It was pretty short notice.. it seemed like this year’s event was a little last-minute.. but it went OK nonetheless. Mike actually asked me to go just to check it out and snap some pics.. to be honest, I wasn’t all that excited. I told him if there was no drifting, then there’d be nothing to watch. He didn’t like that too much and bombarded me with a handful of insults.

After checking out the schedule and since I’m relatively close to Cal/Auto Club Speedway, I figured I’ll check it out in the morning and get home in time to go to a friend’s kid’s birthday party. But I have to say, one big reason I decided to go was because DLo (AKA Eric Hsu) mentioned on his blog that he was going to be taking out the Beast AKA his XS Engineering Skyline R32 GT-R. I’ve seen the car in person many times, but never “mobile”. Plus, Mike and Wen said that they had contacted a handful (10-12) Skyline owners and that they’d come out for the “GT-R Shootout” at the event (it turned out to be a separate heads-up class, basically).

The event was actually much better than I had expected. There were lots of racers/racecars. I also have to hand it to the Honda drag racers who have kept at it. I saw Honda after Honda blast down the quarter mile running 9s and 10s. When I left Saturday morning, the cutoff for the Pro-Am FWD class was at 10.56 or something like that.. very impressive. I also saw a couple Hondas run 9.60s. But the highlight of my day was definitely seeing the R32-R35 Skylines line up and race down the track. One R35 (from Titek?) was running mid 11s and one that looked stock ran a 12.0 while I was there. Wen’s R33 that made 870+ WHP only managed a 12.1 (while I was there) but he figured he had broken something in the driveline, which is why the car was trying to drive itself into the wall. I heard Eric Hsu ended up qualifying Sunday and won the GT-R Shootout with a 10.40 pass.. not bad.

So anyway, here’s some of the images I took in the 2 hours that I was there.. look for full media coverage in an upcoming issue of DSPORT Magazine or on their website, http://www.dsportmag.com

Wen’s HKS turbo.. don’t ask me what size it is, but I’m guessing its a T51R

Hubie Fuh’s 10 second Mini Cooper S.. how about them gypsies, huh Hubie?

An orange Nissan Skyline R33 GT-R

TiTek Nissan Skyline R35 GT-R running mid 11s

Speedline Racing & DSPORT’s Wen Lai and his Nissan Skyline R33 GT-R

A random 10 second Honda Civic with about 1,100 more feet to go..

A 9? second Scion tC.. who knew it existed? Not me.. but very impressive

All images were shot with my Canon EOS 40D and Canon EF 24-70mm f/2.8L. Can you tell I’m trying to be more creative in my cropping?

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Wow.. one after another.. Sport Compact Car has now joined the ranks of Turbo & Hi-Tech Performance Magazine. Poof, just like that.. 115 people laid off by Source Interlink. I guess with a stock price of $0.17, everyone should’ve known it was coming.

I still have one of the original issues of Sport Compact Car, before it was bought by who ever bought them back in the early 90s. Back then, it featured a lot of So Cal local cars that frequented the street races.. three that come to mind are Shoreline Racing’s (local street racing crew) 1985 Mugen Honda CRX (complete with Mugen widebody), Sammy Ho’s 1986 or 87 Honda CRX Si with 16″ SSR Neos and the legendary 1988 Toyota twin-charged MR2 (I want to say his name was Dean, but I dont think that’s right..). Around 1993, I was personally on-hand to witness the twin-charged MR2 smoke the crap out of a motorcycle (of course, the motorcycle gave the MR2 a “flying 10 car” start). I’ll have to dig it up sometime and scan some pages for old time’s sake. I never really read SCC after they were bought out (the first time).. so I can’t say I’ll miss it.

In any case, now the import automotive performance community is left with Super Street, Modified Magazine, and of course, our favorite, DSPORT Magazine.

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Well, I have to hand it to Red Bull.. if there’s anything worth doing that you can do better by throwing money at it, they’ll do it.. the event was pretty big.. at least as big as Irwindale, but felt bigger.. more people, more vendors, etc etc.. I’d say the ticket prices were a little steep, but I guess that didnt phase the people who were willing to spend $35 for a 2-day event.

The competition was “eh”. I expected more from the international folks.. I was VERY impressed with the Red Bull FD RX-7 from New Zealand.. it was rockin’ a 4-rotor NA motor that had a very NON-rotary sound to it.. one photographer mentioned that it sounded very “F1-ish”.. at which point a grizzled and seasoned UK photographer (John Brooks, who had photographed F1) said.. “uh, no”.. but secretly, I thought the same thing.. hey, don’t talk smack.. not like I ever been to an F1 race.. ok, how about, the Red Bull FD sounded like an F1 car on my TV? better?

Most of the international guys were ousted after the first round. Too bad really.. I mean, these guys have the most to prove to the US crowd.. the Formula D drivers could care less (aside from the big prize money).. the US cars were, overall, much more polished.. newer/current/relevant model cars.. pretty paint jobs, nice vinyl jobs, etc etc..

The winner was Rhys Millen.. he’s sponsored by Red Bull, by the way.. he is definitely one of the best.. so I wont say it looked rigged.. but to people who dont necessarily follow drifting.. um, it probably looks rigged..

I’ll be uploading pics to Flickr in a bit.. but for now, here’s one thats different from my normal perspective..

Shot with my Canon EOS 40D, Canon EF 24-70mm f2.8L, 27mm, 1/125 @ F14

Also, for you So Cal folks, check out JTuned.com’s Second Coming Meet and Thanksgiving Food Drive on Novmber 23rd, 2008 @ Super Autobacs in Stanton, CA!

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