When it comes to Formula D Las Vegas, what can I say that hasn't been already mentioned? It was hot. Damn hot. Too hot to be outside without air conditioning. I don't understand how Las Vegas locals can handle the incredible heat over there, but they say they're just used to it now. Getting used to it is one thing... but I wonder if they like it though?
Just like the gypsy camps in the days of old, this year's Las Vegas round of Formula Drift brought thieves out of the woodwork. I was really surprised to find out that former Formula D judge (and current Tanaka Racing Corvette driver) Alex Pfeiffer's helmet was stolen. I suppose someone was a fan of Alex's Hawaiian print helmet, which had the traditional Hawaiian plumeria flowers painted on one side. The only question I have about that is... Okay, thieves. Now that you have Alex's helmet, what the hell are you going to do with it?Read more...
Making this video was absolutely insane, but an awesome experience. Drift Mania Canadian Championship Round 4 was the only night-time round scheduled for DMCC this year, and it was my first time really doing a night-time event outside of my hometown. (It was also my first time really partying all night outside of my hometown, but that’s probably for a different post.) The most staggering thing about this event was that the entire event took place on one day, with all the practice sessions and qualifying during the day, and competition starting in the evening and going into the night.
In this video, the Drift Posse team is represented by Brad Carlton driving a grey and black 240sx s13 and Pat Cyr in his trusty F20 turbo-powered hachiroku. Some other notable appearances include Matt Waldin in his flame spitting 350z, who once again proved that his motto of stone cold consistency is a proven formula to getting wins. Surprisingly, Fred Girard and the Rockstar Energy 240sx decided to put a happy note on what has otherwise been a pretty tough season by taking the #2 podium spot.
The heat of Las Vegas can make people do some crazy things. It makes some people stay out all night, drinking beer with new friends that they just met until 10AM, ensuring that they won’t have enough sleep to function as a normal human being at the actual Formula D Las Vegas event… and it makes some people stick their faces behind 180SX drift cars as they do burnouts in line for drifting practice.
Here’s our vote for the best looking S13 in the entire Formula Drift series… Nikolay Konstantinov‘s RB-powered RPS13, as seen through the lens of Abbitt Wilkerson as Justin Shreeve clowns around behind the car…
Hey guys, my name is Lambert and I'm a new Motormavens photographer. I would explain what I like, hobbies, photography, etc but in a little later! Right now I want to talk about Riverside, California's Adams Drift Track.
There are Time Attack and Drifting sessions EVERY WEEK. Time attack are on Tuesdays @6pm-9pm; Drifting are on Thursdays @6pm-9pm.
The track is originally called "Adams Go-Kart Track" but ever since Thursday Drift Nights became popular, the name "Adams Drift Track" took over.
You can legally drift on their 3/4 of a mile, 14 turns paved race circuit.
Keyword: "LEGAL!"
It's about time there are people who are making drifting safe and legal. Motorsport photographers and videographers can also practice their skills here too but with a price. Read more...
Wow. Formula Drift at Las Vegas Motor Speedway was sooooo HOT. Ridiculously hot. Intensely hot. We just got back to Los Angeles, after an eight hour excursion, creeping at around 10mph in traffic-swamped freeway lanes all the way back to Southern California. This being said, we aren’t posting up our event story just yet… everyone in our group is about to pass out from the heat and exhaustion.
However, we just wanted to take a minute to congratulate Tyler McQuarrie on his First Place victory in Las Vegas! In case you weren’t following the Formula D Driftstream, Team Falken emerged victorious, with an all-Falken podium sweep once again, with Tyler McQuarrie bringing home First Place, Daijiro Yoshihara winning Second Place, and Vaughn Gittin Jr taking home Third Place.
We’d also like to welcome Las Vegas-based photographer Farrel Dee to the Motor Mavens Crew! We’ll let him write up a proper introduction later, but for now, we’d like to invite YOU to upload your Formula D Las Vegas and Vegas Pro Am photos to the MotorMavens Forums! We saw a lot of people shooting photos this weekend, and we’d love to see your photos with links to your website and/or Flickr pages! Post them up so everyone can see!
That’s it for now… sleep calls! However, don’t worry… we’ll be back very soon with our photos and observations from Formula D Las Vegas!
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAhahahahahahhaha Right now it’s almost 3:00am Pacific Standard Time, and I’m getting ready to go to Formula D Las Vegas. At the same time, I’ve been working with our Art Director/Webmaster extraordinaireAndy Sapp on choosing layout options for a cool client project that we’ll be revealing on MotorMavens very soon.
We’re kind of stumped on what to do right now, so I thought I’d cruise through his personal blog and see if any good ideas popped into my head. Suddenly, I stumbled upon this photo, which seriously had me laughing out loud. Dude. I think this photo is HELLA funny! If you read through Andy’s blog, he was writing about how he was washing his E46 before Formula D Atlanta, and then got into a friendly water balloon fight with some of the neighborhood kids… but damn! It looks to me like the neighborhood kids won this particular round!
I especially LOVE the expression on the kid’s face. It looks like in his head, he’s thinking, “Boo-yaaaa! Take THAT, sucka!” LOL! (Sorry Andy. This was just too hilarious for me NOT to share.)
Ever since I posted up the link to our forums, inviting people to post up their photos from Nisei Showoff, our readers have been posting up tons and tons of photos that they took at this past weekend's show in Little Tokyo. The response has been AWESOME. Although I wish more people would actually take the time to write captions to the photos and whatnot, even just seeing the show through their eyes is really cool, and I appreciate everyone who posted up their pics!
Now it's time for me to get back in the swing of things, and publish more of my own photos from Nisei. Since I was pretty busy helping some of our new crew members get started in doing event coverage at Nisei, I didn't actually start walking around to take photos until later in the afternoon.
At the end of Nisei Showoff, Ken Miyoshi always asks me to emcee the awards ceremony. It's always a good time giving out the trophies to the car owners, but sometimes I'm not sure which cars I'm giving awards to, because it's not like people drive their cars up to get their trophies or anything. Either way, the big trophies go to the cars that the Showoff judges deem to be the best, but to be honest, I have a different scale of measuring how dope a car is. That being said, I suppose getting a photo-feature on MotorMavens is my way of pointing out my favorite cars at the show. Drumroll please... Let's begin. Read more...
I just saw this link on Twitter and had to post up this video because this is exactly what our Formula D Las Vegas trips are like. (Well actually, on our trips, you have to add in stops at the Adidas/Nike outlets, Sapphire’s, Glitter Gulch, The Rio Seafood Buffet and The Get Back hip hop/funk/soul party in old town Vegas.)
Big ups to Jarod DeAnda and Andy Laputka for shooting this stuff and posting it up so quickly, before the Formula D Las Vegas event. I always love visiting the Undefeated Las Vegas shop too. Seeing this blend of fashion and cars is pretty cool. Actually, come to think about it… this is exactly what we do when we go to ALL the different stops on the Formula D tour. Fly in, hit up our favorite gear spots and grub spots, then go to the track…
Mannnnn… following up on the cool video that 0-60 Magazine‘s Alex Bernstein shot of Nakai san‘s Rauh Welt Porsches cruising through the highways of Japan, one of the friends of the MotorMavens Crew, fellow Japanophile Edwin Reyes from NYC sent me this video through our Facebook page.
For those who haven’t heard of the Wangan Midnight comic book in Japan, it stars a certain S30 240Z and tells exciting stories of Japanese highway (wangan) battles with other high speed streetcars. I think the Wangan Midnight live action movie looks pretty cool – in fact, I can’t wait to see the entire thing. Hopefully someone has a torrent of it somewhere that they’d like to share? If you have it, let me know please!
It’s too bad NBC Universal didn’t make their Fast&Furious movies into something more like this. Movies like this would be off the hook! In fact, watching this makes me want to drive a black JZA70 or JZA80 Supra on the highway right nowwwwww!!! Or a Porsche GT3RS! Or an R34 Skyline GT-R V-Spec… Or… (What else?)
I'm sure many will agree with me when I say that I'm glad that the City of Los Angeles didn't complete its bulldozing and reconstruction project surrounding Downtown LA's newly built Alameda Street train station... this allowed Ken Miyoshi and hisImport Showoff crew to continue their tradition of throwing the Nisei Showoff in the heart of Little Tokyo. According to Ken, this year marked the 10 Year Anniversary of the Nisei Showoff, which always took place in conjunction with the historic Nisei Week Festival in Little Tokyo, celebrating the culture of second generation Japanese living in the United States.
This year, there were a ton of new cars that made their debut at the show, and several regulars that received makeovers. According to Ken Miyoshi, one of the things that has always separated Nisei Showoff from the other carshows is the face that Showoff has a really qualified panel of carshow judges who really have expertise in the automotive aftermarket. Nisei Showoff's judges include people who have a background of working with companies like HKS, Blitz, Toyota, and places like that. This may be a major differentiation factor to some people, but to me, it's completely different.
Nisei Showoff just has a particular vibe to it. It starts early in the morning, in the exciting hustle and bustle of the competitor load-in, as the cars form ridiculously long lines, jamming up the streets of Little Tokyo as they wait for the show staff to let them in the gate and park at their assigned spaces. It continues throughout the day, as the noontime sun heats up the entire place, and you get to bump into old friends and catch up on the things that are going on in everyone's busy lives. For me, the excitement continues on to the late afternoon too, as I complete my rounds through the show and stop by the cars that catch my eye, making new friends and checking out all the subtle things that everyone has done to their cars. Probably the most fun thing about Nisei Showoff (for me at least) is the fact that Ken Miyoshi has asked me to be the official emcee for the awards ceremony. I've been doing this for the past three (or four?) years now... and that part is really fun, because you get to see what the owners of the cars look like, as they come up and receive their trophy at the stage. Read more...
