RPM Addicts

Food Truck Meet

2011-03-14T23:53:00.001-07:00

The new hot trendy trend appears to be food trucks. The idea is to sample new, tasty cuisine without the stuffy restraunt environment. Lately, some organizers have gotten together to combine the fanboy antics of import car meets with the fat kid antics of greasy food-off-trucks to make the latest craze in what to do on weeknights, the food truck meet.

Looks pretty tasty doesn't it? Well, you're going to have to wait in line.....

But if you're lucky, you run into old friends, like drifting Kat!

What my living room table usually looks like.

Cars and Coffee

2011-03-13T17:03:00.000-07:00

Ok, so its been over a year since I've posted. A lot has happed since then, some good, some bad, and some life changing. One of those things is my addiction to Call of Duty but that's an entirely different story. Anyhow for years, I've been wanting to attend "Cars and Coffee" but could never drag myself out of bed early enough to do so. I finally was able to drag myself out of bed, and met up with Johny Mac to check this local favorite out. Needless to say, it was a lot of fun. I'll try to keep my photos of a slightly different variety, as people tend to post the same cars over and over again. Hopefully, my eye for car flavor isn't the norm.

Oh, and thanks to May I got a new camera for my birthday!

Mini. Very mini. the owner literally brought exactly what he needed for the meet, and that's it. Mostly because nothing else will fit inside the trunk.

I keep telling myself that someday, I'll own a 911. When I see fine examples like this 70's Carrera, I feel that day can't come soon enough. The hue of green, the classic lines, oh how have I survived without one?

I'm sure you've all seen Viper ACR's. Yes they're badass. Yes they have over 600 horsepower. What's more interesting is this cool sticker the owner had on the rear wing.

In my fantasy garage, I'm a private investigator. I've got a moustache. I've got an endless collection of Hawaiian shirts, and I basically cruise Hawaii all day chasin' tail and solving crimes. The last accessory needed for this lifestyle is the 308 GTS above.

I'm sure you see E46 M3's every day, but very few have the nice wheel fittment and heigh as this one.

Aother classic Carrerra, AC Cobra (kit car?) and an S2000. Such a nice variety.

I leave you with one of the nices restored interiors I saw that day.This was from inside a 1969 Shelby Cobra GT500, signed by the man himself. I guess I should have had Keiichi sign my dash when D1 still came here. Maybe next time!

My Helmet

2010-01-06T21:15:00.000-08:00

Anybody that knows me understands that I'm a total racing gear whore. I love the baller stuff. Once you start doing enough track days you reason to yourself that its worth it to buy really good stuff, but part of the appeal is that you've got something cool, you can show it off.

I had been rocking an open faced helmet for a few years, and it had served me well. It was a great gift from my sister for Christmas about five years ago, and I wore it through most of my early years in road race and open track events. Even did 2 rounds of 24 Hours of LeMons in it! I was starting to want a closed face helmet to use at drift events since debris would always get in my eyes. I still use the open faced one for hot days, but decided to invest in something high quality and of a closed face design. Shortly there after, I purchased a Bell K1 Sport.

Ever since I became interested in world motor sports, I've been fascinated with driver's custom suits and helmets. I've always wanted something to help put me apart from the rest (how many G-Force white helmets do you see at the track?) and also something that was custom. I like to integrate styling from different car cultures, and often times look to things far from drifting and typical racing to get inspiration. I started looking around and ended up viewing some hot rod photos with pinstriping. The only helmets I saw were for bikers, and were essentially small, skull cap type helmets. This is when I decided that I wanted a pinstripe job as well as some sort of hot-rod influence on my motor sport helmet.

After lots of internet research, I found a sample photo of exactly what I wanted. That sample photo came from Sam Boeger's website, www.bogies.biz. She's an amazingly talented artist, and also in California. Check out her pinstriping photos to see what photo I'm talking about! Anyhow after a few emails back and fourth with a rough outline of what I was looking for, I had shipped the helmet to her and she began work. What you see is the finished product:

As you can see here, there's a fully detailed pinstriping job running over the top of the helmet with a pretty aggressive design.

After I saw it on her website, I knew I had to have this chick on my helmet. Part of its appeal to me is the hot-rod style, and also another influence came from drag racing. Drag-racing guys love to have chicks on their helmets. Its difficult to see, but the "tramp stamp" on her back says "The big Korean". Yeah, that's me.

You'll also notice the name near the front chin area. That's just straight up from racing. If you've got a custom helmet, its got to have your name on it somehow!

I also loved the color combination she used to achieve a sort of neon effect. It constrats nicely with a dark helmet. Now I've got to just get my iriduim visor and I'm done!

Anyhow come say "hi" sometime at a track event if you'd like to take a look at it. I highly recommend Sam's work to any of you out there looking for custom work on, well, just about anything! She does more than just pinstripe too, if you wanted something else done. Anyhow, I hope more of you start doing custom cool stuff too!

Reflection

2009-12-17T15:37:00.000-08:00

So, 2009 is coming to a close. I wanted to take the time to reflect on a few things that happened through the year. For me, this year was pretty big in terms of my growth as an automotive enthusiast but more specifically, as a driver.

After spending the past 2-3 years concentrating solely on grip driving, I decided to embark on drifting a lot more about a year ago. I think I only did about 2 grip events this year, while all the rest were drifting events (easily 10 or more in total). I think I got a lot better throughout the year, thanks to help from people like Filipino Alex, Hawaiian Alex, Andy, Johnny Mac, Wes and of course Taka. With their confidence inspiring words (minus the Hawaiian, because he always tells me Corollas are "ghey" and I should buy a Z) I actually entered my first drifting competition. As you read in one of my older blogs I didn't do too well, but it certainly was a growing and learning experience for me. So much so that in my 2nd competition ever (at Primm) I placed 4th, which out of a field of about 10-12 driver's isn't too bad at all.

I also had a realization this year that I've never had before: I don't really need any more parts for my car right now. My car is pretty well built with the most tested and reliable parts in racing, and I have the best people in the industry to help me when I need it. My money hasn't been going towards specific parts, but only when things are in need of repair. With the money saved there, I can put it towards tires and events, which I did.

I finally got a tow vehicle, so I'm no longer so fatigued before and after events from driving a super loud, punishing, and super illegal vehicle. Towing is the bees knees for sure.

I also started realizing how lucky I am to have the above people to help me out. From reading Club4ag on a regular basis, I get frustrated with how the most unrespected, most unreliable people are giving the newbs information and opinions, and probably shaping their thoughts and beliefs. That's truly unfortunate, so I'm fortunate to have such well seasoned and educated friends help me on my journey. Not everybody has professional racing drivers, mechanics, fabricators and lunatics to shape their outlook and opinions on things (the lunatic is again, the Hawaiian).

So all in all, a pretty good 2009. I want a better showing in the next all AE86 drift comp that will hopefully happen next year, and I hope to break 1:30 at SOW too!

Hotties in NASCAR?

2009-12-12T17:37:00.000-08:00

Ooohhhhweee its been a while since I updated this thing. The 4AG time attack was a few weeks ago, but beyond that, there hasn't really been anything automotive related going on with me. I've chosen to spend my time in another way, which has been quite awsome!

Anyhow, onto this week's big big story. Danica has finally signed with NASCAR. She'll be competing with Dale Earnhardt Jr's company, but will start in a lower league in order to earn her license to run with the big boys. There's a lot of controversy as to whether or not she'll be competative, and whether or not its a good career move. She's earing a pretty good salary and is relatively competative in INDY, but looking at other INDY driver's histories (whom have been better than her) you'll notice that none of them have done well. As a matter of fact, the only open wheel racer who has started to climb the ranks is Juan Pablo Montoya, but I consider him to be a different class of driver since he'd done Formula 1. Anyhow there's no doubt that Danica will continue to hog the limelight and plenty of redneck fanboys will think she's cute, but how well will it be recieved to have such a high profile female driver in NASCAR? I'm sure there's other women in NASCAR at the moment, but I don't and chanes are that you don't know who they are. Two things are certain, however. 1, Danica has some twangy redneck music now on her website (http://www.danicaracing.com0/ and 2, I will watch maybe 1 full lower league NASCAR race this year, just to see how she's doing.

Fantastic Video!

2009-11-05T21:44:00.001-08:00

Club4AG Las Vegas drift event!!! from Robert Strohmeyer on Vimeo.

Live and Learn

2009-11-03T22:12:00.000-08:00

I've had to put driving on the backburner. With Jesse's wedding and Jason's bachelor party, I didn't have much time to do any events, or any money to do them for that manner. Since those events passed (and were tons of fun!) I was able to concentrate on getting ready for the 4AG drift competition at Primm (stateline Nevada). I told Naoki I'd do it if he towed me, and he agreed.

The car was down for a bit because it simply wouldn't start. Eventually I traced it down to the starter, and luckily I had a spare I bought about 4 years ago. I knew I'd use it someday! Anyhow once I got it running, I changed the engine oil and filer and just loaded the car up.

The event was interesting for several reasons. First, its the second drift competition I'd ever done. Second, it was out of state. Third, I had some friends coming to visit me so it was certainly added pressure to do well.

As usual, we had 3 runs to get it right, and the best of those 3 runs would be our score. I hadn't quite gotten the course down consistently by then, but figured I had nothing to lose. My first two runs were crap, but the third run was okay. I didn't feel too good about any of my runs, but at least I connected the third one. Once the event ended, it turned out that Alex V and white boy Mark took first and second, with another guy I didn't know taking third. Then Taka and John told me I missed third place by a few fractions of a point. I wasn't upset at all, because its still only the 2nd competition I'd ever done.

Really though, how could I be upset? I had a fantastic time in Vegas on Saturday night, I got to hang out with my good friends, and had some amazing visitors as well.

After the comp, John rode with me and helped me work out the course. I ended up with this:

Can't bee too unhappy with the weekend :)

Another in car:

Auto Shows

2009-10-25T18:33:00.000-07:00

I dug up this old video I took at the Tokyo Auto Salon a few years ago. They had shows every 30 minutes with cute dancing girls to kickoff the launch of 3 new Mitsubishi vehicles. Yet anothing that that is better in Japan: Auto Shows.

Motorcycle Heaven

2009-10-25T18:04:00.000-07:00

So a few weeks ago, I decided to take a trip down to San Diego to visit my good friends, Sid and Desiree. After eating a wonderful Octoberfest lunch, Sid asked me if I'd like to tag along to visit a motorcycle junkyard. While I'm not as familiar with motorcycles as I am with cars, I'm always interested in anything mechanical, so I said I'd love to go! I had no idea what I was in for, but thought it would be an educational experience nevertheless. Here is a brief tour of Stockers!
To say they have exhausts is an understatement.

What's amazing is how well organized everything is. These bins have engine specific parts in them, and there are even some engines lying around, labled and all.

This bin had make and models specific parts in it, but I loved the carbs :)

Sid and his buddy were looking for a gas tank that they could use for a custom project. So, they looked....
....and looked. As you can see, they have a lot of gas tanks. As a matter of fact, they completely line the walls of the entire building.

They also have wheels. I can only imagine if there was an AE86 shop like this somewhere.

More neatly labeled parts bins.

Old school Harley. Maybe someday.

This is more like it!

Where do I begin...

2009-09-16T20:32:00.000-07:00

This past month has to be the most stressful time I've had in quite a while. There's a large gap in my posts because I haven't been doing anything really automotive related, or at least motor sport or enhancement related. Instead, I've had crazy other things going on: I recently just moved, been having some lady problems, been trying to purchase a truck, and worst of all my daily driver started to have some issues. The other things aren't automotive related, so we'll just cover the daily driver since its the closest thing automotive I can write about, since I know you guys don't wanna hear about other lame crap going on.

As you can see in the photo above, the pulley is out of my 4-door, thanks to master technician English. Mr. English removed the pulley to find that the keyway is broken, along with the crank key and timing gear. Looks like the pulley bolt came loose at some point and caused havoc, and I've been driving it like this for lord knows how long. This was the biggest snag we ran into with the 4-door while attempting the timing belt change, as there were a few other surprises on the car as well. I guess 175K miles on a car can bring fourth some interesting things.

Luckily for me, I have great friends. I called around to a lot of my local Corolla brethren only to hear that while at one point they did own a replacement pulley which may have worked, they eventually discarded it. I actually used to have one as well before I threw mine away. One nice fellow, has been a photo contributor on here (Wes Hamachi) was kind enough to bring by a silvertop 20v pulley to see if it will work. Unfortunately, it did not. As you can see, the 4AF pulley on the left is shorter than the pulley on the right, (the 20v). It isn't just the number of grooves for the belt, but the spacing was different as well. I still appreciated the gesture, and took Wes out to eat (I owed him some money too from Vegas. Doesn't everybody?)

After realizing that my deadline was approaching (Mr. English wanted to have the car done by Thursday) I started calling around to local salvage yards that have parts ready to go. They all wanted around $75 for the pulley. While I could have easily driven down there to buy it and not broken a sweat doing it, instead I chose to hit up my local pick your part. The Stanton yard had about 4 different 4AF engines which were the exact ones I could use the pulley from. I also lucked out by finding one that had all of the drive belts already taken off making my job that much easier. After impacting the bolt and prying the pulley off, I left the yard taking some happiness in the fact that i saved about $50 on the pulley over going to the other "ready to go" salvage yard.

So now, the pulley is in Mr. English's hands. I'm moved in, and just bought a can opener today. Life seems to be looking up.

I'd like to try to end my blogs on a happy note, and I think we all know nothing makes me happier than AE86's! (except maybe titties)

Bums!

2009-08-03T21:47:00.001-07:00

I'm totally not talking about those souls who've had society turn their back on them. Chances are, they may have not been smart enough to keep themselves clean or make sound financial decisions, but more than likely if they're going sailing in the deep ocean they'd bring a life vest.

I'm talking about the bums at drift events. There's lots of them. The idiots who don't bring tools, spares, or logical things that would more than likely make life easier for them or perhaps get them home.

I used to be all about helping people out, because "drifters" used to be part of a community of people who cared about each other, and who went out of their way to get each other home. You helped someone out when you could, because chances are they'd help you when you needed it. These days, there are more and more people who aren't capable to help anybody, because they can't help themselves. More and more losers who keep asking to borrow my tools. More and more losers to return them no longer functioning, more and more losers to repetitively ask to borrow the same things.

A few weeks ago, I was at a drift event. This kid in an old BMW asks to borrow my air compressor, and I generously let him. I think nothing of it. All I asked is that he return it when he's done. He does (or rather his friend does), then another pit neighbor asks to borrow it as well. He then informers me that its not working. I inspect it, and find that its broken. Seeing as how the second guy to use it couldn't even fire it up, I'm guessing it was the kid with the BMW. Not only were the prongs on the input unit itself bent, but he blew the fuse inside of it.

The reason why guy A sucks:

He broke my compressor and returned it hoping that I wouldn't notice. He left before I could say anything.

The reason why guy B sucks:

He's driving a $35K car but can't afford to bring an air compressor or jack.

Guy A, driving an old E30 BMW (which was basically stock) obviously isn't made of money, but came unprepared. Buy B, who has a lot more money, also came unprepared.

So you see, your financial status has nothing to do with it at all. Bottom line is, if you come to a toga party, bring a f*#@ing TOGA!

It'll never happen to me

2009-07-27T18:45:00.000-07:00

I think this photo sort of speaks for itself. For those of you that don't know what this was from, Felipe Massa, a factory Ferrari Formula 1 driver, was recently struck by a stray suspension piece (a spring) during qualifying at the Hungaroring. He was traveling at 150mph. After being struck, he started to lose consciousness but not before applying some pressure to the brakes moments before he crashed into a tire barrier.

This is why I think people who question regulations on safety equipment are morons. Lots of people I run into (unfortunately because I happen to associate with dirty drift people) consistently complain about mandatory SA approved helmets, roll bars, nomex suits, side impact bars, and everything else that could potentially save your life or prevent serious injury. Felipe's incident should convince you that every piece of safety equipment you can use is well worth it. Put up with some discomfort and high cost to give yourself a chance in case something terrible does happen. Remember that most safety equipment isn't there to protect you from common happenings (you don't get hit in the face at 150mph by a spring, do you?), but there to prevent you from uncommon happenings. In cases like these, its always better to have it and never need it, then need it and not have it.

Mind you also, that Felipe Massa is wearing the most advanced, state of the art safety equipment yet it still can't totally prevent catastrophes. If this can happen to him, imagine what would have happened to you if you were wearing your lame helmet?

Formula D Las Vegas, 2009

2009-07-14T22:58:00.001-07:00

I've been to every round of Formula D Las Vegas. Its an excuse to make a quick trip out of California and enjoy a nice weekend in sweltering heat, expensive strippers, and $4 steak dinners. This year was sans the expensive strippers, but it was certainly full of other exciting happenings.

First and foremost is the news that my friend Alex Pfeiffer is now driving for Tanaka racing in their insane Chevrolet Corvette. Alex tried out for them about a week ago and they immediately offered him the drive. I like many other people have been dying to see him get back in the driver's seat instead of forcing me to drink beer and watch Condorman every weekend. I think I may get a break because this bastard will be setting up the suspension on the car for the upcoming round. Anyhow, for his first time out in the car, he managed to qualify for the second day and even put up a good fight against Sam Hubinette in the Viper. All in all, not a bad first showing.

Another one of my friends who was driving this weekend was Joon, the great Korean hope. Since John Yim is retired and since I'm nowhere near being a professional (anything) Joon single handily carries the flag for all Korean drifters. This particular weekend was semi sweet for him. He qualified well, and even advanced to the round of best 16, where he eventually had to do battle with Tanner Foust. In the head of battle, Joon crashed on entry but after seeing his car in the pits afterwards, the damage didn't look too bad. I hope he can get it right in time for Washington!

Taka didn't have the best weekend either. On Friday practice, he broke an oil cooler and was forced to find a replacement on short notice (who the hell breaks an oil cooler?) but eventually made it back out. He ran quite well, and qualified somewhere around 16th or 17th. He met Ryan Turek in the first round of tandem, and unfortunately fell victim to the increasingly threatening Mobil 1 Solstice. Regardless, the fans still love him and were we see a girl getting Taka to sign her TRD shirt, where she also has Tommy Suell's signature.

Seeing Orido at a Formula D event was quite a surprise. He's one of the D1 celebrities whom I love to see even if he's not driving. The rumor was, he attended the event with the president of Japan's "other" drift series, MSC. If you're not familiar with MSC, I'd recommend going to youtube immediately and watching what they have to offer. I can only guess that their presence there means a possibility of an MSC/Formula D event in the near future. One can really only hope for such awesomeness.

The other cool part about Orido coming for this round, is that he played spotter for Ryuji Miki. It comes as no surprise then, that Ryuji Miki advanced to the finals and ended up finishing second overall that night. It goes to show you that with the right motivation and right coaching, chances of victory are far greater. Having somebody like Orido in your corner helps immensely. Surround yourself with winners and you'll start seeing results.

I also am happy that the man loves Bud Light.

While talking to Pfeiffer I also met this cute girl who has a similar taste in fashion as me!

Another year, another FD vegas trip. I didn't get to do the regular Vegas stuff this time around, so I guess I'll just have to wait till SEMA for debachery.

All photos courtesy of Wes Hamachi!
hamachiboysracing@yahoo.com

Japan ups the ante

2009-07-06T17:51:00.000-07:00

Half time entertainment is something I'd think we do the best in the USA. Apparently not in drifting.

Lost the Mojo

2009-06-29T23:48:00.000-07:00

I haven't posted in a while because of so much that has been going on. A few weeks ago was the all AE86 drift competition in which I participated. Aside from the fact that it was the first event of its kind, and beside the fact that it brang many of my friends together, it was an event I'd almost rather forget. I drove so poorly that day that I'm sure it was difficult for the photographers to find photos of me that were complimentary.

I'm not really sure what happened. Maybe because it was my first competition and I was not used to the environment, or maybe because I didn't have enough time at the balcony to prepare. Either way, I was quite dissappointed with my performance. In a way, I feel like I let some of my "teachers" down.

To move on past the depressing part, we'll get to some more fun stuff.

This guy, JMAC, finished 4th. He clawed his way all the way through the ranks with a stock red top engine. If there ever was a better example of driver over machine, I dare you to find it.

On top of all that, since he doesn't own an AE86 anymore, he was kind enough to offer me the tires he had left over for the next drift event I do.

Seeing as how I didn't do as well as I would have liked, I was kind of down. I had practiced so much and put so much emphasis on drifting for the past few months and I felt like I had made no strides forward in skill. Pancit Alex suggested I do an event to get my "mojo" back, and after some thinking I felt he was right. The way I looked at it, I could either be upset that I drove poorly, or take any opportunity I could to get back on the horse and try again.

This prompted me to head out the following weekend to Inland Drift again. Luckily, Taka and Yoshie were there to give me some kind words and pointers, so I could begin getting some confidence again. The day ended with an interesting conversation with the owner of Inland Drift. Turns out he's an AE86 fan (and owner I think) and he enjoyed watching me run. He asked if I'd come out to one of their Friday events to help put on a show for the locals by doing some tandem runs. I told him that if I could choose who I went with, I'd do it. Its nice to hear that some people appreciate your driving! His kind words were a nice confidence booster.

Above is a video that I found on youtube from that day, with one of my runs.

Anyhow this upcoming weekend has a competition that Pancit Alex, MarkX and a few other friends will be competing in, so I'll be in the 909 again to cheer them on. Sunday's got another practice drift day for me!

Getting back on the horse is better than sitting in the dirt.

Missing Bolts

2009-06-08T00:20:00.000-07:00

The competition is still about two weeks away, but I wanted to get a head start on some of the maintenance and problems with my car. A few weeks ago, Steve from SR Motorcars (http://www.srmotorcars.com/) was kind enought o take a look at my tune, touch it up a bit, and actually gave it a few more ponies and also extended the power band another 500 rpm. Thanks Steve!

This weekend I decided to tackle a missing bolt I saw that usually is there to help secure the alternator bracket. I had a problem with this in the past, and I'd say this is what I get for not thoroughly going over the car at least once a month. Anyhow upon closer inspection, I found out that the alternator bracket was only being held on by one bolt.

I got some replacement bolts from Alex V, but ran into some other odd problems. First, there was an older broken bolt stuck in there which I managed to get out once I removed the entire bracket assembly. Then I noticed that a different bolt was broken and stuck inside the block. I figured it wouldn't be too much of a problem if all 3 edges of the bracket were bolted down. Since the broken bolt was in the center, I wasn't too worried. The problem came however when I tried to tighten down the far ouside bolt. It simply wouldn't thread down all the way to touch the bracket. Once it gets to a certain spot, it just keeps spinning.

After Alex making fun of me for not using my inspection mirror to take a look at the bolt hole, I also found that one of the bolts that holds the motor mount bracket to the block was also missing.

The moral of the story is, if you take your engine to 9,000 rpm often, you should probably check to make sure all the bolts are there. I can only image what would have happened if I just went to the competition like this.

Helmets

2009-05-22T17:56:00.001-07:00

I've always been a big fan of custom painted race helmets. I'm researching what I'd potentially like to do with mine, and I came across this video of Robert Kubica (BMW Formula 1 Driver) explaining the features of his F1 helmet. After all, they use the highest quality, most technologically advanced gear on the planet. I use the same gloves he does!

Naoki, you crazy

2009-05-20T19:47:00.000-07:00

After looking at Drift Day Naoki's blog, I came across this flyer he made. I thought it was pretty cool. What a cool car! Look how sexy it is! That owner/driver must be the sexiest man alive.

Dirty

2009-05-19T22:12:00.000-07:00

I like dirty women. I like dirty cars. I drive dirty.

Looking through someones compilation of the Inland Drift event, I found they actually got a shot of one of my funniest runs. Sit through the video or foreword to 3:16 and you'll see:

Driving through the dirt to try and connect the big sweeper.
Showering the course worker standing there with dirt.
My bumper falling off.

Ahhh Corollas.

Korea in the house!

2009-05-16T23:21:00.000-07:00

If it weren't for the fact that some of my good friends are drivers in Formula D, sometimes I feel like I wouldn't pay attention to it. With the obsurdity of the vehicles lately and the seemingly blatant favoritism going on (not within the judging) a huge gap looked to be taking place. The winners in motor sports are usually the teams with the biggest budgets, but every so often a smaller team brings the rain and causes the bigger teams lots of pain. This past round of Formula D happened to have their own Braun GP thing going on, with So-Cal's own Joon Maeng taking 4th place!

This was important for a few reasons. First, Joon is one of the people who I think had one of these coming. He's one of the finest examples of a privateer driver who sincerely does do everything he possibly can to make it out to every event. He is certainly a guy who never gives any excuses and drives his heart out at every event. In addition, since he's a privateer, he doesn't have the funds to build a 900hp car, and instead has to rely on driving his car 100% all the time. That seems like something missing these days in drifting. He's also a sincerely nice guy who is always willing to talk to people and be friendly, but most importantly he's Korean!

Most of you probably won't care all that much, but I think its pretty cool that there's Korean representation in drifting. The sport is full of cultural representation, but Koreans haven't really found their way to the professional ranks all that often. John Yim carried the flag alone for a few years, but now that flag belongs to Joon.

Join me in congradulationg Joon on his finish!

Training continues...

2009-05-13T09:58:00.000-07:00

My training goes on, and on, and on. I've never driven at the balcony before, and considering I'm planning on participating in a competition there, I figured I'd better learn how to do the course. Thanks to Johnny Mac and the rest of the crew, I started to get what to do and became a little more consistant.

Funny thing, I also tried tandem for the first time. Before you know it, we were doing 3 car tandem. Pretty scary:

I do think though that I may not totally embarass myself now at the competition. I nailed down a few runs that looked pretty good, so I'm a little more confident now. Third gear entry is pretty fun.
Balcony

Can't wait for next month's competition!

More nerdgasm!

2009-05-03T16:23:00.000-07:00

As an autmotive fan, modifying my car for better performance has been at the center of my being for the past 8 years. I don't think there's a day that goes by where I don't think about racing technology, safety equipment or something related. Little did i know people are that way about flashlights.

Being the nerd of technology and "customization" that I am, I found this forum all about flashlights and the cool ways to modify them. http://www.candlepowerforums.com/ is yet another site that is equivalent to garage journal and bob is the oil guy. Some photos below are the types of things people do. Some look like high tech sex toys, and some look like light sabers. You could argue light sabres look like high tech sex toys.

I thought my nerdism was bad.

In Photos, Anyone Can Look Good!

2009-05-03T16:15:00.000-07:00

Found some extra photos from the Inland event. I've never had photos of me drifting before, so I think its kind of cool!

Enjoy here: http://everythingdrift.com/gallery/main.php?g2_itemId=20067&g2_page=4

So I've been drifting a lot lately. Truth is, I'm interested in running in the all AE86 competition in the next month or so, but I've never been that consistent with my drifting. I'm trying to get in as much practice as possible so I can guage for myself whether or not I'll be ready. Hopefully I make some big strides soon, so I can look like I know what I'm doing at the competition!

Inland Drift: Perris, CA

2009-04-26T22:54:00.000-07:00

4/25/2009 was the grand opening of a new drift venue and organization: Inland Drift. Located at the Lake Perris fairgrounds, this brand new venue was open to all. I was invited to attend by Mark Sanchez, one of the event organizers and former AE86 drifter extraordinaire!

I've been attending drift events and open track events for years, but this was the first time I was faced with a new challenge: drifting with walls. The first initiation point was basically facing a wall, and it did not sit too well with me in the morning. During my first few laps I struggled as I tried to initiate early to avoid the wall. My runs were definitely not good. Luckily one of my teachers and friends Mr. Taka Aono was there to give me the verbal kick in the ass and told me to go faster and initiate like a man (message delivered via Colin Frost, thank you Colin). After finally building up enough confidence, I did as told. Boy did it make a world of difference. Before I knew it, the course all came together, and I was running right up next to the wall, going flat out. What felt really good was looking over toward the crowd, mid drift, and seeing Taka and my friends cheering me on. The wall might be a small obstacle for some, but a big hurdle for me to overcome!

Needless to say I had a great time, and Inland Drift is definitely going to be a venue I'm going to enjoy for a long time! Thank you to Mark and everybody at Inland Drift!

Its a shame they don't do imports

2009-04-13T19:46:00.000-07:00

Because that's one funny/cool sticker! How come no import shops here have cool stuff like this?

Or how about this?

Autobuff

2009-04-13T19:39:00.000-07:00

Awsomeness. Seriously, why doesn't a magazine for the "Adult Auto Enthusiast" still exist?

Got one!

2009-04-07T21:58:00.001-07:00

I'm a nerd.....I know. But I found a local dealer (http://www.shamrocksupply.com/). They're cheaper than anywhere online, and have just about the most friendly staff anywhere. Considering these things are pretty hard to find in the US, I'd say its a score!

Tools! Tools! More Tools!

2009-04-01T22:14:00.000-07:00

Ok so I've been on a real tool kick as of late. I've always been geeky about other things, so it naturally followed that my geekdom (which knows no bounds, except "Magic the Gathering") would eventually lead me to tools. For maybe the past 2 years or so I've been putting together a set for home with some of the nicer stuff, and a set for the track with some less spectacular items. However the track toolbox has to be filled with items that are functional, because after all, you don't ever want to strip a nut or bolt and having good tools, or the right tools helps avoid catastrophes. Anyways I have a "dealer" who normally hooks me up with ridiculous deals on Snap On and MAC, but he's been MIA for the past few weeks. In his absence I've done some research, shopping, and engaged in some general nerd-like-behavior. The first thing I want to share is Factory Gear Magazine.

For the ultimate tool geek, there is Factory Gear magazine. Its referred to as a "mook" because its a magazine format, but more generously sized like a book. It has beautiful full color photos, detailed interviews with manufacturers and mechanics. The latter two I cannot decipher since I don't read or speak Japanese, but its still awesome nevertheless. This year's issue covers some interesting new things (which I will show you in a bit) and also dives into the toolboxes of Indy, WRC, and Toyota service mechanics. You'd be surprised at what you'd see in their toolboxes!

I hunted all throughout southern California for this thing....and eventually found it at the Torrance Mitsuya.

This is my new hangout. Club4ag is so boring with the same idiots being idiots, and most other car websites are losing my interest. This site however has so much to interest the casual and hardcore fan of tools and garage equipment. One could spend hours just looking at the photos alone of the beautiful garages that some of these guys put together, and learning the intricacies of some of the tools and their companies intrigues me to no end. I feel about this website how I felt about "Bob is the oil guy" a few years ago. I was mesmerized and captivated. Go here if you want to see how geeky that some of these guys get.

As promised, one of the most badass things I've seen. It is certainly my next purchase, and I've already found a local shop that sells them. As someone else has already said it, "its like Sci-Fi meets tools".

Redline Time Attack '09: Buttonwillow

2009-04-01T21:19:00.000-07:00

Boy was last week tough. I thought I blew the ECU in my car when two wires touched the cover the computer and caused smoke to come out, eventually resulting in my car not starting. Usually there's a light that comes on in the ECU, and that wasn't working so I was worried. Luckily Dr. Alex came by and did some troubleshooting to find that it was only a blown fuseable link on the battery side.

Anyways Andy Yen and I decided to drive at the practice day on Saturday, while Dr. Alex was nice enough to tow my car up there. Driving to Buttonwillow in a loud, stiff and hot car is not something I like to do. I did it once, and it sucked. This time around we went all luxury by renting a hotel room for 2 nights (a hotel by the way which doesn't believe in shampoo) and capping off the weekend with a wonderful dinner at Willow Ranch. Their BBQ combo is probably the best ever!

I had fun during my sessions. It took me a while to get back to being comfortable with that track, since the last time I drove there was Redline 2 years ago. I always put off Buttonwillow because its so far, but it is my favorite track. There are so many elevation changes, off camber turns, sweeping turns and genral chaos, that you've got to love it. I didn't hook up my transponder for this event, but during out last session Andy and I ran together. He ran a 2:14 which probably means on that day, i was capable of somewhere around 2:12-2:10. I had to let off about three times on the straights because I was closing in on him too fast.

The thing about American time attack is that the cars are relatively bland looking with lots of home made body parts and tacked on stickers. I usually find them pretty boring but there are a few that are pretty awsome. The Factor X NSX is one of the more awsome machines out there. Its a full blown race car with incredibly sexy body lines.

This 350Z was also pretty awsome. Its running a naturally aspirated VQ engine and sounds absolutely devilish.

As expected, the Crawford car was there as well. I knew it was fast, but didn't really think that much of it untill it showed up in my rungroup. I was rounding turn 1 when I saw it entering from the pits. I wondered if he was going to take it slow so he could warm up his tires (which he probably did) but as I started to get closer to him, I got completely blown away. That car at 75% is rediculous.

All in all, a very fun weekend. There are few things that are better to do during your weekend then drive at the track with friends.

Girls are cool, sometimes

2009-03-18T22:36:00.000-07:00

I didn't even notice that the sushi was in an arrangement to mimic automobile company logos. I bet you weren't looking at that either....

Clockwise from top: Lexus, Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Fiat (slanted logo in use between 1968 and 2000), Toyota, Mitsubishi, Subaru.

http://jalopnik.com/5174016/girls-geek-out-on-cars-make-sushi

ABR: No T1000 Here

2009-03-18T22:07:00.001-07:00

Last Saturday I participated in an event called "Auto Barrel Racing", or ABR for short. They have some funny commercials online which features some of my other friends who were hired to shoot the original advertisement. For those of you that haven't seen what these events entail, its basically a timed race that has competitors to circles around barrels. Pretty straightforward. It looked fun, and there was also a $5,000 prize to the winner. Since it was being held in conjunction with Hot Import Nights Anaheim, it was close enough to me that I decided to enter.

The field was pretty mixed, mostly of drivers who were relatively new to any form of sanctioned motor sport, and most of their cars were at some low level of build. There were a few guys with "show" cars but nobody brought out a rally car, and Ken Block didn't show up so competition seemed not too bad. Though one by one, some of my friends started to show up. It was no surprise that none of us knew each other were attending, since I think all of us wanted to keep the event as much on the down-low as possibly so as to remove any unnecessary competition to keep each of us from our $5,000 goal. Yes, we are all Shady.

Practices throughout the day went rather well. I decided not to use my R-compound tires, mostly because I knew that Pfeiffer was going to hand me my ass at some point anyways. I left my drift setup on, because my e-brake doesn't work too well and I needed some way to get the car to change angle fast around the cones. Everything seemed to be going well, as I never hit a barrel or did anything funny in practice. It was pretty straightforward.

Then, competition started at around 7 under the lights. During the driver's meeting, we were told that qualifying would be run in a best-times-make-it scenario. Even though we'd be lined up next to a competitor, we wouldn't be racing them just yet, rather we'd be racing the clock. We were allowed 2 runs each, but your 2nd run was going to be what got you in if you chose to run it. My qualifying run went smooth, and as I passed the traps (ahead of the m3 next to me) I noticed a time somewhere around 26 seconds.

Then they started announcing the top 16 times. As most of us had guessed, local driver Quoc Ly had qualified first with a time somewhere in the low 25's I believe, and Alex P was right next to him. Then they started to announce a few more names, and shockingly enough several of us apparently didn't make the cut. It seemed strange at first because there had to be at least 4-5 guys who we had been regularly beating all day that made the cut. After they announced the last of the 16, I asked the guy his time. He said he ran a 28.8. Needless to say, I approached the people in charge of timing with some questions.

Two of my other friends accompanied me to find out what the deal was, since all 3 of us had times faster than that of #16 qualifier. They were recording our times on these cards, and after review of my two friend's time cards, they did indeed find that both of them had times under the range of 28.8. The girl keeping time (organizer's daughter) said that they were disqualified for some reason or another. Then she got to me, and found that I had no time written on my card whatsoever. She also said I must have hit a barrel or did something to get DQ'ed. She then told us that she was busy and that if we had any more questions to come back after the event was done.

I came back, after the event finished. I asked the guy flagging whether my time would even begin to datalog had I jumped the timing lights, and he confirmed that they would not. Since I passed through the traps and saw my time, I didn't jump the lights. I also did not hit a barrel. I then found out that the other girl in charge of timing (event staff's wife) had done exactly what she wasn't supposed to do in qualifying: she created 2 piles of cards, 1 with the winners of who they were lined up against, and 1 with the losers. This still somehow didn't apply to me, since I beat the guy I was lined up against.

After much deliberation and frustrating back and fourth to illustrate to them how big they dropped the ball, they admitted that they made a huge mistake. As a matter of fact, as our argument continued a crowd formed, and several other drivers also said that their times were faster than the #16 qualifier at 28.8. All in all, my guess is that at least 5-6 of the 16 finalists shouldn't have made it that far. In my view, this is a pretty huge mistake. When $5,000 dollars is on the line, you don't make mistakes like that. At least a professional staff wouldn't have made such a mistake.

They used the "we've only done 5 events so we're still new" excuse, and the main organizer told me "it was a free event, what do you want me to do?". Knowing that he's a stunt guy, I'm going to guess he's never been a motor sport guy, otherwise he'd understand that attending an event is much more than just paying the entry fee. Sure, entry was free, but my tires certainly weren't, neither were the fluids I had to change nor was the lunch that I bought. Never mind the favors I asked a few people for to allow me to drive in this event. An event is never free.

Anyways I told them that I'd like them to remove my signature from the waiver I signed allowing them to use my images, interview, and any other photos taken to promote their event. I simply didn't want to be part of anything or promote anything this unprofessional (this sucks for them though because my interview was great! The guy asked me what "hachiroku" meant and I told him I didn't speak Chinese). I can only hope that they take this as a lesson learned, and not just as a "That Steve guy was an asshole".

This guy made it to the top 4, no surprise there. He's still a dork.

Congratulations to Quoc for winning the whole thing. He's still a bastard.

Car looks good in photos doesn't it?

Same Car

2009-03-09T22:41:00.000-07:00

...with 3 different engines, 3 different chassis setups, and 3 different driving styles. Funny how different the same car can be.

A few things to take note of:

Hibino is almost looking like Taniguchi. His style is so smooth and effortless. Maybe its the lanky Japanese guy thing.

Yoshioka's car doesn't even really sound like a 4AG.

Ueo is full throttle 90% of the time. Having the weakest 4AG of the three some might say is a disadvantage, but from an audible standpoint it sure it awsome.

No greater test of a man.

2009-03-04T23:29:00.001-08:00

I have heard the voice of God...and it is good.

2009-03-04T23:21:00.000-08:00

Uncharted territory

2009-03-04T22:19:00.000-08:00

The engine in my car currently is what I'd consider to be a "medium" build, even though I'd say that only a fraction of AE86 owners have actually ever gone as far as I have. All the hardware choices were done with what I'd learned from my teachers, and luckily tune and assembly were done by the best people I know. Now that I've started to look into a "serious" engine, I'm finding that diving into this world is indeed only for those elite individuals (or stupid enough to spend the money required on a 30 year old econobox Japanese car) who have the means to carry out their intentions. I'd always wondered why hardly anybody builds a truly bad-ass 4AG, and I'm finding out its because of the insane cost of the things you don't know about.

At some point I'll post up pics if Wesly will let me, but looking at a Hasselgren Formula Atlantic head really does show you that building the ultimate 4AG goes well beyond what any forum junkie at club4ag knows.

Back to searching for a good machine shop....

Uchibori + Tec Art's?

2009-02-24T18:26:00.000-08:00

Will somebody who speaks Japanese please explain to me by Uchibori is testing their N2 car? I'm really curious, and there's 7AG mentions too. What the hell is going on? Somebody please??

http://www.tecarts.com/event/p10/index.html

*******Just got this translated

Looks like they do just what we do. Takao, the Tec Art's driver and mechanic was driving the car and testing with a backup motor. He anticipated the car to be 1.5 seconds slower than usual, but clocked a fastest lap time 3 seconds slower than usual. He then gave the car to Uchibori, who then proceeded to beat his time by .5 seconds! Its cool to see that they do the same fun stuff we do here in the states.

In addition, looks like Tec-Art's brought a customer/student with them. He runs a 7AG setup with 195/50/15 goodyear tires, and was 7.3 seconds slower than the full N2 Tec-Art's car. They were baisicaly praising the 7AG, and were mentioning that from this point forward, the request for that engine will be high among Tec Art's customers. Who knew?

Back in the saddle again

2009-02-24T17:29:00.000-08:00

Ok, so I've been slow to blog lately. I found out I actually have more than 1 person that reads this thing, so that makes me feel pretty good! Anyhow sorry you guys (the two of you!) but I do have some interesting things I'd like to cover.

First, Andy got married. For the third time. I'm sure it sounds funny, but it has to be one of the best weddings I've ever gone to. Partially because there were no "adults" (funny how I still say that and I'm 29) there, so everybody felt like they could be as silly as they wanted to be. See photos above for evidence. What also helped was the open bar. Go team Yen! Congradulations!

It also looks like Scuderia Torro Rosso took Sebastien Bourdais. Booo. I mean I don't dislike him, but I'd surely rather see Takuma Sato at the helm. This comes in wake of some interesting news though, as it looks like there will be a USF1 team being assembled this year, while looking to run their first race in 2010. Rumors have it that Scott Speed and Danica Patrick are being looked at, but Peter Windsor (one of the two men spearheading this project) states that they're looking at "everybody". He even noted that there's a chance that two car team will be helmed by one American driver, and one "veteran" driver, which by nature will be somebody foreign. If they do go with a more "experienced" driver, I think they'd probably pick Jensen Button or Takuma Sato. There's hope yet!

I've also been helping my friend, Alex Pfeiffer with his 2009 Drift season planning. He finally bit the bullet and purchased a new chassis, which is a US spec Lexus SC300. He's currently doing the cage, and starting to gather all the parts he needs to make it into a badass machine! The plans are to do a simple 2JZGTE and have somewhere in the real of 500 horsepower. Keeping things simple keeps them reliable, and keeping this reliable means he's got a better shot at performing well. We are currently looking for sponsors, so if you're interested, don't hesitate to email me or leave me a message! His build thread is here: http://forums.club4ag.com/zerothread?id=45392

Last but not least I've also done some interesting stuff. I've also taken that plunge, into what Taka Aono calls the "up to here" in Corolla.

Imagine if you will, that you own a Ferrari. You have a weekend car, let's say something V8 powered. You race it every chance you get and love driving it. Then you get the chance to purchase some parts. The best parts in the world. Formula 1 parts. You have the opportunity to use the same parts that propel Kimi to a world championship. The same parts that sing to astronomical RPM's. The same parts that have been computer and endurance tested.

While I don't have a Ferrari, I do own a 4AG powered vehicle, and I've done the equivalent. Very few people can use these parts, as the majority of AE86 people will never build nor use a full race motor. I certainly will, so I've decied to obtain the absolute best engine parts available from the Formula Atlantic race series. These are, simply put, the best 4AG parts in the world. Nobody makes parts better than the items used in the Formula Atlantic series. A testament to this (besides those open wheeled cars themselves) is the fact that Keiichi Tsuchiya, the AE86 and drift king himself, uses the same parts in his N2 AE86 that was built by Sakurai. TRD and Sakurai know what the best stuff is, and even though they have the entire Japanese TRD parts inventory at their disposal, they still chose all TRD USA Atlantic components. Needless to say, I'm very happy with my "box".

Sneak peek:

Needless to say, I'm a happy boy!

CBY does it better

2009-01-25T20:41:00.000-08:00

Vising automotive web forums can be quite amusing when you take into account that about 75% of the people posting have no idea what they're talking about. To make matters worse, they end up influencing the people who know even less than they do, leading to what I believe will be the downfall of America. If you've seen Idiocracy, you know what I mean (don't bother me, I'm 'batin). Lately, I've been reading some posts on some of the builds that people have going on, and reading the responses. Some of these people really do believe they have the be all end all of builds, but in reality what they've done is barely scratch the surface of what can be done to their vehicle. The build is probably radical to them, but in the large scope of things its usually pretty mild.

This is a clip from CARBOY magazine, which features some of the innovations that Crystal Body Yokohama in Japan is using to improve their N2 AE86 machine. In a class where 200+ naturally aspirated AE86's battle for supremacy, any modification that can give you the slightest competitive edge (whether it be for reliability or improved lap times) can determine who finishes first, and who doesn't finish at all.

Here, we have a transmission bell housing that mates an Altezza 6-speed manual to a 4AG. Crystal Body Yokohama's kit (which is now for sale, and can even be found on Yahoo auctions) includes almost everything you need to run the Altezza transmission including the bell housing, transmission mount and bracket, and other misc. odds and ends. Earn small car show points or get that extra mpg with that 6th gear for most you thinking this will work well on your street car (you are also lame).

Here, we see some good 'ol boy engineering, in the form of making the solid rear axle have negative camber. In order to improve rear end traction, CBY cut and re-welded the rear axle to add negative camber, 1.6 degrees to be exact. Since the solid rear axle design of the AE86 can be adjusted, this small amount of negative camber could potentially shave a decent amount of time off their laps, and greatly improve handling. We'll just have to see if it helps in the '09 N2 Challenge!

Option Flashback

2009-01-25T20:07:00.000-08:00

If you're an Option Video fan like myself, you've probably noticed that over the past few years, Option Video is almost now exclusively covering D1. While I am a D1 fan, I certain miss what Option Video used to cover in the past. Many people ask me which ones to buy, or which volumes contain what because I have quite a large collection of old, new and rare Japanese DVD's. To satiate the demand of the masses, I will now try to do reviews of exciting or especially important Option DVD's, Drift Tengoku's and other videos which are well worth a watch, or even a purchase. To start, we will review Option Video vol. 89.

This volume of Option video covers lots of ground, as many of the old ones do. It pretty much has something for everybody, especially AE86 and S13 fans. If you've watched some old volumes, you may recognize the guy above. I'll have to get the translation of his name, but he's been seen in multiple volumes and is a simple grassroots AE86 fanatic. He is usually touted as the grumpy, cynical co-hort of Orido and Akira Iida's Mitto Natto crew, but in this episode we get to visit him more in dept.

Here, we can see that AE86 fanatics all over the world have garages that all pretty much look the same. We see that he's just a regular guy, with a normal day job and a wife and kid to boot. Yet he still finds time....

To build this thing. I'd be lying if I said this thing wasn't one of the visual influences I had in mind when I started to build my car.

Like any REAL AE86 fanatic, he also drives the car. This is from him hitting up his local togue, but in other volumes he does one make races and many open track days.

Old Option isn't complete without some Orido hijinks. Here, we see him actually participating in a Super Taiku race in this livery. Talk about an interesting race series. In addition, they go relatively in depth by showing the suspensions, engines, and various chassis setups that his Altezza runs, as well as a few other cars.

Most importantly, they also show Orido in the heat of battle. He may look silly in the photos, but he's all business when its game time. In the opening lap before the 3rd corner, he passes about 4 people.

When I say there's something for everyone, I really mean it. Here's a bit about Keiichi searching for the next D1 Grand Prix girls. Keiichi at his comedic finest.

Finally, we have the centerpiece of this issue, which is a history of Koguchi. If you guys don't know who Yoshinori Koguchi is, you better ask somebody. Or, I can tell you. Anyhow Yoshinori Koguchi is probably one of the most celebrated drifters in the community. Anybody who followed D1 from its inception will recognize this guy and most find him to be quite captivating. To most of us, he captures the true essence of drifting. His style and vehicle construction truly reflect what it means to be a drifter. I'm not even an S13 guy but sweet jesus do I find him entertaining to watch and I do love his builds.

Does anyone even remember when his car looked like this?

The story covers Koguchi from the first time Option Video filmed him during an Ikaten competition while he was in his nearly stock S13, and covers ground all the way to the timeframe of when his S13 had the green and white Falken livery. Truly an interesting piece.

This issue is just a small sample of how exciting some of the older volumes of Option really are. Its become quite difficult to get some of the older volumes, but they are out there. I happened to pick this one up used at a Japanese book store for $3! Anyhow good luck and stay tuned for more review of exciting videos!

Takuma or Sebastien?

2009-01-17T23:06:00.000-08:00

You know, whats funny is that this was supposed to be an article comparing the two drivers because they are both up for the last position on the Scuderia Torro Rosso team. However in my attempts to find highlight videos for each driver, I couldn't find one for Bourdais except the one below. I think that says a little something.

Wishy Washy.

2009-01-15T22:27:00.000-08:00

Every day I think about throwing my turbo setup in early. I think about how nice it would be to finally hang in the straights with EVO's and STi's, how I could finally put to rest those jackasses that can only keep up on straights, and how glorious it would be to hear the turbo spool, blow off, and do it all over again. However, right as soon as I convince myself that big power is the way to go, I think about my throttle bodies. I think about the sound. I think about the response. I think about the excitement that's generated from a simple, under 200hp engine. I really have never driven anything like it before in my life. Sure I've driven EVO's, S2000's, and even Corvettes. Still, nothing compares to the feeling of an N/A 4AG with individual throttle bodies at wide open throttle.

I think I'll keep the setup a little longer.

TURN THE VOLUME WAAAAAY UP!

Car show scene is dangerous, man

2009-01-14T22:42:00.000-08:00

Full details have yet to be released, but according to the OC Register (photos courtesy of them too) Benjamin Nolasco was arrested for robbing a bank in broad daylight. He escaped, but not before an undercover officer intercepted a transmission for officers to be on the lookout for a "white sports car with the bumper missing". Turns out Benjamin was using a JZA80 Supra Turbo as his escape vehicle. Shortly afterwards, authorities stopped him in Irvine but before they could get to him, he tried to slit his own throat using a box cutter.

Another reason why this is interesting, is because apparently Benjamin was part of the ever so popular "Team Hybrid" car show crew, as exemplified by the lanyard below. Now I'm not sure if they give those things out to every idiot at car shows, and its just a coincidence that he has one, or if he indeed is/was part of the crew. One can only speculate that the passion to pay someone to mold bodykits to your car and spend thousands upon thousands of dollars to install parts to impress onlookers forced him to rob a bank so he could beat somebody else at a car show.

This is an EPIC FAIL for several reasons:

1) When you're going to rob a bank, perhaps you should use an inconspicuous car, or something that blends in and will be difficult to pick out. NOT A WHITE SUPRA, WITH A FRONT MOUNT INTERCOOLER, AND MISSING BUMPER.

2) If you must use a white Supra Turbo with a front mount intercooler and no front bumper, MAKE SURE ITS NOT A SHOW CAR, REALLY DOES HAVE 800HP AND CAN REALLY SMOKE COPS. The cops aren't going to let you go because you won "Best JDM" at China town showoff in '99.

3) If you decide that after getting caught after robbing a bank, in broad daylight, driving a white Supra Turbo with no front bumper and front mount intercooler, that its time to end your life, don't fail to kill yourself. Since he did indeed fail at ending his own life, he has the rest of his life to look forward to as the idiot who tried to rob a bank in Brian Earl Spilner's car.

Friends don't let friends join show crews.

Funny Habits

2009-01-13T23:31:00.000-08:00

TRD Short Stroke 8-way Adjustable Race Shocks

So I helped old man Hamachi pull his motor last weekend, and while I was there it became a show and tell of sorts of some interesting stuff he has lying around. He knows I am certainly nerdy about race car parts and he has quite the collection of unique knick knacks that make me ooh and ahh. Then out of nowhere, the fool pulls out a completely race machined and milled head from Hasselgren. I then asked him "Where the hell did this come from?". He quickly replied, "The good stuff is in my room". I laughed, but then thought about it, and I do the same thing. For some reason I keep some car parts in my room which I deem too valuable to leave anywhere else.

Formula Atlantic valve cover, Toyota OEM oil filters from the N2/Group A racing days

I have other stuff lying around but its kind of silly to think that my already crowded room has things in it that seem to be totally unnecessary.

Why do we do such silly shit? What do YOU have in YOUR room?

Christmas is over...

2008-12-27T00:50:00.000-08:00

Christmas is now over, and I got a few dollars as a gift. As always, it can go towards something big, but this time I'm thinking I might indulge in some smaller stuff that I've passed over because I've always saved for things like forged pistons, LSD's, cams, etc. After pondering, I thought I might buy a steering wheel. I've had the same one for about 5 years now, and I did purchase it used on ebay when I still lived in the bay area. Its an old Momo that came from the factory on some limited edition SAAB, and I like it because nobody really has it. Although there is that one issue of some import magazine that I found that has some guy in Texas with an AE86 that has one...and it made me feel a bit less special.

Steering wheels are one of those items that are like a signiture at the bottom of a painting. They're like a finishing touch of personalization that indicates your style, taste, and who you are. Some people might not look at it as in depth as I do, but I'm one of those people who thinks you can tell a lot about a person by their shoes. A steering wheel is a similar indicator.

The above was actually my first choice, and the steering wheel I WAS going to buy at the Tokyo Auto Salon. It was perhaps the only item I had set out to purchase since I thought we couldn't get them in the USA. A few months after I got back, I found several shops had them. Anyhow its a pretty bad-ass Orido Style steering wheel with the logo embroidered in the wheel. Manabu Orido is one of my favorite drivers of all time (Keiichi fans can suck it) and having his signiture model of steering wheel I thought would be pretty cool. That is until I saw the price tag; 37,000 yen (approx $360). Now while I'm a fan of such novelty items, spending almost $400 on a steering wheel makes me feel...well..puke-ish. Sure its baller, but $400 for a steering wheel? Not that I'm against spending cash on car products, but that much cash could go towards something far more worthwhile on my car. Needless to say, I passed on this model.

The above Momo Prototipo is another one I'm considering. It has such a classic shape and design, and its retro in its style. Its perfect for an older car like mine, and has a European flavor to it. See I'm not that large of a Nardi fan, because you see everybody and their little sister with a Nardi on their cars these days. Steve does not rock that.

There was also a team "Julius" steering wheel at the Auto Salon that I passed on, because it too was insanely expensive. Who knows maybe if I can find one here, I'll jump on it.

Or maybe I'll just take the cash and buy tires again....

How did I miss this?

2008-12-17T22:05:00.000-08:00

Mooneyes Christmas party and drag race

Garage Life

2008-12-17T07:14:00.000-08:00

One of the things I've taken quite a liking to since becoming an obsessed automotive fanatic are garages. When you track heavily, you don't realize it but you spend almost as much time inside your garage as you do inside your house. Some people are more organized than others and can find everything they need when they need it, but others (like myself) get excited when they find a brand new gasket they bought 2 years ago hidden in a box.

The above is a photo of Tetsuya Hibino's shop or personal garage, from Garage Sunrise. Seeing it really makes me wish I had that kind of space! In addition, this guy has an AE86 collection of parts most of us can only dream of having.

JDM hair not included.

Follow this link to view more of his garage at Noriyaro
http://noriyaro.com/?p=1140

Ouch!

2008-12-16T22:36:00.000-08:00

Just thought I'd share some photos of my beautiful Chokets bumper, after being used for 2 years. This bumper was actually brand new when I got it, and had never been mounted on a car before. It was spray painted black, and stayed looking nice for a while. At first, I wanted to get a bumper that I ran only at drift days and open track events, but in the end what use is the bumper if its not going to get put to use?These latest "boo-boo's" were from going off the chicane at Streets of Willow at about 70 mph. Man up son!

I'm thinking of dropping it off to Rabe for some repairs and touchup. It still has life left in it yet!

I'm actually kind of proud of this thing, because while it is a relatively rare piece, I still beat the crap out of it. The bumper has rock chips from every track in southern California, as well as from Miller Motor Sports Park in Utah!

Big Weekend: DDay 4AG T/A

2008-12-10T07:08:00.000-08:00

For the past month or so, I've been trying to get everything together for this event, since it will be the last event I do for the season. Its a nice cap off for two reasons; first and formost because many of my friends are driving, and also because it will be a timed event. The last timed event I did was at the same track, two years ago, which was the second track day I had ever attended. The track layout has slightly changed since then, and my vehicle has certainly changed, but I would at least be able to compare my two times and hope that any growth wasn't due only to the new layout and vehicle upgrades.

The preparation for the event didnt' start out as well as I had planned. The Wednesday night before the event, I decided to install my new remote oil filter relocation kit in an attempt to relocate the oil temperature probe further away from my header, in hopes that a more accuare reading would be available. This proved to be problematic, as it was raining, and one of my pre-existing hoses (which we planned to reuse) was a crimp only style -AN line. Luckily Ash came to the rescue (he's one of the only dudes I know who has -AN lines "in stock") as he says he keeps that stuff for emergencies such as mine. Thanks to Ash, we were able to finish installing the system, although there was another problem ahead.

Installing anything at night and in the rain forces you to work quickly. When you work quickly, and you're not a professional, you tend to overlook things and make mistakes. One of the mistakes I made was crossing the lines of oil flow to the filter relocation. Baisically, the oil was flowing the wrong way throught he filter. I drove it home, and noticed no oil temperature, and idle pressure was extremely high. After I spoke with Alex, he informed of what the problem might be, and sure enough he was right. Anyhow I switched the lines back the next day and the car started up fine, showed good pressure, and temp readings were actually being shown. Now I know the consaquences of what can happen when you do something stupid like this, and I hoped that the engine would still be ok. I drained the oil and checked the plug (I have a magnetic drain plug) and sure enough, there were metal deposits. This got me quite worried, but the event was that weekend so I didn't really have a choice to do anything about it.

So, now we come to the event. The first day was mostly spent by me watching my oil temps like a hawk, and listening for any odd noises in the engine. The car ran pretty flawlessly, but oil temps rose to 250F after about the first 4 or so laps per session. This continued throughout the weekend, but I kept telling myself that if water temps are fine, and if oil pressure is still fine, than high temps shouldn't matter. The second day saw more of the same troubles, but I continued on regardless.

I guess I should be happy about this event for many reasons. First and foremost, the engine was fine. I beat on it for two days straight, revving it to 8800 rpms on multiple occasions and not once did it skip a beat. Where ever that metal came from, I'm sure it wasn't good, but not enough to destroy the motor. I'm still worried, but for the time being its working. Also, while my times weren't totally impressive, it shows I've come a long way. I calculate the new configuration to be worth about 2 seconds per lap, so any time I ran could add an additional 2 seconds to compare it to my times two years ago.

2006 SOW: 1:52
2007 SOW: 1:46
2008 SOW: 1:33

Also, a stock engined Corolla beat me by 2 seconds. This is a nice kick in the butt that tells me to hold off on the turbo upgrade I had planned for this year. I think I'll stick with the ITB N/A setup for at least another year (as long as the motor lasts!) before I add power, as there's still a lot for me to learn with this setup.

Almost There

2008-11-25T13:27:00.000-08:00

I thought the 4AG time attack was going to take a long time to get here, but boy was I wrong. In between helping Alex for Pro-Am and working overtime, I didn't really have any time to prep the car for this weekend. I finally did some fluid changes and did a few other things, but today I'm finally going to install the oil filter relocation kit that I've pieced together and had sitting in my room for about three months.

1)Install oil filter relocation kit (so I can get an accurate reading of my oil temperture)

2)Oil change

3) Small knick knacks

Also, is anybody thinking of staying in KUUUURNNN county on Friday night?

Two women I'm fond of.

2008-11-13T00:35:00.000-08:00

One is cute and races professionally, the other is cute and cooks professionally. If science allowed the two to have a child, perhaps she would be the perfect woman? We can only dream.

Ken Block. Applause.

2008-11-12T00:57:00.000-08:00

Read the title of my blog. This video is perhaps the single greatest representation of that title. Think of it as an unofficial commercial for this blog. Its made of pure-awsome.

SEMA is....well very frustrating.

2008-11-09T23:45:00.000-08:00

These three photos are basically what I found semi-exciting at SEMA. Overall a pretty boring show, and indicative of the state of the automotive industry right now. Formula D is taking cars to the next level financially, teams are struggling and cutting drivers, and good people are left without support. Kinda of sad really.

At least the parties were fun. Like and idiot I forgot to bring my camera to the Sony/Gran Turismo party, but Ludacris performed with special appearances by Dave Navarro and Tommy Lee. Free drinks too! Thanks to Carter Jung and the other Korean Steve for hooking it up.

Sorry for the lack of updates recently. Been traveling back and fourth and haven't had any time to update or work on the car. Since 4AG T/A is coming up really soon, I'll be modifying my oil cooling system and re-installing the header down pipe with the newly installed flex pipe thanks to Battle Version.

Battle On!

2008-10-24T00:57:00.000-07:00

In anticipation for the excitement that will be the 4AG challenge next month, here's a fantastic mind blowing video I found. S2k, AE86, Integras and Civics all battling. The sound is incredible! Turn it way up and enjoy! The in car from the Integra driving is also pretty damn crazy.

4AG Time Attack Drivers and Machines

2008-10-22T23:34:00.000-07:00

Name: Geoff Wise

Hometown: Benecia, CA

Car: 1986 Toyota Corolla GT-S

Engine: AE101 20V

Power: 160

Clutch: ACT

Shock: Tokico HTS

Springs: Eibach/KGMM

Suspension Arms: BattleVersion

LSD: Cusco

Tires: Kumho Victoracer 185/60/14

Brakes: Hawk Blue

Name: Mark English

Hometown: Vermont

Car: 1988 Toyota MR2

Engine: AW11 16v W/Nitrous Oxide

Power: 150-180

Clutch: ACT

Shock: Tokico

Springs: TRD

Suspension Arms: Stock

LSD: None

Tires: Toyo R888 205/50/15

Brakes: EBC Yellow

Name: Alex Villareal

Hometown: Cerritos, CA

Car: 1985 Toyota Corolla GT-S

Engine: AE101 4AGZE Turbo

Power: 220

Clutch: ORC

Shock: Koni

Springs: Skunk2/TRD

Suspension Arms: BattleVersion

LSD: Cusco

Tires: Kumho V710 205/50/14

Brakes: Apex-i

Name: Taka Aono

Hometown: Gardena, CA

Car: 1986 Toyota Corolla SR-5

Engine: AE111 4AG

Power: 165

Clutch: OS Giken

Shock: Tokico HTS/TRD

Springs: Eibach/TRD

Suspension Arms: Stock

LSD: OS Giken

Tires: Falken 615 205/50/15

Brakes: Stock

4AG Time Attack Drivers, Continued

2008-10-22T00:22:00.000-07:00

Name: Andy Yen

Hometown: Taipei, Taiwan

Car: 1986 Toyota Corolla Gt-S

Engine: AE92 4AG ITB

Power: 145

Clutch: Exedy

Shock: DG-5

Springs: DG-5

Suspension Arms: Battleversion

LSD: KAAZ

Tires: Toyo RA-1 205/50/15

Brakes: Hawk Blue

Name: Steven Choh

Hometown: Concord, CA

Car: 1985 Toyota Corolla GT-S

Engine: AE92 16V ITB

Power: 170

Clutch: ACT

Shock: Tokico HTS

Springs: Tanabe/KGMM

Suspension Arms: BattleVersion

LSD: TRD

Tires: Toyo RA-1 205/50/15

Brakes: Raybestos Race Compound

Name: Cyrus Martinez

Hometown: Murietta, CA

Car: 1986 Toyota Corolla Gt-S

Engine: AE111 4AG

Power: 180

Clutch: ORC

Shock: Megan Racing

Springs: Megan Racing

Suspension Arms: BattleVersion

LSD: KAAZ

Tires: Dunlop Z1 Star Spec

Brakes: Stock

The dream

2008-10-19T11:35:00.000-07:00

Trailer, car, tent, all customized. Full tool setup, all he's missing is his own umbrella girl.

Nitrous, Heinracy, and Butt Hurt Organizers

2008-10-17T07:03:00.000-07:00

I'm sure that some of you remember this thing. It was GM's entry in the 2005 Super Lap Battle, then known as the Super Street time attack challenge. John Heinracy piloted this factory GM supported vehicle which was built with mostly off-the-shelf parts and proceeded to kick everyone's ass. This is a perfect example to show that when GM wants to do something right, they suceed. The rest of the time they build a fleet of undesireable cars that put them in financial ruin.

This vehicle is interesting to me for several reasons. First, what ever happened to it? Really, its quite a machine. Regardless of how you feel about American cars, reading the spec sheet clearly shows that it is simple and well engineered. What this means is a reliable vehicle that is fast with correct driver inputs. If it were allowed to compete today (we'll get to that in a minute) it would be a force to be reconed with especially since it toppled the top teams of the day, which included Signal Auto's R34 Skyline.

The second reason the vehicle is interesting to me, is because the popular consensus is that it caused lots of people to be butt hurt, and forced the "no nitrous" rule in most time attack series. On paper and without the nitrous, the vehicle made a claimed 264 horsepower, but with the nitrous it made 344. It wasn't event a huge shot, but a big enough one to make the car competative. Apparently, since this vehicle destroyed so many of the other vehicles in that time attack, the organizers banned the usage of nitrous afterwards.

This begs the question however as to why nitrous oxide is not legal in either the Super Lap Battle or the Redline TA series. I'm sure their arguments stem from the classic "nitrous isn't real horsepower" or "nitrous is cheating", but in reality using a nitrous system and setting it up correctly, as well as using the correct accessory parts to fully utilize it is just as financially and labor intensive as a supercharer or turbo. The reason this topic is even on my mind, is because of how un-competative my AE86 would be considering the class its supposed to be in. In reality, my car should be competing aganist Integras, Civics, Sentras, and other 1.6-2.0L naturally aspirated vehicles. Unfortunately those are all in the FF class. Since I'd be running against cars with 50-300% more power, nitrous would be a way for me to stay competative.

The Cobalt is long gone and with GM's current financial state, probably won't be back to compete any time soon. Please re-consider your rule books gentlemen.

His favorite tracks

2008-10-16T22:49:00.000-07:00

Really, the things that make me laugh out loud shouldn't be shocking.

Other Women

2008-10-15T21:46:00.000-07:00

Some people say owning a car is like being in a relationship. I whole heartedly agree. Just like in a relationship, your girl usually gets mad when you checkout other girls. The problem is, that's just human nature. I'm not just attracted to one archetype of a women like some people, so my automotive tastes vary quite drastically. I do own an AE86, and I am into odd Japanese aero and large lipped wheels, but I also dream of owning some of Europe's elite. I'm not really talking the mass produced, abundant in Beverly Hills automobiles (however great they may be) but I'm talking specifically about vehicles a connoisseur would own. Something a little more rare. Something that goes unsuspecting to average people, but pretty captivating to those in the know. Two words help describe this: homoligation special.

I browse automotive sales sections of forums and other places like craigs list every now and then to see what's in the market. These two vehicles that I found recently truly make me swoon.

The first is this 1986 Mercedes-Benz 190E 16v Euro edition. While the vehicle in itself is very rare and desireable, this one has special edition Aero, widebody, and a turbocharger system. Talk about car porn:

Next is this E30 BMW M3. This one is more expensive but you can see the attention to detail the current owner has put towards this machine. Everything looks brand new! In addition, the engine was recently overhauled and he says it only has about 450 miles on it. Such a clean, clean machine.

I of course don't have the cash to buy either of these (there's no way in hell I'm ever selling the Corolla). It never hurts to look though!

The Best Sound in the World

2008-10-14T14:25:00.000-07:00

This is an old video of Renault testing one of their Formula 1 engines. Quite plainly, it is a visual and audible bombardment of ecstacy.

The 70's were better

2008-10-10T06:33:00.000-07:00

Race of Champions...Who do you want?

2008-10-08T06:09:00.000-07:00

The Race of Champions is coming. I'm sure most of you are familiar with the event but for those of you that aren't, the event baisically takes the world's best drivers, divides them up according to country and pits them against each other on the same track. All drivers use the same machines, at the same time. Ever wonder who would win in a race between Sebastian Loeb and Michale Schumacher? How about testing a NASCAR guy against a DTM guy? All those dream scenarios come to life with this single event.

For the past few years, USA has had quite the showing. In 2002, team USA even won the Nation's Cup with a dream team consisting of Jeff Gordon, Colin Edwards, and Jimmie Johnson. In 2006, both Jimmie Johnson and Scott Speed were unable to race the day fo the event due to injury, leaving Travis Pastrana to fend for himself and to single handedly represent the USA. What happened you ask? Travis finished 2nd. He beat out the worlds best but eventually lost to the Finns (Heikki Kovaleinen and Marcus Gronholm).

So the question remains, who should represent? There are certainly a number of drivers that could put on a great show. I'd love to see Nikki Hayden, Tanner Faust, Marco Andretti, or event Boris Said compete and represent the USA. Above all however, I'd like to see.....

This guy....

...and this guy

How awsome would that be? Who are your pics to represent the USA?

No Canadian GP for '09

2008-10-07T18:06:00.000-07:00

So last year, I started really getting into Formula 1. Only after I started racing myself and began understanding the technology behind the cars as well as the discipline and concentration needed to move a machine around a race track did I become a pretty big fan. After my trip to Japan, I was delighted to see that other countries shared in my enthusiasm. It was only natural that I then wanted to attend Grand Prix as soon as possible!

The debate was, do I go to Japan again to further explore hentai, maid cafe's and small AE86 shops? Or do I travel to another country to experience Formula 1 in all its glory? The question still remains, but one of the options was to attend the Canadian GP, since it was fairly close to us. It would be a chance to visit Canada, perhaps see my good 'ol friend Migs, and view the world's most popular motor sports all in one shot. Apparently Bernie doesn't care about me, my dreams or budget, and has taken the Canadian GP away at least for next year.

The small light at the end of the tunnel, is the rumor about '10's possibility of a US Grand Prix, perhaps in Vegas. Anika at the OG here I come!

Chaser of my dreams

2008-10-06T07:01:00.000-07:00

Its been difficult to find time lately to update, as I've been all over the place. Two weeks ago I was at the Coronado Festival of Speed, which was a blast. I got to hang out with some friends I hadn't seen in a while, and watch vintage race cars duke it out on a mini circuit. It almost looked like another round of the Monterey Historics, if they had a full racing schedule. Me being the idiot I am, forgot to bring my camera with me. Then this past weekend, I was at a wedding in NorCal. Again, forgot the camera, but the only thing automotive related that I experienced was riding in my friend's new BMW. That being said, I wasn't really equipped to blog about any automotive experiences in the past few weeks, until I came across this thing. This photos is of Daigo Saito's Chaser which is currently for sale.

I'll probably have to create a separate post to describe the Alex Pfeiffer trifecta for automotive hotness (with new addition thanks to Taka Aono) but this Chaser has it all. The funny thing is, this isn't even Daigo's "A" car anymore, and it still reaches a level of super-hotness rarely achieved by anyone. Maybe I adore it because its a Toyota, or maybe I adore the generous usage of BN Sports, but either way, its definately a vehicle I'd buy if I wasn't repaying college loans, gettin tricked into taking hoes out to eat, and putting gasoline into my 9 mpg AE86.

Check it out for sale, here

One helluva ride

2008-09-29T13:39:00.001-07:00

Its one thing to crash in a car. Its another to crash in a convertible. Its a totally different story when you crash in a 1500 pound open top rocket at the Nurburgring. At very least, the owner has this awsome picture to help tell his tale. Makes for some fun beer drinking with friends, when he can lift his arms again.

Mazda USA Showcases Drifting and Time Attack!

2008-09-25T12:59:00.000-07:00

Justin Pawlak is featured on Mazda USA's homepage! That's pretty amazing for several reasons. First, because Mazda is possibly one of the only Japanese manufacturers whose stateside branch is acknowledging and promoting the sport of drifting, and secondly because the car is "old" in comparison to newer cars. Usually marketing and features are reserved for newer models so those get a push, but Mazda USA seems to be a company that just loves motorsports, so heritage is going to influence them a lot. Congradulations to Justin and Mazda for showcasing those sado masochistic machines known as rotaries.

Full article is here

After digging around a bit more, I also found this:

It happens to be Matt Andrew's time attack Miata. He is the current "Modified" class points leader in the RedLine time attack series. Baisically, these are the types of machines I'll be up against next year if all goes well. 340 rear wheel horsepower in a car that weighs 2200 pounds. I don't think I've ever been scared of a Miata before now.

Full article here

Hot Rod Chicks

2008-09-24T12:44:00.001-07:00

It seems like every car culture has a lifestyle that surrounds it, and one of the oldest has to be the rat rod/hot rod style. Not only do the cars have a very distinctive look to them, but they can influence attire, musical and other interests as well. I am new to the hot rod style (and I do enjoy it quite much) but I particularly like the girls that are associated with the scene! I generally like girls with tatoos and colored hair, so I guess its pretty natural that I dig these attendees of the Billetproof car show that recently happend up in norcal. Unfortunately most of the automotive related events I attend or am associated with dont usually have an abundance of these girls, but I guess that means I'll have to attend more of these events in the future.

Full gallery from Jalopnik here: http://jalopnik.com/5052914/ink-beer-and-bettie-page-hair-the-people-of-billetproof-nor+cal-2008

The Cheating Wife

2008-09-19T10:59:00.000-07:00

Taken from TrackHQ.com

"So lately my wife has been working alot of late shifts, and for the past couple of months she has been carpooling with a male co-worker. At first I didnt mind in case she has car trouble or something like that, but it seems they have become a little bit more than friends. You know the scenario, the phone calls that hang up, she starts wearing nice clothes to work and talking about him all the time then abruptly stops leaving an uncomfortable silence.If im out in the garage when she gets home (usually after midnight) he just drops her off and leaves, but if the lights are off in the garage and I'm in the house (they think Im sleeping) they sit out in the car for like twenty minutes.I asked her once what they were doing, and she said"Just talking" ....whatever.

So last night I decided to see whats really going on out there. So I leave the garage door open ,and turn off all the lights.About the time she usually gets home, I go out in the garage and wait.. In a few minutes, his car pulls into my driveway,and Im hiding behind my Lancer. When his headlights shine through my garage and onto the car, I see something that I just couldn't believe. The rear camber is severely wearing my rear tires. Now I have to get an alignment. Should I go with -1.5 with 1/32" toe out or just leave the toe at 0?"

The moral of this story? Women are always lame, so worry about the problems you can change.

The Fake Wheel Debate

2008-09-18T11:33:00.001-07:00

For years now there's been a huge debate over buying real wheels and knockoffs. I suppose this exists in every industry, and while there are similarities in the debates between other industries, I'd like to address this specifically to the automotive wheel industry.

I really do see both sides to the equasion, but what I find funny is that the people who are pointing fingers usually really aren't in the position to be doing so. For the most part, from what I've seen is that the group usually against purchasing knockoff wheels are from the lifestyle/show crowd. Their argument usually consists of how companies that created/designed/RnD'ed are losing money from cheap knockoffs, how you get what you pay for, how the wheels are manufactured with a lower quality control tolerance, etc. All of these statements are true to a degree. The opposition, which encompasses everything from financially challenged "must modify something" kids all the way to serious racers on a budget also have their own reasons for purchasing knock off wheels. The legitimate reasons can include low entry cost (which applies to singular sets as well as multiple), decent level of quality control for intended usage (after all, wheels do have a US standard of quality control unlike Taiwanese made turbo manifolds, BOV's, and other items that aren't street legal to begin with), being able to have the "look" without the price, and availability. All of these reasons are very valid as well.

To people who aren't too familiar with me I may come across as a hypocrite. I am a huge proponent of only using quality parts on your car. By quality I don't mean just anything Japanese, I mean something from a company with racing history, its own research and development branch, and proper products that cater to using them in extreme environments. While I do use mostly American race parts on my car, the Japanese products I do use are of the highest quality (things like TRD, SARD, Tein). However, I don't have anything against knock off wheels, and I do think they have a place. I own both types of wheels, both real and knockoffs, and feel that each individual can decide for themselves which they want to use, as long as they don't point fingers at each other.

From most of the debates I've seen, the opponents to knockoff wheels have one thing in common: they don't often race/track their cars, or never do at all. This is interesting because often times, their criticisms of knockoff wheels are performance based. They say such things as "knock off wheels are heavy and aren't strong because they're not forged". In reality, since their vehicles usually sit in a garage or occasionally make it out to assist them in transportation to the weekly meet spot for boba, are they really taking advantage of the performance benefits of the wheels? Absolutely not. People who modify their vehicles with the only intent to see how long of a modification list they can create are elitists under a totally false pretense. Real deal wheels are that price because of their performance benefits, most of which you will never see on the street.

In addition, I think said elitists invest too much of their property as a relfection of their self worth, as they don't feel as if they "stand out" anymore and that they don't have anything special, when most people can mistake what they've spent a small fortune on looks striking similar to the wheels the 17 year old Taco Bell employee has (No offense to Taco Bell employees, your 7 layer burritos make my world go round). In addition, I believe the opposite is true. Having the real deal among a sea of fakes makes yours even more desireable, and to those who understand what the subtle differences are, they are even more special.

My point? The only people who can really have an opinion are racers who fully utilize the technological capabilities of the wheels. Notice however, that those people are usually never to be found making these arguments, or participating on forums because they're too busy racing to care about anything that trivial.

Get over the fake wheel debate. Graduate towards political debates! :)

A Girl I'd like to meet...

2008-09-17T13:03:00.001-07:00

Absolutely fantastic combination of stickers. Japanese stickers are so three years ago, Mary Kay cosmetics and Flogging Molly stickers are in.

Flintstone Vitamin Eating Grand Prix Winner

2008-09-16T11:24:00.001-07:00

Sebastian Vettel has just become the youngest driver to ever win a Formula 1 grand prix race at the tender age of 21. When I was 21, I was figuring out how to change the oil on my Corolla and doing my best to avoid being tricked into comprimising situations with high school girls.

Needless to say, he won very convincingly and is sure to be a rising star. The big question however, is whether or not his decision to move to Red Bull from Torro Rosso next year is a wise one, since Torro Rosso seem to be performing better than their varsity squad on a consistant basis.

Gotta love the music. Enjoy!

Source:Axis of oversteer

Forza Minardi! from Axis of Oversteer.com Video on Vimeo.

You my friend, win.

2008-09-09T13:38:00.001-07:00

My Favorite Foreign AE86 Drifters, pt 2

2008-09-09T09:38:00.000-07:00

5) Kensaku Komoro

One of the things that most of these drivers have in common (other than their vehicles) is the fact that at some point, they have "wow'ed" me in person. Kensaku Komoro did just that. As a follower of Tec-Art's AE86 N2 challenge car, I already had quite the admiration for their style and car building ability. I didn't know however that they were also campaigning an AE86 in D1. That is until the first D1 Las Vegas. That was when I saw the car below smoke the crap out of Vaughn Gitten Jr. and force him into a spin. According to Vaughn, he thought he'd have to give the AE86 some room as he normally does (against US AE86's) so that later he can pull on them. However, after he allowed Kensaku's 86 to pull away from him, he couldn't catch up. He pushed too hard and initiated too late, and spun. I must say that as much as I admire JR's driving, it was quite shocking to see the Kensaku defeat the 600hp Falken Mustang, and in dramatic fashion. Kensaku went on that day to make it to the final 4, where Yoshioka eventually won. Komoro however made much more of an impression on me since I (or apparely nobody else for that matter) had ever seen this guy drive before. Absolutely amazing. Most of you know him driving the car pictured above, but for the Vegas round he drove one of Tec-Art's customer's cars below (which is now turbo, but during that round was ITB'ed and N02'ed.)

4) Ryota Yuasa

Most of you guys out there won't remember this guy, because he competed in D1 in an AE86 only during its first few years. He later on moved to a Cefiro or Laurel, but to me, he's one of the craziest and ballsiest (is that a word?) AE86 drivers from Japan. Yuasa was promenant early on, competing against the likes of Ueo, Taniguchi, and Kumakubo in the early years driving the beauty you see above. He was the driver of the Bride/BN sports AE86 Levin, powered by one of the first D1 spec SR20det swaps into the AE86 chassis. The car was special for several reasons: A) the shift pattern on the transmission was flipped so that normally first gear was occupied by 5th, second was occupied by third, third by fourth, and so on and B) the car was equipped with my favorite aggressive body kit company, BN sports. The car was aggressive as hell, and it had the pilot to match. I'm told Yuasa had a nickname in Japanese that was the equivalent of "destroyer" or "crasher" or something like that, because he regularly broke, tore apart, and destroyed those BN sports kits. Just like his FC counterpart Haruguchi, at every D1 event that car seemed to go through about 3-4 front bumpers and about 2-3 other misc aero pieces.

Yuasa's style is what I appreciate most about him. While he didn't place too well all the time, he drove the shit out of the car. He went so big, that he either won or failed miserably, often times while destroying the aero, wheels, or wing on the car. When he did suceed however, it was one of the most glorious things I've ever seen in my life. Huge angle, big smoke and full throttle application. This man exemplifies the "go big or go home" attitude that so many pro drivers seem to lack these days, with sponsorships and vehicle preservation being high on their priorities. This is why I love Yuasa so much, because I'm sure if you asked him if he wanted to "save the car", he'd give you the middle finger.

3) Ken Maeda

Ken Maeda is perhaps spiritually Ueo's brother. Both drivers are small in stature, but humungous in ability. He's one of the drivers I had the privledge of viewing live several times, and absolutely made my jaw drop to the floor.

Maeda also was another old school guy who had been driving the AE86 for quite some time, but when I found out about him he was already turbo powered, which made him unique in a field of N/A screamers. It was only after the yellow paint job and complete Up-Garage help did he start really putting foot to ass.

Two of his performances stand out in particular to me. The first was a Bihoku Highland (or was it Sugo?) round where he met Ueo in the finals. It almost appeared as a dream sequence to me as two of my favorite AE86 drivers met each other in the finals, driving vehicles that were very different from each other. In the end, Maeda won, displaying an amount of skill that was wickedly insane (think about how much it takes to beat Ueo, and in another AE86 nevertheless). The second was during the first D1 USA vs Japan match at California Speedway. I'd like to remind many of you that I've seen lots of drifting, all the way from the Ikaten match in the parking lot all the way through the last FD round, and in all those years I have NEVER seen anybody achieve as much angle and high speed velocity entering into a a turn (which happened to be a 90 degree bend BTW) as Ken Maeda did that day. It was the absolute most insane thing I have ever seen in drifting. I even discussed this with Taka Aono, who was there as a course marshall, and Taka remembered the day just as vividly as I did. He said that he was sitting in the pace car on-track with Moto, and after they saw his initiation they simply looked at each other with wide-eyes, and didn't say a word. They both knew what they saw, and simply were speechless.

Maeda didn't go on to win that day (I think he got super shafter by Keiichi) but he surely won the hearts of fans around the globe. The Option video that covers that even doesnt even come close to doing his driving justice.

2)Tetsuya Hibino

Hibino was around during the early years of D1 but he really didn't start to shine until the later Ebisu rounds. He competed early on using a Levin coupe, but on all the videos the power of this machine was rated at 150ps. I don't know how true that was, considering how much foot to ass he put in that car, but even if it was only 150hp he did quite an admirable job.

Like I mentioned before, he really shined at Ebisu and that's where I became a huge fan. He became known for his crazy, "jump" drift style which proved to be disasterous for Ryuji Miki later on. While I don't necessarily like to see people crash, its always exciting to see somebody get pushed so far to the limit by an AE86 that they end up making a mistake. Hibino was driving his privateer N/A AE86 while Ryuji Miki was driving the 700hp Top Secret S15, yet could still not match his full throttle speed. Such was a fine example of "AE86 magic".

You could argue that Hibino was perhaps one of the new rising stars that was being held back by his underpowered machine, but later dimissed that belief when he stepped into the real of the SR20 powered 86's. His first one was a hatchback which he did use in the USA once, and while he didn't have a super impressive showing during tandem, he did manage to scrape the big wing all along the top of the Irwindale bank, which I thought was one of the biggest showings of testicular fortutude ever. The only other person I've ever seen to take that crazy line was Orido in his Supra, which he eventually crashed taking that line. To this day, Hibino is still the only one to ride that lightening. Hibino eventually did destroy that vehicle, but now is using a Levin coupe which has proven to be quite the machine. Tanner Foust was once asked to comment about Yoshioka's nitrous powered AE86 , and he replied "...its super lightweight, and has tons of power. Its pretty much the ultimate weapon". The same could be said for Hibino's new missle, as combining the lightweight AE86 chassis with 350 turbocharged horsepower makes Hibino a force to be reconed with, and currently is the only truly competative AE86 driver competing in D1 next to Kensaku Komoro.

1)Katsuhiro Ueo

Really though, you knew this was coming. He is, in most people's eyes, simply the most talented AE86 drifter in the world. The giant killer, rider of the killer bee, and overall badass assasin. Katsuhiro Ueo is perhaps the most influential AE86 drifter in the world, and his victory in the innagural D1 exhibition in the USA was the best introduction for the AE86 and drifting to the United States.

Ueo embodies quite an obscure and dazzling style. From his introduction in early Drift Tengoku videos, it was easy to see that he was quite the madman while driving. After seeing his feature in DoriTen, I remember thinking that while driving, he looked like he was having a seizure. His double, tripple clutch kics and insane steering wheel tossing style won myself and thousands of fans instantly, and remains to be one of the most posted videos of AE86 driving talent. Later, after he began competing in D1, he became the giant killer. Ueo would regulary hack down vehicles with double and tripple the horsepower of his vehicle, and would normally do so in spectacular fashion. He particularly had a good rivalry going on with Nob Taniguchi, as the HKS driver seemed to have only one Kryptonite, which was a certain off white N/A AE86. On multiple occasions, Taniguchi was defeated by the 180hp machine (while Taniguchi's machine which was a factory backed S15 with somewhere around 450hp) and on more than one occasion crashed as a result of pushing too hard to catch him. This perhaps was the biggest showing of that magic we all know and love.

Ueo's influence goes so far that the majority of AE86 around the world take some sort of styling cues from his machines as well. The white and off-white livery with black bumpers can be seen on AE86's in every country, while the Jblood widebody flare kit remains a popular upgrade to those wanting the look of his 2003 championship vehicle. In addition, the TE37 wheel also became equivalent to pornography for most AE86 drift fans, as well as those who just want a wheel that is timeless.

Ueo did have several bad seasons following his championship in 2003 and seemed never to recover. He did eventually come back in an AE86 and win the Odaiba Tokyo round later, and shockingly enough it was over Nob Taniguchi in a new HKS backed Altezza. He did eventually put down the AE86 (at least for now) while he drives Kazama's old S15, which now is sponsored by "Move" Japan. While he has enjoyed some moderate sucess recently with the newer, more technologically advanced and more powerful vehicle, we all yearn for the day when he returns in a strung out, angry 4AG powered AE86 and lays the smackdown on all of those factory run high-powered machines.

Takuma Sato may be back?

2008-09-05T07:47:00.000-07:00

Ok, so while its only a test run, its good news to us that are Taku fans. I must say that after I read this, I was quite pleased for two reasons: 1)I'm glad he has a chance to come back, and 2)I'm glad its with a team that shows promise.

He's testing for the position that will be left open because Sebastien Vettel is leaving for Red Bull Racing, but while Vettel was at Toro Rosso, they proved to be a team that was making strides forward. Vettel's showing especially within the last few GP's indicate the team is moving forward, though not quite at the speed as say BMW has been.

I think F1 drivers are generally pretty cool guys, with the exception of a few. I particularly like Sato though because he's only 1 of 2 Asian drivers who compete(d) in F1 currently, and also because I think Alonso is kind of a douche, and Sato passed that foo. In a Honda. From the outside. Especially since Alonso was in a McLaren Mercedes, I think that's pretty much the equivalent of physically rubbing poo in someone's face.

Let's hope he makes the team and continues his career in F1!

Build it "A" Style

2008-09-04T12:58:00.000-07:00

Well here's a topic that I've been meaning to cover for quite some time now. You'll often times hear me refer to "levels of enthusiasm" in regards to love for automotive tuning, building, preparation and lifestyle. Essentially I believe that once you reach a very high level of automotive enthusiasm, things become less about what country built the car or which manufacturer assembled the parts, engine, or the like. What it comes down to is the time, effort, ingenuity and care that was taken to ensure that the end product is what you see in front of you. Baisically you can appreciate things that are outside of your realm. I'm a perfect example. I used to be very into Japanese and American cars, until I started learning more and more about European vehicles and their racing heritage. Then I learned a little about hot rods and their culture, low riders and their culture; you get the picture. I'm at the point now where I really can go to just about any automotive cultural phenomenon gathering and have a good time, and at least be somewhat familiar with what is being presented. I've opened myself to new things. Sure I still have my tastes in things, but learning about other styles of enthusiasm can help you with what you do to your car. This brings me to the main focus of this post.

I've met and interacted with tons of Japanese car enthusiasts that have very closed minds when it comes to part selection and shop discrimination. Specifically I'm talking about only using Japanese manufactured parts or using a Japanese shop to do building, tuning and assembly. I'll be the first to say that I do admire lots of Japanese part manufacturers, but I've also learned that they are definatly not the highest quality when it comes to certain parts. Ignorant people however will only buy parts that are from specific manufacturers and won't give others a thought, only because of their country's origin. This mainly applies to people who build street machines/show car guys from what I can see anyhow, because I guess the rarity of the parts is more important than their functionality.

My point is this: other countries build "import" cars with their own domestic parts, so why shouldnt' you? You'll notice I placed the Red Hot BMW CSL M3 at the top of my post because A)I absolutely love this car, and B) it totally embodies the subject matter that i want to tackle. Here's another shot, because the car is phenomenal:

This car exemplifies what I'm talking about because its a foreign vehicle to the Japanese market (being German) yet they use their domestic highly sought after race manufacturers to build it. Sure, they could have used the standard German fare, but instead they used what has been proven to them in their home country on their domestic vehicles. Take notice of the Volk racing wheels (I believe in track guise they even use TE-37's! How hot is that?). Since Rays Engineering has been a staple of Japanese motor sports of so long, its only natural to use them. Also the car uses a set of Project Mu brake pads, an OS Giken twin plate clutch and Super-Lock LSD, Japanese made Dixis coilovers and exhaust header. The car also uses Defi gauges as well as Dixis brand aero components.

All of these components come together to build a car that has unique flavor and really does stand out in the sea of clones. This particular formula has proven itself to work well, as they placed at the top of their class at the Super Street Super Lap Battle a few years ago, and was the only European vehicle to really bring the thunder.

Here's another vehicle that exemplifies my point:

Thanks to Speedhunters for getting me started on this by posted up their article on this European built AE86 that competed in the SPA 24 hour race. Notice first off the definitive European race car look livery.....its simple and to the point. Definately a far cry from the heavily graphic influenced Japanese style or the home product sponsor American style. The wheels are also a dead giveaway that this isn't a Japanese built race car, as the offset is fairly unaggressive, and its got those crazy turbine style inducers!

"The car has adjustable camber plates (I wonder what brand they are???) which don't look like they were Japanese-made, and it also has a Cusco OS-style strut bar, but I doubt it was made by Cusco because I don't think Cusco parts were readily available in Europe at the time this car was racing."

Again, the author notes the products used that probably aren't Japanese. As a matter of fact, there's maybe even a good chance some of the stuff was custom one-offed parts since at the time, Japanese parts probably weren't readily available in Europe. Looking even closer, you notice this:

The author notes a "Formuling France" steering wheel. How euro does that sound? Also the car is equipped with perhaps Europe's most famous gauge company (VDO) and also a staple in their safety field, OMP who supplied the fiberglass race bucket.

My last example, is perhaps the one most of you can identify with since its a Japanese car totally utilizing American parts: the Skunk2 TA Civic SI

This was THE original car that really got me thinking about this train of thought. This vehicle was built years ago to compete in an SI tuner challenge for some magazines. Even though it wasn't the most powerful vehicle, it to me was simply the most stunning, and was closest to what I'd envision how I'd like to have the vehicle built. The car uses what is essentially the entire Skunk2 catalog, including all of their engine internal components (which I believed when assembled, was somewhere around the 250hp mark, which was pretty exemplary back in those days) remote reservoir road race shocks with Skunk's own springs and perches, and their exhaust and related components. It proved to be a beast of a car, but failed due to misc reasons which go in question as some people say it was purely driver error, others say a weak gearbox. Anyhow the vehicle to me embodies the soul of what can be accomplished with this train of thought. If other foreign builders are using domestic parts on their cars, why shouldn't we? We can build it "American", or "A" style.

Many of you that know me already understand that I practice what I preach. On my personal AE86, I tend to use race proven American parts where ever I can. Some things are unavoidable, so I of course use the best of what Japan has to offer, but most of the time I'll opt for the American parts. Such is the reason I chose Crower for my valvetrain, and Arias for my pistons. Such is the reason I only use Battle Version suspension products because I know that they are simply the strongest best developed domestically made parts for the AE86 chassis. Sometimes you have to reach a little further, but in the end its well worth it. In my case I found that Porterfield offers Raybestos, yes, THAT Raybestos brand brake pads that are full race compounds. Apparently they have been offering race pads for quite a while, but only sold them to race teams. Recently, they began selling them to the public. I've tried Project Mu, TRD, and a few other brands, but nothing comes close to these pads. The Porterfield specialist actually recommended these pads to me (Compound 43) as he uses them personally and tested them at the 25 hours of Thunderhill race. When a guy like that recommends something like that to you, you listen.

I'm not telling you to hate on Japanese parts, I'm not telling you to build a crazy USA only machine, but I'm just advising that sometimes its useful and beneficial to use domestically tested and produced parts. In the race world, you use what you know and what works best, so take some of that and apply it to your street cars!

"When lives didn't matter"

2008-09-03T09:45:00.000-07:00

One of the insanely cool things I picked up while at the Monterey Historics was this DVD titled "Can-Am: The Speed Odyssey". It chronicles the entire Canadian-American race cup from its inception all the way through its demise in the early 70's. I watched a brief trailer for it here
(http://www.canamfilm.com/) and was instantly intriuged since I wasn't totally familiar with that race series, but certainly had heard of it and witnessed many of the vehicles at the 'Historics.

Let me preface the DVD by saying first that I have incredible respect for guys that raced in the days of yore, not only because they were driving machines that were freakishly powerful (which I'll get to) but also because of limited tire technology, and limited safety. Combine the above things and they equate to some of the most spectacular and tragic crashes in history. That being said, I finished this DVD with even more respect for those guys.

As a friend put it, Can-Am racing days "were during a time when it seemed like lives didn't matter". What he was implying, was that people were just crazy. Deaths in racing were abundant during that time (which was also the 60's-70's Formula 1 era) due to limited safety development and insane power. These Can-Am cars in the early years were 450 hp 1400 pound vehicles. That power to weight ratio already equates to an insanely fast car. As technology progressed and different manufacturers began entering the fray (eventually McLaren, Porsche, Ferarri to name a few) the fastest Can-Am car was 1400 pounds with 1100 horsepower. Suddenly, thinking about driving my 150hp Corolla makes me feel like a little girl.

Anyways I don't want to spoil too much of it for you, since the DVD is as much an educational feature as it is for entertainment. With insightful commentary by Jim Hall and interviews with Bruce McLaren, its sure to fulfill anybody's need for a walk down memory lane with one of America's greatest race series.

FYI, for you rally fans, its like Group B rally for circuit racing!

My Favorite Foreign AE86 Drifters, pt 1

2008-08-27T09:21:00.001-07:00

I love lists, and I love hearing about people's opinions on things. That is unless, of course, I totally disagree with them. Anyhow I'll try posting up at least one cool list a week to refelct how I feel about a certain topic that week, because lord knows my tastes constantly change. This week will be my favorite foreign AE86 drifters since I am an AE86 fanatic.

10) Djan Ley

Oddly enough, my #10 driver comes from Malaysia. Tengu Djan Ley was virtually unknown until a few years ago when he came over to compete in the D1 international round at Irwindale. I must say, he was shockingly good. The thing that inspires me about him, is that hardware wise his vehicle is very simple. I spoke to him a bit about his setup and really, he has a car that really isn't any more built than most fully fitted AE86 race machines including my own. The difference is, he can harness every single ounce of function out of those parts and deliver a stunningly good show. What he also showed me is that regardless of continent, some things stay constant among AE86 drivers, and one of those things is tanacity and fearlessness (or complete insanity, but call it what you will). Take for instance his battle against JR Gitten at the world battle a year ago. They went against each other in tandem, and Djan more than held his own. As a matter of fact I believe he even passed JR on one occasion, and on a reverse battle held his line to secure his place. He had the "I'm coming, and you'd better move out of the way" attitude that baisically gives the middle finger to 700 horsepower. Can't really argue with that.

9) Hisashi Kamimoto

He's one of the first pro drifters in D1 to consecutively place well. Back in the days of tight circuits and attainable power goals, Kamimoto used his supercharged Levin coupe to run with the big boys. He later moved onto a Trueno hatchback with an HKS stroked 20v engine, which in my mind was his best machine. He later moved onto using the Veilside S15 with huge horsepower, but never attained the success he had in his AE86. He now acts as D1 staff.

8) Toshiki Yoshioka

Some of us remember him way back when he was using a side-draft carbed 16v powered orange Levin. Those days are long gone, but his driving style still continues to impress. He is perhaps one of the only guys to carry on the purists AE86 mantile (until recently with his switch to the new Lexus chassis) but in our hearts and minds (and probably his) he's an AE86 guy. He's proven that in the United States, it is still possible to win in an AE86. He's proven that with the right setup, you can take down just about anybody. Just look at his Vegas FD performance! He took out 2 previous FD champions, and not just champions but factory backed champions. He also drove 2 of them to crash. With the momentum he's got right now, he's bound to make believers out of even more people.

7) Gen Terasaki

Gen is one of the most O.G. AE86 drifters out there. I remember one of the first Option videos I watched featured him and his jet black AE86 Levin. He was one of the few who would consistantly make best 16 and posed a real threat to all of his competitors. He's an engineer by trade, and also had a relatively simple and orthodox setup. If I remember correctly, he used an AE101 injected 16v with high lift 304-304 cams. The setup was good for roughly 200fwhp, which was enough back in those days to put the hurt on those S chassis guys. He drove with a very clean style which wasn't too flashy, but his steady nature put him in the top most of the time. After he switched to the AP chassis Honda, things just haven't been the same.

6) Yoichi Imamura

Really though, who doesn't love this guy. He's one of the very few AE86 guys that were able to jump into another chassis and be just as sucessful if not more so. Most of us however love him most as the driver of the doo doo brown AE86 Trueno. He had one of the most fully built and nice looking AE86's back in the day with good power to boot. He had the traditionalist setup and even only ran an aftermarket front bumper. His style is what defines most common street AE86's these days with the mesh wheels, aggressive offset, and minimalist aero. Then you get to his driving. Oh boy, his driving. This guy could really run with the best of them and he had a relatively unique and flambouyant style. While appearing wild, he always seemed to reel it back in and made it look like he intended to grind the underside of his car on a burm and run with two wheels off the ground. Really though, if this guy is #6, I know I'd think "this guy better have a good explanation for those guys that rank higher". Guess you'll have to wait for the next post to find out!

Monterey Historics '08

2008-08-26T15:53:00.000-07:00

There are certain things you must do as an automotive enthusiast, and one of them is to visit the Monterey Historical Races. If you're a car nut and especially a race car fanatic, then this is definately the place for you. I must admit that its only been over the past few years that I've become enamored with vintage race machines (partially because some may consider my car "vintage") but the Monterey Historics welcome anybody at any enthusiasm level.

There are thousands of people who come to this event, and often times they travel from all around the globe. This even is pretty much the closest thing we have to the "Goodwood Festival of Speed" and it actually has a flavor all its own. We saw multiple celebrities, including Kazunor Yamauchi, the creator of the Gran Turismo racing series, Mario Andretti, and Timo Glock. Vic Edelbrock was even there racing his vintage Corvette in the Trans Am group, and to see an owner of a performance parts company enjoying himself and racing truely does bring warmth to my heart. Considering how many passionless buisnessmen there are in the industry, its refreshing to see that some people are in it because they love it.

Aside from some of the celebrities at the race, it was perhaps most exciting for me to see vintage Formula 1 cars. I'm not sure you can really consider yourself to be a race fan if you don't in some way shape or form drool at the sight of the Tyrell 6-wheeler or perhaps cry in glorious ecstacy at the sound of a 1960's Ferrari V-12.

Ever since I became friends with Alex Pfeiffer, I became interested in Porsches. That guy has so many race stories and a lot of them revolve around Porsches. In addition, since Steve McQueen's Le Mans is easily one of my favorite films of all time, it only followed that Porsches started to peak my interest. The Historics were full of vintage race Porches. Some were mildly prepared, and some were fire breathing weapons of mass destruction.

I also have a fetish for race car interiors. Something about spartan-esque, stripped down interiors, mechanical instrumentation, and medevil metal adorning the cockpit of vehicles that excites me. Is it a wonder then that I enjoy leather clad women and bondage?

Its cars like this that inspired the color scheme of my car.

I really can't express enough how much of a blast this was. Please check out the rest of the gallery and let me know what you think!

The rest of the gallery can be found here

No Haruguchi?

2008-08-11T12:58:00.000-07:00

Speedhunters recently posted a list of their top 10 drift cars of all time. I realize its all for fun, but in my elitist opinion you really aren't a hardcore fan of drifting unless this guy's car is AT LEAST somewhere in the top ten. I'm not sure I have total faith in their staff anymore.

A wise man once told me that to make it in Formula D, you need three things:
1)Big Wheels.
2)Big Wing.
3)Big Aero.

Take a look at this car and you'll get it.

HKS Time Attack Evo Beat!

2008-08-05T13:44:00.000-07:00

The HKS time attack Evo competed here in the states and completely obliterated any competition (if you can call it that). In Japan, they've had the Tuskuba recored as well, which is something like 54 seconds. The car really did seem to be the single greatest time attack machine in racing, that is until a Malaysian team put them out.

This car that you see before you is a Lotus Exige 300RR. It is the instrument of destruction that defeated the HKS Evo. Tipping the scales at a lightweight 1580 pounds and powered by a GM V6 producing 400 horsepower, I'd say this is more than a match for the HKS machine.

GT Live/Formula D Pro-Am

2008-07-01T00:08:00.000-07:00

Wow, what a weekend ineed. For the third year, GT Live has put on quite a motor sports festival with just about everything you'd want to see. From the cute umbrella girls to the tire shredding action, there was lots of action to be seen.

Redline Time Attack was part of GT Live again this year, and they certainly didn't fail to bring some excting battles. As expected, Tyler McQuarrie pilot the CWest/BC S2000 to an overall victory in the unlimited class. Even with some slight tune issues, they managed to pull out the win.

On the Pro-Am side, fourty amatuer drifers came from all over the western United States to complete and earn a change for a full year's competition license to run with the big boys. Several California favorites including Jeff Jones, Cyrus Martinez, and my long time auto mentor Alex Villareal were all in attendence and also earned their ticket to compete in the finals later this year. Some local drivers also made it out into the fray, but many were sent home getting a taste of what's needed to run with the elite.

My driving time was cut short unfortunately due to some oil temp issues. I always knew that 4AG's ran hot, but 250 degrees F after only 1 lap? I think that's a little outside of the realm of safe.

For the complete gallery, go here

Thanks Alex V for the pics!

First Drive: 2008 Subaru Impreza WRX

2008-05-09T10:11:00.000-07:00

Few cars have the same motor sport history that the Subaru Impreza WRX has. With the WRX, Subaru has won multiple manufacturer’s and driver’s championships in the WRC, and has also jumpstarted some of the greats like Colin McRae and Peter Solberg. Today’s’ stars in the USA, namely Ken Bloc and Travis Pastrana, pilot the new generation of these machines and are looking forward to a repeat of their successful seasons last year. 2008 marks the second coming of the WRX in the United States, and the bar is indeed set high by the previous generation model.

The new 2008 model has some pretty significant styling changes. Our 2008 model is a 4-door, and doesn’t share any of the same body lines that the previous generation had. It seems that where there were angles there are now bends, and where there was bends there are now angles. While the styling change isn’t a total departure from what we’d expect, it definitely is different and takes a while to get used to. The headlights for example are much closer to the last iteration than they are from the model’s best headlights, which they mistakenly only made for one year (2006). Overall the styling is still clean and attractive, and it certainly stands apart from its competitors.

Wheelbase has also changed and is increased overall, and weight has also been slightly reduced. This increases handling stability and overall agility, but also sacrifices some of the quick reflexes that the previous generation had. Suspension also seems to have been softened up a bit, which is a welcome departure from any motor sport infused system designed for track usage. This is true for the majority of WRX owners, as they’ll mostly pull street duty for hauling kids, groceries, and luggage for most of their life. Those who wish to tighten things up a bit have no shortage of aftermarket support which will likely be released sooner than later.

The interior is certainly a nice place to be. While Subaru may not win any styling awards, it is definitely attractive, and gives the driver a feeling of confidence. The sport bucket seats are wrapped in an upgraded cloth material, and give plenty of lateral and lumbar support to make long drives comfortable. All of the gauges and switches are within easy reach, as are the cup holders. Speaking of the gauges, Subaru has outdone themselves with their clever styling of the gauge cluster. Everything looks beautiful, and is easy to read with a clear display. Absent from the gauge cluster however was a boost gauge to help me in my geeky assertion that I’m driving a force fed beast, but in reality any stock vehicle equipped with a turbocharger doesn’t necessarily need one.

The back seats are also comfortable. There's plenty of headroom, in addition to leg and hip room being at a premium. The extended wheelbase not only added to vehicle stability, but in this case also allowed the interior cabin room to become more comfortable.

What hasn’t changed is the sweet, sweet engine and all-wheel drive system. The whole WRX package, which increases horsepower from a meaty 170 hp in naturally aspirated trim to a hearty 225 hp is easily felt. You defiantly feel the difference between the two, and know exactly where your extra money went. Power is direct, and there is almost no indication of any turbo lag, thanks in part to Subaru’s turbocharger design and size choice. The transmission shifts easily (although slightly notchy, which some may like) and gave no indication that it was fragile, as the previous generation transmission seemed to be notorious for (but I guess 5500 rpm clutch drops will hurt anything).

Driving the WRX on city streets is actually very comfortable. With the quick and torquey power delivery, passing isn’t a problem at low speeds or at freeway speeds, and the clutch effort is very, very easy (which wins points in LA traffic for sure!). The dark interior sometimes make you feel like you’re in the bat cave, but still feels higher quality than the Mitsubishi counterpart. Potholes are soaked up yet there’s still enough bite to have some fun on freeway on-raps.

Some may say that the WRX has lost some of its edge. Gone are some of the raw and brutal characteristics that attracted thousands upon thousands of American fans throughout the country, but new owners do have to look forward to one thing: refinement. Where the old WRX might have made you feel like a rally champion all the time, the new one does so only when you don’t feel like being in a comfortable cruiser. My vote? Definitely the one with the split personality!

2008-05-08T00:28:00.000-07:00

Torc (Toyota Owner's And Restorer's Club) brings out all the Toyota enthusiasts from around the country. This year, a few friends and I decided we'd actually enter our cars into the show! We all had no intentions of winning anything (we're all track guys with dirty, beat up cars) but we still thought it would be fun to show and hang out with other people that share our passion for cars, even though it may be in a different manner. Oddly enough though, Andy Yen took 2nd place for best AE86! Its really no suprise though since he's the only one of us with real paint (and a nice job at that) and he's also got tons of cool little doo-dads like the Stack digital display gauge and the Autronic stand alone system. Congradulations Andy!

For the entire gallery, go here:

thanks alex V for the pics!

Greddy Performance Festival

2008-02-25T00:37:00.000-08:00

We love it when track days are close to home. This rarely happens however, since California Speedway and Irwindale Speedway are the only tracks close to us, and neither of them hold drift events anymore! Luckily for us, Greddy helds its first ever open to the public performance festial. Designed to be an interactive event with multiple chances to drive, they also wanted to display their current crop of products so people could actually get a feel for what Greddy makes. A few lucky people even got to test drive their fleet vehicles which are equipped with some awsome Greddy goodies.

We signed up for the autocross and drift portion. I've never actually done an autocross before (only open track days, and wheel to wheel) so I thought it would be an interesting experience to finally get a feel for it. Some of the other guys who signed up for the drift were looking forward to driving in an event that wasn't going to kill their stamina or wallet to get to.

The autocross course was fairly straight forward. No real long straights, one big decreasing radius sweeper, and mostly left and right chicanes. Overall it think only 5 people throughout the day had at time that was faster than mine, and that included a few Miata's on full Hoosier slicks.

The drift event however, left some people a little upset. Apparently the run time wasn't delegated properly and there were just too many people. Most drivers didn't get to do more than 2 runs per hour, which equates to only about 8 runs total for the day.

Even though the event was filled, it sounds like the venue wasn't too happy with the way things were being run, so the event is now in question as to whether or not it'll happen again next year. Contact Greddy and let them know its worth it, and that an event like this one are few and far between!

Alex Pfeiffer's Locost 7

2008-02-18T20:46:00.000-08:00

There are many paths you can take to build the ultimate track day vehicle. Some people buy high dollar exotics, some people buy bare shells to build from the ground up. For a select few, either of those options don't lead to their ultimate goal: dominance. Alex Pfeiffer decided to up the ante in his history of vehicle ownership, and bring the thunder with his Locost Super 7.

Being the avid driver and fabricator that he is, he wanted something unique that was fun to drive, and could be an expression of the purist attitude that he believes should be embodied in all cars. Nothing could be more representative than this Locost 7. Weighing in at a bare bones 1200 lbs., you'd be hard pressed to find a chassis that has the same potential that this has. Perhaps the only thing that comes close are the KTM X-bow or the Ariel Atom, but both of those monsters costs upwards of 30,000, a sum of which many of us can't afford to spend on a weekend toy.

Alex decided that he would transplant the baisic mechanical components from his AE86 Corolla onto his 7. No small task by any means, but not an impossible one for a man with his fabrication and building skills. First to go on from the AE86 was the rear axle. Alex kept the 6.7" rear differential with 4.3 ratio ring and pinion to drive his 7, along with the all import KAAZ 2-way limited slip differential. These components, mated to the standard T50 transmission put down all the power his engine produces.

The engine was also transplanted from his AE86. This was no ordinary AE86 engine, however as the 16v powerplanted was boosted with a turbocharger. Alex' custom fabricated turbocharged engine includes OEM 4AGZE pistons, rods, crank, block and head, with boost duties handled by a Garret T28. A custom tube manfold collects the air to help the spool, and a custom aluminum intercooler helps cooling duties. You'll also notice that the intercooler and aluminum radiator are positioned in the newly popular "V" positioning. Usually to showcase fabrication skills among show cars, this setup actually gets put to use m allowing additional airflow to enter the nose of the engine, to help in cooling of both the radiator and intercooler, and in this case also the massive 40 row Long Racing oil cooler. The entire engine setup is good for 240 rear wheel horsepower.

The suspension is also trick. Custom Koni coilovers with heim jointed ends along with custom wound eibach springs aid in the majority of the dampening, only complemented by custom heim jointed arms at each end that Alex fabricated himself. The result is clear and reactive steering and chassis control. For some this might create a vehicle that is too sensitive to inputs, but in the hands of the right driver it becomes a surgical instrument to carve correct lines on the track.

To help stop this beast, Alex also imported his own Batlle Version AE86 Corolla brake kit, which includes steel braided lines, Hawk "Blue" pads, and most importantly Willowood 4-piston front calipers. These brakes, while small play a significant role in this vehicle's balance and supercar ability as stopping form high velocities become a matter of finessing the pedal.

Inside the car, you'll finder perhaps the most spartan of all stripped down interiors. Absent are any gimmicky race gagues, instead replaced by no-nonsense race gauges from a variety of different manufacturers. Oddly enough, positioned center directly in front of the driver is not the tachometer, but rather the water temperature gauge. Helping contrl the vehicle is a custom Momo steering wheel originally intended for use on a go-kart, but adapted for duty to help tame this beast. Also, a vintage Momo fiberglass race bucket holds him in place during long drifts and high speed turns alike.

Driving Impression:

Doing the math leads you to one conclusion: this thing is fast. Take a 1200 pound car and give it more than 300 flywheel horsepower, and you have a recipe for pants-wetting excitement. To say that this thing is fast is a total understatement. Perhaps its the proximity to the ground, or perhaps its in its necessity to wear goggles or some sort of shield to prevent the wind from burning your eyes, but no other vehicle that I have ever drive even comes close to the sheer performance this vehicle unleashes at you.

Taking the car out and driving it around town is actually pretty easy. When the engine is not under boost, it is actually quite docile, and is even fuel friendly! The minute you stab the throttle however, all things totally change. Boost hits incredibly fast thanks to the ball bearing center section, and before you even have a chance to process what you've just done, you're off. Acceleration is unlike anything I've ever experienced before. Pure neck snapping torque coupled with the rush of the turbo spool creates and addictive environment that's both exciting and frightening at the same time. Hit 2nd gear, and soon enough third is right around the corner. The final drive gear ratio makes for insanely fast acceleration, and rewards those who are paying attention. Unlike an AWD turbo vehicle, like the Lancer Evolution or the Subuaru WRX, you absolutely must pay attention while driving this vehicle. All the traction and versatility is there, but if you're caught asleep for even a second, things will certainly get ugly.

The steering, ooooh the steering. Alex also decided to bring over the steering system from his AE86, but modified it. With aggressive negative camber settings and sticky tires, this car bites and bites hard. Not once did I feel understeer at the limit, nor did I feel any numbness. As a matter of fact, the steering feels like its wired directly to your brain. The reactions are so fast, that you wonder if you even though of the movement first, or if it happened in some Jedi mind trick manner. Either way, telling the car what to do and thinking ahead is the way to drive this car. In addition, in case you've come into a corner too hot or power on the gas too early, Alex had built in a failsafe. He modified the steering rack so a massive amount of angle can be achieved. The car almost feels like it can bite its own butt. Hanging it out and letting the wheel counter, you can dive in and give the car throttle without worry of the car spinning. It really makes you feel like you're a much better driver than you actually are.

The brakes on the car are very sensative. Almost too sensative, as it was rather easy for me to lock up the fronts. Perhaps its my driving style, but barely pushing on them induces lots of pressure on the rotors. Indeed it does help the vehicle stop, but heel-toe driving in my size 13 shoes proved to be quite difficult.

Feats of testicular fortitude often times define masculinity. At least among race car drivers, that attitude is still prevalent. Hiding behind computer controlled traction control all wheel driver or insane amounts of power are definatly ways to help you go around a race track quickly, but if you really want to showcase your hairy chest, then you'll buy a Super 7!

Tokyo Auto Salon 2008

2008-01-25T17:09:00.000-08:00

There's always a "big one" for everything you could possibly be obsessed with. Comic book and art fans have the San Diego Comic con, Baseball fans have the World series, and heavy metal fans have Ozzfest. We Japanese car enthusiasts have the Tokyo Auto Salon. Through some careful planning and lots of overtime, I got a chance to take the pilgrimmage to Japan and attend the worlds largest show for customized and modified Japanese vehicles.

Every major player involved in the automotive aftermarket in Japan was represented here. HKS, Greddy, Jun Auto mechanic and many others pulled out all the stops and brought their finest to showcase what they have in store for 2008. In addition, many of the OEM manufacturers also use the show to highlight their dedication to the customization world, and also bring some new models out to gauge interest from those who show more than a casual interest in motor vehicles. The difference between the two types of booths? Budget. The OEM's have huge displays with large flashing lights, dancing girls, and professional announcers, while the aftermarket booths usually let their products and fabrication do the talking.

Here are just some highlights from what was on the main floor:

HKS had a fine booth at the very forefront of the first main hall. HKS was celebrating their 35th anniversay and decided to showcase many of the parts that made them the oldest and perhaps most trusted name in Japanese performance parts. Everything from the first turbo kit they sold all the way through their current host of electronics were all on display. They even brought a timeline of cars, which included their drag skyline as well as their time attack Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution.

A shop that some of you may not be familiar with is Tec-Art's. They're a small shop on the outskirts of Tokyo specializing in fabrication and engine building. They are perhaps best known for their involvement in the AE86 N2 series from Hot Version, where their high-tech AE86 continues to impress with its 17" wheel setup and sequential transmission. Here, we have an example of one of their customer cars, which is an FC RX7 with a custom wide-body kit to house the tremedous wheels and tires, as well as a custom Trust turbo upgrade to help battling those pesky I-6's on the track. Beautiful indeed!

Up next, we have this wonderful example of "old meets new" with HotStaff's AE86 with F20C powerplant swap. This vehicle was recently showcase in the "VTEC Club" dvd series and has also motivated many AE86 enthusiests to think about using Honda power in their usually underpowered vehicles. With 240 naturally aspirated horses on tap in a lightweight 2200 pound car, this thing moves like there's no tomorrow. You'll certainly suprise a few unsuspecting Porsche owners with this setup.

The Mitsubishi Lancer Evolution is known worldwide as one of the premier bases for rally racing. Its turbocharged powerplant combined with its technologically advanced all wheel drive layout allow the car to be fast out of the box, and even deadlier in modified form. Here, we have the Japanese Rally Championship Evo 8, modified to the strict standards that the JRC enforces.

Suzuki only seems to be a major player in the motorcycle and power sports industries, but they are alive and well automobile motorsports. Suzuki runs a factory backed Swift in one of the lower classes in the Junior World Rally Cross Championship, and this is an example of one of those fine machines. With a 2.0L naturally aspirated power plant producing roughly 240 horsepower, you can be things thing makes short work of tarmac, gravel and road courses. This partciular vehicle was actually featured in Best Motoring's "Hot Version" DVD magazine series, pitted up against Keiichi Tsuchiya's tougue king AE86. An impressive machine, indeed!

This story wouldn't be complete without at least one offering from the world of Super GT, or perhaps more widely known as JGTCC. This team Yellow Hat 350Z showcases all the current technology being utilized in Japan's premier sports car series. Underhood is Nissans' new flagship engine, the VQ35 although modified to compete with other 500 horsepower machines via route of a twin turbocharged system. While the machine looks very close to a road going 350Z (or Fairlady Z in Japan) it is definately modified beyong the reach of most aftermarket tuners.

So concludes our coverage of the floorshow of the Tokyo Auto Salon. Hope to see you on the trip with us next year!

4AG Challenge, Big Willow

2007-12-29T16:32:00.000-08:00

At some point I knew that competition was going to happen for me. I've been concentrating on improving for the past two years, so it was about time to see where I stood with some of my peers. Luckily, PASS racing (http://www.passracing.com/) held a round of their 4AG challenge series at Big Willow. Normally I don't like driving Big Willow in my Corolla, but I figured I'd give it a shot since a few other friends were also participating in the event.

The car had the new engine in , and it had already had a few track events under its belt. Everything ran pretty well except for the high RPM misfire that seemed to keep happening whenever the ambient air temperature got too cold. I tried to remedy it by blocking half the radiator with cardboard, but it didn't work the whole day.

I managed to finish 4th out of 12 drivers (if you don't count Pfeiffer's turbo 7, then I placed third) but I know I can do better!

The 24 Heurs Du LeMons, AGAIN!

2007-12-14T09:47:00.000-08:00

Yes ladies and gentlemen, we decied to do it again. We decided to enter the 24 Hours of LeMons race, this time held at Thunder Hill raceway!

To say that we had fun last time is truely an understatement. Sure some of us got egg in the face, some of us almost passed out of heat exhaustion, and some of us ran over things twice as large as our little MR2, but we really had the time of our lives! This time however the team changed a little with some people having other obligations, so we lost Andrew Liu, Matt Perkins and Alex Villareal, but in turned gained a few hotshoes! We welcomed Alex Pfeiffer, Geoff Wise and Steve Rodgers to our team (or band) of misfits.

This time around, we also modified the car more. We stripped it of everything we possibly could, to bring the weight down even further. All in all, we lost something around 150 pounds! It was no easy job though and I've certainly got the cuts to prove it. We also added some new performance shocks, as well as an adjustable coilover kit fabbed up by Mac from M1 fabrication! Thanks again Mac!

The race itself was far less grueling, but more intense. My particular stint didn't subject me to the heat that Altamont did, but the racing was far closer and more like a real race than before. I had to plan my passes carefully and really drive to conserve the car for the later drivers. The car was fantastic though, all the way up until the second day when a wheel bearing let go, and put us out for quite a while.

We ended up finishing 15th this time, even though our roster of drivers was a little more talented. We did however get black flagged 5 times, so I guess you could say it makes sense.

The worst of it is, I think we'll be doing this again in 08!