Tag Archive for ‘Wekfest’

Wekfest Chicago 2022 Coverage… Part 1…

Wekfest Chicago 2022 Coverage… Part 1…

Attention, attention, we are now interrupting what seems like regularly scheduled posts from Japan to give you some photos I’ve long been waiting to post. As most of you will have realized by now, I am currently in Osaka, Japan. I have so much content to upload as I have been making Vlog episodes basically real-time that I haven’t had much time to post anything else. Right before I left for Osaka, I had literally crammed two nights into completing these photos from Wekfest Chicago only to have them sit on my hard drive for another two weeks, lol. There’s just been so much cool shit happening on this sound of the pond that I haven’t been able to sit down to lay out this post. It’s a shame because I really enjoyed how these photos came out…

Why You Should Go To An Itasha-Style Car Show In Japan…

Why You Should Go To An Itasha-Style Car Show In Japan…

When I first landed in Osaka, Yasu mentioned that there was an Itasha-style car show happening just two days after Wekfest—at the exact same venue in Nagoya. He asked me if I wanted to go and I thought about it for a whole 2 seconds before I said “YES DEFINITELY”, lol. Why? Well, I’m here in this country that I haven’t been back to in two years so I want to experience as much as possible. More importantly, I want to see and experience NEW things that I haven’t had access to before. Itasha-style car builds are SUPER popular here in Japan and from the photos I’ve seen on Twitter, they always look to be of pretty high-quality as well. SO OF COURSE I WANTED TO GO. And if you watch this episode, you might want to go too! I think everyone experiencing car culture in Japan should try to go to one of these events at least once. Would I go back? Uhhhh….YES.

One Of The Main Reasons Why I Came Back…WEKFEST JAPAN

One Of The Main Reasons Why I Came Back…WEKFEST JAPAN

As many of you may have figured it out by now, one of the reasons why I returned to Japan in 2022 was to attend the Wekfest event in Nagoya. I’ve been to every single one since the very beginning, with the exception of last year’s due to the global “thing”. It felt weird not coming back, especially since it has long become a regular checkmark on my annual travel calendar. When I found out that there was an opportunity to return, I leaped at the opportunity. This year was a bit different for me. I decided I wanted to experience the show as a spectator and shoot the event for myself. There were so many great builds that I wished there was more time to cover it all, but I had to find a balance between vlogging and photography…so, here is the video portion of my adventures at this Wekfest event…

Finishing-Up A DC5 Integra For Wekfest Japan…

Finishing-Up A DC5 Integra For Wekfest Japan…

It’s that time of year again for both the Golden Week holiday and Wekfest Japan! Now that things are starting to get back to normal, everyone can get back to building cars and getting them buttoned-up for the Wekfest event in Nagoya! One of the main reasons I came back to Japan finally was to attend the Wekfest event but before that takes place, we spend an entire day wrapping-up a DC5 Integra build that has been in the works now for the past few months. Parts show-up just in time, good fun was had, we met Yasu’s mom, and more!…

Just A Regular Day For Car Guys In Japan…

Just A Regular Day For Car Guys In Japan…

As I begin to settle into my stay in Osaka, Japan, we get to work on some of the cars that are going to Wekfest Japan, spend a day-off in Osaka, and stop by a local car meet before getting back to work. This is just your average day in Japan for car enthusiasts like Yasu and myself. I promised I’d be doing more videos while I’m here and though they might not be daily, I’ll continue to upload as often as time permits while I’m here!…

Wekfest Austin 2021 Coverage…

Wekfest Austin 2021 Coverage…

There is much that could be said about the Texas Wekfest event this year. I think privately some enthusiasts who attended were a little upset by some of the criticisms that were passed-on during the awards ceremony, at least that’s what I heard from people anyway, but nothing was said to deliberately hurt feelings. These things were said with good intentions because we want this region to flourish like it has in the past. I think there might just be a generational gap or something where social media has mislead some enthusiasts into thinking that only certain things are important when it comes to creating good car builds. Perhaps they haven’t been presented with proper examples to help guide them in the right direction. Or maybe people just stopped caring? I don’t know. It’s a bit of a mystery to me….

There’s A CR-X Inside This Fancy House… CHRNCLS Vlog 2021 #29

There’s A CR-X Inside This Fancy House… CHRNCLS Vlog 2021 #29

As we begin to approach the end of 2021, things definitely haven’t slowed down during the holiday season and I found myself in Austin, Texas for the final stop of the Wekfest tour. We take a quick tour of some of the more notable cars there and when I got back home, I was invited by Ryan Basseri from Rywire to check-out a private unveiling of a new CR-X build he had been working on. The unique thing about this particular reveal was that it was actually held inside of his house that he had just finished renovating recently! One of his dreams had always been to have a space inside his house to display a car but we never thought that he would actually do it!!

Wekfest San Jose 2021 Coverage… Part 2…

Wekfest San Jose 2021 Coverage… Part 2…

I am currently sitting on a kitchen counter top in Austin, Texas as I type out this concluding portion of the San Jose Wekfest coverage. It’s about 9PM Texas time and we just wrapped-up dinner at the AirBnb house we are staying at, just a couple days away from the last Wekfest show of 2021. It’s been a pretty wild year to say the least. It started out a bit slow, the months dragged on it seemed, but then by mid-summer, things just took-off. Things started to open back up, there seemed to be an endless amount of car meets going on every weekend, and indoor car shows officially resumed. In the past two months, we’ve done three Wekfest events that took us from Seattle, back home to Los Angeles, and to San Jose for the ‘Super Bowl’…

Wekfest San Jose 2021 Coverage… Part 1…

Wekfest San Jose 2021 Coverage… Part 1…

Top to bottom, in terms of overall car quality, this might be the best San Jose Wekfest we’ve ever had. I know that sounds a bit outrageous but you have to consider the level of cars that are being built in 2021. Coming into the event, we already had about 10 cars that were definitely going to win an award in the higher-tiered categories. It was just a matter of where we were going to place each car. It’s pretty crazy. In the past, there were probably 1-3 that were going to be up for contention for “Car of the Festival”, which is our version of the best of show, but never was there this much competition. I don’t know if it had to do with timing, since SEMA had just happened a few weeks before or because everyone had so much time off to work on their cars due to the pandemic, but people have really stepped it up. I’m happy to see it. I think through out the last year or so, I had been looking forward to just getting back on the road and doing car shows again. There was hope that there would be some new car builds on the horizon, but I didn’t really know what to expect. It just felt nice to be outside doing car shit again. In the past few months, we did back-to-back shows with Seattle and Los Angeles but there was added pressure to make San Jose good because it was the ‘big’ one…