Archive for ‘Coverage’

Illest Pop-Up & Car Meet 2021 Photos…

Illest Pop-Up & Car Meet 2021 Photos…

It seems that these days during these strange times, I’m either at the shop, at home, or at Rodeo Public Market for a car meet. Admittedly, I don’t get out as much these days for obvious reasons, but whenever there is something going on that is car-related down in Stanton, California, I’ll try to be there for it. It’s just a good central location to see some car stuff where my friends and I can meet up for a little bit to shoot the shit. I’m always looking for good content as well for the Vlogs and the car meets that are hosted there usually offer some pretty decent builds. Variety is also good too so you’ll see a little bit of everything at the Brekkie gatherings. While I was at the last event, my buddy Mark invited me to the Illest Pop-Up and Car Meet. They were set to drop some new merchandise and wanted to have a car meet at Rodeo Public Market since everyone was already pretty familiar with the locale. I hit up Der to see if he wanted to meet me there before we came back to the shop to work on his Civic and he had a roll of film to finish off anyway. We didn’t stay very long since Der was waiting for someone to drop off some parts he had purchased at the shop but I did manage to get some photos and video in the brief time we were there. Unlike the Brekkie meets which happen in the early mornings, this event was held during the late afternoon so it provided some pretty great lighting for photos.

Brekkie Sunday Service January 2021 Photos…

Brekkie Sunday Service January 2021 Photos…

I didn’t originally intend to take photos of these events before because I had only been to one prior, and wasn’t aware at that time that it would become an event I would go to regularly. And by ‘regularly’ I mean I’ve been to TWO. Lol. But I captured some pretty good photos so I thought I’d compile them here and start posting more photos from these gatherings whenever I go since there are some interesting cars that show-up. The Brekkie Car Club “Sunday Service” events are just meets held every few weeks (usually on Sundays) at Rodeo 39 Public Market. It’s a new food spot down in Stanton, California at the plot of land that used to house the one and only Super Autobacs in the USA. Autobacs shut down years ago and because of the bad economy during that period, the entire area and surrounding businesses suffered. Most of them shut down and eventually that land just became sort of abandoned, other than the DMV, which took over the massive defunct Autobacs facility to service the state of California. Eventually the DMV shut down as well and the entire area was completely leveled and reborn to what it is today. Rodeo 39 launch recently but because of the ongoing ‘thing’ that’s affected our world, it hasn’t seen the type of outpouring of business they had expected during development. So people who are associated with Rodeo 39 decided to start hosting events there to bring people to the local business hub and provide a safe space for car enthusiasts to congregate. My friend Jonathan Wong started telling me about these meets and I decided to go see it for myself. The most recent one was pretty big. Way bigger than I thought it would be because the first event I attended was a decent size, but I wouldn’t say it was ‘packed’. This last one was pretty packed. To the point where I think people that didn’t know about the meet were annoyed because so many car enthusiasts had packed the lot. Even with the amount of people there, it didn’t seem too sketchy as everyone abided by the rules to wear masks and stay generally 6-feet away from one another. They tried their hardest. I still get nervous about being out and about with a bunch of people but I stuck around and tried to experience the meet the best I could. I wish I had taken more photos, to be honest, because the day before we had some rain which always makes photos look good with the water reflecting light off the ground.

Club Racer Chuckwalla January 2021 Coverage…

Club Racer Chuckwalla January 2021 Coverage…

Ryan Der and I decided to make the 3-hour drive out to Chuckwalla this past weekend to support our friends from the Club Racer event series. There hasn’t been much going lately due to, well, very obvious reasons so it seemed like a good time to go outside into some wide-open spaces to see some car stuff. This particular event at Chuckwalla wasn’t a competitive one but more of a ‘preseason’ event to get enthusiasts ready for the racing series in 2021. It wasn’t crowded and there weren’t too many cars at the track this time around, but the weather was nice and overall, the day was pretty relaxing. We both brought our cameras to get some coverage but since there wasn’t too much going on, I found myself just hanging out and catching-up with friends. The drive was long but seeing friends is never a bad thing, and my one major takeaway from going to Chuckwalla was finally seeing Andrew Horn’s Civic all finished-up. The car has been down for some time now as it was going through a major overhaul but he wrapped it up in time to do some testing. Most of my photos from this event are actually just of Andrew’s Civic but it felt weird to just call it “Andrew Horn’s Civic Photos” as the title without any context or history. I want to see that I wish I shot more but the people at Chuckwalla weren’t too keen on having people shooting on the track this time around so I couldn’t get any cool photos like last time. Oh well, still a fun day. Enjoy the photos…

CLUB HANDZ x LSD 2020 Coverage… Part 2…

CLUB HANDZ x LSD 2020 Coverage… Part 2…

Hopefully you guys enjoyed the newest Vlog episode. If you haven’t please try to give it a watch, I think you guys will enjoy it. It’s one of those episodes that may feel foreign to some, because they’re so used to me covering mostly Honda-related content on here, but I think people forget that I’m just a car guy that enjoys all different makes and models. Even though The Chronicles was built on the foundation of great Honda builds, I’ve always dabbled with other styles and makes of vehicles. Hell, coming to you as a ‘Honda guy’, I currently own a Nissan, Toyota, and a Honda—and my Honda is the only car that isn’t heavily modified. I just love cars and through my many journeys all over the world documenting car culture, I’ve come to appreciate so many different sub-genres…

CLUB HANDZ x LSD 2020 Coverage… Part 1…

CLUB HANDZ x LSD 2020 Coverage… Part 1…

We’ve read and heard so many negatives about the year that has been 2020 worldwide. There has been a pandemic, so much loss, a contentious feeling throughout our country, and there doesn’t seem to be light at the end of the proverbial tunnel. Everyone is having a rough year, and I can’t think of another time in my entire life where that has been so true. How is that even possible, right? It’s crazy to think that it has been such a rough time but what’s even crazier is believing that everything will change the moment we flip that calendar over to January 1st. There remains to be so many unknowns heading into 2021 and it is just a little over 30 days from now. To think that everything will change in 2021 is, frankly, unrealistic. Time, and more importantly life, just doesn’t work that way. I feel like the best way we can approach the future is to put a positive twist on it—and that’s coming from someone who hasn’t necessarily been the most positive of people. I’ll admit, I’ve gotten better with age. I’ve always been fairly ‘aware’ of who I was as a person. Most of my 20s were spent kind of in a fog, taking life as it came but always approaching it with a bit of cynicism. As I’ve grown-up, both physically and mentally, I have found myself to become a much more positive human being. I’m still incredibly sarcastic and very much a cynic, but I think I’ve figured life out. I’ve had enough experiences that have paved my way to a much more positive approach towards life and all of its many hurdles…

GReddy GPP Live 2020 Event Coverage…

GReddy GPP Live 2020 Event Coverage…

There’s no SEMA event this year due to the ongoing “situation” we’re all going through, but I don’t know if I really miss it or not. On one hand, I do enjoy being in Las Vegas. Meeting up with industry friends is always nice and eating/drinking an insane amount throughout the week always makes things interesting. On the flip side, I don’t miss the crowds, the transportation to and from the show is always a bit of a headache, and to put it simply, I kind of enjoy saving money for other stuff. It’s funny because most of us who have been in the industry for some time now always bitch about not wanting to go to SEMA, but then we always end-up going and kinda having a good time. It’s a lot of work but it has its quirks that make life interesting enough where we do look forward to heading back to Vegas annually…

John Tran’s S2000 From Club Racer Reunion Weekend…

John Tran’s S2000 From Club Racer Reunion Weekend…

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…

Jose Mejia’s FK8 Civic Type R From Club Racer Reunion Weekend…

Jose Mejia’s FK8 Civic Type R From Club Racer Reunion Weekend…

Originally I had planned to just include this in the Club Racer Reunion Weekend coverage being that it was all shot on the same day at the same time but the more I thought about it, the more I felt that these photos should get their own separate post. I know many of you who have followed me through the years may be a bit surprised to see Jose’s FK8 CTR on my site because of his association, but I already let bygones be bygones so long ago that its hardly even an issue. For those who know what I’m talking about—it’s old news. I’m just here to enjoy cars. Even if there were an issue, it wouldn’t really be Jose’s fault because he wasn’t necessarily involved in any perceived ‘drama’ that had happened in the past…

Club Racer Reunion Weekend 2020 Coverage…

Club Racer Reunion Weekend 2020 Coverage…

Y’all wanna hear some gossip??? Boy do I got some info for you… Lol. I’m kidding of course but you’ll certainly find some of this interesting if you’re not familiar with what “Club Racer” is and have heard of the “VTEC Club” series before. Most Honda enthusiasts will have heard of the racing series either through friends or through various media online but Club Racer, or Club Racer Events, may be new to many of you. VTEC Club USA was originally an all-Honda time trial series operated within a larger racing event host, Extreme Speed Track Events. The Honda-dedicated racing series worked in unison with Extreme Speed over the years and grew to great success until 2020, when the managing party responsible for VTEC Club USA’s continued growth decided it was time to forge a new path. I don’t want to get into all the little nuanced details of it all but let’s just say that it was a relationship where one partner had outgrown the other and someone wanted to spread their wings, if you know what I mean. I’m just on the outside looking in so it isn’t my story to tell in detail but all you really need to know is that VTEC Club USA is operating on its own and under the umbrella of a new entity known as—you guessed it, Club Racer Events…