Welcome Back To Osaka…

Welcome Back To Osaka…

So, we are back in Osaka for a few days, just catching-up with old friends and meeting new ones. I had a couple of friends from America ask me if they could possibly see some car stuff while they were in town. Hearing so many interesting stories and lore over the years from Osaka, they wanted to see if it was real. Is Civic culture as big as its been portrayed to be? I wouldn’t normally try to put anything together since I enjoy being lowkey while I’m here but Sara was in town as well, so it was a good time to get car enthusiasts together again. So, a meet happened very last minute on a Wednesday. Many of us haven’t been able to reconnect since the borders re-opened so it was time to pump some life back into the car community in Kansai! Everyone be safe out there and abide by all the rules and regulations please!!
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Daigo Saito’s Fat Five Land is AMAZING!!…

Daigo Saito’s Fat Five Land is AMAZING!!…

I’ve been to some pretty cool places in my lifetime but seeing Daigo Saito’s playland in Saitama in-person was truly something unique. Over the past year or so, I’ve seen photos and video of his “Fat Five Land” completed but never thought I’d have the opportunity to see it. My fascination of Japanese drifting has always been more from the perspective of someone looking in from the outside. I don’t really know any Japanese drifters personally and I’ve only watched them on streams and in competition. Fat Five Land was a place I wanted to visit, but it never seemed like it was in the realm of possibility. When Sara hit me up to see if I wanted to go, I was honestly pretty surprised! Of course I said yes and here is another checkmark on a long list of places I have longed to see!…
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First Time At Fuji Speedway & The Tokyo Underground Meet!!…

First Time At Fuji Speedway & The Tokyo Underground Meet!!…

Here we go! The day after Tokyo Auto Salon, I decided to skip day 2 and head to Fuji Speedway for a drift event. Normally I’d go to the show but I’ve never been to Fuji Speedway before so I wanted to get a look at the famed race track and see something I normally wouldn’t have the opportunity to. Sara is very much into drifting so she wanted to see what grassroots drifting in Japan was like. I’m always down to see new car stuff so off to Fuji Speedway we went. After that, we regrouped with friends down in Shibuya for the Tokyo Underground meet hosted by Sara and some friends from Level One Japan. She wanted to gather all the S2000s together so they were specifically parked in their own section of the meet while the rest of the underground parking garage was filled to the brim with both tuning cars and enthusiasts. It seemed like everyone from Tokyo Auto Salon gathered here after the show and the meet was an incredible success!
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Tokyo Auto Salon 2023, But Chill…

Tokyo Auto Salon 2023, But Chill…

It’s the 2023 new season premiere! What better place would it be for our Vlog series to kick-off than in the tuning car mecca of Japan?! I’ve only been here in Tokyo for a few days so far but boy does it feel like a lot has happened. My focal point for the first part of my journey was to document the Tokyo Auto Salon event. It’s been two years since I’ve been able to attend TAS so I really wanted to do it right this time. In years passed I’ve always focused so much on doing both video and photography at the same time but I always felt like I didn’t properly cover the show in our Vlogs. So this year, I walked the show in a much more efficient manner and was able to cover most of what I wanted to see in one day! From experience, I always knew that the first few hours of Tokyo Auto Salon on day 1 was crucial. Those are the hours deemed for “media” specifically, which means that the show isn’t open to the public. No crowds equals less noise, and no models for all the weebs to gawk at. This was the perfect time to do coverage of the show because it wasn’t hectic at all. And that’s exactly what I did. That’s why this episode might feel like the chillest, most calm, version of any Tokyo Auto Salon coverage you’ll see. Those that don’t know might just assume TAS was like this all weekend. That is definitely not the case! It gets crazy to the point where you can’t even walk or breathe sometimes so consider this episode a relaxed, yet detailed, look at the show…
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Grip Or Drift, WHO WINS???…

Grip Or Drift, WHO WINS???…

Just when I think things are winding down, even more events appear! Recently, the guys from Final Bout, a popular drift series, contacted the organizers of VTEC Club USA to see if they wanted to link-up to create a new one-of-a-kind event. They wanted to see if they could take their drift cars, set them up for grip, and take on some seasoned (and very fast) Honda time attack competitors. Would their skills and their cars stack-up against some of the best at the famed Willow Springs Raceway? I was intrigued myself so I wanted to see for myself! I’m sure this would present a pretty unique group of cars as well so I definitely did not want to miss out…
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Stay Classick Sleighride 2022 Photos…

Stay Classick Sleighride 2022 Photos…

Just wanted to start things off today by saying a huge “thank you” to those of you who continued to support The Chronicles by watching the YouTube videos and grabbing merchandise from the store. It has been super busy lately here but in an incredibly positive way with so many orders to pack and ship daily. The last two drops have been super successful and I’m glad that The Chronicles continues to grow heading into our 15th year. Yes, FIFTEEN YEARS. How crazy is that?  I wasn’t even sure this thing would last two years when I first started it and look where we are at now. I still feel like I’m steadily improving in every thing I do here and I’m so very honored that many of you see that. I can’t always say it has been easy but through all the hard work and sacrifice, I have no regrets…
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Happy Honda Holidays From Me To You…

Happy Honda Holidays From Me To You…

Seasons greetings everyone! It’s the holiday season and everyone out here seems to be organizing toy drive-themed car events every weekend. It’s all for a good cause so we make sure to show up to as many as we can to give back. It’s also nice just to do car things and see friends of course so why not take advantage of time to do both? First, we stop by the GReddy Food Drive to drop-off some raffle prizes, then we head to our friend Barry Ancheta’s Stay Classick Sleighride event to drop-off some toys and see some good Honda builds!! I think you guys will enjoy this particular episode if you’ve been a subscriber for a long time here. It’ll give you guys a good glimpse of what 2023 holds….better video quality, including 4K resolution! I’m still undecided on whether or not to go full 60 FPS because I enjoy the more cinematic feel of 30 FPS but I’ll leave it up to you guys. Let me know what you guys think!! Oh yeah, and Ryan Der continues to make progress on his Civic project as well. He’s ramping up to finally make some major changes to the car so stay tuned if you enjoy his build thus far…
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The Chronicles Friendsgiving Event!!…

The Chronicles Friendsgiving Event!!…

It’s been a whole year since the last time we had a car meet at The Chronicles HQ. Originally I had planned to do a couple of them over the summer season but it just got way too busy with all the traveling and events. Things have finally slowed down a little bit at home so I though that Thanksgiving weekend would be a perfect time to have a meet again. There’s nothing better than just having that free time to hang out with friends and enthusiasts over a long weekend. The week before that, Der and I stopped by our friend David’s monthly “Brew’s Cruise” event in Long Beach and let’s just say we ran into a pretty interesting character there. Hindsight being 20/20, we still have no idea what car that was….
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The RS Future K20 Turbocharged NSX Is Pure Insanity.

The RS Future K20 Turbocharged NSX Is Pure Insanity.

Holy crap, you might want to adjust the volume on your devices for this one! This NSX is BANANAS. Over the past two weeks, the boys have been getting the “Koyorad x Battlecraft x RS Motorsport x Stanceworks NSX” ready for the Super Lap Battle event hosted by Global Time Attack. There have been a ton of changes to the NSX this year so there was a lot to do leading-up to it. The car was basically in pieces so there was no time to waste! Amir catches us up on all the recent developments before we head to SP Engineering to tune the turbocharged K24. I don’t think you’ll find many Honda K-series engines that sound and breathe literal fire like this one, you gotta see it for yourself!!
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