There were two things that I really wanted to do this past weekend. The first was me just really wanting to drive my Q45 for the first time this year. I just recently renewed my vehicle registration and it seems like forever since I last drove it. In fact, it’s literally just been sitting inside the shop with a giant plastic sheet over it while Yuta is working on all his Civics around it. Driving a car seems easy enough but it had been sitting for so long that of course the battery died for the 15th time and was beyond the point of recharging. I went and bought a new battery, put it in and fired the thing up. The second thing I really wanted to do was to check out the annual Formula D event in Long Beach, CA. It’s no secret that I don’t actually watch any of the drifting but I always like the ambiance and environment. Long Beach is such a cool city and the FD event that opens their season every year is always a good one. It brings in a good crowd and you just never know what you’ll see. This year there were some new debuts, some cars in the car show area that I’d never seen before, and there was even a fight that broke out in the vendor section which was captured and shared on the Formula Derp IG page…

I somehow always manage to find my way into the Long Beach FD event. I’ll either be working, figure out a way to get a media pass and pretend that I am working, or I’ll convince somebody to get me a wristband into the show. I didn’t really have an “in” this year to get into the show and I’ve been so busy with other stuff that I honestly just forgot what weekend it was happening on. When I found out, I decided to go check it out so I hit up my boy Justin from Autocon to see if I could show my car on the car show-side, which was operated this year by Autocon. I guess you can say it was a ‘two-birds with one stone’ type of situation where I could both drive my car AND go to the show at the same time. I should also add that putting my car in the show provides me with prime parking so I don’t have to actually walk far to get to my car after the event is over. I can’t lose. Justin was generous enough to get me a spot inside his show and we were good to go. It’s been a while since I’ve been out and about doing car-related things and with the first-ever Wekfest Atlanta event coming up, I really wanted to dust-off my camera and remind myself that I was actually somewhat of a photographer. As you’d expect from me, there is no actual drifting action in any of the photos below. I just shot whatever caught my eye and then spent the rest of the afternoon catching up with friends. I just wanted to relax a bit and look at some car things. Tiffanie has been recovering from her accident and she also wanted to go out, so we went and rented her a wheelchair so she didn’t have to walk all over Long Beach. She has to wear a back brace and walk with a cane still so it just made sense to have a wheelchair for situations like this. Anyways, I won’t bother you guys with too much more chit chat. There are captions and stuff still so check out the photos of all the random things I captured. If you guys are gonna be at Wekfest Atlanta this year, as well as the Wekfest Pre-Meet happening out there, I’ll see you guys there. Enjoy…

The Ridiculous Fabwerx “Baller Hauler” and AE86 combo made an appearance at FD Long Beach. The last time I saw these two was at last year’s SEMA Show in Las Vegas and it caused quite a stir…

One of the first cars that really caught my eye was this yellow vinyl-wrapped JZA80 Supra on bronze Volk Racing TE37 Saga wheels. The Rays bronze finish and bright yellow is just a perfect combo. If only the car were painted and not wrapped…

My Mode Parfume Y33 Q45, which I don’t think I’ve driven since last year’s Autofashion VIP Festival event. I haven’t even looked at the car much at all so I was curious to see how the new paint looked in the sunlight…

This white Civic hatchback came outta nowhere, looking great on 15×8 Volk TEs with a BYS front bumper and J’s Racing carbon wing…

Love the simplicity of it, especially with the white CTR rear lip added as well as the signature blue of the Cusco cage…

Hector Levario’s S2000 from Garage Life is always impressively well-kept and show-ready…

The AP2 features Voltex aero, Craftsquare carbon mirrors, and Volk TE37 in bronze….

One can never go wrong with a white EK9-look and Rays wheels…

Widebody R35 not allowing wraps for whatever reason…

Glen’s M&M Hyper Widebody S2000 out for its last event before it goes through a makeover for 2018…

Interesting Macross7-inspired livery on this NSX….

Such an eye-catching duo that you gotta snap a photo of it. Just wish all those wheels on there were real TEs, lol…

Hector Levario hanging out on his Voltex rear wing…

I showed-up to the event by myself and ended-up parking next to these two…

Mode Parfume Q45 with a complete Nissan President conversion…

Full Mode Parfume aero kit and BBS wheels…

The crazy part about the President conversion and Mode Parfume rear bumper is that it doesn’t leave a spot for the rear plate, being that the President has its plate on the rear bumper and this rear bumper is for a Nissan Cima…

Good to see people taking time to execute color combos correctly…

The front end of my Y33 with Mode Parfume front bumper, JDM Cima headlights, front grille, and hood ornament…

I hardly ever get to take photos of my own car so I went a little nuts…

Probably my favorite angle of my car, especially being able to see the titanium turn-down tips on my custom Battlecraft exhaust…

Roll-in was pretty early so guys just spent most of the early morning hours wiping down their cars…

One of the more recognizable builds currently in Socal is this white TCP Magic FD built and owned by Jonny Grunwald…

This FD features a Lucky 7 Racing half bridgeport 13B-REW engine running a Precision turbo…

Over on the vendors display-side was Ryan Tuerck’s GT4586 build…

The much-talked-about Ferrari 458 engine sitting inside the engine bay of his FR-S/86…

In my opinion, one of the coolest builds put together in the last 10 years. So awesomely bizarre and quirky, executed in a way where everyone can enjoy it or hate the fuck out of it…

The rest of the display cars in the vendor area were pretty much just all of Brian Duong’s builds, including his wife’s Vertex S14 240SX on real Magnesium Volk TE37…

…and his recently completed Varis Kamikaze build, built to match the colorway of the S14 as well as his S15, which was also on display at another booth…

Chris Forsberg’s widebody Datsun 510 wagon on SSR MKIII wheels…

…powered by an SR20DET engine swap in a neatly executed bay…

Pandem Datsun 620 truck slammed on Work Equip 40, representing Hardcore Japan…

Allen Lugue’s gold AE86 running JBlood aero and RS Watanabe wheels…

Ford Bronco on display by the Falken rig wearing its signature colors…

It’s always good to see Forrest Wang’s builds. This year he is campaigning an Nissan S15 Silvia with a new title sponsor in “Vapetasia”…

Under the hood of Wang’s S15 is a stroked 3.4-liter 2JZ-GTE running a Garrett GTX4294R turbo. Make sure to get a closer look at all the custom fabrication work surrounding the 2JZ, including the tubbed and reinforced shock towers/wheel wells, as well as the custom front core support…

Vapetasia, it’s like drifting but with your mouth…

Fredric Aasbo’s brand new 1000HP 2AR-powered 2019 Toyota Corolla hatchback…

Probably the most talked about build that weekend was this widebody supercharged Ferrari 599 GTB piloted by Formula D newcomer Federico Sceriffo. It not only caused quite a stir because, well, it’s a fucking Ferrari in Formula D, but also because it caught on fire during the Top 32 competition. And we’re not talking like a small fire that was immediately put out or anything…like, it was ON FIRE. Luckily the damage wasn’t too bad overall and the car had seemingly been repaired and operational by the following day…

Dan Burkett’s Supra is certainly one of the best-looking builds of Formula Drift in the last few years…

Speaking of looking good, this Ferrari 458 in the Turn14 booth on Volk TE37 wheels looked pretty spectacular…

Nice livery on this 370Z, representing LINK Engine Managment…

Gone is the factory Nissan engine and in its place is a Toyota 2JZ-GTE swap…

The yellow A80 Supra from earlier, now parked in the vendor section…

Another of Allen’s immaculate AE86…

I personally was happy to see Tiffanie out and about again, catching up with friends and having a good time. As they say, whoever “they” may be, often times laughter is the best medicine for healing…

Ken Gushi looking forward to the rest of the 2018 FD season…

His GReddy Toyota 86 has a new tire sponsor this year with Falken on board and a brand new graphical livery by the guys at Awstickers…

Tiffanie and Sara were all smiles towards the end of the day…

…as were Gushi and friends, having a good time just hanging out with the boys…

Yogi’s stupid truck with way too much stuff on it that he actually goes off-road in that currently gets about 4 miles per gallon…

Brian Duong’s S15 Silvia sporting his signature white on Mag Blue-look…

James Deane’s Worthouse S15 Silvia, which made a huge impact in 2017 with a promising ’18 season ahead…

Deane and Wiecek’s identical S15 Silvias…

Gushi’s 2JZ 86 on its way back into the GReddy rig…

Dai Yoshihara’s crew chief, Chris Eimer, and his Subaru BRZ….

Dai’s BRZ running its new graphical livery for the 2018 season, headlined by title sponsor Turn14…

The orange contrast touches are great, including the small section dedicated to sponsor Eneos…

Mazda RX3 from Gutless Racing, which spent its day parked on display at the Nexen Tire booth…

With the day winding to a close, the lighting was just perfect during golden hour so I made sure to get some better photos of Brian’s Varis Kamikaze 86…

If you want to see more of Brian’s GReddy turbocharged 86, make sure to grab the newest issue of Super Street magazine, which it was featured in…

…Or just go to any major car show this year in Socal and see all 58 of his builds, all wearing white with Mag Blue Volk Racing wheels, probably with Project Mu brakes as well and maybe even some Ganador or Craftsquare mirrors. I don’t know how the guy does it. He has a family and all while still managing to find time to invest in all these cars. How awesome is that?…

Well, as mentioned, no drifting action at all but it’s okay. I highly doubt you guys come here to see drifting photos anyways. If you do I apologize because there are way better motorsports photographers out there, haha. Whatever the case may be, I hope you enjoyed the photos. Thanks for looking!…