The East Coast leg of the Wekfest Tour is always an interesting one. I still think Texas is my favorite stop on the tour but I love what the East Coast has to offer. At most of these stops, there is usually a Pre-Meet before the Wekfest event takes place which is organized by local cars guys from the area. Mayday Garage throws a huge meet down in Houston, a couple of small meets occur simultaneously in San Jose as well as Chicago, and the East Coast turns New York City into its very own playground thanks to the guys from SNTRL. The internet/social media car enthusiasts site of the East, SNTRL, has been around some years now and is the go-to outlet for car guys to see what happens out in the Tri-State area. Whenever Wekfest rolls into town, SNTRL hosts a private meet in the heart of New York City which is accompanied by a cruise that typically ends up in Times Square. The cruise is usually a pretty well-kept secret because some car guys just don’t know how to fucking control themselves and decide to run around like crazy and ruin it for everyone. The people associated with the meet are the guys who are understanding and have a good mind for following the rules, which usually keeps the cruise in order. I’ve been going on this cruise the last two years and was fortunate enough to be invited back once again this year. In the past, I’ve sort of just popped-up at certain areas of the cruise trying to capture photos but this year, I got my most in-depth look at the entire process of what goes on during the meet/cruise…

I originally was set to touch down in Newark around 5 PM but my flight, for whatever reason, was delayed and I didn’t arrive until almost 7 PM. Tiffanie took a different flight from me and we were both originally supposed to arrive minutes apart but since my flight was stuck in LA, she had to wait for me at the airport. Fortunately, John Liwanag from VIPstylecars.com and James Church from VIP’d Out for also in town for Wekfest and stayed with her until I got off the plane. After grabbing our bags, we drove to our hotel in Jersey and then hopped back into our rental car to New York to check out the meet. By the time we arrived, the street was pretty much filled end-to-end with vehicles. People were walking around checking out the cars and though traffic was able to pass through, it almost appeared as if the street was reserved just for the meet. I was busy trying to capture everything on video for the Vlog series so Tiffanie took a majority of the photos that night. She’s been getting more into shooting car stuff lately so this cruise was the perfect opportunity for her to get used to shooting on the go. The city provided a unique back drop for us and I think we were both pretty excited to capture as much as we could while on this late night cruise. Tiffanie took so many photos that I had to separate it into two posts. I snapped some photos here and there but I captured more during the Times Square portion. Today, you guys get a very exclusive look at the SNTRL x Wekfest “Pregame” meet through our eyes. Enjoy and make sure to come back for more. This stuff that you’re going to see in the next few days is much grittier than some of the other shots you’re used to seeing here on the site…

2016 SNTRL x Wekfest NYC Pregame Meet

Words by Joey Lee

Photos by Tiffany Chow & Joey Lee

When we arrived, car enthusiasts were walking back and forth checking out various car builds parked along the city streets…

Because of the shitty roads in NY, you’ll often find many custom car builds are on air suspension…

Crazy to see a car meet happening on the streets without any interruptions from law enforcement…

Cool little FC parked along the streets…

Peeking out from behind this JZA80 Supra was a rare Lancia Delta Integrale…

Shyam, a New York-native, brought his pristine Mugen ITR out for the cruise…

Chris Kane’s custom widebody Acura NSX on white Volk TEs…

Trucks, Euros, Miatas, and more at this meet, even a rare R34 V-Spec II…

Another NSX, this one a stock-body white NSX on TEs…

Kenny from SNTRL leading the driver’s meeting where he detailed the routes for the cruise…

More of the red FC…

Both Tiffanie and I hopped into our buddy Joe Cheung’s LS430 after we had our rental car towed away because we didn’t know how to park…

Rare to see this Celicas modded these days…

Nax Whitmore brought his UCF30 out from Florida to participate in the weekend festivities…

Johne’s SW20 MR-2…

Z33 on Enkei RPF1…

We drove alongside this Kouki S14 for a while during the early part of the cruise…

New York driving etiquette 101…

Some of the car guys in the area decided to keep their cars at home and took out their daily cruisers to stay low-key…

The streets were filled with both cars, car guys, and accompanied photographers to capture the moment…

At certain sections of the cruise through NYC, there were stops where people could get a better look at the cars…

E36 and E30 M3…

Doesn’t get much better than looking out your car window and seeing a sight like this…

Artisan Sports Lexus RC coupe…

How you look when you realize how much Artisan Sports aero is…

Gold VIP-styled Soarer leading the pack…

Artisan Sports Audi R8…

Interesting front fascia on this Subaru Forester…

Nax from Fortune Minds dippin’ through the city…

Another stop over by a pier that overlooked the city…

This particular stop was pretty packed as well so we didn’t stay very long before we continued on with the cruise towards Times Square…

A Miata lighting-up the night with its red underglows…

Clean silver FD on Work VS-XX…

Stoplight conversations…

I’m sure you guys got to see quite a bit of this yellow FD in the latest Vlog. He got into some trouble during the Times Square portion of the cruise…

The flares on this NSX are actually custom-made by Kane and are inspired by a rendering done by my good friend Jon Sibal…

A truly rare sight for us Californians was this R34 Skyline. Locals in that area see these all the time and assumed that we also were quite used to having them around here in Cali but that is certainly not the case…

Chris Kane cruising in his NA2…

AE86 GT-S coupe took a short drive across the water from Jersey to cruise…

This S14 looked like it had spent some time hovering around some walls…

Loved this shot by Tiffanie as we drove through a traffic circle in the city…

Shyam’s Mugen Integra Type R…

Who noticed the Ganador Super Mirrors first?…

White FD with some girth…

Appropriate vanity plate…

Before heading over to Times Square, the cars gathered back at the original meeting spot for some more photos…

Stay tuned for more…