Scheduling conflicts regularly occur in our industry… As much as we’d all like to avoid it, it just…happens… Event organizers don’t ever plan to put on events the same day as competitors. Not only would that be in bad taste, but you’d also be putting yourself in the position to lose money. Not everyone is going to want to go to your event if you force people to choose so you’re likely going to be missing out on a chunk of your earnings because some people just decided that they wanted to go to your competitor’s event more. If you just set a date that doesn’t coincide with another event, you’re in the clear. The people that may be 50/50 about your event will ultimately end up going because there just isn’t anything going on that day. If they never planned on going then they probably will not go anyway so there’s no real lose there. Sometimes, however, things happen and the event that you planned months and months in advance might just end up falling on the same weekend, or even the same exact day, as another major event…

For this year’s Blox Meet, that is exactly what happened. They set a date for their event and got all the necessary paperwork to put the event on, and then found out that it fell on the same exact Saturday as the annual Spocom event down here in Southern California. Now for many, that wouldn’t really matter much because you are limited geographically. The Blox event was in Northern California and the Spocom show was in Socal. If you live in Norcal, you probably went to the Blox meet unless you had registered to show your car at the Spocom show, and vice versa. For me, this became a conflict of schedules because I made a real effort to go to the Blox Meet last year, even driving up by myself to go do coverage, and I had a good time. I really wanted to make that drive again but being that Wekfest SJ was so close in timing and Spocom was the same day, it just didn’t make sense for me to drive 6 hours to Norcal for the event. That and I have obligations to SSR wheels and Falken Tire so the decision to go to a big industry like Spocom was an easy one to make…

One of the Blox Meet organizers had contacted me through email maybe a month ago and asked me if I would like to be a part of their event. They told me that they really enjoyed my presence there and really took the time to take some of my suggestions as to how to make the event better to heart. It was important to them that they put on a better event every year so they welcomed the suggestions and criticisms. That meant a lot to me since I don’t really think people ever listen to what suggestions I have, haha. I’m just a man with a camera that has some experience in the industry. You can either take my words as useful information or you can think that I am an absolute moron and not take anything I say seriously. Either way, I don’t give a shit but it’s great when I hear that people do listen. The email also stated that they had moved the event to a different location since they had moved and had already outgrown the previous location. This was interesting and made me want to go to the meet that much more…I just couldn’t. The only thing I could really do for them was to have someone local from Norcal provide coverage for me. This way I could have coverage of both big events and then people from both areas could see what was going on at each other’s events since they couldn’t be at the same place at the same time…

Enter Jimmy Nguyen… I made a call out to anyone that was interested in doing coverage for me and Jimmy was the first to contact me. I met Jimmy last year when he made the last minute trip down from Norcal to be a part of my GENERATIONS line-up at Nisei Showoff.  Jimmy has a very clean and very well-built H2B CR-X that was featured in Honda Tuning not too long ago and has been in the Honda community for quite some time now. I’ve been looking at some of his photos from other events that he posts on the NWP4LIFE forums and liked his stuff. He said he was excited to do coverage for me so I gave him the gig. I think that it is important to get another Honda guy to cover the Blox Meet because it is a very Honda-friendly event. What better way to get coverage than from a guy that knows what he is looking at, right? I normally have one to two, sometimes maybe three, guys cover events for me because I like to get multiple perspectives on a single event. That and one guy will sometimes miss something that someone else will get and that helps to cover all the bases by having multiple photographers. I think Jimmy knows what I am looking for so I fully entrusted him with the job to cover it on his own. All in all, I think he did a wonderful job and I got a good feel for the event from looking at his shots. Now that I’ve gone through them and cleaned them up a bit, you guys can take a look at the coverage and experience the Blox Meet for yourselfs. Thanks to Jimmy for coming through big time for me. I don’t think I could have found a better guy up there to cover this event and I appreciate his efforts. He told me that he had gotten into a minor accident in the morning that left his CR-X damaged and he was not in the best of moods. Even with all that, he was still able to get me in-depth coverage and that’s pretty awesome. Enjoy… Since I wasn’t there, I can’t really give you a personal view of the Blox Meet so let’s just dive right into the photos…

Photos by Jimmy Nguyen from DSDONE…

Acura TSX with A-Spec lip kit and Volk LE28s rolling into the Blox event that morning…

Aztec Green DB2 Integra on old school Gales looking timeless…

Nicely-executed turbocharged engine bay in this Civic…

Legit Japanese-imported EK9 Civic Type R from Inspire USA with full Chargespeed lip kit and white Advan RGs…

Spotted this same Datsun 510 last year at the Blox Meet…

A nice line-up of TSXs that we will take a closer look at later…

The “20DOLA R” from Inspire USA… it has that nickname because this chassis was purchased for, you guessed it, $20…

Integra on CCW Classic wheels wearing a EDM/UKDM front bumper with fogs…

Very nice engine bay on this EF hatcback sitting on Work Carving Head 40s…

Honda CR-X on Enkei J-Speed wheels and JDM EF8 SiR front end…

K-swapped Honda del Sol…

Mike Trevino’s K-swapped EG sedan from Bandits…

FG2 Civic Si race car that competes in the U.S. Touring Car Championships…

FA5 Civic with JDM FD2 headlights and Mugen RR style front bumper…

Bagged Subaru Impreza WRX sedan on black Work Meister S1…

Infiniti M45 slammed on Junction Produce Scaras…

Infiniti G coupe also bagged but on SSR Professor MS3…

Orange VIP Modular wheels look interesting on this Lexus 2IS…

Widebody Subaru from Speed Element…

Flared pignose Subaru WRX on really aggressive Work Meister S1…

Oh look another Subaru STI, this one looking pretty good on BBS LM…

One more Subaru WRX STI from Speed Element, this one with Project Mu big brakes and Advan Racing RG-Ds…

JDM ITR front end on his red DC2…

Cool to see an R30 Skyline 2000RS Turbo stateside…

Hakosuka Skyline 2000GT on RS Watanbe wheels…

Evo 8 wearing a complete INGS+1 aero kit and white Volk TE37s…

I had the pleasure of writing the story for this Laguna Seca Blue Evo 8 for Super Street a couple months back. Very nicely built EVO with a good selection of parts…

From going through the photos, this Evo IX had to be the one that stood out the most to me. Love the dark green color, the green-clear matched carbon hood, and the contrast with the gold TE37s. Great-looking car…

ATS Anh Truong’s K-swapped Integra Type R… Haven’t seen this thing in awhile since it hasn’t been that active down here in Socal but it’s nice to see it stretch its legs for a nice cruise down to the Blox Meet…

Another angle of the boosted DB2 Integra that you saw at the beginning of the coverage…

Chris Sakai from ATS Garage’s EK looking good on white Mugen MF10…

Chris’ wife Dina’s J’s Racing-themed Honda S2000 on Airrex suspension…

JZA80 Supra Turbo that was also parked alongside ATS Garage at last year’s Blox event…

Noble M12 GTO-3R… Probably the least expected vehicle in attendance…

Digging this custom root beer-toned Honda CR-Z. Good to see that people are really starting to put some work into this chassis…

BB6 Prelude on BBS LM…

3GS Lexus with some bright copper Rotiform wheels…

ITBs and orange accents make for a sharp engine bay, but I don’t know how I feel about the 3-spoke Volk Racing C-Ultras…

Really liked this turbo DB8 Integra when I first spotted it at this year’s Eibach Honda Meet. Wouldn’t be surprised to see this thing get a magazine feature real soon. Good-looking, well-rounded build…

Black Integra Type R with Mugen front bumper and Gen. II rear spoiler…

Lexus LS460 from Endless Projects rocking a Black Pearl Complete aero kit…

Sam Rahbari’s rootbeer-toned Honda S2000 on VIP Modular VX110 wheels…

Always been a big fan of this Acura NSX from Endless Projects…

Jackson Racing supercharged Civic…

Joey Abundiz’s del Sol is looking really good these days on the black 15×8 Volk TE37s…

Satin red Lexus 2IS…

Joseph Bacigalupi’s WRX wagon with custom-fitted Voltex aero kit and Work Meister S1Rs… If you’re wondering what his vanity plate says, it says “BAK GWAI” which is a slang Chinese term for “White Person”….

Bagged Infiniti G37 sedan on SSR Professor SP3…

Closing out Part 1 right here with a shot of this wingless LanEvo on Work Emotion XD9s…

Thanks for looking and stay tuned for more!…