Tag Archive for ‘volk racing’

Always Up To NO GOOD In Osaka…

Always Up To NO GOOD In Osaka…

Well this was a fun one. After Der and Kristian arrived in Japan, it was time to get Act 2 of my adventures in Japan going. I had a lot planned but didn’t want them to miss out on anything so I waited for them first. Kristian had never been to Japan before to do strictly car-related things so it was important to provide him with the best experience. Being that it was the weekend of Osaka Auto Messe, and the boys were in town, we decided to host another late night meet. I didn’t want to risk getting in trouble again with over 300+ cars showing up to a parking area so we moved the event outside of the city to the quiet island of Awaji. The longer distance made for some fun driving and of course, any time you throw a bunch of straight-piped Civics into an area that’s supposed to be peaceful, a little bit of chaos comes into play. Let’s just say that we were up to “no good” again in Osaka…

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!

Phantom Day 2022 Coverage… Part 2…

Phantom Day 2022 Coverage… Part 2…

Back with the rest of the photos from the recent “Phantom Day” event held in Chiba, Tokyo, Japan. Though this was a smaller event, I can imagine how much fun it would have been to just walk around all day and shoot some of these builds while shooting the shit with my friends over there. Hopefully sooner than later, I’ll be able to do just that when I can head back to Japan. For now, we’ll just have to look at these great photos captured by Yasutaka Shimomukai from Exceed Japan. I’m glad he’s been around me long enough to understand what cars I’d capture and what angles I like to shoot them at. He sends them over to me and I process them the same way I process my own photos. The end result are photos that look just like mine, honestly. Only people that are incredibly familiar with my photography and level of detail will notice the differences.

Phantom Day 2022 Coverage… Part 1…

Phantom Day 2022 Coverage… Part 1…

Admittedly, I’m a bit bummed because I wasn’t able to attend Tokyo Auto Salon this year due to the ongoing global shitstorm. I thought Yasu was going to go, at least, but I couldn’t even convince him to be inside the Makuhari Messe venue and be exposed to the plethora of possibly infected humans. I knew I was going to miss 2021 because they cancelled the event outright but was looking forward to going back in 2022. This actually marks the first time I’ve ever missed a TAS event since I first started attending back in 2013. From what I heard from friends in Japan, the event was much smaller and the crowd was definitely smaller, which was expected. I think my friends were trying to make me feel better because the show wasn’t nearly as big as it has been in the past but the thought of just being able to shoot the cars there with a smaller crowd sounded amazing. It’s usually pretty impossible to get a clean shot while the show is going on but from what I’ve seen of the photos posted online, you could definitely tell that the show was smaller. I’m hoping Japan re-opens by spring time so I can finally return and visit friends there but at this rate, who really knows?…

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!

Doghouse Garage Meet 2021 Coverage…

Doghouse Garage Meet 2021 Coverage…

It seems like there is something going on every weekend these days out here in Southern California. I wouldn’t say it’s a bad thing, because people seem to be staying safe and what not, but I do find myself just a little bit reluctant at times to be out and about too often, if that makes sense. I think maybe just being a little bit older now I’m just more precautious. When I was young, I’d probably just say ‘fuck it’ and go to everything. The want for content would triumph my own best interests at times and I’ve adjusted my expectations over the years. The only reason I’d go to something now is to either support my friends or other car enthusiasts who have supported friends in the past. It’s more for relationship building and seeing people now than just trying to flood the feed with photos…

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.

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…