Q45…
Big fan of this VIP Acura TL…love the custom kit and fender work…
Great wheel fitment on this 2GS…Interesting how he incorporated the JDM sidemarker lights into his vented front fender instead of shaving the hole like many would…Makes for a cool look since people just expect you to shave everything and delete things these days…
Q45 belonging to VIPstylecars forum member “Brokey33″…
…his Weds Kranze Cerberus wheels with custom Z32 300ZX brake calipers “bedazzled” with Swarovski crystals…
Q45 also repping VIPDOUT…I actually went and checked out their website and it’s got some pretty cool shit on it… check it out here if you’re into VIP stuff….
Gonna cut it off here for now…Definitely coming back with the second and final portion of the 2011 VIP Festival Coverage…thanks for looking…
Year.Three Coverage…Part 3…Finale…
Just a couple final shots of the Year.Three event…I hope everyone had a great time and if you didn’t, at least you got a chance to enjoy these photos. It’s too far away right now to know for sure if we will do another anniversary meet next year but if all goes well, why not to another one, right?…
On with the photos. If you guys haven’t had a chance to check out the previous two posts of Year.Three coverage, just click back to the previous posts and you will find them there…
Now, to close it out….
Here’s a couple of shots of the front VIP area during the mid-afternoon… We had a great turn-out overall, and I was very happy with the attendance. As I stated before, I missed out on taking shots of a lot of cars because I didn’t start covering most of the event until later on in the day…
One more shot of Angelo Arayata’s EF, this one with the hood closed…
A clean R on white Regamaster EVOs…
Around 430pm, it was time to present the awards… From left to right, we had the “Best Engine Bay” award, followed by “The Chronicles’ Choice”, then “Best Non-Honda”, and “Best Honda”…Another reason why I was running back and forth all day was to judge the cars. I had the help of Rywire Ryan, DPK David, and Big Mike, but it was still hard to determine the winners since there were so many great cars on hand that day…
To kick off the awards, Big Mike and I announced the “Best Non-Honda” award, which went to Ka Wong and his F20C-powered orange AE86 Corolla…I don’t know many builds out there that are as well built as Ka’s Hachi-Roku, so we had to give it up to him… I also ordered some L&L Hawaiian BBQ from him earlier that morning too and brought it out to the meet for close friends and family. Inside the bay at Eibach was a little party we had going on with food and drinks….
The “Best Engine Bay” award was probably the most debated award among our group of judges…there are just so many different style of clean engine bays so it was hard to decide who should really get the award. In the end, we just had to give it to RC Chacon for his wild turbo K-series set-up in his 4-door EG9 Civic… Ms. Holly Lee was helping us in distributing the awards as well as posing for a photo-op with all the winners…
The “Best Honda” award was an easier choice than I had expected…Cooper Boudia aka Skipunk4 had the cleanest Integra there and we all loved everything about it. It’s a very well-rounded build and it seems to have every aspect covered. That and him making the epic journey down from Washington and the car still staying in immaculate condition as it was made it the easy choice as the best Honda of the day…
“The Chronicles’ Choice” aka my personal favorite build at Year.Three, went to a very deserving FA5 Civic SI that belonged to Sam Ip…I absolutely love his car so it was an easy choice as well to present the award to him….
Congrats to all the winners, because you guys are all very deserving of the accolades…
Even though Freddie from Autofashion told everyone that the event wasn’t over yet, after the awards, people started to roll-out. I guess people are so used to leaving after the awards at shows/events that they automatically thought we were done. No matter though because a bulk of the people still stuck around to hang out….
Very clean BB6 Prelude on Volk CE28s…
Sam’s Civic as he was getting ready to put his hood back on…
Always see this red S2000 around at various events so it was cool to see it at Year.Three…
The Leung brothers, both with very nice AWD builds, posted up together…
Red EK on JDM OEM Civic SiR/VTi wheels…
This S13 hatchback wasn’t really parked up front in the VIP area originally but since a lot of people had left and it was towards the end of the day, we didn’t mind it being there. Cool looking drift-inspired look too on what looks to be some new AME wheels…
A couple more shots of RC Chacon’s Civic and his “award-winning” engine bay…
A rear shot of Sintype’s Civic coupe…
A shot of DPK JP’s Civic before he took off. He had to get home before it got dark since he had no headlights…
Twin S2000s…different colors of course but with a lot of matching parts…
I enjoyed this yellow DC2 so I had to get another shot of it as I was passing through…
Random shot of Frank Boys Bolts aka Bolt Boys Frank’s valve cover with the new Skunk2 valve cover hardware kit…
Phaze2 Salem, DJ Murdock, and Tony from It’s JDM Yo!!! checking out some new tees…
Shot of Ka Wong’s F20C…
Really like this hatch….sorry about the shadow bukkake…
MX-5 Miata on some concave TE-37s….
Rear quarter shot of Michael Mao’s NSX…
Mike G’s extensively detailed engine bay…
DPK Henry aka Rick Fox’s legit RHD EG6 arrived a little later in the day, minus his J’s Racing front lip…
Missed this car earlier on in the afternoon but glad I got a shot of it before the owner left…
Band of misfits…
All white errrrr-thang…including that old ass Supra that was just sitting in the background. I don’t know who it belonged to but it was there before we even got there in the morning…oh well, it flows with the photo…
All cleaned-up before we rolled out to dinner afterwards… Not much else happened..we picked up some trash, walked around to make sure the lot was clean, then we packed up and rolled out to Mr. Kebab for dinner…
That’s a wrap… Once again, thank you everyone for their continued support throughout all these years. May we have many many more and may I have a chance to meet all the great people in our community. Thanks for looking…
Year.Three Coverage…Part 2…
Sorry for the lack of an update yesterday. I didn’t take a day off or anything like that, I was just on the road and it took longer than expected to get home. It’s been a pretty busy week so far…I was expecting to take a break after all the Year.Three planning and the event itself but I’ve been all over the place non-stop either working or doing stuff for the site. Monday I woke up bright and early, rented a Chevy Cruz and drove all the way to San Luis Obispo to shoot a car for work. Then when I got home that night, I was up trying to finish up a couple stories as well, stayed up all night, and was actually planning on getting some sleep around 8-9am but then I got a call from Bisi Ezerioha. Bisi let me know that they were set to send their SEMA project off in the afternoon and wanted me to get some shots of it before it left. I never pass up an opportunity like that so I drank a energy drink, ate some Jack in the Box tacos and headed out to Ontario on no sleep. There’s plenty more to go with both those things I just told you, but I’ll save those for individual posts later on. You’re here to see Year.Three coverage so that’s what we’ll talk about today…
Umm, what should we talk about today as far as the meet….oh yes, the trash issue. Holy fuck, there was way more trash this year than last. Overall I think everyone was very respectful throughout the event as far as following rules go but along the sides and the rear of the Eibach building, trash was just fucking everywhere. I believe this is because the people that just showed up and parked along the free sections were people that didn’t know about the site and just showed up, or they were just outright disrespectful. I don’t know, either way, a couple of us spent the remaining hour or so picking up trash that was like, shoved into bushes, or thrown all over the side of the building. The stupid thing is that the area that had the most trash was an area in which there was a dumpster like a couple feet away, it’s ridiculous… In any case, it’s cool…next year maybe I’ll have to do something about the free parking area…
Parking as a whole just couldn’t have gone any better. It probably took about a team of 4 guys to get all the cars parked and everything went smoothly. Big shout-out to Leon Casino for manning the front gate and getting everyone situated. Also guys like Ly Say, and the other TSX owners that were hanging out at the front gate area were very helpful. Okay, now onto some more photos….Again, my bad for not following up with part 2 yesterday, with SEMA coming up, I’m all over the place…
There’s something about Ly Say’s TSX that I just love…I mean, I’m a big fan of nice, authentic Japanese wheels and Ly’s one of those guys that has a very good taste in wheels. Every wheel he’s had since he started working on this car has been a good look. Photo is blown out as all hell but trust me, it’s a good looking TSX… I almost gave him the “Stickydiljoe’s Personal Choice” award at Year.Three but the guy that ended up getting the award has a fucking sick build and I just couldn’t pass it up….
Work S1R on Ly’s TSX…Leave it to Work Wheels to take a wheel they already had, narrow the spokes, and release it as an entirely new wheel. I can’t blame them though, they look good and the Meister S1 has always been a classic wheel…
Alex Colon’s Civic has looking nice…correct me if I’m wrong but didn’t he used to have an SCM front bumper?…
This guy was literally the first person in line and got the first parking spot at Year.Three…not including some of the homies that came in earlier of course, because they didn’t have to wait…
My old homie Jeff Correa from San Diego’s 8th gen. Civic…
Randall Ang aka Sintype’s Civic coupe…
Lance Uchida’s Civic…Lance and some of his buddies also helped clean up at the end of the day, which was really nice of them…
Really liked this yellow right-hand drive Integra…another one that was up for contention for being one of my favorite cars there…
Just a stock LS motor under the hood but the bay has been cleaned-up and looks good…
Loved the kevlar/Recaro Tomcat/Wildcat-style door inserts…Nice touch with the matching Personal wheel with yellow stitching…Oh and also the teal shift knob to match the valve cover. Very minor details but details I can appreciate…
Nit’s S2000 reppin’ DudeBlvd…
Nitty Beat himself…looking kind of confused and disoriented…
DPK David showed up a couple hours late because he had a friend’s party to attend, luckily he has good friends that will save a spot right up front for him…
PlanB Mike’s Evo X…
All the credit in the world goes to this guy for making the 20+ hour drive down by himself from Washington to attend Year.Three. Cooper is a super nice kid and his Integra is very well built….
The engine bay is where this car is at…well done…
Interior with red Recaro seats and Spoon Sports goodies…
Nice EK with 949Racing 6ULs…
Angelo Arayata aka jdmpnoy89′s EF Civic…
ek9abe’s Civic…
Sam Ip’s Civic Si… I love everything about this car. He went all Spoon Sports the first time around but with this build, I believe he’s going the full J’s Racing route…
The engine bay, interior, and rear of Sam Ip’s Civic…
DAP EK on Volk Racing RE30s…
Teddy’s Civic with First Molding front lip…
Quan’s Integra on bronze Volk Racing SE37K…
Justin Fong’s widebody Civic. Tony from It’s JDM Yo!! told me that Justin actually got rolled on the way home from the meet and got a huge ticket for all kinds of shit…sucks but thanks for coming out…haha…
Ejay’s DA with his new “streetable” look… I miss the SSR Super Mesh and airbrushed hood, haha…
Brian Arias’ Habanero Red Pearl EK on BBR Comps…
Loving the way TGIJoseph aka Sloppy’s Fit is looking these days….this is probably his best look to date…
Not sure what was going on with the front end of this car but it’ll look so much better if it was all one color…
Interesting EF on old school Hoshino wheels…
White-on-white FA5 Civic on Work VS-XX wheels…
Indey’s del Sol…
Love this 4-door DB and also love that he has both the sticker from last year’s anniversary meet as well as Year.Three…
2nd Gen. Lexus IS from Royal Origin sitting on Junction Produce Scara wheels…
Closing it out today with a couple shots of RC’s K-turbo’d EG9…
That’s all for today. I have one more part of the coverage coming and I will put that up for sure tomorrow…thanks for looking…
Year.Three Coverage…Part 1…
Thank you.
There are no two other words in the English dictionary that can better explain my gratitude and appreciation for your continued support of The Chronicles. It’s still pretty wild to think that it’s already been three years since I started this site and how quickly it has grown in that time. You guys hear me talk about this on occasion but to put it in perspective, man, it’s been a pretty wild ride. I started out with no camera, decent writing ability, and perverted sense of humor and in my first month, I achieved a staggering total of like 120-something hits for the ENTIRE month. Since then the site has grown to the point where I can get 120-some odd hits in a matter of 15-20 minutes. I taught myself how to use a camera, got a little bit better at writing, and I guess you can say that I created somewhat of a fan-base. Throwing meets and events have never been my thing…I like going to them and having the freedom to do as I please without worrying about who is going where, what’s happening, or anything related to organization. Last year, when I did the 2YRS two-year anniversary event, it was mildly stressful. I had never put a meet together, I really didn’t have anything planned, and up until a month or so before the event, I didn’t even have a venue! Luckily Ryan from Eibach Springs was kind enough to offer me the Eibach Springs facility and everything just sort of fell into place. People had a good time, and that’s what mattered.
This year, I really wasn’t sure if I wanted to do an anniversary meet. Everyone kept asking me when I was gonna have it and I told them that my goal was to only throw an anniversary meet if the site got bigger and I was happy with the direction of The Chronicles. We are sitting here now talking about the Year.Three event because the site has continued to be successful. I have met so many incredible people throughout these three years and it’s actually only right that I was able to get everyone together to celebrate not only the success of the site, but also to celebrate the great relationships that have formed because of the site. It’s the people that matter to me and I honestly do appreciate the friendships that have developed throughout these three years. I’m not just talking about people from California either. I’ve met and spoken to people from all over the world…Japan, Canada, Australia, and all parts of the United States. Last year’s meet had such a great reception and positive feedback that it was an easy decision to bring it back to the Eibach Springs facility. It’s a gigantic open space that everyone knows of, because of the annual Eibach Honda meet, and it’s tucked away in the industrial section of Corona, CA where no one unrelated to the event would be able to disturb anything that was going on. I hit up Ryan from Eibach and he was more than happy to let me use the Eibach lot and the planning began. I didn’t want to do anything drastically different from last years because everything went so smoothly in 2010. One thing I wanted to do this year was bring along some vendors and friends of the site for the ride as well as doing something that nobody expected, which was to present a small set of awards at the show. I like to show my appreciation for great builds every year with the annual Top Ten Hondas list so I thought that it would be a good idea to have some awards to spotlight some of the best builds that came out to the Year.Three event.
Everything really couldn’t have gone any better. I would say that I am about 97% happy with how everything went down at Year.Three, with the remaining 3% left to the incredibly hot weather that day as well as the horrible traffic leading to Eibach, both factors which were completely out of my hands. As for the coverage, I spent the majority of the first couple hours that day setting up the booth, making sure everyone else’s booths were situated, and parking cars. There were quite a few cars that I didn’t get a chance to get photos of simply because they left before I was able to. I didn’t really get to start shooting until maybe halfway through the meet and I wish I could have covered the entire day. The same thing happened last year but there’s just no other way around it. I didn’t want to burden others with having to help me out just so I could take pictures and I’m lucky that there were already more than enough people lending a hand. I pretty much got the bulk of the meet though as far as the cars that were up front in the VIP section. I walked around the side and rear of the building to check out the cars but that wasn’t til the end of the day when I was taking out the trash and cleaning up. If you don’t see your car in the coverage, that doesn’t mean that I don’t appreciate you being there, because that just isn’t the case. I either just plain missed you, or I was busy chatting with people that were coming up to me. I can’t thank everyone enough for coming out to support Year.Three. You guys make this possible and you make it fun. Let’s keep the positive vibes going into 2012 and we can do it even bigger next year…
With that said, we should probably start getting to some photos. I’ll continue talking your heads off in part 2 of the coverage. You do come here for the spoken word and commentary, you know? Any other site can just post up photos and move along. I’m here to numb your mind with non-stop rambling and some decent photos…Enjoy…
Huge shout-out goes to Tony Jackson and Ryan Hoegner for taking time out of their weekend to be a part of this event. Without these guys Year.Three wouldn’t be possible. Ryan even coached his daughter’s softball game before making his way out. Tony was there bright and early waiting for May and I to show up to set-up the meet. When I got there at 11:30am, he was the only one on the lot and he was trying to set-up a canopy on his own…Thank you guys…
Here’s a look at what the front vendor area looked like a couple hours into Year.Three…This year’s meet was way bigger than last years but it still had the same, laid back, chill vibe that I really wanted…
I was happy to see some of my favorite cars out, and I was really happy with the amount of love I got from enthusiasts that came out from my hometown of San Diego, CA….I would say that probably a 1/3 of the event consisted of people from San Diego…Bryant and Ly’s TSXs are some of my favorites from back home…
Another car that I was overjoyed to see was Sam Ip’s 8th gen. Civic…
Gumby also apparently is a supporter of The Chronicles…
Tony from Phaze2 stopped by after work in his daily VIP 1GS…he recently got new wheels for it and was anxious to bring it out to show us…Here he is taking a moment to chat with Arnel from Phaze2…
Tony’s 1GS laid out on the ground…
RC from Arizona made the trek out to show us his updates on his EG9 Civic…The last time we saw this car was at Nisei when he parked in my “GENERATIONS” section…More photos of this build will come later…
Random shot of DPK JP helping out in May’s “Walk for Hope” Cancer Walk booth…
What I liked about this year’s event compared to the 2010 meet was the variety of cars that showed up. I’m a huge fan of all sorts of different cars so it was cool to see equal support from non-Honda heads…
The lovely Ms. Holly Lee on hand at the “It’s JDM Yo!!!” booth…
These two guys made the trip all the way down from the state of Washington to check out the meet…I had been exchanging emails with Greg (left) leading up to the event but I really regret not being able to chat with them more because I was busy running around everywhere…
May had a cool purple-themed set-up at her own booth to raise money for her Cancer Walk on November 6th…
Keith aka Keychain from “It’s JDM Yo!!!” reppin with his Stickydiljoe.com Chronicles tee…
I had a huge turnout of Accord enthusiasts last year so I was honestly a little bummed to see that they didn’t come out for this year’s meet, but luckily, a huge number of TSX owners represented and I think a lot of people that day were surprised by the quality of all these TSX builds…
Arn Reyes kept his Integra at home for the day and instead brought out his Mini…He was posted up front alongside DPK JP and Enrique Rosario’s cream-colored hatchback…
Absolutely love JonJon’s IS350…
I wasn’t really sure if any of the ATS Garage guys would be able to come down from Norcal so it was a pleasant surprise when I showed up at the Rywire facility that Friday and saw Ryan Der and his EK….
Freddie and the Autofashion crew not only supplied the music and entertainment but also brought out a pair of Honda Ruckus’…The guys from Standard Functions also came out and brought a large group of Ruckus’ as well…
Good to see JP’s Civic coming out of hibernation and making public appearances again…
Really nice Acura NSX that was posted up by the front gate. The owner wanted to purchase a VIP spot and park closer but we all felt that it was perfectly placed where everyone could see it…
A couple guys checking out JP’s “Bling Gauge” on his carbon headlight cover…
Enrique Rosario’s Civic…this guy has always been a huge supporter of The Chronicles. I still remember when he had a green valve cover and a Chronicles sticker plastered on his spark plug wire cover…
Arn’s Mini on SSRs…
Good to see DPK Jared’s S2000 in a near complete state. This car spent much of the year out of commission because Ryan was busy doing a wire tuck as well as custom brake lines and custom radiator…
Here’s an updated shot of the engine bay after everything was relocated, hidden, and the entire bay resprayed…
One obvious change since you guys last saw it is the Mugen air intake…
Downstairs Frank from PG+K…
James Nguyen aka OldManJames’ S2000…
Michael Mao’s NSX on Volk CE28 Genesis wheels…
I was happy to see my favorite AE86 build of all-time at Year.Three…Mr. Ka Wong also helped supply the L&L Hawaiian BBQ food that I ordered for all the close friends and family of the site….
Big Steve’s LS teleported from the magical land of Narnia and mysteriously appeared at the meet….I went from never seeing this car to seeing it three times in one year…it must be some sort of miracle…
Another angle of Phaze2 Tony’s 1GS on Work Varianza D3S….
Take another look at RC’s engine bay and tell me later on if you think that this car deserved to win the “Best Engine Bay” award….
Yogi from Fatlace along with some of the other Ruckus guys getting set to take off…
The line-up as they rolled out…
Rodrez from Honda Tuning magazine getting some video footage…
On that note, I’m gonna cut it off for today with the video that resulted from what was going on in the image above…Thanks goes out to Rodrez for taking time out of his day to create this cool video…
Back with much more tomorrow!…
“Race Day” at Racer’s Edge Indoor Karting Coverage…
While there was actual racing going on over in Fontana, CA. at the IDRC International Finals, I was over in the city of Burbank for “Race Day”. There was certainly racing going on over here as well, but of the go-kart racing variety. This small show/meet was held inside the compound of an indoor kart racing facility known as “Racer’s Edge”. Norman, who is also the head of local Socal car crew AS1, set-up this entire event and all the homies as well as other fellow enthusiasts came out to show their support. The lot didn’t seem very large but they were still able to squeeze in a pretty large amount of vehicles. Norman and crew had expected more cars and were planning to use every possible open space to fill it with a car but the fire marshall notified them that they wouldn’t be able to house as many cars as they could due to fire code. It certainly didn’t have too big of an effect on the show though because there was a very good mix of different builds present. Hondas, Nissans, Subarus, you name it, there was probably one in attendance. There were even some very nice old school rides present, which is always a pleasant surprise. One of the coolest things about this show was that people were also able to go karting inside for a discounted rate. Being able to race and watch others race inside also provided shade from the intense heat outside. I don’t really know what’s going on with this weather, especially in mid-late October. There’s no reason why it should be getting this hot. All in all, it was a good show. Big Mike, DPK David, and some of the other homies ended up spending a lot of their time there judging the non-Honda categories and some of the other guys showed up just to hang out. May and I arrived around 2pm and I began snapping away at whatever I saw…enjoy the photos and thanks to Norman for organizing this event…
This was one of the first cars I spotted when I got to the show…Pretty cool looking MK5 GTI on air and Bentley wheels…Kinda liked this photo so I included a Larger Version (1200×800)
Integras were abundant at “Race Day”…
I thought this MX-5 Miata on TE37s was interesting…
Classic look for a DC2…R front end conversion, R wing, Spoon SW388s…
Another good looking DC2…this one with clear housing JDM Integra headlights, front end, and Mugen MF10Ls….
Always been a big fan of this 4-door Integra…I like the simplicity of it and the contrast of the red Bride interior on the white…
The engine bay is very traditional…no crazy tuck or shave or anything…still retains ABS, air conditioning, stock battery location, etc…
Very nice interior…
Teddy’s white EK with his newly-mounted First Molding front lip…
This coupe was pretty clean…the engine bay is pretty random and I can’t say I’m really a big fan of that whole style but I can appreciate the amount of labor involved in creating it…
The bay was so busy I almost didn’t notice the ITBs…
This Corolla was really clean…I didn’t get a chance to see what was under the hood but the outside looked pretty mint. Even the Watanabe wheels looked like they were brand new straight out of the box and on the car with original center caps and everything…
Another AE86, this one on SSR Longchamps…
Here’s another old school Corolla…this chassis is the one that preceded the AE86 chassis….
Loved this RPS13 hatchback on SSR Professor SP3s and Top Secret aero…
Sil80 on SSR Professor SP1s…
Legacy Wagon on Blitz Technospeed Z1…it was so hot that the tires were sweating, haha…
Sloppy aka TGIJoseph’s Honda Fit on Spoon wheels…
Clean Subaru STI on polished Volk CE28s…
White EG Civic on what looks to be Mugen sideskirts (could be Wings West), and Spoon Sports-style front lip….949 wheels with caps also and Recaro seats…
4-door Civic on Mugen NR10s…the name of the front lip escapes me right now, but I think it might be a Vision-style carbon fiber EG9 Ferio lip…
This was tucked away in the corner at the show but I thought it was a good look. The blue on blue is not that common with Subaru-owners and it doesn’t hurt that the wheels are aggressively sized Work Meister S1s…
Spotted this RSX at various events in the past…
FA5 Civic on Yokohama Super Advan Racing Ver. 2 wheels…
I walked inside to the karting area and spotted Salem from Phaze 2′s TSX parked inside the track…pretty cool but with the way some of these kids were driving, I would have been a little worried…
One of the interesting things to note about this event was that Racer’s Edge had a separate building inside the parking lot that made it possible for Norman to park some cars inside of and out of the sun. While this was cool for the people inside because they could escape the burning sun, it made for crappier photos…
Here’s a Civic that I’ve been keep an eye on. It has a cool, track-inspired look and the guy actually takes it to the track…It just needs to be painted and it’ll look like a completely different car…
DPK David’s EJ1 coupe…
DPK JP’s Civic…
Crappy photo of Arn’s Integra…looks like he parked next to the fucking sun or something…
Phaze2 Arnel’s 4-door with the lip kit paint-matched….this thing is starting to look better and better…
AS1 Karl’s EM1 Civic on CCWs…
A “photoshoot” that was going on in the middle of the show with one of the girls that was working the Race Day event…
Jose Romo’s Audi A3…
This was pretty interesting/random…authentic right hand drive Datsun Bluebird that was tucked away in the back corner…
Mugen CR-X Pro.2 from GSpot Automotive…
Brian Arias’ Civic that was featured this year in Import Tuner magazine…
Civic from GTS Auto that you should all be pretty familiar with by now…
Arn brought his wife and baby out to hang out at the show for a bit before it ended…this little guy always looks like he’s surprised, haha…
Leon also brought his newborn baby out for the first time…it’s still pretty crazy to think that Leon is a dad now…
Chaba was working the event inside the karting area throughout the day but found some time to come out and hold Leon’s baby… On most other sites, you will see her doing poses and modeling at events at what not…on The Chronicles…YOU WILL SEE HER HOLDING A BABY. Haha…this ain’t “It’sJDMYo!!!” We got models holding babies over here…
Anyways, it was nearing the end of the day so it was time for the awards to be presented…
Norman, the man behind the event, holding up one of the awards…he also does his fair share of holding babies because he’s a father of 12…
DPK David won “Best Honda” and Chaba was happy for him…
DPK JP won “Best Honda without headlights”/”People’s Choice”….
A bunch of other awards were given out too but there was already a photographer on hand to cover that so I just sat back and didn’t do shit the rest of the time…oh I clapped…that should be mentioned I guess…
Group photo with the award winners…Arnel actually won “Best Stance” but he was nowhere to be found so David is holding up the award for him. He was either smoking a cigarette or not caring, or something related to not standing there at that moment…Congrats to all the winners though, smokers or not…
That’s pretty much it. YEAR.THREE is this weekend! Get your cars some what in presentable condition!…
Thanks for looking….
The Top 10 Hondas of 2010…A retrospective…Part 1…
Well, it’s probably a little later than I would have liked to have put this together but here we are in October and this is finally happening…As you all know, I usually do a “Top Ten Hondas” at the end of every year to spotlight some of what I feel are the best Honda builds. It started in 2008 and I followed it up the following year with the Top Ten Hondas of 2009 and then again in 2010. During the middle of each year, I did an update on all of those builds and gave you guys some insight as to what they are doing and where the cars are at. It’s always interesting to see what happens to the Hondas on the list because you either see them continue on with their builds, or sell them and start on something else. Today we’re going to take a look at the bottom half of the list and in the days following I will give you guys an update on spots 1-5…
If you guys are new to the site, make sure to check out the original post on The Top Ten Hondas of 2010…
You might want to catch up on the reading before you start on today’s post, otherwise it won’t make much sense to you…
Here is the original follow-up post to the Top Ten Hondas of 2009, so you guys can get a good idea of what the format is like for today…nothing crazy, just a couple new photos compared to how the cars looked when they first made the list…
The Top Ten Hondas of 2009…A Retrospective…Part 1…
The Top Ten Hondas of 2010…A Retrospective…Part 2…
Alright, so now that we are all caught up, let’s get started on a retrospective look at the Top Ten Hondas from 2010…
10. Kane Chan’s Civic Coupe/Arn Reyes’ Acura Integra/Ejay Adriano’s DA via 3-Way Tie…
What he’s up to now: If there is anything that needs to be said about Kane Chan’s Civic, it’s that he and his car have been nothing but a model of consistency. He’s had this coupe since the 90′s so it’s highly unlikely that it would make any drastic changes. He participated in the first two Super Street FF Battles but took off the 2011 event to give the car a break and so that he could just sit back and enjoy the races. He also landed once again in the pages of Super Street magazine and I’m proud to say that I was able to shoot and write the story for it. It’s been a pleasure knowing Kane and it’s because of Super Street and the FF Battle series that I was able to meet him and now call him a friend…
Not much of a change aesthetically… In 2011, he re-installed his Spoon Sports front lip and put the car back on some classic Work RS-Betas…Everything going on under the hood is exactly the same as when it made its appearance on the 2010 Top Ten Hondas list…
What he’s up to now: Arn is another one of those old school cats that has had his Honda for a while and doesn’t have any plans to get rid of it any time soon. He had a baby and is a full-fledged family man but he still finds time to mess around with his Integra. The guy always has a collection of parts that he can always swap on and off but at the 2011 Nisei Showoff event, he brought his DC2 out on a brand new Hershey Brand front bumper, a piece that also debuted in 2011….
Many will argue that the Mugen front bumper is a timeless look that should never replaced but Arn Reyes has always been a guy that’s been willing to try something new and take some chances with his car. That’s why he always has different parts so that he can change up the outside appearance of his Integra at any time…Not much else is new for Arn and his car but don’t be surprised if he comes out in 2012 with some all new shit…
What he’s up to now: Ejay had quite a year in 2010…he brought his DA out to practically every event in California and even found himself with a feature in Honda Tuning magazine. It’s probably one of the most recognizable DA Integras nowadays but in 2011, he’s taken more of a laid back approach with his car…
He wasn’t too please with the power his H-swap was making so he went ahead and swapped back to a B-series motor. Ejay planned to make his car more streetable this year so that he could just simply enjoy the car so the motor just made more sense to have. While I think wholeheartedly that the SSR Super Mesh was the best possible look EVER for his DA, he also took those off and is now rolling on some Volk TE37s. He made the decision because he didn’t want to mess with the aggressive camber and rough ride anymore and chose to go with a more subtle wheel size…I don’t think I’ll ever forgive him for taking the SSRs off but I’m glad that he can enjoy his DA to the fullest now…
9. Phil Robles Honda Civic...
What he’s up to now: Phil Robles’ Civic has been on hiatus in 2011. He did a couple track events with the car, then ran into some unfortunate events which have since been repaired, and now the car sits in his garage awaiting a new power plant. Phil is a great driver but what was holding him back was the limited power he was making compared to some other Hondas he was competing against. He has finally decided to go K and I’m anxious to see how the J’s Racing equipped Civic will look when he reappears in 2012…
Meanwhile, he’s been busy at track events with another Civic hatchback. He’s got big plans for his original one though and you can read a little bit more on it at the projectonethirty site, where I also grabbed this photo from. It’s a cool site with some good shots so peep it…
8. “DPK David” Andrade’s Honda Civic Coupe…
What he’s up to now: David has been on a mad quest to get his coupe ready for some track events next year. While it has served most of it’s existence as a street/show car, he’s finally taking the leap into the motorsports world. His decision comes from just his overall boredom with the car. David wanted to redo the entire car, but with a wedding coming up as well as eyes on some new projects, it just doesn’t make sense to tear it down to start over. It first appeared in Honda Tuning magazine back in 2006, and then after a makeover, appeared in Import Tuner magazine in 2010. There isn’t much more exposure it can get so DPK David is just going to take the car out and beat it up…
He’s recently re-done his exhaust set-up and installed a new Vibrant muffler as well as porting his intake manifold, changing up his fuel set-up and finally getting tuned on AEM EMS Series 2 by none other than Bisi Ezerioha. The tune actually just happened not too long ago and I have video and more information on it HERE….How good he will do on the track remains a mystery but I’ll be sure to keep you updated on his progress…
7. RC Chacon aka “Kingdingaling’s” Honda Civic hatchback…
What he’s up to now: RC’s hatchback is actually sitting in his garage motor-less and untouched. Why? Well, because he’s been busy working on some other Hondas for his clients as well as starting on a brand new project, which is a 4-door Mugen-equipped Civic. I’m not really sure what his plans are for his hatchback but he seems to have shifted all his focus onto his new project…
RC debuted the sedan at the 2011 Nisei Showoff event and the turbo K inside his EG9 turned a lot of heads. There is still quite a bit of miscellaneous things that he would like to finish up on it and I should have some updated photos of it when he brings it out to the Year.Three Chronicles Anniversary event. As for his white hatch that originally made the 2010 Top Ten list, who knows when or if we will ever see it again…
6. Edwin Pagan aka “Midorieking’s” EK…
What he’s up to now: I really couldn’t tell you…because I have no idea. After the Chronicles 2-year anniversary meet, he had big plans to tear down the car and rebuild it for 2011, but half way through it, he abandoned the project and parted the whole car out. He ultimately sold the shell too and now Edwin’s project from 2010 is non-existent. I haven’t really talked to him nor have I seen him active on the forums so all I can assume is that he’s gone M.I.A. He never really explained why he abandoned the project either so it remains a mystery as to why he seemingly fell off the face of the Earth…
When he debut the build in 2010, it was met with a lot of praise and had a pretty good overall reaction from the community, so it’s kind of a shame to see that he hasn’t taken that momentum and done anything else…
Well, that’s about all for today…back with the rest of the list tomorrow or the days following…
Thanks for looking….
Productivity…
I normally don’t get more than one or two things done on an average day because I’m too busy doing absolutely nothing, but yesterday was a pretty decent day. I was sent out on assignment to Gearspeed in Rancho Cucamonga for work, spent the majority of the day there, and then I headed over to the Bisimoto facility to check out DPK David’s tune. Bisi was tuning David’s K20 Civic coupe and dropping by Bisimoto Engineering also meant that Bisi was going to give me a first look at some of his latest projects…
So I woke up early Thursday morning and drove an hour from the Orange County area to Rancho Cucamonga, which is in the Inland Empire. I really didn’t have any idea what I was supposed to do out there, as Rodrez only told me to go out there to cover a tech story for Honda Tuning. Big Mike happened to be off work that day and was good friends with James over at Gearspeed so I asked him to come by and hang out while I shot whatever was going down over there. When I arrived at Gearspeed, they gave Big Mike and I a tour of their facility and then we walked over to a work station where I was greet to a pleasant surprise. The tech story I was sent out there to cover that day was actually a tear down and reassembly of a legit Spoon Sports K-series transmission from Japan…
I can’t really get into full details of what actually went down, you’ll have to wait until a future issue of Honda Tuning magazine for that, but here’s a quick shot of the Spoon tranny, assembled by Spoon, straight from one of their race cars…
It’s crazy to see what goes down at a place like Gearspeed because these guys that work there take apart transmissions and rebuild them like it’s a very simple job, when in reality, it is everything but. I mean, these guys can tear down a tranny, throw every single removable piece into a bin, machine-wash it, and put it all back together in about 30 minutes time. Shit was wild man, I’m telling you… Just to think about how intricate each Honda transmission is and how these guys know them like the back of their hands is mind boggling… The Spoon transmission was way more than I expected it to be because I honestly don’t have that much of a favorable view of Spoon Sports stuff, but honestly, I was impressed. They actually did some work on this transmission and didn’t just like, throw a different final drive in there and plaster a Spoon badge on it like every one of their other products. That shit was definitely a learning experience, and I have a ton of respect for guys that work on transmissions on a daily basis. These guys are very systematic and almost robotic in terms of their ability to work on these transmissions. Big props goes out to the guys over at Gearspeed for not only their skill, but also their hospitality. The facility itself is a trip too because it’s a gigantic warehouse filled to the brim with Honda transmissions and parts. The craziest thing about that facility is that they have a full gym next to their lunch area, and one of the offices even has a tanning bed inside of it…haha…I’m serious, you can’t even make that shit up…
I definitely stayed there longer than I expected to though. I got there around 11am and didn’t get out of there until almost 4pm in the afternoon. The time spent there was a productive one, so I can’t really complain…
After that Big Mike and I hopped into our cars and made our way down to the Bisimoto Engineering facility. DPK David’s tuning appointment was at 2pm so they were almost done by the time we got there. Luckily they still had one more final pull left on the dyno and I was able to witness it…
Here’s what it looked like when we pulled up. The coupe was still hooked up to the dyno, but Bisi was taking a little break to have a nice cold drink…
Bisi taking a moment to chat with Big Mike…
As for the tune….the numbers at that point were pretty decent but Bisi felt that there was quite a bit of restriction coming from the intake area…
He recommended to David that they take his filter off and mount a velocity stack to it for the final pull. David removed the filter he had on, mounted the velocity stack and aimed it upward to get maximum air flow…
Here’s a crappy video of the final run…
The filter did prove to be the issue as the final run yielded some pretty good results…
Final horsepower numbers can be seen above…
Both Bisi and David seemed to be pretty happy with the results. 218HP on a internally stock K20 Type-S motor tuned on a AEM EMS Series 2 is not too shabby… There isn’t anything else done to the motor but the basic intake, header, exhaust combination…
By the time they finished taking the car off the Dynapak, it was time to close up shop. The photo above is Bisi and DPK David after they came back from a test drive. David was all smiles because his motor has never run better…
While David and Bisi were busy finalizing the details of David’s tune, Big Mike asked me to take a new photo of his side project, which is a 1996 Honda Accord wagon. He recently put some Work Leadsleds on so he wanted to get a decent photo of it…
Big Mike claims he’s not gonna do anything crazy with this car but we’re all waiting for the day when he let’s us know that he’s doing a full Mil-spec harness and ITBs for it…just wait, it’ll happen…. Overall, the wagon is mint, The interior is like new and everything seems to be working very well mechanically. He’s always wanted a wagon and the perfect opportunity came up to purchase one….
That’s all for today. Make sure you guys click above at the top of the screen to pick up your Year.Three Chronicles Anniversary spots if you haven’t done so already. Spots are moving quickly so it’s a good idea if you jump on them now…
PURCHASE YOUR YEAR.THREE CHRONICLES ANNIVERSARY MEET PARKING SPOT HERE
NWP Summer Nights 2011 Coverage…Part 2 of 2…
Back now with the second part of the NWP Summer Nights 2011 Coverage held at the Eibach Springs facility…If you guys missed the first part make sure to scroll down and check it out…
When we last left off, the sun was setting quickly and Jared arrived in his Porsche with Big Mike. Throughout the night, people continued to show up in groups and by about 7:30-8pm, the lot was pretty full…
Here’s a look at what the front looked like just before it got dark. There were open spots scattered throughout the meet but for the most part, the turn-out was way better than anticipated…
Black DC5 with black chrome components under the hood…
One more shot of the white EK from part one…
SuperTwinz John, Rywire, Sheepey, and Jared hanging out in front of the main bay at Eibach…The guy that looks like Adam Levine from Maroon 5 is actually Tanner who owns the white 4-door Civic that was posted in part 1…
May hanging out and listening to Jared’s adventures in dating…
One more shot of Colin’s BB6 Prelude with rare Wisesquare aero…
Donut having a drink with Tony Jackson from Eibach Springs…
Jackie and May…
As you can tell from the photo above, it was starting to get pretty dark. I didn’t have a tripod nor did I bring any lighting so I just put my camera away and started using May’s Canon S95 point and shoot. I used the same camera when I took some behind-the-scenes shots during Sheepey’s Honda Tuning feature shoot. The photos were a little different from the norm because I was shooting in the S95′s “Nostalgic Mode”, which made for a cool look, so I decided to cover the rest of the NWP Summer Nights meet using the same feature….The previous two photos up top were actually shot with the S95 as well, but just in full-auto with no flash…
Ryan from Eibach Springs grilling up some meat and hot dogs for us to eat while we hung out…
Ryan’s ITR that he picked up a couple months back…
Arnel and Sid came up to me laughing and told me to walk over to this one white Civic coupe. I wanted to know what was so funny so I went to go check it out and saw that the car had a bootleg “Phase 2″ sticker on it…haha…weird…
A trio of Integra Type Rs…
Red Civic slammed on some SSR mesh…
Phaze2 Arnel’s 4-door, Sid’s Fit, and Sid’s brother’s Chevy as they were getting set to take off…
A red NSX on Work VS-XX that arrived late in the evening…
Tony Jackson and Ryan Hoegner…
DPK JP with his two baby boys…
Yellow S2000 on Enkei RPF1 and blue Cusco cage…
Carlos from DPK’s white-on-white S2000 CR…
Joseph aka Sloppy from AS1, Karl, and Karl’s girl chillin….You may not be very familiar with them but you probably know their cars…
Sloppy’s Fit…
Karl’s EM2 on CCWs…
Big Mike, Jared, and David…
Rywire Ryan taking off to go grab dinner with some of the guys…
JP and his boys…
S2000s…
A pretty clean Miata that I spotted on my last walk through to see whatever cars were left at the meet…
The majority of the crowd had dispersed by around 9:30pm or so and you can see from the photo that most of the cars were gone…We just hung out and talked for a little bit before we took off…
Ben from ATS Garage giving one of JP’s sons some water…
One final shot of Tony Jackson’s Civic…
That’s about it. We said our goodbyes to Ryan and the other Eibach Springs guys as they started to clean up and then we hopped into Ben’s G35 to head back home…
Back tomorrow with more updates, possibly the next installment of the Rywire ITR build…Thanks for looking…
NWP Summer Nights 2011 Coverage…Part 1 of 2…
Not many people knew about this meet because it was sort of an impromptu thing. There was a thread on the NWP4LIFE forums where there was some discussion in regards to a meet, but there was never really anything set in stone for a time and date until a couple days before this event took place. The whole idea behind this was just to do something small because Ryan from Eibach Springs didn’t want it to become a giant fiasco. For any of you who have gone to any of the annual Eibach Honda Meets, you already know how many cars that facility can hold and the type of foot traffic that it generates. Doing that would require permits, a larger staff to make sure all the cars got inside okay and no bullshit was going on, and that would just be more of a headache than it was really worth since this was meant to be a smaller meet. Ryan just wanted to get a couple NWP forum regulars to come out, chill, and just have a good time to celebrate the end of summer…
I’ll be honest, I didn’t even plan on going to the meet. Not because I didn’t want to, I just didn’t think that I could actually make it there. I was in Las Vegas, Nevada that entire weekend because I was attending the wedding of Mike from Plan B Motorsports. Mike is a good dude so it was cool that he invited us to go out there for his wedding and to allow us to be there for such a momentous occasion. Mike has been with his now-wife for ten years now and they wanted to step outside the typical wedding-box a little bit and just decided to have fun with it. As he said “it’s been a great ten years so we wanted to make it fun.” He went with a full costume-themed wedding and wanted everyone in attendance to dress up in different costumes. This was cool because it made things a lot easier and at no point was there ever a moment when things got overly serious, like many other weddings. I thought it was a great idea because it meant that I didn’t have to dress-up and do the slacks and tucked in shirt business. I mean, if it required that and it was a formal wedding, cool…but to have the opportunity to dress up and just do whatever we wanted definitely made things more entertaining…
Here’s a shot of a May, Big Mike, Rodrez, and Tes….May was an old school rapper with a giant inflatable boom box, Big Mike was doctor, Rodrez was the creepy guy at the club, and Tes was a pregnant Snooki… This was taken outside the “world famous” Little White Chapel in Vegas. I’ve never been to a wedding in this type of setting so it was definitely an interesting experience. The ceremony went by quickly, we all did some photos inside, and then headed out to El Segundo Sol for the reception. After that we got out of our costumes and then just hung out in Vegas. Big Mike actually arrived earlier that day to attend the wedding, and then headed home after the reception because he had work the following day…
While the wedding was quick and small, it was definitely something that I’ll always remember, just because of how unique it was. There was a lot going on that weekend with not only the NWP meet, but also Japanese Classic Car Show. I love attending that event every year, and I’m sure you guys have seen my coverage of the JCCS event in the past but I would gladly miss it again to attend the wedding of a friend. It was good to get away that weekend as well. I absolutely love going to Las Vegas to just chill and have a good time eating. I know a bunch of people love to get out there to go clubbing and do all that shit but honestly, I’ve been there and done that and the whole Vegas club experience isn’t something that I like, have a boiling feeling in my loins for, you know what I mean? I’ve partied everywhere, shit ain’t that different in Vegas and I don’t think it’s worth the hassle. I just wanted to get out there and do nothing. We are headed back there in about a month for the annual SEMA show anyway so there was no rush to do anything crazy…
I got back to my hotel late Saturday night and was looking at the NWP forums through my phone and noticed that the meet wasn’t going to start until 6pm Sunday night. I went to bed and woke up the next morning, had lunch, then headed back down to Los Angeles. I got back around 4:15pm, and hit up DPK David to see what time they were heading out to the meet. He said that he was heading out there with Jackie and Ben from ATS Garage so he came by, swooped May and I up, and we headed out to Corona to the Eibach facility. I wasn’t expecting much of a turn-out since there wasn’t any formal announcement of the event, but I was pleasantly surprised when I got there. Cars were beginning to fill the front lot and it looked like it was going to be a promising meet…
This is the Honda CR-Z that belongs to Eibach Springs. You probably remember it from last year’s SEMA show where it was parked with all the other CR-Zs that were distributed to various individuals/companies by Honda to build for their display. Brian from Hasport actually came by and picked this car up moments after I snapped this photo. I chatted with him for a little bit and he filled me in on what Eibach and Hasport had planned for this car. I don’t really know if I’m at liberty to reveal what they are doing but I promise you this; you guys won’t want to miss this thing at SEMA if you’re attending. For those of you who can’t make it there, I will definitely have some photos of this CR-Z’s new powerplant…
Tanner from Eibach Springs’ 4-door weekend track toy…
Sheepey’s turbo S2000…hopefully you guys have seen the video of this car that was made by Rodrez…if not make sure to click here to check it out…
Must be nice to be Ryan Basseri and have this as a weekend cruiser…
Phaze2 Arnel’s 4-door daily Civic on Mugen MF10L. He had a lip kit on the car at the Motion Auto Show a couple weeks ago but he’s since painted it and waiting to re-install it…
I really like the new SSR Professor SP3 wheels on Bryant’s TSX…I’ve enjoyed the progress on this car and it looks better than ever now with these wheels…
Mini Cooper on some old school Rays mesh wheels…
Spotted this K-turbo EK that I haven’t seen before…
Frankstar aka Bolt Boys Frank aka Downstar Frank’s Civic reppin’ Premium Garage Krew…
Always good to see Enrique Rosario and his Civic…this build is also one of those builds that have come a long way. There are always subtle changes to this car that many probably wouldn’t notice. He’s taking his time with this car and working at his own pace, which is a good thing…. I thought the interior shot was interesting because the bag of Lay’s potato chips and the drink from Subway somehow match the color scheme of his car…hah…hopefully this was unintentional and he doesn’t force himself to eat and drink things that only match his car….
Alex Colon’s Civic is another car that has seen some new gradual changes and subtle upgrades…the engine bay is looking good these days with his Rywire harness installed…
Speaking of Rywire, here he is with Brandon from Autolife TV staring at each other with hungry eyes…
Saw this ITR and it reminded me of what ATS Anh’s R looked like before it went through it’s massive transformation…
Always liked this del Sol but never met the owner…he’s always rocking a Chronicles and HellaSUNK sticker so I have to give him a shout-out for showing me love…
This del Sol on Regas is usually parked next to the one above and is also a very nice, simple build…kinda sucks but in this lighting, you can see that his front end doesn’t match the rest of his car…
Went by to snap a couple more shots of Sheepey’s S2000 after he popped his hood…
Really liked this red Civic coupe of Volk NRS wheels…
Chatted with the owner of this Prelude, Colin, for a little bit…he’s a really nice guy and has a pretty rare Wisesquare aero kit on his Prelude…I think it might be like possibly one of two kits that exist here stateside…
This EK was the same one that I was talking about from my Nisei coverage this year. I didn’t get a photo of it at the show so I made sure to snap a shot of it at the meet….Clean build and about as close to a real EK9 as you’re going to get…
This Civic had all the right parts on it…Mugen MF10Ls, parts from Backyard Special, and a K-swap…I just think it would look much better if it was maybe an inch or two lower…
4-door Integra on some black Enkei RPF1…
Donut probably had one of the most recognizable EG builds of all-time (click here if you’re unfamiliar) , but he’s been MIA from the Honda community since he sold his car and bought an Infiniti G35… He actually does still own a Honda and the Integra above is his weekend track car. There really isn’t much to the car, just some basic mods and some black 949 wheels but he takes it to the track and beats the shit out of it and has a blast. I haven’t seen him in awhile so it was cool to meet up with him and cruise out to the meet together…
Speaking of Hondas that get a beating on the track, this white hatchback belongs to Tony Jackson from Eibach Springs…
In this shot you can see how the middle section of the meet was kind of empty. More cars showed up later on but I found it interesting that even though there were plenty of open spots up front, people were still rolling up and parking along the side of the building. I guess people are so conditioned to be parked like how they are at the annual Eibach meets that they automatically assume the front is reserved for “VIP” guests, and that certainly wasn’t the case for this meet…
I really like this 4-door Integra that belongs to “Charlesfoo”…I love the red Bride-themed interior and the black 949s…it’s very simple on the outside but everything just works…I snap a pic of it every time I see it at an event…
Big Mike had left Vegas the night before so that he could go to work Sunday and then come to the meet after so it was strange to not see him there after we arrived at the meet. He’s usually one of the first ones there and I was about to give him a call until he rolled up with Jared in Jared’s Porsche….Jared was all smiles but Big Mike was looking kind of upset about something. I asked what was wrong and he said that the drive home from Vegas and then work just beat him up that whole day….
That’s about it for today, I have another batch of photos but that will go up tomorrow…It got dark real quick so I had to switch cameras later on in the night to be able to continue coverage. Stay tuned for more tomorrow…thanks for looking…
Motion Auto Show 2011 Coverage…Part 3…The Finale…
What’s up everyone, time to close out the third and final installment of the Motion Auto Show 2011 Coverage. Sorry for the lack of an update yesterday. I was running around taking care of some everyday shit like getting new tires for my beater as well as doing some product photography for Rywire. Judging how the hits have been lately, it seems as if everyone is happy with the coverage up to this point. Any time you have a combination of cars and girls with their asses hanging out it always makes for good hits…
Umm, not really much else to say about the show…it was definitely one of the best of the year so far but there wasn’t any crazy funny stories going on or anything dramatic. Gonna probably just close this out with the last bit of photos now…enjoy…
This was what I was talking about in part 1 with the girls standing inside the engine bays and shit…In all my years of going to shows, this had to have been a first…Hope it doesn’t become a regular occurrence at events because then you will have girls trying to climb into engine bays at local car meets and outdoor shows and shit where the engines are going to be hot…haha, nothing good will come of that. It’s not like they can just like hop out and shit either. I mean, that leg gets caught in a hot ass exhaust manifold, that shit is DONE…or like a girl with her ass hanging out trying to sit on a valve cover that’s been sitting out in the sun…uh yeaaah…
Ryan’s NSX sitting in the Falken Honda display section…
Ms. Maureen Chen was modeling for Team Hybrid that day but took a moment to walk over to the PASmag model search area…
Playboy mode Julri Waters did the same…
Here she is with Joselyn Cano at the Sony or something or other booth….I’m not sure if that’s really her name either so if you go and Google her name and an old lady with 2 crusty vaginas show up, it’s not my fault…
APR widebody G35 from TWCompetition…
Toyota MR-2 from Team Hybrid…
Lexus LS460, also from Hybrid, with wheels that look too small for it…
Chameleon-ish 350Z…someone should tell the owner that chrome vinyl will fuck your paint up pretty bad if you apply it directly to your car. That’s why I always tell people to put the stickers on the windows and glass instead of on paint…
I don’t know if you guys remember this WRX wagon or not but I did a story on it for Super Street a couple months back (towards the beginning of the year I believe) and it used to be silver. I had no idea he had the car repainted so it was a little surprising to see it at the show… it’s a cool build. Originally meant to be a beater wagon, then he started adding all kinds of shit to it, even customizing Voltex aero pieces to fit on the wagon chassis…
Crappy ass shot of Sheepey’s S2000. I honestly forgot the car was there entirely until Sheepey came up to the booth the hang out. By the time I got over there to get a shot of it, everyone was cleaning up already and the hood was closed…
S14 from Garage Boso…
Saw this really nice Mazda RX-2 towards the back end of the show. I missed out on all these cars at Nisei Showoff so I had to get a shot of it at Motion…
This one looks like it’ll fuck some shit up…
Spotted this NSX during roll-in the night before…the kit itself is really aggressive but I kinda wished he would have gone with more “fitting” wheels…if you know what I mean…Not only in terms of sizing and all but just the style of the wheel in general…
Oh okay, so here is a shot of one of the trophies that were specially designed by Troy Sumitomo from 5Axis for the Motion Auto Show… It’s pretty wild. Like one of those things where if you left it in your living room and then tripped and landed on it, you might rip your neck open…
JonJon’s IS350 from 1-Up…
Charles’ widebody S2000 from 1-Up…
Jose Romo’s Audi A3 on Work VS-XX wheels…
One more shot of Dennis’ STi while they were taking the tent down at the Mizu Cooling Solutions booth…
I think a lot of people slept on this Hyundai at the Motion show. I first saw it at the SEMA show in Vegas last year when it was parked in the Hyundai area in the center hall. You wouldn’t really think much of it, other than the kit and the HRE wheels but when you look at the back of it, you can tell that there’s so much more going on…
This is a crappy photo but if you look into the rear hatch glass, you can see that the motor is actually mounted in the rear…
You can see here how the exhaust is mounted through the rear bumper and how the vent has been added to the rear hatch where the emblem sits…Also notice the vents where the glass runs along the shoulder of the car…pretty sick build…
Abraham’s Civic, absent are the females that were crawling all over/inside it…
Arnel from Phaze2 recently installed a new lip kit to his 4-door….
2GS from Infinit Wheels…
Not really sure how I feel about this new look on Ejay’s DA….I really loved the SSR Super Mesh and I felt that it was the perfect set of wheels for his car. He said he has these on now instead because he doesn’t wanna have to deal with camber and ride height issues anymore…Ehh..I don’t know…
Downstar Frank’s right-hand drive EG on SSR Shumachers with optional center caps…
Top Secret Supra from Auto Concept Elite…
Billy’s HKS-themed IS300…
Mini from Auto Concept Elite…
Another angle of the Auto Concept line-up…
One more shot of the Falken Tire Honda display…
I loved the Motion Auto Show but I was scratching my head when I saw this DA inside the show by the back gate parked next to this stock Mustang…I like, stopped what I was doing just to take this photo…
Here’s something to make up for that last photo…haha…
That was pretty much it for the Motion show. After that I kinda just stood around and chatted with people until the awards ceremony ended and they let the cars out…I didn’t really go to the stage to check out what was going on for the awards because the majority of our guys were not competing that day since they were a part of the Falken Tire display…
Here’s a shot of ATS Angel’s S2000 as I was walking out to the vendor parking lot to pick up my 4Runner…. It took quite a while for me to get back inside with my truck since they wanted all the show cars out first but eventually they just let me in so we packed up the truck, said bye to the Falken Tire staff, and then took off..
Since the Long Beach Convention Center always has strict regulations regarding how much fuel can be in a car that’s parked inside, the guys had to get gas right after they left the venue…
One more shot of Ryan’s NSX while it was posted up at the gas station…
After that we all met up back at the Rywire facilities to drop off the cars, then we met up with the girls at a local Vietnamese food spot to have dinner. We hadn’t really eaten anything the whole day so we grubbed like no tomorrow. Nothing crazy went on once dinner was finished. We just talked and hung out and then everyone went home to get some rest….
That’s a wrap…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.
