COVERAGE> Formula Drift New Jersey Preview!
As I sit at my desk late into the night and write this, most of the people that have gathered at Wall Speedway for the New Jersey round of Formula Drift are probably sleeping... that is, unless they're doing some late night wrenching on their cars! I had some other commitments here in Los Angeles that prevented me from making it out to Jersey this year, but luckily for us, we have our sharpshooter Larry Chen planted in the middle of the Wall Speedway punchbowl shooting coverage. (Damn, speaking of punchbowl, I just realized I'm missing out on the outstanding fruit punch at WaWa in New Jersey... and good times with our Dirty Jersey crew, the Eat Sleep Race family!)
We're excited to report that some new cars were debuted at Wall Speedway Read more...
We're excited to report that some new cars were debuted at Wall Speedway Read more...
COVERAGE> More World Time Attack from OZ!
Day two of free practice for the World Time Attack Challenge saw a host of various cars come out to tempt their fate at Sydney Australia's Eastern Creek Raceway. Competition begins tomorrow... are all the challengers ready for the heat of timed competition?
Most of the cars on the track were the competitors for the WTAC, but since it was technically an open practice drive day, several non-competing cars were also out on the track. Let's take a look at some of the cars on the circuit from today! Read more...
Most of the cars on the track were the competitors for the WTAC, but since it was technically an open practice drive day, several non-competing cars were also out on the track. Let's take a look at some of the cars on the circuit from today! Read more...
COVERAGE> World Time Attack Challenge Practice
The World Time Attack Challenge has arrived. Sydney, Australia plays host to some of the greatest time attack cars from around the world. The hype leading up to this event has been huge here in Australia, with some of the world's greatest time attack cars set to battle it out on Sydney's Eastern Creek Raceway. Here is the run down from today's practice session... Read more...
COVERAGE> Insider’s Look: Formula D Atlanta Pt.1
Even though everyone else in the United States is still feeling the effects of the country's economic slump, I'm happy to observe and report that the Formula Drift series has been growing! Not only have new non-endemic (non-automotive) sponsors joined the series for 2010, but the attendance at both the Long Beach and Atlanta rounds of Formula Drift have been out of control, with seats completely packed! I'm really amazed to think that I've been watching Formula D grow into a stronger and stronger series from the very beginning. I've been traveling to all these events and documenting the growth of the series ever since it started out, with it's inaugural round in Atlanta in 2004. Formula Drift, you've come a long way, baby.
Not only has the series progressed businesswise, but the media outlets, drivers, and cars have all been stepping their game up to become more powerful, making Formula Drift a serious force to be reckoned with, on a worldwide stage. I bet the people who run the D1GP series in Japan are thinking, "Damn yo! That could have been us!" (Although they probably wouldn't be saying it in those words.)
Enough of my theory and random thoughts on the state of drifting in America though... let's get down to business! After all, the reason why people come to MotorMavens is because they like our taste in cars! So let's get down to it - our first installment of my insider's look at Formula D Atlanta. Let's go! Read more...
Not only has the series progressed businesswise, but the media outlets, drivers, and cars have all been stepping their game up to become more powerful, making Formula Drift a serious force to be reckoned with, on a worldwide stage. I bet the people who run the D1GP series in Japan are thinking, "Damn yo! That could have been us!" (Although they probably wouldn't be saying it in those words.)
Enough of my theory and random thoughts on the state of drifting in America though... let's get down to business! After all, the reason why people come to MotorMavens is because they like our taste in cars! So let's get down to it - our first installment of my insider's look at Formula D Atlanta. Let's go! Read more...
COVERAGE> Formula D Fun at Long Beach
I know, everyone has been waiting to see our first installment of Formula D Long Beach pics. So have I! We just had to get some other deadlines out of the way before we could begin posting our images from this weekend's Formula Drift event on the Streets of Long Beach!
This past weekend was certainly an exciting one. I was excited to see all the new cars that were debuting at Long Beach, as well as seeing a lot of good friends from different parts of the world, even if it would be only for a brief moment. Unfortunately, when you're working at the event like I am, you're usually hustling about, going from one spot to the next, and you don't have as much time as you'd like to just chill and spend time with good friends. This event was definitely like that for me.
I was trying to juggle shooting photos for the website while overseeing the Motor Mavens Crew's event promotions efforts. Not an easy task! Also, on the Saturday of the event, I was asked to help out with the filming of The Grid, which is a UK-based motorsports television show that airs in 120 countries around the world! And... on top of all that, we debuted the new MotorMavens X DSTROYR "Follow The Leader" shirt at our booth, which was managed by super designer Jon Chase, the creative genius behind the brands DSTROYR and Famous Stars and Straps. I and the entire Motor Mavens Crew definitely had our hustle mode switched ON this weekend! Read more...
This past weekend was certainly an exciting one. I was excited to see all the new cars that were debuting at Long Beach, as well as seeing a lot of good friends from different parts of the world, even if it would be only for a brief moment. Unfortunately, when you're working at the event like I am, you're usually hustling about, going from one spot to the next, and you don't have as much time as you'd like to just chill and spend time with good friends. This event was definitely like that for me.
I was trying to juggle shooting photos for the website while overseeing the Motor Mavens Crew's event promotions efforts. Not an easy task! Also, on the Saturday of the event, I was asked to help out with the filming of The Grid, which is a UK-based motorsports television show that airs in 120 countries around the world! And... on top of all that, we debuted the new MotorMavens X DSTROYR "Follow The Leader" shirt at our booth, which was managed by super designer Jon Chase, the creative genius behind the brands DSTROYR and Famous Stars and Straps. I and the entire Motor Mavens Crew definitely had our hustle mode switched ON this weekend! Read more...
COVERAGE> Top Speed At The Texas Mile
What's up, MotorMavens readers! Before I proceed with the coverage, I'll go ahead and introduce myself. My name is James Evins, and I'm a photographer from Houston, Texas. Like many of you, I've always been a big fan of MotorMavens. When Antonio first approached me about contributing to the site, I jumped at the opportunity. I'm definitely excited to give you guys an inside look at whats going on here in Texas!
This past weekend, I found myself waking up to my alarm at 4:00 AM. After hitting the snooze button about ten times, I finally woke up and dressed and packed my car. I departed before sunrise, making my way out to I-59 and heading South.
Three hours later, I found the "exit" I was looking for - a small, country road with a sign nearby reading, "Goliad Airport." I had arrived at The Texas Mile. As I entered the airport and made my way around the small, rundown control tower I saw the venue sprawled out before me – hundreds of trailers, campers, cars, and bikes spread out across a mile long strip of runway! Read more...
This past weekend, I found myself waking up to my alarm at 4:00 AM. After hitting the snooze button about ten times, I finally woke up and dressed and packed my car. I departed before sunrise, making my way out to I-59 and heading South.
Three hours later, I found the "exit" I was looking for - a small, country road with a sign nearby reading, "Goliad Airport." I had arrived at The Texas Mile. As I entered the airport and made my way around the small, rundown control tower I saw the venue sprawled out before me – hundreds of trailers, campers, cars, and bikes spread out across a mile long strip of runway! Read more...
COVERAGE> Redline Time Attack at Buttonwillow
Many automotive media outlets, drivers and teams traveled out to Buttonwillow Raceway this weekend for Round 1 of the 2010 Redline Time Attack Series. I've been so pre-occupied with other projects that I almost screwed up and forgot that Redline was this past weekend, but luckily I received a friendly reminder about the event from Brandon Scarpelli from WebRidesTV! If it weren't for Brandon, I probably would have spaced out and forgotten about it - and that wouldn't have been a good thing!
I drove up to Buttonwillow with Edward Uche and his boy Asim; both of them FC3S RX7 owners hoping to see some rotary goodness out at the track. When we arrived, we split up so they could check out the Mazdatrix RX8, while I stopped in to check out Chris Rado's World Racing Scion TC.
There has been a lot of controversy (including some trash talking and hating) surrounding Chris's Scion TC. I've read some comments on the internet that bashed this car, hating on the usage of the huge front wing. I gotta admit, it does look a bit crazy, but as long as I've known him (10 years I think), Chris Rado has always been a bit of a crazy individual. He's a forward thinking, rule-breaking person that's always trying to dream up some new sort of innovation for his car. I remember back in 2000, we were hanging out at the SEMA "International Auto Salon" in Pomona, and he was telling me about how he installed videocameras on the back of his JZA80 Supra turbo with a small video screen inside the car. I thought it was a pretty crazy thing to do back then, but now it's commonplace on OEM cars.
This being said, when Rado says that having a big ass F-Wing on the front of his Scion TC really helps the performance of his car, I believe him. Of course there are critics out there who say it looks dumb, but remember... people said the same thing about putting wheelie bars on front wheel drive drag cars, but it has been proven to work.
At the end of the day, numbers talk. Chris drove his F-Wing fighter and ended up breaking his own course record at Buttonwillow, winning top honors in the Super Modified Front Wheel Drive Class with a time of 1:46.736. Read more...
There has been a lot of controversy (including some trash talking and hating) surrounding Chris's Scion TC. I've read some comments on the internet that bashed this car, hating on the usage of the huge front wing. I gotta admit, it does look a bit crazy, but as long as I've known him (10 years I think), Chris Rado has always been a bit of a crazy individual. He's a forward thinking, rule-breaking person that's always trying to dream up some new sort of innovation for his car. I remember back in 2000, we were hanging out at the SEMA "International Auto Salon" in Pomona, and he was telling me about how he installed videocameras on the back of his JZA80 Supra turbo with a small video screen inside the car. I thought it was a pretty crazy thing to do back then, but now it's commonplace on OEM cars.
This being said, when Rado says that having a big ass F-Wing on the front of his Scion TC really helps the performance of his car, I believe him. Of course there are critics out there who say it looks dumb, but remember... people said the same thing about putting wheelie bars on front wheel drive drag cars, but it has been proven to work.
At the end of the day, numbers talk. Chris drove his F-Wing fighter and ended up breaking his own course record at Buttonwillow, winning top honors in the Super Modified Front Wheel Drive Class with a time of 1:46.736. Read more...
COVERAGE> Wekfest Weekend in J-Town SF, Pt.2
For the second installment of the MotorMavens coverage from my trip to the San Francisco Bay Area last weekend, we'll take a look inside the Wekfest itself. For those who really couldn't wait, I'm sure you could have just Googled "Wekfest" and found a bunch of Flickr pages and other galleries with random photos from inside the show.
However, our story is going to be a bit different, because I'm not planning to post up photos of every single car (250+ for sure) at the show. Instead, I'm only going to focus on the cars that caught my eye; the cars that either had the best style, or cars that had something different going for them, which piqued my interest. After all, I've been lucky enough to have attended a LOT of car shows and a LOT of racing events all over the world. This being said, seeing the same old thing over and over can get kind of dreary at times; not to worry though - the cars at the Wekfest definitely had flavor.
The dimly lit parking structure in Japantown San Francisco that served as the venue for the event might not have had the best looking "background" or ambiance for photography, but it was filled with some of the West Coast's best looking cars, so we'll just let those shine through...
Up above, the entrance to the underground parking structure was packed with cars and spectators... I was surprised that the City of San Francisco allowed that many people in a place that had so few exits! Nevertheless, the show had a good vibe to it... at times, it kind of reminded me of what it felt like to be in the parking structure scenes when I was on set shooting NBC Universal's Fast & Furious 3 Tokyo Drift movie... if only you replaced the Japanese (and Japanese-looking Chinese, let's be honest here) cast members with a bunch of young Filipinos, Chinese, and Vietnamese car owners. LOL Read more...
However, our story is going to be a bit different, because I'm not planning to post up photos of every single car (250+ for sure) at the show. Instead, I'm only going to focus on the cars that caught my eye; the cars that either had the best style, or cars that had something different going for them, which piqued my interest. After all, I've been lucky enough to have attended a LOT of car shows and a LOT of racing events all over the world. This being said, seeing the same old thing over and over can get kind of dreary at times; not to worry though - the cars at the Wekfest definitely had flavor.
The dimly lit parking structure in Japantown San Francisco that served as the venue for the event might not have had the best looking "background" or ambiance for photography, but it was filled with some of the West Coast's best looking cars, so we'll just let those shine through...
Up above, the entrance to the underground parking structure was packed with cars and spectators... I was surprised that the City of San Francisco allowed that many people in a place that had so few exits! Nevertheless, the show had a good vibe to it... at times, it kind of reminded me of what it felt like to be in the parking structure scenes when I was on set shooting NBC Universal's Fast & Furious 3 Tokyo Drift movie... if only you replaced the Japanese (and Japanese-looking Chinese, let's be honest here) cast members with a bunch of young Filipinos, Chinese, and Vietnamese car owners. LOL Read more...
COVERAGE> San Francisco Auto Show 2009
I got a call from the Extreme Autofest folks asking me if I want to show one of my cars again at the annual San Francisco International Auto Show at the Moscone Center this year. The only problem was that my FD3S RX7 was still unavailable because we were still working on getting it back from the Brahma Light Drift Track Opening in the Dominican Republic.
Since the FD wasn't back in San Francisco yet, I figured it would be a good chance to debut my RHD S14 and display it at this week-long show so I could show some love to my sponsors. Read more...
Since the FD wasn't back in San Francisco yet, I figured it would be a good chance to debut my RHD S14 and display it at this week-long show so I could show some love to my sponsors. Read more...
COVERAGE> Nisei Showoff Grand Finale Part 2
It has been a very long and busy week for those of us working on the Motor Mavens project! We're an extremely small staff, but we've been keeping ourselves real busy with back to back meetings and photo shoots! We have also spent quite a bit of time this week on planning out the next stages of development for the website. We have a few new contributors coming on board, so the next few months will be very exciting!
So let's get back to our Showoff photos. Although Import Showoff was founded way back in 1994, with the first event held in March of 1995, the first actual Nisei Showoff didn't take place until 2000. As Showoff founder Ken Miyoshi explains it, "the people that organized the Nisei Week festivities in Downtown LA's Little Tokyo wanted to bring enthusiasm from younger people back into the Nisei Week Festival, so I decided to work with them by throwing the first Nisei Showoff."
"Back then, all the JA (Japanese-American) guys with dope cars used to go to OCBC (Orange County Buddhist Church) during their Hanamatsuri (Flower Festival) and cruise with their friends," Ken continues, "This was also happening in Little Tokyo; there always used to be a carnival in the original Nisei Showoff parking lot location (2nd Street and San Pedro) and a parade as well. People from the carnival used to chill out on the curb, and wait for all the fixed up cars to cruise through Little Tokyo. Back in the day, we used to see crews like Black Magic from SGV (all black cars with different types of SSRs; SSR Superfins, Supermesh, Neos, Work Emotion, Gale Racing, Bang Vecs), Shoreline Racing (old school Toyota guys from Gardena/Torrance area), NRG from Cerritos, Split Second from Carson area, Redline Racing from the San Fernando Valley, and a whole lot of others." Read more...
So let's get back to our Showoff photos. Although Import Showoff was founded way back in 1994, with the first event held in March of 1995, the first actual Nisei Showoff didn't take place until 2000. As Showoff founder Ken Miyoshi explains it, "the people that organized the Nisei Week festivities in Downtown LA's Little Tokyo wanted to bring enthusiasm from younger people back into the Nisei Week Festival, so I decided to work with them by throwing the first Nisei Showoff."
"Back then, all the JA (Japanese-American) guys with dope cars used to go to OCBC (Orange County Buddhist Church) during their Hanamatsuri (Flower Festival) and cruise with their friends," Ken continues, "This was also happening in Little Tokyo; there always used to be a carnival in the original Nisei Showoff parking lot location (2nd Street and San Pedro) and a parade as well. People from the carnival used to chill out on the curb, and wait for all the fixed up cars to cruise through Little Tokyo. Back in the day, we used to see crews like Black Magic from SGV (all black cars with different types of SSRs; SSR Superfins, Supermesh, Neos, Work Emotion, Gale Racing, Bang Vecs), Shoreline Racing (old school Toyota guys from Gardena/Torrance area), NRG from Cerritos, Split Second from Carson area, Redline Racing from the San Fernando Valley, and a whole lot of others." Read more...
