It’s times like this when I wish I could just cue a Jamaican horn on contact. Since I can’t just imagine that you clicked on the bookmarked link of The Chronicles that’s on your browser and hearing a Jamaican horn blare through your computer speakers three times repeatedly….Anyways, Wekfest LA 2011 coverage coming at your in full force. I took A LOT of photos this weekend, many at the show but also a bunch before the event. Since I had extra time on my hands from not having to set up for a booth at the event, I was able to chill with the homies more and just do dumb shit (You will see what I mean later). Overall, it was a very interesting weekend, to say the least. It was also a first glimpse at how the Wekfest series will do outside of Northern California. They plan to take a nationwide tour and what better place to start than Los Angeles. Today we will be looking at the days leading up to Wekfest as well as a small bit of coverage from the event itself. As you all know, I like to cover everything, before the show and after because it provides a better look at the behind the scenes stuff and you guys get to see what we do when we’re not just standing around at a show looking tired and irritable….

Our journey started out late Friday afternoon…I was lacking sleep like usual and had store orders to work on the night before so I slept in for most of the day. David and some of the ATS guys had planned to go to a shooting range early in the morning but I just didn’t feel up to it so I met up with them when they got back to David’s house…

When I walked inside the house, I saw ATS Jason’s CR-X with newly mounted Kosei wheels and ATS Fred and Ben were busy cleaning their guns…

I had no idea they were such huge gun aficionados but being that Ben is a U.S. Marine, I can kind of tell where the love of guns comes from. Fred of course always has to do it big with whatever hobby he is into so he has quite a collection of firearms…

Seeing all their toys was a bit overwhelming at first because I had no idea they were that serious about their gun hobby. I recall seeing an image online of a VIP Benz from overseas that was filthy and had two guys that looked like Russian mafia holding two pistols out of the car and I had an idea….Since we had the guns laying around already as well as my Q45 outside, why not do a similar shot? Haha…totally random and probably not a good idea but we were bored so we went for it…

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I would have really liked to do the shot with a better backdrop but I really wasn’t trying to drive around in my car filled with all that hardware, so we just did it outside. Definitely not as “gangster” per se than the photo I was talking about but hey, our guns are bigger, haha….

After that we went out to dinner with everyone at BJ’s and called it a night. The next day, I hung out with May for a bit, had lunch and went shopping and then went back over to David’s to meet up with everyone…

Fred and Ryan were busying playing with Ben’s freshly Bisimoto-tuned S2000…

Jason drove his wife’s Integra down from Norcal..

They also had all their cleaning supplies out to detail the cars before the Wekfest event the next day…

DPK David’s freshly washed coupe and Ben’s S2K…

The rear end of Ben’s S2000 was riding a little high so Fred made the proper adjustments and brought the car down a little bit to even things out…Second shot is kinda random but I thought it was a good look…

Low Fat Pie and Ryan Der chatting it up on the porch…

May was taking a nap in the car while we waited for a couple of other people to show up. Once everyone met up, we headed down to the Rywire facilities to go check on the progress of DPK  Jared’s S2000 and we had some extra time so I wanted to get some shots of Chris and Ryan’s EKs before they returned home to Norcal…

Jared, Ryan and the others were hard at work trying to reassemble the S2000 and get it cleaned for the show…

The S2 has been at Rywire’s because Ryan was doing a complete wire tuck and custom harness for the car. He got it running a couple days before and while there were still some loose ends to tie up, the car was basically ready to go for the show…

Outside of the shop, Chris was busy cleaning up his engine bay…

…while Ryan was busy doing touch-ups to his Civic…

…and adding his Alberto’s taco shop sticker. Normally Ryan is all about keeping things clean but his love for carne asada fries triumphs everything else so he had to throw a sticker on his car to support mexican food. He really does love carne asada fries though, almost to the point where it’s a little scary and borderline obsessive. We would be more concerned with the mass consumption of carne asada but the guy doesn’t seem to gain any weight so we just leave him alone…

Back in business for the first time in a couple months…good to see this car with fenders on it for a change…

Okay, so at this point I set up all my equipment to shoot Ryan Der and Chris Sakai’s cars. I don’t want to post them up as part of the coverage because it will further clutter things up here, since there is so much going on already, so I’ll save those until after we finish up the Wekfest pics…

I’ve never mentioned it before but outside of Ryan’s shop is this old ass Sea Doo boat that has been there ever since he moved in and no one has ever claimed it. We were joking around about doing a photo on it with everyone and since I already had all my equipment out, we decided to just do it. Everyone hopped on and the boat mysteriously started up and it took all of us on a magical boat ride to…

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…SAN DIEGO!!!! It was amazing…for whatever reason, there was a huge party going on and there were fireworks and everything. Shit was fucking MAGICAL. The boat was from the late 90s but for some reason, it had some MAGICAL force field around it that allowed all of us to ride on it standing up and still go 90+mph…It even had scuba gear inside and I threw it on, jumped in the water and snapped this photo just as the magenta hot fireworks were firing in the night sky of beautiful downtown San Diego. Man it was great…It was probably the most fun 16 dudes will ever have together while crammed in a 90’s-era Sea Doo Speedster…FUCKING AMAZING…

Oh shit, I’m actually out of time for today…I’ll have to cut it short for now because I have to go to a shoot for work and it’s pretty important. Back with part 1 1/2 of the Wekfest Los Angeles 2011 weekend coverage later tonight or super early in the AM. If you’re up and an insomniac than you will probably catch it, if not, then you’ll get a double update for tomorrow..Okay, back on the Sea Doo Speedster I gooooooooooooooooo…………….