Formula D Tech Day 2014

Soooooo every year, just before the season opening Formula D event in Long Beach, CA, a local magazine publisher (primedia) opens their doors (and parking lot) to a car show and event where fans and others can congregate and show off their own rides, as well as be some of the first to witness this years batch of competitor offerings. Some of these skid chariots are carry-overs from last year, some are brand new entries, but i don't think i saw a single one that hadn't been re-vamped and re-molded from its prior form. Some new trends are poking their heads up, one of which is the mexiflush look modeled by Odi Bakchis. Apparently emulating a fwd drag car is now the thing to do in FD. Ryan Teurck and a few others are also following suit.

The car show always has some interesting folks show up, this year appeared to be "year of the puppy", as there was no shortage of canines cruising about, equally eager to check out the lot (or perhaps just excited at all the tires to pee on!). Either way, the event is an interesting one to check out, free to the public (as long as you behave and don't attract the attention of the gestapo Irvine PD!) and there are a number of food trucks to keep us all from starving.

I didn't shoot much this year. I found myself spending most of the time catching up with familiar faces, but I did find a few cars i thought interesting enough to snap at.

Link to full gallery here
https://www.facebook.com/emerson.finepants/media_set?set=a.10151928242166595.1073741840.598386594&type=1

Amazing R33 Gtr, with plenty of tasteful mods, including Nismo wheels, lip. carbon rear spoiler, and many others. This car is spotless and a perfect example of top level tuning.

One of the Kenda Tires/Ark Hyundai Genesis. I'm not sure if this one was Mertzanis' or not, Kenda is fielding two Genesis this season, with similar exteriors, but wildly different engine setups. If you attend FDLB you'll see and hear what I mean!

Dave Briggs hauled his S14 all the way from Toronto, Canada, and showed us all his new vinyl graphics scheme. If you don't know, he runs a Mazworx 2.4l Sr20VE-t engine setup that is well into the 800HP range!!! It revs like a 3-rotor and sounds like carnage!!!

While i'm not the biggest honda head, this pristine S2K caught my attention immediately. The cream white color was quite a sight, almost a bit tan, but very very appealing. The quality of this build is clearly top notch!

Ego stroking.

Last weekend was All Star Bash (ASB). 
Normally ASB is a very grassroots event, filled with stylish cars, and drivers out just to have fun.
This year, I feel that it has transformed into no longer being a grassroots event. There were far too many 18wheeler trailers and v8  Formula D pro level and pro-am cars to be considered grassroots.
My opinion is that AMERICAN "drifting" is now more closely aligned with monster trucks than the elegant dance it once began as. 

BUT. 

The event is still fun, Charlie and the JustDrift staff put together a great time, and its always a blast to get to drift STREETS. I met some awesome people this year, and got to spend time with many of my really close friends.

So........ Since the event has been much more thoroughly covered on speedhunters, wrecked, amdrift, and so on, I'm just going to skip to the really important parts.

Pix of my car. 
(I'm glad the color of the car doesn't really show just how dirty it was!!! Go off track just once or twice and you'll be cleaning half the desert out of your interior!)

USAir with Risky Devil x Junkhouse 4/28/13 (ON TRACK ACTION)

Now for the goodness.
Skid racing.
USAir has a fantastic layout with some very interesting elevation changes. The beginners section was pretty basic, so we won't go into it, but the advance section starts down hill, slight curve right and then the first corner is up over a crest and completely blind after that. Takes some stones to even get started. Most of the drivers appeared to be comfortable with it.
SC-chassis lexus gettin down

Josh, breaking into it.

Bagged BRZ defying convention

Its really hard not to love the way an is300 looks sliding sideways.

Country boys and girls gettin down on the farm

Hot looking s13.5 on 19s
even with an LS and super negative camber he was having trouble linking smoothly.

Touge Factory 6666 Rocket Bunny s13 coupe

T2 was gettin deep in it.

Risky Train

These things just look so fun on a track. AJ and Josh.

Case in point.

USAir with Risky Devil x Junkhouse 4/28/13 (Pit Walk)

So I've been in Chicago for a month now, working. Nothing exciting much happens when you're putting in 70-80+ hours a week on night shift, but the one opportunity I had was an unexpected sunday off, which meant a chance to take the 4.5 hour drive up to Shawano, WI, home of USAir Raceway. Josh from Risky Devil had keyed me in that they were having an open drift day and I just had to see it for myself. The drive is boring, I get lost often (for this I blame Apple maps) and there were a few road closures to deal with, but I did make it up in time to see the majority of the days

action. The scenery around the area is quite a change from what I'm used to in SoCal. I'm used to balcony and streets of willow, where the backdrop is dirt and rocks and rocks and dirt.

The weather was perfect. Mild, light breeze, sunny.
So heres some photos.

Josh's new BRZ. Looking nice on some advans and works. 

Ikeya Formula? Rare to see this!!! Koguchi Style!!!

Glad I'm not victor.

Air'd out.

The local LS-swap club.

Infamous Touge Factory 6666 Rocket Bunny s13 Coupe

Tim Tulov sneakin into the frame

 Risky Devil. Legendary street runners

Fuck Junkhouse?

Chicago likes to put nissan engines in E30 chassis.

Sex Pile

Nismos. Hot Fiyah.

Gorgeous FC with excellent wheel selection
Paint had a beautiful pearl to it as well.

Tuh-tuh-tuckin 19s.

Next post: ON TRACK ACTION

FRANKENTRUCK LIVES

Ok, i'm too lazy to copy/paste all the photos/info, but this is one of the projects i've been balls deep in for the last few months.

link to complete build thread
http://www.infamousnissan.com/forum/showthread.php?t=23345