What?! Drag racing and drifting coverage in the same month, here on The Chronicles??! Haha…yes, yes, your eyes aren’t deceiving you. I’ve been doing this so long that I’ve forgotten if I’ve ever covered a drag racing event before but apparently, this is the first time. Honestly, I’m no stranger to drag racing. When I first got into the import scene, I was often going to Battle of the Imports events and watching drag racing. Those were the events to go to back when you were younger because it was the best bang for the buck when it came to going to car events. You had drag racing, which was exciting, and when there was downtime in between rounds, you could go check out the car show which had some stuff to look at. It was the best of both worlds. Over the years, the popularity of import drag racing has waned and the community became so diversified that I found myself not attending drag events any longer to focus on other aspects of our community. Import drag racing has made a comeback in a huge way in the last couple of years and now you have events like Honda Day which are dedicated to providing both drag racing as well as grouping cars and enthusiasts together for a “show”. Despite its return to form, it is unfortunate to say that I haven’t been to very many drag events lately. Most of the really good ones are out East or away from Socal so it is not easy for me to get out there…

I literally stumbled upon the IDRC West Coast Nationals by coincidence. I didn’t plan on doing anything car-related this past weekend because I got stuff to do back here at the office but since I found myself with some free time, I decided to see if my boy DPK David wanted to check out this “Instafame” car show. This show was organized in cooperation with the IDRC event and was held in the same place. IDRC has its racing portion of the event, and the car show would be put on by a company called JDM Chemicals, which literally sells cleaning products from Japan, hence its namesake. I don’t know how they came up with “Instafame” but the name wasn’t that important to me. Some of the guys I know from Royal Origin were helping to get the show together so I wanted to show them some support. DPK David knows quite a bit of people in the drag racing community that he wanted to support so it just worked out. We decided to cruise out there to go hang out for a bit and so I could get some photos. Below is my coverage from that day. I didn’t take a whole lot of photos because we honestly didn’t stay very long. David had some family stuff he had to take care of at home so we just stayed at the event for a couple of hours. There were some friends of ours that we wanted to see run that day and after we got to see some racing, we walked the car show and then took off…

I thought that covering drag racing would be cool because I hadn’t really taken any pictures at a drag event since my younger years when I was shooting with 35mm film on my Mom’s camera. The photos came out really good unlike the ones I took back in the day so I hope you enjoy them. Maybe I’ll make it out to another drag event one of these days, who knows…

A view through the fence of No Luck Racing’s bright yellow Garrett turbocharged Civic coupe…

One of Mike’s Civic drag cars from Lucky Racing…

Team Lightspeed’s turbo Civic hatchback…

George aka Speedtrix’s grey Civic with Strada Industries front end and Weld Racing wheels. Really liked how this car looked and how clean it was…

Team No Luck Racing pushing the car back into the pits after they ran into some minor issues…

DPK Chuy fixing the wheelie bar on the Lucky Racing EG….

This Subaru BRZ drag car was pretty intense…

George getting ready to do his burn-out before making his qualifying run…

Santos Turbos’ Toyota Corolla coupe…

Huge front end on this turbocharged hatchback…

I’m not sure if this Integra is under the same ownership but this used to be the silver Integra that was built by MFactory Racing/CTRPARTS.COM for Lisa Kubo. You wouldn’t be able to tell nowadays since it is red but one quick glimpse at the engine bay reveals that it is the same car. The last time I saw this Integra in person was at the Source Interlink offices when it was getting shot for Honda Tuning magazine…

A closer look at Mike’s yellow Civic from Lucky Racing…

…and a shot of his H22-swapped Civic…

One of the cars that we went out to Fontana to see was our friend Fat Kid’s turbo Integra. He ran a 9.303 at 165MPH the day before and qualified but we had to go before we got to see his next run. He works over at Ballade Sports which is next door to Rywire so we’ve all had a chance to see the gradual progression of this build. Cool to see that he got off the trailer and immediately hit a 9.30 time…

Here are some more of Speedtrix’s Civic…

It was interesting and weird to see this 4-door Civic line-up against a Mclaren…

Asylum Racing’s turbocharged Integra drag car with ITR front end…

Big burn-out from this boosted Civic…

Pretty cool to see this JDM EF9-styled Civic on the strip…

Erick’s Racing’s turbo 1st gen. CR-X before its qualifying run…

Jerome from Element Racing’s turbo CR-X…

A few more photos of the No Luck Racing coupe…

This Integra looked really good with the cement grey tone and the contrasting green graphics….

It was nice to see all the camaraderie that exists between drag racers, even from those competing against one another…

After I got some drag racing action in, I headed over to the car show area to look at some of the display vehicles…

Ashton Carlisle’s Lexus IS on Work Emotion CR-Kiwami wheels…

Keith Cheng’s Accord sedan on Avant Garde wheels and Accord coupe front end conversion…

Vinh Luong’s Subaru STI. Love the addition of the Ganador Super Mirrors…

Civic sedan featuring a JDM Domani front end conversion…

Z33 rocking Nismo aero from Team Hybrid…

One of the best cars at the event was this Toyota Starlet with 4A-GE swap from Klassified car club…

Interesting color scheme on this widebody S2000. The top half of the car is silver with an orange pinstripe, and the rest of the car is black while still using orange elements in the wheels and side graphics…

Subaru WRX STI sedan sitting on meaty Volk Racing TE37SL…

You guys have seen this Toyota Celica on Epsilon mesh wheels plenty of times on this site over the years….

The winner of “Car I Did Not Ever Expect To See At IDRC West Coast Nationals” was this Mitsubishi EVO IV. I can’t even remember the last time I saw one of these, even in Japan. The canards on the front bumper are a little much but overall, it’s pretty awesome to see this in America in 2014…

Good to see Jimmy’s Midnight Purple Z33 on Panasport G7 C5C2 wheels again…

RPS13 on old school Work VS wheels…

You can’t help but stare at the bright gold faces of this AG wheels on this Kouki S14…

Another build that you saw just last week in my Formula D coverage was this Aimgain-kitted 2GS…

Creamy-white widebody Mitsu EVO on forever-underrated AME Tracer wheels…

This Pontiac GTO coupe was another car I really didn’t expect to see at IDRC but it looked great on CCW wheels..

Fiat Abarth that was first-introduced to me at Formula D Long Beach…

Parked at the Comp Turbo booth was this boosted FG2 Civic coupe on aggressive Volk TE37SL…

Feels a little weird to see an EVO with a Voltex (or Voltex-style) front bumper and now rear wing…

Gearspeed’s Honda Challenge H2 Civic looking really good with this green vinyl livery…

This guy definitely put some effort into competing for an award at the “Instafame” show with full carpet display and all. By the time I left, the owner of this EVO X was still detailing his car in the blazing sun…

After I got a shot of the EVO, it was time to go. Right before we exited, I spotted this Civic and snapped a photo of it before leaving…

That’s a wrap on my IDRC West Coast Nationals coverage. There are a ton of events coming up so stay tuned for new content. Thanks for looking.