Formula D Long Beach 2012 Coverage…Part 1…

By stickydiljoeApril 9, 2012 ( 5 )

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….