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stickydiljoe

'Stickydiljoe' aka Joey Lee is a freelance photographer, writer, and creator of The Chronicles.
The Incredible Stories And Builds From SEMA 2022…

The Incredible Stories And Builds From SEMA 2022…

I always say that I might not go back to SEMA but there is always a car build or two that brings me back. It’s always good to see the cars there but it’s far more interesting when you dive into them to see the little details and to hear from the owners themselves. This year, instead of trying to cover the entire show, I sought out specific builds that I wanted to see, that ones that caught my interest, and focused on giving you all a more thorough look at them. One of the stories I really wanted to tell was Alex Alfaro’s Integra Type R. He recently received a surprise gift from Japan just in time for SEMA and he also had a set of wheels that most enthusiasts in this generation have never heard of…

Beefy 1000+ HP Supra, An S14 Sedan?, +15 Offset TE’s On Der’s Civic, & The ITR Is Alive!!…

Beefy 1000+ HP Supra, An S14 Sedan?, +15 Offset TE’s On Der’s Civic, & The ITR Is Alive!!…

Not gonna lie, it feels great to have regular Vlogs going again now that things are picking up here at home! Over the weekend, I was invited to bring our GR86 out to Formula D Irwindale to participate in Pit+Paddock’s Performance Car Invitational. The weather was looking pretty damp that day but we had no idea a whole storm was brewing! The event itself presented some pretty interesting builds including our friend Hubert Barnum’s Supra and Rodney Moenadi’s KA24 Turbo sedan. The following day, Der got right back to work on his Civic to fit his 16×8 +15 Volk TE37 wheels. Would they fit? Would the jack come down faster than we wanted it to and make the wheels fit? See for yourself!! Oh and Chuy makes a surprise visit to the shop!!

Honda Collective NYC 2022 in Photos… Part 2…

Honda Collective NYC 2022 in Photos… Part 2…

When we last left off, myself and the rest of the enthusiasts who had gathered for the Honda Collective were preparing to move to our next stop. The Riverside Drive Overpass was a fantastic location to shoot at but we were all looking forward to see what photos we could get in one of New York City’s most iconic locations; Times Square. I had shot cars there in the past but it was always during the late evenings. We had similar gatherings before whenever Wekfest was in town but it had been a few years since we had done a pre-meet in the city. Those photos always came out pretty epic so I wondered how it would be during the day…

Honda Collective NYC 2022 in Photos… Part 1…

Honda Collective NYC 2022 in Photos… Part 1…

A few days after I returned home from my trip out east for Wekfest, I was contacted by my friend Edwin from Prime NYC about possibly attending a Honda event out there. The first-ever “Honda Collective” happened last year around this same time and I was interested in seeing it for myself. The Honda builds over there have vastly improved over time and a couple of them had definitely captured my attention. Out here in the West Coast, the Honda community has seemingly cooled down and most of the serious builds have gone back into hiding. The younger enthusiasts have their eyes on BMWs and other makes now while the older diehard Honda enthusiasts generally keep to themselves, building their cars away from the social media spotlight. There are still really fantastic Honda builds here at home but I’d be lying if I said we had any sort of ‘collective’ here. Times are just different now so seeing a committed grouping of Honda guys in a different part of the country was of interest to me. We chatted about possibly collaborating on an event together but the winter season came and went while I was busy working on things at home so nothing ever came to fruition. I always thought that it would be cool to have a Chronicles anniversary event out there but I’m having enough issues with trying to have something again out here so my focus was strictly home-based…

NEW Wheels For The EK, Bride Seat For The GR86 & More!!…

NEW Wheels For The EK, Bride Seat For The GR86 & More!!…

With the fall season now here, it seems like we’re making great progress at the shop! Mosquitoes are still everywhere but it hasn’t stopped us from working on the cars. Der has been here on weekends working on his Civic and finally finished his 5-lug swap. That means we can finally get rid of those Watanabe wheels! He mocks-up the new set-up so everyone can get an idea of what’s coming. There was also a freshly-coated valve cover just sitting around for the longest time that he hadn’t bothered to install. While that was going on, Kristian came over with a couple of Bride XERO series seats to show us the differences between them before installing a XERO CS into the GR86! It’s nice to finally have a bucket seat inside the car to go with the roll bar and the car is starting to look pretty complete!

A Weekend In New York City With The Honda Collective…

A Weekend In New York City With The Honda Collective…

I was recently invited by some fellow enthusiasts out to New York City to attend the second-annual “Honda Collective” event hosted by Prime and the boys from NAR. After I got back from my trip to Wekfest East, they contacted me to see if I wanted to be a special guest at their event. It would consist of a meet-up in New Jersey, followed by a cruise over to New York where we’d make a stop in Harlem for photos before eventually cruising through Times Square. The whole thing sounded pretty elaborate with a lot of thought put behind it so it was an honor to be invited! The Honda community out East is as strong as it has ever been so it was important for me to show them som e support as many of them have also put their faith in The Chronicles over the years. This was a blast! Huge thanks to everyone there for being so great.

NEW Wheels For Our GR86 Are FINALLY Here!! Plus More Shop Updates!!…

NEW Wheels For Our GR86 Are FINALLY Here!! Plus More Shop Updates!!…

After a few much-needed weeks off, we are finally back with a new episode!! The Rays wheels that we ordered back in February before we even got our GR86 have finally arrived in the USA and it’s time to mount them on the car! The loaner TE37 wheels were a great look and we will definitely miss it a lot but we can’t wait to see if our actual wheels on the GR. We ordered them sight-unseen so who knows if it’ll even actually look good. Will it? You let us know in the comments! It’s been a minute but Der is finally back at work on his Civic as well so we throw in some quick updates on it!

Wekfest East 2022 Photos… Part 2…

Wekfest East 2022 Photos… Part 2…

I sit here and just think about all the photos that weren’t taken this year at Wekfest East. It’s been days and I’m still annoyed with myself, lol. But it is one of those things that I can’t really go back and change so I’ll just have to make adjustments going forward. People have offered to second-shoot for me and get coverage when I can’t but I just prefer to have my own photos on my site. I’ve had guest photographers in the past, albeit sparingly, but I feel like the site has such a consistent look over the years that I don’t want to change that. I also don’t feel like enthusiasts who have their cars captured would have that same feeling had it been shot by someone else. I don’t say that to sound cocky or anything, I just think people want their cars on this site shot by me and me alone. We are both of the understanding that this site represents my body of work and if they want to be a part of that body of work, it has to be captured authentically by me. I think the big issue now is that I’m so obsessed with getting video and capturing b-roll that it does eat up a lot of my time in the mornings. We also changed the format of how people roll-in this year too so it took some adjusting on my end to figure out where everyone was. I don’t want to keep going on about it so I’ll stop here, but I sincerely apologize for the lack of coverage. I know that people were excited to see what was out there after I was gone for so long and wanted to see a lot of photos. Trust me, I’m working on something that will help me cast a brighter spotlight on the East Coast car community. Just stick with me and understand that I’m doing my best over here…

Wekfest East 2022 Photos… Part 1…

Wekfest East 2022 Photos… Part 1…

I suppose there’s a lot I can say about this trip. There was one very obvious incident that happened AFTER that put a negative light on an otherwise incredibly positive day, so I’d rather focus on that. It had felt like forever since we had returned to the East Coast for Wekfest. When it came time for us to finally go back, admittedly, I felt a bit anxious about it. It’s such a contentious region for car shows. There’s so much pride that exists within the car community there, especially considering the people who are hosting an event there are from the ‘other’ side of the country. In the past, I’ve always felt like I had to prepare for a fight (not a literal one of course) every time I went back there. Like people are looking for reasons to tell you why their car is good and why you’re wrong about choosing someone else at a car show. It’s stressful because getting all the judging done in time before the show ends is always a task. Everybody wants their 5-10 minutes (often times longer) to talk to you. Sometimes they’ll go even longer. In a show that has say, 300 cars, and 60% of them are Hondas, time management becomes an issue. 180 of those cars are Hondas. If all 60% of those Honda-owners in there try to tell me about their builds and they have 5 minutes each, that adds up to about 15 hours of people trying to tell me about their builds—The show is only 5 hours long, mind you. That’s a lot of numbers and it gets confusing, but all you need to know is that I don’t have enough time. I love the enthusiasm but it’s a high-stress environment for me. Thankfully most of those enthusiasts there have learned over the years of us being there that I generally know what the fuck I am doing and what the fuck I am looking at. So they leave me be. But, it took some time for them to understand. If you were at the show that weekend and you saw me running around like a crazy person. That’s because I was running around like a fucking crazy person. Somewhere in-between there I managed to find time to eat a sandwich but that’s about it…