YEAR//FIVE 2013 Coverage…Part 2…

By stickydiljoeNovember 12, 2013 ( 5 )

What’s up all…We’re gonna dive right into the YEAR//FIVE coverage today and keep the content flowing. There is just so much to post still with SEMA and all so it’s just easier for me to skip past the long intro today. I gave you guys a lot to read yesterday already so I’m gonna ease your minds for a bit and provide more visual content for now. I’ll try to wrap everything up tomorrow so I’ll just save the lengthy reading for then. I also took the liberty of attaching a link to some very good coverage of the event from The Narita Dog Fight below. He does a nice job of photographing the event as well as providing his own thoughts on things. Check it out towards the middle of this post where I detail the awards presentation…

If you happened to have missed Part 1 of the YEAR//FIVE coverage, check the link below to view it. It’s a long read but well worth it I think…

YEAR//FIVE 2013 Coverage…Part 1…

We’re gonna go ahead and continue moving forward with the coverage today so enjoy…

One of the last minute surprises of the day at YEAR//FIVE was having the Spoon Sports booth by Go-Tuning Unlimited there…

When I say “last minute”, I mean that Aaron from Go-Tuning literally hit me up at like 12:30 am that late Friday/early Saturday to ask me if they could do a set-up at the show. Originally I had wanted them to be there but it didn’t seem possible because they had already planned to head to Las Vegas to set up for the SEMA show. It wasn’t until that late evening when he hit me up to let me know that they could make it down thanks to a schedule change. I was happy to have them there because, obviously, Spoon Sports is a staple in the Honda community, so it made sense that they were there for my anniversary meet…

I really wanted the Spoon Sports E-AT or the Spoon CR-Z there but those cars were already in Vegas. Instead they brought out a completely Spoon-themed S2000 that you guys probably recognize from my FF Battle/FR Shoot-Out coverage a couple weeks back. This is a really well-built Spoon vehicle and it was a pleasure to have it there on display…

Chris Ortez brought out his Vortech-supercharged Infiniti G35 sedan once again. Ortez has been a great supporter of mine and I love the fact that he always makes an effort to add something new to his car everytime he brings it out…

For YEAR//FIVE, he debuted his new custom carbon kevlar OEM steering wheel. Chris has done everything you possibly could to this car but he looks like he still has some tricks up his sleeve for 2014…

One of my other favorite G35 builds is this coupe owned by Alfred Senato. I love the parts selection and the overall execution of the car, not to mention his use of color accents which I feel is always important in the final finish of a build….

Jesse Sabater’s custom widebody Nissan R35 GT-R made an appearance. Never in my wildest imagination did I ever expect to see a GT-R at one of my events but Jesse takes his car everywhere and it was nice to see this well-built machine at YEAR//FIVE…

Steve aka Bo Wong’s F20C-swapped turbocharged AE86 Corolla now with custom Rywire mil-spec engine harness…

My good friend Brian Filoteo’s S2000 on bronze Volk Racing CE28 aka “thatshitgrey”…

Jon Magelssen made a rare appearance and brought out his GPW Honda S2000 with a very uncommon Varis front bumper…

Armand is always coming out to events and putting all sorts of random shit on his incredibly wide wheels. For YEAR//FIVE, he decided to lay a slice of Costco pizza on one wheel and on the other side, a Costco hot dog. I was actually hungry that morning and would have preferred that he offered me to eat the hot dog but alas, it was better served as a wheel prop…

BMW 5-series sedan bagged on Leon Hardiritt Waffes…

Jon Tran’s Hyundai Genesis on white-faced WED’s Kranze Bazreia…

Chris from SOC’s new Volkswagen project on Rotiform wheels…

David Nguyen’s Acura Integra LS with ITR front end, Mugen Gen. II wing, and teal CCW Classics…

Ojay’s custom purple Avanzare Previa on Work Emitz wheels…

Mikey’s Hakosuka Skyline on Watanabe RS wheels…

Salem’s CL9 Acura TSX has a recent facelift with the addition of a Spoon Sports front bumper. I love the new look and I think that it is a huge improvement over the previous J’s Racing bumper that he had that I always felt was a little too bulky for the chassis…

Civic hatchback reppin’ Loi-Spec Garage on polished Mugen MF10s…

Loi Hua from Loi-Spec Garage’s personal Acura Integra Type R track project with First Molding front lip and custom front splitter…

James Nguyen’s BMW E30 sedan on Work Meister CR-01…

Mauricio brought two EG Civics out and also brought out his RHD EF SiR on SSR EX-C Mesh…

Michael Blancke’s K20-swapped Civic on bronze Volk Racing CE28 from RC’s Garage in Arizona. He actually had a little bit of a mishap on the way out to my event with his transmission drain plug popping out but luckily, they were able to find one in time to keep the car running….

Rodrez from Honda Tuning magazine’s K24/K20 hybrid daily driver with custom engine breather set-up by Whitfield Racing….

The winner of the guy who drove out from the furthest distance for YEAR//FIVE this year was Steve Thomsen and his Civic sedan on HRE wheels. Thomsen made the trek all the way to California from Ohio with his friend and fellow Chronicles Top Ten alum, Eric Dabbert. They decided to make the drive because they were also heading to SEMA the following week. From talking to them, they seemed to have a good trip out until they had to make the drive back to Ohio…. On the way back I think Steve ended up getting a flat tire, losing an upper control arm bolt, and totally destroying his front bumper. For those who want to make the drive next year, I very much appreciate it, but even if you don’t bring your car, that is perfectly fine because I’d rather you not risk putting yourselves in danger or potentially ruining your car. At least get a rental or something…

Around 4:15 pm, it was time for us to get the awards presentation going. I had DPK David do a portion of the presentation while I snapped photos and I took over at the end to present the rest of the awards. It’s such a cool, very Japanese, award that I wish I could have kept for myself, haha….

Luis Jaimes Mugen-themed Civic won the ultra-special Tactical Art award that was made and brought over here personally by Yasutaka Shimomukai from Tactical Art…

Danh from SSR/Tanabe USA picked up the award for “BEST ENGINE BAY” which was presented to Bo Wong’s F20C-swapped AE86 Corolla…

Rob and his completely Spoon Sports-themed Civic won the award for “BEST THEMED” vehicle of YEAR//FIVE…

The “BEST NON-HONDA” award went to Chris Ortez’s Infiniti G35 sedan which you saw at the beginning of this post….

The “BEST HONDA” of YEAR//FIVE was awarded to Frank from Downstar Inc. His RHD K20-swapped Civic has come a long way over the years and while it was a very, very, tough competition, we collectively felt that Frank was deserving of the honors…

For the final award of the day, the “CHRONICLES CHOICE” (Equivalent to “BEST OF SHOW”), I decided to go out on a limb and do something different. I explained this to the people in attendance that day but I don’t think that very many people understood my decision. I put a lot of thought into this and ultimately gave the award to three individuals from NORUSH. NORUSH is a small car crew from out here that is highly dedicated to pure Japanese tuning style. Their cars aren’t the nicest, nor are they the cleanest, but their style and execution is something that you would very likely see on the streets of Japan. If you don’t know which cars these are, refer to Part 1 of the YEAR//FIVE coverage. They are the three last cars that I posted. I absolutely love how their cars look and what these guys represent. They are also good people which also helps but the cars themselves are just very raw and very Japanese. I think Sean from Narita Dog Fight explains their style the best, being that he is one of the owners of the three cars that won:

“I’m sure not many people know what NORUSH is, and to those who don’t, it’s simply a group of guys that pretty much live the Japanese automotive lifestyle. Plain and simple. Nothing fancy, nothing particularly important either – just having fun in a shop doing what we love and going to every track day that we can afford. We kind of just do our best to emulate what would be a small shop somewhere in Chiba or Yokohama or something, and live accordingly; heavily influenced by Japan. Some days it works out, some days it doesn’t. I know for sure some people were disappointed that the three dirtiest cars in the parking lot won something…hopefully not though.

I know it’s not really a big deal, but for some reason I was really happy that someone recognized it for what it was. It’s unfortunate that a lot of times these days, cars are built for the wrong reasons; the car is not a mere tool. Anyway, I’m very grateful for it.”

NDF also did an awesome job of covering my YEAR//FIVE event. PLEASE CLICK HERE TO GO VIEW IT AND SEE HIS PERSPECTIVE ON THE EVENT…