…And the winner is….

…uhhh…

…let me make sure I have this correctly, because inquiring minds want to know…

…yup, my initial hunch was correct…

…I have no idea.

I mean, I have a very good idea of who won but we are sworn to secrecy when attending an event of this caliber so I am not at liberty to really release any details on it. All you need to know, is that it was a fucking BLAST. Alright, that sounds a little far-fetched, but seriously though, it was a great time. It’s always good to get with the Super Street gang and get an event like this together. I contributed this year by creating the amazing flyer that you’ve seen used to advertise the event (mild sarcasm) as well helping to get the word out to the masses. The past two years, general attendance has been smaller than we have liked because it’s hard to get spectators to come out to a race event that they don’t know too much about. I mean, it’s a Super Street event, so it’s a big ass deal, but race events are always hard to promote because the majority of the crowd of Honda heads are still into appearance, style, meets and car shows. Race car shit is just not stuff they’re into because many of them don’t know too much about it. What’s cool about the Super Street FF Battle is that it’s a race event, but it’s a race event for the enthusiast…and by “enthusiast”, I mean “you”. The cars are all privateer builds that are primarily street/weekend Hondas and some of them may have sponsors, but they are privately owned. The original goal was to set-up a competition where front-wheel drive street Hondas hit the track and duke it out for the fastest lap time. It’s pretty straight forward. The first year was dominated by Loi Song and Sportcar Motion in his Integra Type R and last year a turbocharged 8th gen. Civic dominated because it’s high horsepower numbers just proved too much for other competitors to deal with. Autoclub Speedway is definitely a power-oriented track so when we found out how much power that car was making, many of us already expected that car to take the crown. To even the field out this year, Super Street implemented a new rule….that all Hondas in the competition be naturally-aspirated. No turbo, no supercharger, no forced induction of any kind. This was done in hopes of putting everyone on a level playing field and to keep the lap times closer. I heard some of the guys complaining that it wasn’t fair last year and throughout this year’s event, I didn’t hear one complaint from anyone. The competition was definitely close and it seemed everyone was stoked about how everything came together….

General Tires also rejoins the competition this year as a title sponsor, but this year, they debuted their new performance street tire, the General G-Max AS-03. Overall, I thought it all came together perfectly. General attendance was up during the Saturday event/car meet and everyone that competed was all smiles throughout the day. It is a competition but the bottom line is that we all wanted everyone to just go out there and have fun, and it seemed like that’s exactly what happened. Everyone was communicating with each other and talking to one another about the track and how they went about getting through the course. Nobody was trying to be overly competitive and making things awkward for others. On Saturday, which was the race day, I didn’t get a chance to stay until the close of the event but I did get quite a bit of photos for you guys. Again, I can’t release the results but from the time I left, after the first run, until the finish of the second run, the positions and best overall times shifted dramatically. The guy that I had as a favorite to win the whole thing ended up not even taking the 1st place finish so things were definitely unpredictable, which made this year’s FF Battle such a great competition. There were no “locks” to win, if you catch my drift. It was up in the air all the way until the final run and when Big Mike called me to tell me what happened, I was very surprised.

Anyways, there are going to be a couple parts to this coverage. Nothing too crazy, maybe just 3-4 parts or so (I haven’t gone through it all) but I am very happy with the photos. I think I’ve restricted myself lately with my photos and just done all the same angles and shots because I’ve been running around everywhere getting what I could for the site. For FF Battle, I decided to change up some things and I think the photos will show just that. I just decided to go out there and have some fun with it. Photos were good, event was great, I couldn’t ask for more…Today and tomorrow we will be looking at the first day of competition, which was the dyno portion of the competition held once again at Raceline USA in Temple City, CA. Elton is the man over there and spent the entire day throwing Honda after Honda on his dyno to see who produce the best numbers. While that was going on, I was walking around chatting with the competitors and trying to get some good photos of the Hondas that participated. There are some good ones in this 20-car line-up. Some you have seen before, some you haven’t…hell, some that I haven’t even seen before. One of the guys that competed actually drove all the way down from Canada just to compete in the FF Battle so a huge shout out goes to that guy….With that said, let’s move on with the photos…

Some of the competitors and friends of the competitors chatting it up outside of Raceline USA while a Honda was being pulled in for a dyno run…

The homie Nick Caster brought his CR-X down from Norcal to participate. I’ve never seen a clean set of Volk SE37K on a CR-X before and I think it’s a good look…

In the background is Ryan Der’s Civic, followed by “Tom-Attack” Tom Liang’s EF hatchback, and the ITR belongs to Henry Ng, who drove all the way down from Canada…

The heart of Tom-Attack’s EF…

Ryan Der aka Airbag Club’s new kit-less look…Now more of a CTR-feel with a Mugen-lip…

Rywire and DPK David scoping out Tom’s set-up…

Nick Caster’s front bumper just chillin after his dyno session…

I already miss the kit…haha…

I thought this was a cool shot of the Canadian ITR…

Ryan only knows how to rep The Chronicles one way…which is slightly crooked…compared to his Franklin Autobody banner…

He left around the time I arrived so I didn’t get a chance to get a closer look at the car…

Nick looking at his invisible watch in front of Tom’s EF…

Speaking of Tom-Attack, this EF was straight-gutted….no sunroof or anything, just a bare hole now…

…just look at the interior…he even removed his steering wheel to reduce weight…haha…why? Because Race Car…

You already know with this K-motor in there, that this EF was going to be beast on the track…

The man behind the magazine, Jonathan Wong, sharing some laughs with Kane Chan and another friend…

Big Mike and others trying to stay out of the sun by standing behind an ancestor of the Honda S2000…

The official FF Battle 3 sticker…

Mr. and Mrs. Phil Robles arrived to check out the dyno festivities… Phil actually came down to pilot ICB Matt’s Integra Type R…

Rywire CR-X on 949 6UL wheels…

Tom-Attack, Nick Caster, and Big Mike…

NWP4LIFE.COM…

Ryan Der’s white TE37s filthy and battle-ready…

Matt from ICB’s pristine Integra Type R…

Around noon time, everyone took a break for an hour lunch so we hopped in whatever support vehicles were around and ventured off to look for food….

In that area of Socal, there is fine asian cuisine everywhere and I’m not talking about no P.F. Chang bullshit…We always eat at Baccali because it’s one of our favorite spots and the food is delicious there. It’s more like “American” style cuisine made by asians…You have your pastas, rice dishes, seafood, BBQ chicken, etc….shit is DELICIOUS…

Iced lemon tea is perfect on a hot summer day…

Grilled chicken steak with black pepper sauce and vegetables…

Big Mike talking about the nation’s debt-ceiling and shit like that…

Rywire conducting Rywire business on his phone…

Ryan Der killed his chicken steak…

After we finished eating, we headed back to Raceline USA to continue the dyno day…

This red hatch arrived when we got back…the owner’s name escapes me at the moment…

Raul from Checkerd Sports and his JDM right hand drive EG6…

My boy Salem’s TSX was the only non-Civic/Integra to participate in FF Battle 3…

Tom-Attack reppin’ JHPUSA…

Rywire, DJ Murdock, and Salem…

Ryan and Nick’s CRXs…

Phil’s Civic is in the shop getting a makeover and some new upgrades but he was still all smiles at FF Battle 3…

Circuit Hero EF and Rhett’s black ITR…

When Circuit Hero Gil showed up… I noticed from a distance that he had a new set of wheels on his ITR…I walk up to take a closer look and it’s an old set of Volk Racing GT-Ns…Man, I haven’t seen a set of these wheels in years. I owned a set of gunmetal GT-Ns back in 2003-04 and have always been a huge fan of the wheels…Gil’s set wasn’t by any means “pristine” but they were still in very good shape, especially since they were white…

Here’s a closer look at his GT-Ns and his Stoptech big brakes…mounted on (shameless plug) General G-Max AS-03…

A shot of his intake set-up and his custom front bumper brackets, that serve pretty much as a quick release so the bumper comes on and off quickly…

Gil’s DC2R making it’s way onto the dyno…

Since the entire event was sponsored by General Tire, all participants were required to rock the General Tire name on the windshield and on the fenders…

Roped off for safety reasons…

Interesting to see that even though you own the car, you never get use to the sound of it screaming on the dyno…

Sportcar Motion/Morgan Jade’s Civic Type R ready for the battle ahead…

Elton Lo from Raceline USA backing Gil’s DC2R off the dyno and back onto the trailer…

Apparently we also have celebrity appearances at FF Battle 3…I don’t know where Lil Wayne was but here’s BIRDMAN…haha…so stupid…

Anyways, that’s all for today, thanks for looking, back with part deuce tomorrow…