Tag Archive for ‘Wekfest’

Back To Japan For Wekfest!!…

Back To Japan For Wekfest!!…

Well, it may seem like I just got back from Japan but here I am, back on a plane again to Osaka! The Wekfest event out in Nagoya is an event I try to attend every year so there was no way I was going to miss this one. There’s been some major changes this year with the event itself but the biggest, most obvious, change is the brand new venue! This place is huge! Before that though, we had some prep work to do and some adjustments after landing back in Japan. Enjoy!

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 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…

Does The East Bring The Heat For Wekfest?…

Does The East Bring The Heat For Wekfest?…

It just feels like there aren’t enough hours in the day lately with all these Wekfest events happening. First it was San Jose, followed quickly after by Los Angeles, and not even two weeks later, it was off to the east coast for our first event back in New Jersey. With all that has happened over the past two years, we were excited to be back finally with renewed energy and fervor for the East. I myself did not know what to expect with this stop on the tour. Sometimes it’s great, sometimes it leaves a little more to be desired, you just never know. What myself and the Wekfest crew were greeted with this time around was a completely different experience. It seems the time away has drastically improved what this region had to offer. The only problem was…would I have enough time to capture it all??? Also, at the end, I take some time to address the very obvious ‘elephant in the room’….

Wekfest Los Angeles 2022 in Photos… Part 3…

Wekfest Los Angeles 2022 in Photos… Part 3…

By the time you guys read this I’ll probably be walking around in New York City already, taking in the hot ass, incredibly humid, weather before we are set to host the East Coast Wekfest stop in Edison, New Jersey. These last couple days have been interesting. The photos and words from Wekfest Los Angeles have generated some pretty good discussions. I’m glad we can have a constructive conversation about our automotive tuning community. I’ve probably written much more than I have in quite some time and I’m glad my words are being absorbed by people. Any time you have such a competitive environment like Los Angeles and San Jose, it is going to spark some banter. Everyone who competes and has been competing over the years wants to win. They want to feel validated for their hard work. I get it. The rest of the crew at Wekfest gets it too. We’d just prefer that you understand our process. That’s why in the last few Vlogs I’ve given you guys a glimpse into the war room where we talk about the show and its competitors. I think moving forward I’ll continue to do so. Sometimes I do it for comedic relief and show that I’m watching cat videos on Instagram or something but we do spend a bulk of the time at any event we host deliberating. It’s not always easy either. We’ll sometimes discuss who goes where and who wins what up until the very end of the show. Though many of us aren’t exactly in that mindset where we ourselves want to compete in that way with our cars, we fully appreciate the ones that still have the competitive fire…