Pacific Grand Prix in Washington state has only been holding drift events this year, but they been doing so well that everyone in the Pacific Northwest looks forward to these events now. This past weekend, was the very first Team Tandem event that PGP held. Many of the regular familiar faces showed up, as well as a lot of new drivers that I hadn’t seen before.
Drift Union was one of the crews from out-of-town that showed up for this event. They came all the way from Canada (I don’t know the exact city) and even though they were new to the PGP course, they were killin it out on track. Their super ridiculously early entries and close-following tandem runs wowed the crowd and the judges enough to ensure that they took top honors!
Congratulations, boys! Stay tuned to MotorMavens for more photos from the PGP event very soon… but right now I have an appointment to buy some super wide wheels for my S14! Now I need overfenders! =D
Since Formula D Seattle, all the members of the crew have all been super incredibly busy handling all sorts of things related to the website and promotions, so we decided to hold off on our normal "event coverage" stories so that I could write different type of story - something more of a perspective piece. Normally, we always have Antonio write the event stories, because he seems to have the most experience, and he knows all the details of the drivers and everything. However, this time, the guys asked ME to write about my own personal experiences at FD Seattle.
This year's Formula D Seattle marks my first anniversary as a part of the Motor Mavens Crew. At last year's event, I didn't even know Antonio yet. In fact, I only met him at the end of the event, when he was out in the parking lot, chillin with our friends Ian Dillon and Raymond Vazquez.
I gotta say... this year has been one hell of a ride! Just in this past year, I've attended three other Formula D events, done multiple local drift event coverages, car features, cruises, meets, and everything else in between. As a local Seattle-based contributor for MotorMavens, my main goal was to blow up the Pacific Northwest scene since I know it has some of the sickest cars around! We also have some highly skilled drifters up here - such as Formula D drivers Roland Gallagher, Nikolay Konstantinov, Ian Fournier, and Victor Moore. Since this event was local, there was no doubt that all these guys would be attending. I knew this was going to be a great event! Read more...
All my friends know that I stay up really late every day, so when I wake up early for an event, it's usually because I'm motivated to shoot a drift event or some kind of local Japanese car-based meet. However, waking up just to go to a car cruise is a completely new concept for me. I've heard about the Leavenworth Euro Cruise for few years now, and to be honest.. I never really cared to check it out until now! It's a good thing I stepped out of my shell though, because there were a lot of cool cars at the event that I probably wouldn't have ever seen if I didn't go!
It's true what they say - as we get older, things change, our minds open up, and sometimes... we realize what we been missing. This cruise fromBellevue Community Collegeto the touristy city of Leavenworth, with a stop at Washington's famous Steven's Pass was definitely something I've been missing out on for a long time! I attended the cruise with our writer Lucas Perez and photo newcomer Jeff Santiago, and even though we rolled up with Lucas's R32 Skyline and Jeff's Honda S2000, mostly everyone seemed cool with our non-euro cars attending. Well, at least they didn't throw eggs at us or anything. Read more...
Formula D Round 2 Atlanta has been a subject of the past now, but our boy Justin Shreeve had extra footage and decided to make a sequel to his original FD Atlanta video. In my opinion Justin did a great job showing the great experience a Formula D event can have on someone. These events are more than just the cars and drifting to me. It’s about the people, friends, vendors, and of course the girls! I’m not going to lie though, that clip of Daijiro Yoshihara dirt dropping was sick! Great job Justin Michael Shreeve!
Well apparently, our resident sick stanced sticker cutter got bored today, since he is out of high school and has all this free time on his hands now. I suppose boredom sometimes leads to creativity, because Abbitt broke out his Canon 7D and busted out a short film to try out his newest piece of non-Canon glass (FAIL) on a video of his car… the super slammed Subaru STi that’s been scraping driveways and road reflectors all over Snohomoish Washington.
Enjoy the video! (Buy some Canon glass, next time, Eighteen and famous.)
A lot of times when you buy a car, you have a plan. Sometimes it can be just a mild street car build, or full on race car that will never see a day on the streets. In my experience my builds are always unexpected, starting off with just a daily driver that turns into a full blown money eating machine. Either way, planned or not planned we all have the same passion on getting our cars to become what we imagine in our minds. It always amazes me how far we go to do that. (more…)
When I’m bored at work, I constantly listen to MP3s and surf the web. The other day, I decided to look at Volkswagen related videos because I was interested in finding more cars that looked similar to my friend Zach’s Well Dunn Passat.
I stumbled across this older video from Wagenwerks Productions, that featureda Volkswagen Jetta GLI owned by a guy named Brandon Nero. I think this video is sick – the music went well with the feel of the video. The Jetta is so simple and clean, yet it’s so aggressive! I gotta hand it to Brandon Nero, he made one dope looking Jetta! I obviously love the car’s super low stance, and the fitment of the BBS mesh wheels? Perfect.
While replaying the video about 4-5 times, I read the comments on the Wagenwerks Vimeo account and saw that they used roller blades to get all the moving camera shots! No fancy rigs or easy dollies used here! I can go on for days about how good this video is, but I think I’ll just shut up and let you watch. Awesome, right?
From compact commuter cars and SUVs, to GTs and supercars, most in our "scene" have seen just about every imaginable car "upgraded"- with the possible exception (in my case) of Zach Dunn's 2007 Volkswagen Passat. I must admit that I had yet to see one of these cars done right. And, since I seem to be in the mood for confession, I'm not going to lie, I've never been the greatest fan of VWs. However, the more I see of them (especially this one), the more they're starting to grow on me. Zach's 2007 Passat was the first I'd seen that had been slammed and enhanced with superior fitment - and that made all the difference in the world.Read more...
These days any car I see sporting a paint job from the pastel side of the palette automatically reminds of Team Instant Party (TIP). I'm sure everyone who knows or has seen Team Instant Party cars is nodding right now as they envision a procession of Easter eggs with badass offset shooting shaved rubber into their mind's eye. So you can see why this air bagged GS300 had me completely perplexed since the VIP style is the last option I would expect from a TIP member. Read more...
Since I'm new to MotorMavens, most people don't know much background info on me. I was born and raised in the Northwest, so every time I visit California, it becomes a great adventure. The final round in the Formula Drift series was my very first visit to Irwindale. From the hot weather and good looking girls, I could tell I was in for a real treat! Not to mention all the sick cars that California has!
When I arrived at LAX on Thursday, I got my rental car and drove straight into L.A. traffic to get to Irwindale Speedway, working my way though all that traffic while trying to find a good radio station to listen to. I finally arrived at the Speedway about 45 minutes later.
Walking though the pits, watching all the vendors getting set up for the event, I noticed the pit area is so much bigger than the one we have at Evergreen Speedway where Round 5 was held . This was a subtle hint that more vendors and drivers would be attending this event than the one at Evergreen.
Another thing that I noticed was the weather. Seattle summer includes two months of decent heat and sun after which it's back to the infamous rain season that happens to have started a couple of weeks ago. So, even though I caught myself wiping sweat off my forehead every few minutes, I was enjoying every minute of the sun. I wish it was like this in the Northwest.
Fast forward to the opening day of the Final round of Formula Drift. I got there bright and early to start taking photos and meet lots of new people. Since I'm pretty new to MotorMavens, a lot of people didn't know my name or my face. I took that as the perfect opportunity to introduce myself to the locals. The attitude that California people have is really great! Everyone was friendly and awesome to hang out with! Read more...
Whenever I hear the words Datsun 510, I picture either a fully restored and super clean car or a moss-covered, stock car that has been hiding under bushes for the past 10 or more years. Either way, in my opinion, this is one of the most amazing cars built to date. These days, everything possible has been done to modify them including SR20DET, KA24DE, and VG30 swaps. But, no matter what kind of fancy wheels or paint jobs they may have, they are always a dime in my eyes. Apparently the guys at Garage Autohero feel the same way.
The story begins with Ray Stonehocker and his desire to build a daily driven showcase car for his shop - Garage Autohero. He wanted something completely different from everyone else so he stayed away from the obvious Nissan Skylines or Toyota Supras that are crazy fast with the very expensive paint jobs. Ray wanted to take a step in the opposite direction. He chose to go with the Datsun 510. He had a chance to buy an old 510 from a friend not too long ago - but not in pristine condition. The 510 had some rust issues, fading paint, and the years had just taken a major toll on the poor car. That didn't stop Ray though. In fact, it was exactly what he wanted. Read more...
This past weekend in Bellevue Washington... the Northwest's Imperial Car Club, Carnutz Customs, and the US Army teamed up to throw an "end of the year" charity food drive and car meet to enjoy the last few days of summer before the rainy season pours down on our state. Read more...
Imperial Car Club and Car Nutz is holding a charity food drive and car show this Sunday. So if you are around Seattle area be sure to stop by Car Nutz in Bellevue. This show will feature some upscale and/or exotic cars, so come on out and enjoy the last remaining bits of the nice weather before the rain hits! This will most likely be the last car show of the summer in Seattle. If you can, please don’t forget to support the U.S. Army by bringing canned food. Hope to see everyone out there!
Just a few years ago, aggressive fitment wheels were a pretty rare find on cars in the United States. Most people thought that getting wheels that "fit" well meant that the wheels wouldn't have any rubbing or clearance issues. Nowadays, the trendsetters in the scene have completely changed the game, and all the "cool kids" with the best wheel fitment are all about stretched tires and seeing how close you can get your wheels/tires to the fenders.
The owner of this slammed Subaru Impreza WRX STi is a seventeen year old (Yes, I said 17 years old!) high school student named Abbitt Wilkerson from AW Films. Abbitt has been making a name for himself; not only because he shoots some of the most popular car videos up here in the Northwest, but also because he has a driving passion for building Subarus with the common thread of aggressive wheel fitment. Read more...
We found this video just clicking around on Youtube… apparently the drifting scene is strong in Thailand too! Check out the Nissan A31 Cefiro police car… convertible?! Crazy! The umbrella girls look pretty cute too… Have a look!
While at one of the Evergreen Drift events. i was just walking around the starting grid before they started to run. I was just having a good time with all the guys out there when I noticed this clean RPS13 with an aggressive stance and rolling on some proper fitting Work CR Kais. When the driver got out of the car on the right hand side, I noticed it was Rob Primo. Rob just got some OEM 180sx aero along with fresh blue paint and got some new wheels. The white and blue color combination works very well. I also noticed he shaved the side marker lights and his windshield washer squirters also, a nice touch to keeping the car nice and clean. Read more...
While I was checking out some videos on Vimeo earlier today, I ran across this Mez Productions video from Club Outrun‘s Japan trip. Very cool! They show footage of some cool looking AE86s at Nihonkai Maze Circuit, some more 86 action at Nikko Circuit, and then some really cool footage from Ebisu Circuit‘s South Course, School Course, and the very famous Touge course!
When everyone leaves after Formula D in Seattle every year, many people seem to forget about Pacific Northwest drifting. Thanks to Kelly and Eddi from Evergreen Drift, the local drivers from Washington, Oregon, and Canada are able to come back to the very same track where Formula D is held at - Evergreen Speedway in Monroe Washington. This past weekend, some of the same drivers that competed in the Evergreen Pro AM came back out and tackled the 3/8s bank with all they had for Round 3 of the Evergreen Drift Championship. Read more...
