You’re going to see hundreds upon hundreds of posts on Facebook, Tumblr, and various other websites covering the 2013 WEKEAST event. These days, everybody seems to be into photography and video. Whenever you go to an event, you’re likely to run into photographers everywhere and it seems as if everyone has a camera. If not, then you’ll see smart phones everywhere capturing the event as well and photos will be up on the web before the event is even over. It seems as if every site is in a fight to get their coverage up first and when you click on the link, you’ll see hundreds of photos stacked on top of each other, no text, just filler. The difference between The Chronicles and these other sites is that I find it incredibly important to tell you a story. Those of you who are familiar with what goes down here already know that I cover everything from start to finish. I don’t care to just show you photos of cars that you can see everywhere else. Perspective is key. Lifestyle and culture is the picture I am trying to paint and I am confident in saying that you will not have experienced a Wekfest event from behind-the-scenes like you will in the following days to come…

Throughout the last five years that this site has been in existence, many have told me that I had to go experience import car culture on the East. I went to New York a couple years ago for vacation but really didn’t have the time to do any car-related stuff. It’s been a pleasure of mine to experience car life out here in Cali, up in the Pacific Northwest, Hawaii, Japan, in the Midwest for Import Alliance, and I even had the opportunity to see what the South was like when I went to Wekfest Texas last year. Wekfest invited me to judge their Honda Class in Austin, Texas and I had an absolute blast. To be honest, I thought it would be a little weird at first because I was the guy that just came from nowhere and all of a sudden was inserted into the group. The guys and gals that work for the Wekfest series are all friends and have become pretty familiar with one another over the years. You would never know because most of you only see glimpses of them at a time when you are going in and out of the show but they are very much a “family”. I really had no who they were either. The only ones I knew at the time were the ones that started Wekfest, which were Ernesto aka “Junior”, Ken, and Adam. I had never really met William, who was the other partner of the Wekfest series until I went to Texas last year. Junior is usually with his family on these trips, Ken is with his girlfriend, and Adam, who has since left the series, was always doing his own thing. The only other guy I knew was my homie Mike Jones from ATS Garage. Mike was a staff guy at the time but he too has since left the series. Everyone else was a new face to me and though I thought it would be awkward for me to just step into the group, it really wasn’t at all. We got along right away and I’m happy to call these people my friends today. Texas was a real eye-opener for me because I got to see what went on behind-the-scenes for the first time. I knew how things came together for the original Norcal Wekfest events but that was a completely different experience than what went on when they were on the road. When you’re in another city trying to plan an event, things can get stressful but unlike being at home, there really wasn’t an “escape” or home to go back to. You’re around these people constantly and if something happens, it could potentially ruin the chemistry of the group for not only that city that you’re doing an event at, but for all future events as well. Luckily, everyone gets along and everyone also seems to be pretty outspoken. What I hoped was to add to the group and not disrupt the chemistry that they had developed over time…

The East was a destination that I knew I had to go to and after seeing photos from WEKEAST last year, I was eager as ever to go. Junior was the one that originally came up with the idea to take me along with them to be a guest judge. He agreed that WEKEAST was a show that I had to attend and so they invited me out to Jersey to judge both the Honda and Acura Class at WEKEAST 2013. Being there for the event presents not only the opportunity of seeing the event and reuniting with the group I got to know in Texas last year, but also the chance to hang out in New York City. Though WEKEAST takes place in the state of New Jersey, NYC is only a train ride away. Seeing the City would be fun and would give everyone some time to relax before the mayhem that came that Sunday of the show. It was going to be a long shot but I also wanted to try to go to NYC the night before WEKEAST to see if I could witness the Times Square cruise and meet that another automotive blog, SNTRL, organized. It was an invite-only affair but Prav from SNTRL was nice enough to inform me of the cruise when he found out that I was heading out for the show. I didn’t have a ride and wasn’t sure if everyone wanted to go, so I didn’t really have high hopes of seeing it. They were already going to be stuck all day working the show so I didn’t even bring it up. The cruise looked pretty awesome last year so I looked around to see if I could get a ride over to Times Square since I didn’t have a rental car of my own….

I’m still currently going through the photos so I couldn’t really tell you how long this series will be, but I promise you, it’ll be a good one. I took 800+ photos but half of them are probably throwaways so let’s just say that this will go like, maybe six parts? Today we won’t be seeing any coverage from the show just yet but it will be a good read. It documents my trip there and the day and a half leading up to the show. Like I said earlier, lifestyle and culture is what I’m trying to show you and this is probably one of the very few times when you will get to see a Wekfest event play out from the perspective of someone who is on the inside and not your average show-goer or car competitor. From just going through the early half of the photos, I can honestly tell you that these are some of my favorite personal photos from any event since my trip to Japan early in January. The roll-in shots in particular are good so keep an eye out for that in Part 2. For now, let’s get started with my trip from the moment that I landed in New Jersey…

I arrived at New Jersey International Airport about 4:40 pm that Friday afternoon. Since everyone else is based out of Northern California and I am in Socal, I flew on my own. I booked my flight to arrive at around the same time as their’s so that we could meet up and go to our hotel together…

After I grabbed my luggage from the baggage claim at my particular terminal, I took the Air Train over to the rental car area to wait for everyone else since their flight arrived 45 minutes after mine. I used the free time to also grab a sandwich since I hadn’t eaten anything the entire day. Around 5:30 pm, everyone else showed up…

This is Aaron, head of the Wekfest staff next to the three-headed Wekfest monster of Junior, Ken, and William. Aaron is an experienced car show judge who has been Junior’s right-hand-man dating back to the days when they did a similar Norcal show that we all once knew as “J’s Gathering”. Here he is coordinating our rental cars and how we got to our hotel…

Elissa Alva, spokesmodel for the Wekfest series, also flew in with the rest of the group. Here she’s face-timing on her iPhone with her man while we waited for our rental car(s)…

By the time we got our cars and got back to the hotel it was already dinner time. We got settled-in and then we met up with William and his family. He wanted to take us out to dinner for some New York pizza in the City so we drove over to the train station nearby to head over to NY…

Metuchen train station in Jersey that Friday night was a ghost town. After staring at the ticket machine and being confused for 20 minutes, we got our transit tickets and took the train ride over to Penn Station in NYC. We mapped out our walk to the pizza spot that William’s family suggested and explored the streets on our way to dinner…

The walk wasn’t too bad and it was exciting to just be in the city again. I had been before but some of the people in our group had never been to New York City so it was a brand new experience for them…

John’s Pizzeria was the dinner spot that night… Before any of you start to itch to comment and say “you should have went to __________” or “___________”, let me mention that I didn’t really care where we ended up for dinner. I was just hungry and wanted to eat, as was everyone else that evening. I had done the whole tourist/foodie thing the last time I was there so I didn’t mind where we were. John’s is legitimately a good spot anyway so we grubbed like crazy on all kinds of pizzas and appetizers. I didn’t even take photos because I was too busy eating and it was dark as fuck inside…

After we ate, we took a group photo outside and then we walked over to Times Square to do some sightseeing….

Times Square was busy as usual so we stopped to snap some photos…

The girls of the group were happy to get some group shots together on our first night in the City…

William’s youngest daughter posing for a photo with Strawberry Shortcake and a creepy-looking version of a minion from Despicable Me whose legs were too long. Looked like a trashcan with legs, haha…

Elissa hadn’t really experienced NYC before so she looked super (or “Hella” in Norcal terminology, “Mad” in NYC terminology) excited to be in Times Square…

I have absolutely no idea who these two were but it seemed like a really cool moment to capture. They’ll never see it but it was a great moment in time for two people very much in love…

The girls then took 148 more selfies before we decided to make the walk over to 53rd and 6th to get some Chicken and Rice from the legendary Halal Guys cart… If you guys have never tried it before, it is a definite must when you are in the city…

The line for food there can be pretty ridiculous at times but it is totally worth it. On this particular night, the line wasn’t too bad but there were hoards of people just eating Chicken and Rice around it. What we didn’t anticipate was how late it was already and the fact that the train shuts down around 1-2 am. We didn’t want to miss our train back to Jersey so we ordered our food and quickly speed-walked back to Penn Station. We were lucky enough to get back with ten minutes to spare before the last train left for the evening…

When we got back to the Hilton Garden Inn, I cracked open my Chicken and Rice and ate a few bites before putting it back into the fridge. I didn’t want to miss out on eating it fresh but it was definitely too much food for that night, especially since it was like 3 am…

So I watched some television and chilled for a bit and let my food digest before going to bed. We woke up 10 am the next morning to go check out the venue where WEKEAST was set to take place that Sunday…

Here is Junior, Ken and some of the staff looking over the floor plan for the show. It was important to make sure that they knew what went where and to make sure that their was adequate spacing for all the cars to be parked inside. The final walkthrough of the show didn’t take very long and we left soon after. Junior took his family to go do their thing, Ken, his girl, William, and his family set off to go to Atlantic City to go throw some money away…

The rest of us all decided to go back to the City to do some exploring. We didn’t really have a plan of where we wanted to go but it’d be fun to just walk around. One of their friends from Norcal was going to school out in New York and wanted to meet up as well so we hopped back on the train at Metuchen and rode to NY Penn Station once again…

William and Stephanie on the train…

One thing I noticed about the people that worked for NJ Transit is that they aren’t afraid to let you know how much they hated life, haha. They weren’t the kindest people we had ever met and most looked as if they no longer wanted to be on this Earth anymore. It was both amusing and sad to see their demeanor as they did their job…

One of the many stops on the ride to New York….this reminded me very much of the whole tram tour that used to be at Universal Studios Hollywood…

Train and subway life in NYC is an important one. People drive like absolute maniacs in the City so it is honestly much easier and safer to ride the train everywhere…

As expected, we got lost and went in a completely opposite direction than where we were supposed to go. There were some kind enough patrons on the train to help guide us in the right direction so we eventually found our way…

The group at a random stop while we waited for their friend Ray… A lot of smoking and Instagram took place here…

Thought this made for a cool shot… I honestly thought the weather would be much worse out in the City since everyone was telling me how humid it was but it wasn’t even that bad compared to how hot it is out here in Cali right now…

As soon as Ray pulled up in his skateboard, we started our journey over to New York’s famed Central Park…

Central Park was pretty much exactly how I remembered it, except I didn’t have a crazy nosebleed from walking too much this time around, haha. It is always a great place to explore if you’re a tourist in the City…

Just a squirrel trying to get a nut…

The view from inside Bethesda Terrace in Central Park…

Stephanie, Elissa, and Wekfest photographer Jose (Far Right) doing their best to look like tourists in front of Bethesda Fountain…

I, too, acted as a tourist that day in front of the fountain…

Not a bad view I must say… that is until you actually look in the murky waters. Hopefully no one has ever fallen in because it definitely was looking a little “unsafe”…

The group taking a break in the shade along with our friend, Naked Sweaty Black Man…

Dude was definitely a little suspect looking like the black dude in Madonna’s “Like a Prayer” video behind the girls….

After the girls got tired of being dripped on like a Vietnamese Coffee, we decided to continue our journey through Central Park…

The girls snapping some iPhone photos of the New York backdrop…

Some of us got hungry so Ray took us over to one of his favorite food spots in NY, Habana in SoHo… I love Cuban food but I knew I’d make a mess of myself if I ate it while standing on the street so I just chilled while the others got down. I should also mention that around this time, I was talking to my friend and fellow photographer Sean Bradford about hitting up the SNTRL Times Square cruise and meet-up later in the evening. He had just made the drive over to Jersey and really wanted to take his LS430 for a cruise in NYC. I told him that I wanted to go with so he said he’d pick me up later…

Kathy, another Wekfest staffer, and Elissa walked over to Bar Bossa, a Brazilian spot down the street, to grab some drinks and we somehow all ended up there soon after…

Things got a little blurry after that… A lot of us were drinking on empty, dehydrated stomachs so the drinks hit us faster than they normally would. The bartender was awesome though and the small bar was filled with pretty much just our group so we were free to do as we pleased…

Geoffrey Nguyen, who basically is the logistics guy for Wekfest, enjoys a nice cold beer…

Kathy, Elissa, and Steph with the selfies…

We hung out at Bar Bossa for awhile until Sean hit me up on my cell. He happened to already be heading to SoHo so there was no need for me to have to meet up with him. I gave him the address to the bar and he stopped by as we were leaving. We all chilled for a little bit but then I parted ways with the Wekfest guys. They were gonna stay in that area while we took off to Times Square to see if we could catch the SNTRL cruise…

I myself, would not have been down, but Sean was more than happy to cruise his slammed Lexus LS430 on WED’s wheels throughout the fucked-up roads of New York…

Times Square was packed with people… It was Saturday after all but I think it was even more crowded because the MTV Music Awards were happening that same weekend. Cops were out in full force and we would later see them in action as they made every attempt to stop the SNTRL cruise through that area…

We got really lucky and found parking right away on the street and began making our way over to see if we could find the route of the cruise. The above photo seems a little insignicant but I captured it because of the Chevrolet ad. The ad stood out to me because it was the work of Sean K., who you know from Speedhunters and who also used to shoot for Super Street magazine. Sean has made the transition into being a full-on commercial photographer now and it must be an amazing feeling to see your hard work displayed in the heart of Times Square….

As soon as we started walking, we ran into Prav from SNTRL and he already had his camera out. Then cars started to cruise by us so we stopped on the street corner to see what we could capture. It was pretty wild… any time there was a traffic light that turned red and we could see a modded car stopped, we all rushed over to try and get photos of it. It wasn’t easy as the streets were filled with tourists and New Yorkers but I tried to get what I could, albeit unsuccessfully…

This R33 Skyline GT-R passed by and I was hoping to get a better look at it, but I don’t believe it was even a part of the WEKEAST show the next day…

An S15 Silvia on orange Enkei NT03s made its way over to the streeet where we waited…

Right behind it was a female-owned Integra slammed on BBS wheels…

When it comes to having balls, figuratively of course, this girl definitely had more than me because I WOULD NOT drive my car like that through Times Square, haha… fuck that…

Subaru WRX STI with guys stopping in the middle of the street to capture it…

Nice to see Volk Racing TE37RTs have made their way over to the East Coast. This set aggressively seated under fender flares on this STI…

Rocket Bunny FR-S stopped at the light alongside a Lamborghini…

Traditional TRA Kyoto graphics on the side but I must admit that it looks a little odd without the signature Rocket Bunny rear wing…

While we hung out on the street, Sean got hungry and picked-up some street cuisine…

Spotted this clean Acura TL slammed on Concept One wheels…

Oh, along my journeys up and down Times Square that evening, I spotted the “Puerto Rican Angel” who was walking around with her ass hanging out taking photos with people next to the more child-friendly costumed heroes like Spiderman and Batman. She was a angel in the butt but a devil in the face, haha…

No better imagery of New York and Time Square than this photo right here, featuring failed rapper Sean Kingston and the Puerto Rican Angel, haha…

More cars came but there weren’t as many as I thought. I almost think that people didn’t make it over to this area this year because they already knew how bad the roads were after going through it last year. That and police presence was heavy EVERYWHERE. I saw them pulling people over for the most random things and even some of the cars that cruised down from the SNTRL meet were getting caught up…

The girl with the Integra from earlier was even pulled over, probably for not having a front plate. They would find any reason to pull them over so they could send them on their way and get them out of Times Square…

This area right here had barricades specifically set-up so that NY Police could stop cars there and give citations…

Eventually, we decided to head back to New Jersey. There were just too many cops around for the cruise to go on any longer so they all reconvened at a different location while we left…

Of all my times in NYC, I had always rode the subway and train so it was cool to see what driving was like through the Jersey turnpike and what not in a regular car. Once I got home, I ran into William from Wekfest in the lobby and we decided to go eat dinner. It was nothing crazy so I didn’t really document it. We just ate at a local diner that wasn’t very good so it wasn’t worth capturing anyway….

I did some work and multi-tasked in my makeshift office in my hotel room and since I wasn’t used to the time change, I couldn’t get any sleep. We had to get up pretty early the next morning for the show but I just couldn’t sleep. I usually don’t sleep until like 5 am here at home so it’d be 8 am over there already. I made my way downstairs to check out some of the cars at our hotel since a lot of the WEKEAST competitors were staying at the same place as us…

Canibeat Roy Jang’s Mercedes Benz S55 on VIP Modular wheels…

Bagged Mercedes 230…

VIP-styled Jaguar from Battle Garage…

Lexus 2GS bagged on Work Equips…

Closing out Part 1 here with this G37 sedan hammered on gold VIP Modular wheels…

After that I eventually knocked out. Part 2 picks up the morning of WEKEAST. Stay tuned for much, much more and thanks for looking!!