Here are some photos from last night’s Qualifying/Practice round of Formula D’s “Final Fight”, which is the season-ending event of the FD series. I was trapped in my home office all day working on my own stuff for the YEAR//FIVE event and kinda just needed to get out of the house to get some fresh air. The plan was to go to Formula D all along but I was didn’t plan on going the Friday of. Since I had some free time and wanted to go out, I decided to make the drive over during rush hour traffic to Irwindale so that I could pick up my Media Pass and check out some of the practice runs on the track. Once I picked up my pass, it would save me a lot of time the next day because I wouldn’t have to wait in the long lines that are sure to come with every FD event. The show is sold out from what I hear but I’m lucky to work in the industry and be able to attend by acquiring a Media Pass through work…

I know that some of you won’t be able to make it out there today so I figured I’d give you guys a glimpse of what is going on. The event itself doesn’t even really start until 2 PM today so maybe you guys can use this as a teaser to hold you over until you get inside the venue. It’s going to be crazy packed inside the Irwindale Speedway so if I were you, I’d try to make it out there early. In the mean time, in between time, peep some of these shots I captured last night. I didn’t really have anything in mind that I specifically wanted to capture because I didn’t even know what to expect going into it. I’ve never been to a Formula D event during the set-up and qualifying portion of the event so I don’t know anything about what goes on. I know that the car show portion of the event doesn’t set up until today so there wouldn’t be any other cars there that weren’t associated with a vendor booth or with the respective teams that were competing at Formula D. After walking around for a bit, I was really surprised by how busy it was. A ton of people showed up even for practice and the interesting thing to see was how excited people were even for just the practice sessions…

I’m sure it’ll be a great event today and I’ll be out there early once again documenting things. I’m still debating on whether or not to go through the process of getting a vest to go out onto the track to get photos. We will see I guess, for now, here are the photos from Friday…

Passed by the Mackin Industries booth on the way to the paddocks and spotted their Rocket Bunny Scion FR-S that recently graced the cover of Super Street magazine…

The Nitto Tire booth featured one of the Liberty Walk BMW M3s that was assembled by LTMW…

Julian Jacobs’ drift-spec Zenki S14 on deep-lipped SSR Gartmiers wasn’t competing at FD, but was on display by the Autofashion USA booth…

The Achilles Tire section was busy with car prep and featured Dean Kearney’s Dodge Viper SRT-10 and Daigo Saito’s 2JZ-powered Toyota Soarer…

Also at the Achilles Tire area was Robbie Nishida’s SC300 that had already seen some wear and tear from the early qualifying runs…

Kearney’s Viper utilizes Dodge’s 8.3L motor with upgraded valvetrain that helps the motor produce about 600HP…

The rear of Saito’s Soarer. His car too had already seen some visual wear and tear from the early runs as you can see his taillights just casually floating around out of place…

Matt Fields’ CX Racing Vortech supercharged LS6-swapped S14…

Fredric Aasbo’s Hankook Tire Scion Racing tC with turbocharged 2AR-FE engine…

Over at the GReddy Racing booth, driver Ken Gushi was in the process of doing an interview while the Rocket Bunny FR-S awaited competition…

A closer look at the GReddy x Rocket Bunny Scion FR-S drift car. I love the graphical livery that was designed by my friend and artist Jon Sibal…

Been a huge fan of Forrest Wang’s 2JZ-powered Kouki S14 ever since I saw it earlier this year at the Formula D Tech Day event. The car is very-well put together and has a ton of custom fabrication work….

Toshiki Yoshioka’s Tomei-powered Subaru BR-Z…

Dave Briggs’ Vertex Lange S14 on HRE wheels…

Hoonigan widebody FC3S RX-7 on display in the vendor section…

Jotech-built R35 GT-R on HRE wheels parked at the Black Magic booth…

Tucked somewhere in the middle of the paddock area was this bare Scion FR-S chassis…

After doing some reading, I discovered that this FR-S chassis was actually for sale. The shell, originally built and prepped by Chris Rado’s World Racing, was a customer’s car that was unable to be completed. Not exactly sure what the details are on why but most likely because it was a funding issue. Just looking at what was done to the chassis already indicates that it was not a budget build what so ever. This thing was built with careful thought in mind and is definitely not going to be cheap…

The cage and chassis have already been completed with every other in the shell filled for strength and for appearance.

The FR-S also has a full aero kit already but was left off to showcase the fabrication work on the body…

It was also converted to right-hand drive…

Twin Recaro bucket seats and NACA ducting in the roof to provide cooling for the driver and ventilation…

The engine bay has already been prepped and is just missing the power plant itself. Most of the plumbing has been done too with catch cans and breathers mounted in place. Here you can also get a glimpse of the KW Variant suspension w/external reservoirs…

Matt Powers’ Nitto Tire-sponsored Super Made S14…

Jhonnattan Castro’s Banco del Progresso twin-turbo VQ35 350Z…

One more shot of the Ken Gushi-piloted GReddy Scion FR-S with the hood closed…

No one was around so I walked up to get a closer look at Ryan Tuerck’s Retak’s Scion FR-S which is also wearing Rocket Bunny aero…

Under the hood of Tuerck’s FR-S is a stroked Toyota 2JZ-GTE that makes over 700HP…

Another photo of Daigo Saito’s Soarer. Not sure how many of you know this but Rywire actually wired up this car….

Falken Tire had a huge area as usual. Here is Justin Pawlak’s 2014 Ford Mustang…

Darren McNamara’s V8-powered S14 with Rocket Bunny aero and HRE Vintage Series wheels…

Daijiro Yoshihara’s 6.7L LS-powered 240SX wearing a Discount Tire livery….

Closing out the Qualifying Round coverage of the 2013 Formula D Irwindale event with some shots of two Liberty Walk E92 BMW M3s…

That’s all for that. By the time you guys see this I’ll probably be back in Irwindale for the rest of Formula D already. If you guys plan to come out, you definitely should and do it early! Have a great weekend everyone…