VIDEO> Drifting the UK’s Mallory Park Circuit!
Before you watch this video allow me to give you a little back story…
Mallory Park Circuit has been one of the more recent tracks to open it’s arms to drifting in the UK and has been holding drift days for the past few months. From checking out some photos and reading threads on few a internet forums, it looked and sounded like it was a pretty cool setup. So about a month ago JDM Allstars driver Dan Chapman contacted me and invited me to go to Mallory Park with him to see what all the hype was about! Dan was also bringing along his Driftworks PS13, as it was a long time since he last went drifting somewhere that wasn’t related to competitions. With the trailer loaded and our gear ready we headed up to Mallory for a chilled out day of drifting!
I wasn’t really sure what to expect but when we arrived it was a pleasant surprise. The place was far bigger than I thought and with the first thing I saw being a V8 powered E30 BMW and a little KP61 Toyota Starlet hammering down the main straight, it seemed damn fast as well! As with a lot of days in the UK the rain clouds reared their ugly heads later on during the day and made an already extreme track even more so with plenty of rain, which meant people took things a little slower… until Drift Australia 2009 champion Luke Fink rocked up that is. Managing to borrow another driver’s JZX90 Toyota Cresta for a few laps, Luke showed us how to rip the track up good with some fast-as-hell entries! (more…)
COVERAGE> JDM Allstars Rd. 1 – Manchester, UK
Like Wembley and Newcastle before, the track would be a street based circuit in one of the overflow car parks outside the Trafford Centre , a shopping centre that looks like a cross between the inside of the Titanic, Ancient Rome and a giant US mall! When I arrived on Friday, I was blown away by the scale of the track and surrounding area. I had a feeling, with all the hype and build up, that the empty space I was looking at would be packed over the weekend!
Saturday morning came and it was looking like my feelings would be proven right. With the track ready, the crowds pouring in, and a whole heap of new cars, practice got under way. So here's a few photos from day one of a truly awesome drift event... Read more...
CENTER STAGE> Now That's Ameen MX83 Cressida
Since Ameen and his Cressida were busy doing another shoot on the Irwindale banking on the actual day of the Pro Am, I asked Ameen if he'd be down to meet up with me and the other members of the Motor Mavens Crew the following day. Ameen and his brother Amir graciously obliged, and decided meet up with us for a late, late breakfast at Flappy Jack's on Route 66 in Glendora CA, with a whole bunch of other trucks from Texas with drift cars in tow not too far behind.
Those of us who have been following the drifting scene pretty closely have known about Ameen and his Cressida for quite some time now. After all, it's not often you see a four door, non-240SX rise up through the ranks of grassroots drifting competition in the USA. Wait a minute... but Ameen did drive a 240SX. To clarify things, Ameen used to drive an S13, but when he first began drifting in 2001, he was doing it in a Mk3 Toyota Supra (MA70). Since he started out in a Supra, it was only natural that he would become enamored of Toyota's mighty 1JZGTE straight-six engine, which came as stock in the Japan-market JZA70 Supra Turbo. Well, that and he blew up a ton of US-market 7MGE engines when he was trying to use them for drifting. Bad idea. 7MGE engines are notorious like BIG for blowing head gaskets, overheating, and cracking the stupid OEM plastic intake piping. Just like Biggie, they're ready to die.
So if he started out with a Toyota Supra, why move to a four door family car like a Cressida one might ask..? Well, when Ameen was doing research on building his MA70 Supra, he discovered that the chassis of the MA70 Supra and MX83 Cressida were extremely similar, and many of the engine and suspension parts were the same as well. The tipping point was when Ameen saw an internet clip of D1 driver Tsuyoshi Tezuka's JZX81 Chaser. "When I saw Tezuka's 81 on the internet," Ameen explains, "that's when I knew I was gonna build up a Cressida for sure." Read more...
WEBMINING> Diary of a Serial Tire Killer
Motor Mavens has never really featured any “build videos” on the site before, but today as I was browsing the internet looking for information about MX83 Cressidas, 5-speed swaps, and 1JZ swaps… I found this video, from the Serial Nine guys in Canada. This has GOT to be the most entertaining, amateur made “build video” I’ve ever seen. Yep, gotta love those amateur videos. Wait… what? Oh… umm, well I mean the video is informative, but it’s funny at the same time! The Serial Nine crew definitely looks like they’d be fun to kick it with.
So what do you guys think…? Some of us were thinking of having a little fun by building a Motor Mavens project car on a BUDGET. Ideally, the car would be inexpensive and also daily drivable on the street without much hassle from cops. Just brainstorming, some of us were talking about maybe building an FC or an S13… but this video is sparking some MX83 dreams… what do you guys think? MX83 build? Yay or nay?
:: Motor Mavens
The Beginning of SERIALNINE. from SERIALNINE on Vimeo.
WEBMINING> Bosozoku Donuts
Shark noses, crazy multi-pipe exhausts, fender mirrors, crazy paint jobs, loud exhaust tones, small/wide wheels with stretched tires, custom rear wings and sideskirts… and a whole lot of fun! This is what attracts us to these Bosozoku/Yanki style cars!
When I first saw these cars, I didn’t really like them because the crazy paint and body and exhausts weren’t my style at the time… but I’ve honestly grown to love these types of cars a lot! After all, this is authentic Japanese car culture at its finest…
I’m not sure where this video was shot, but it looks a lot like Ebisu West course. For more info and photos of these types of cars, make sure to check out Banpei‘s website, BosozokuStyle! I hope you have a few hours to kill, because I couldn’t stop going through all the pages on his blog! AWESOME.
:: Antonio Alvendia
