After getting some photos of Jose Mejia’s FK8 CTR on the track, I noticed we had some sunlight left which allowed us to bring one more car onto the scenic Chuckwalla Valley Raceway. There were some pretty nice builds at the Club Racer Reunion event so I had plenty of cars to choose from, but I wanted a car that really ‘popped’ against the orange glow of the setting sun. I had already shot a white car with Jose’s FK8 so it seemed only fitting to add some color to this photo set. Throughout the day, one of the cars that immediately caught my eye was John Tran’s S2000. Like Jose’s Civic, it had also once been white but he recently had the entire car wrapped in a very vibrant red/orange vinyl. I normally am not a huge fan of vinyl-wrappped cars but I do appreciate them a great deal when they are done right. Sometimes the wrap can just look a little flat where you can tell its obviously not paint but John Tran’s S2000 looked fantastic. At a glance you couldn’t even really tell. Add to that a good collection of aero and a wheel/tire combo that helped the car sit just right. John pointed-out that his front splitter had been damaged from racing throughout the day which caused it to sag a bit. I told him it was okay because it is a race car after all and nobody expects it to be perfect. Some battle damage would actually add to the aesthetic of the car anyway and people wouldn’t be credible to say that it was just a ‘show car’ on the track merely for photos…

The photos look a bit more ‘aggressive’ in this set compared to Jose’s photos because I had a different driver when we went out with John’s S2000. Duane was the one behind the wheel when I was shooting Jose’s CTR and I think he was a little worried about going a little too fast for me when I was shooting. I’m used to being halfway out of a car when I’m shooting Civics in the rain on a public highway in Japan so cruising around the track was no hard task, lol. As you saw in the Vlog, Kristian was driving while Duane filmed with my GoPro. Kristian was a little more adventurous in my Honda Pilot and picked-up a considerable amount of speed when John followed us around CVR in his S2000. Everything just seemed to work out perfectly with these shots. I lost a considerable amount of sunlight as it quickly set behind the mountains of Chuckwalla but I was able to adjust on the fly. You’ll notice the actual speed we were going in some of the photos at the end because there were actually people just riding their bikes and skating around the track while we were shooting. It makes for some funny visuals because I tried to make it look like John was driving aggressively while people were just casually cruising around CVR. Enjoy the photos and thanks to all who were involved who made the weekend possible!…

Thanks for looking!…