Tag Archive for ‘civic’

Back On The Road For Wekfest Seattle!!… CHRNCLS Vlog 2021 #20

Back On The Road For Wekfest Seattle!!… CHRNCLS Vlog 2021 #20

Boy does it feel good to be back on the road again! It seems like forever ago since we’ve traveled for Wekfest but the show series is back now to close-out 2021. This was an interesting one because we go back-to-back for Seattle and Los Angeles for the first-time. We made sure to find some time to relax and just hang-out however, before the madness begins. Like my other visits to the Pacific Northwest, I make a traditional visit over to my friend Terry’s house where they were prepping their cars for the show. There’s plenty to see in this one, enjoy!

Honda Homecoming 2021 Coverage… Part 2…

Honda Homecoming 2021 Coverage… Part 2…

Hmm… I, uhh, kinda don’t have anything else to say about this event. Lol. I think with the previous post and it circulating online as well as through social media, I developed a good understanding of how people feel about it. If you’re on the inside, you’re gonna defend the position of those who were and have always been a part of this event. If you’re not, you either have a good grasp of what I was trying to explain or simply do not care enough about it to give it your time. Some of you are just here to see photos. I wouldn’t say that there was a wrong or a right. It’s just all dependent on perspective. If anything, I saw it as a small social experiment to see how people would react…

Honda Homecoming 2021 Coverage… Part 1…

Honda Homecoming 2021 Coverage… Part 1…

Hopefully many of you have seen the Vlog episode about this event and have heard some of my thoughts on it. I was expecting a more polarizing response but I suppose people are familiar enough with this event, since its been around for some years now, and have already formulated their own thoughts on it. I was never even supposed to go to this event and was brought in last minute as a guest of sorts, so I won’t be too harsh about my criticisms, lol. I’ll actually be very nice about it, okay? Because overall, it’s a good event. Correction: it’s a very VERY good event—if you happen to own an S2000, an NSX, or an FK8. If you don’t own one of those models, you don’t have to give a fuck about this, because they don’t give a fuck about you either. And that’s as blunt as I can put it. I feel like it would have been necessary to call this the “Honda Homecoming” with an asterisk at the end, because it’s not really “Honda” vehicles as a whole. It’s just those three particular platforms I mentioned with a sprinkle of Integra Type Rs and display vehicles brought in by vendors.

Quick Pics From The Brew’s Cruise LB July 2021 Meet…

Quick Pics From The Brew’s Cruise LB July 2021 Meet…

I really hate to admit it but I think I’m in the midst of a massive writing block right now. I’m not really sure where it came from because I’ve been going through a lot of stuff this year which has helped me to be very creative, and I was actually writing quite a bit personally, but I think I’ve hit a little bit of a wall. Usually it’ll pass if I read more, which I have been doing, but it doesn’t seem to be helping much. I suppose I’m just emotionally-drained and experiencing a hangover from everything that’s happening around me. Sigh. In any case, I’m trying different things to bring my mood up and I’ve been actively going out more to be social…

2AM Photos With Battlecraft…

2AM Photos With Battlecraft…

Being that our shops are so close to one another, Kristian tends to walk over here at random hours of the night to watch tv or shoot the shit. Earlier today, I asked him if the shop was clean cuz I wanted to test out some lighting equipment that I planned to use this weekend.

I hadn’t shot with strobes (battery powered remote flashes) in almost four years or more so I’m sure I’d completely forgotten how to use them. I don’t know what made me want to shoot with them since I feel it’s a bit dated in how it ‘polishes’ a photo but I wanted to try something different than what I’m used to these days. Anyways, he said the shop wasn’t super clean and the Civic was on jack stands but he could put wheels back on the car if I wanted to play with my camera and lighting. So around 2 am he comes by and helps me lug all that equipment over and we drink some White Claws. I snapped a couple photos and it made me realize I had no idea how to use strobes anymore. Long gone we’re the days when I used to haul this stuff around everywhere for magazine shoots.

No Good Racing Night Meet 2021 Coverage…

No Good Racing Night Meet 2021 Coverage…

Seems like Yasu has been out and about quite a bit lately, regularly attending shows and meets in his area. I don’t know if it is necessarily the best idea being that the number of cases haven’t really gone done much, if at all, lately in Osaka but he’s being careful and selective of who he hangs out with. I honestly feel like he’s just getting a little bored being at the shop every day and going a little stir crazy so he wants to be outside again. The last year and a half has probably felt a little odd for him since he’s usually either in the U.S. hanging out with us or we’re over there in Osaka with him. Hopefully in the next few months or so things get better and he’ll be able to return in time for the Wekfest tour to start here in America. He recently attended a night meet hosted by our friends from NO GOOD RACING and asked me if I wanted photos. Of course I’m always down for Japan content so I asked him to shoot some stuff. He mentioned that the meet was happening in a brand new parking area which was just recently completed and that sounded exciting since the night meets we go to are normally poorly-lit. There wasn’t a specific reason behind the meet happening, I think everyone just wanted to do car stuff and wanted to not think about the pandemic so they hosted a gathering. Here are the photos from that evening, captured by Yasu Shimomukai from Exceed Japan. Enjoy!!…

Cruising Through Osaka With Yanagi’s EG6 and Masashi’s S2000…

Cruising Through Osaka With Yanagi’s EG6 and Masashi’s S2000…

Typically around this time, the only visitors at Yasu’s shop in Osaka would be me. Wekfest Japan is usually happening during this period and I’d be over there getting ready to go to the show with him. Because of the global pandemic, and numbers still rising over in Japan, the border has been closed off to foreign visitors and I haven’t been able to return as I would usually. From what I saw online, like the rest of you, Wekfest Japan was a great event. There were less cars and the crowd was likely smaller than usual, but it was expected with the way things are going right now. With Yasu being so busy with work, not wanting to catch anything, and me not even being there, he decided it would be best if he just stayed behind this year…

Asanoshima FF 2021 Coverage…

Asanoshima FF 2021 Coverage…

Sometimes cool things just end-up in my inbox, what can I say? I was just hanging out in my office one day during a random weekend and I get a message from Yasu. He tells me that he’s heading to Fuji Speedway but he doesn’t really know why other than the fact that he’s going to support Masa from X-Point because he has a booth at some event that was being hosted there. I was like “what event?” and he responded by saying “I don’t know”. And then I said “then why are you going?”. This is usually how our conversations go. I should mention that Fuji Speedway is about a 5-hour drive from his shop so I assumed it must have been important. He reiterated that he didn’t know what the fuck was going on or why he was going but Masa had a booth. He told me that there was an event called “Asanoshima FF” going on but he’s never actually heard of it before and didn’t know what type of cars were going to be there.

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…