Mar/100
Redline Time Attack @ Buttonwillow
Buttonwillow, CA - After testing at El Toro, we stopped by Buttonwillow to run in Round 1 of Redline Time Attack. It's always fun to check out all the time attack cars and there were more than a few familiar faces there. N1 Concepts (which is basically my neighbor) had their yellow S2000 out there, piloted by Andre Hartanto, and Owen Guo was competing in his white Ren Motorsports S2000. Conrad was competing in the Drift Class, which put him up against Kyle Mohan and his purple Nexen FC. Larry Chen was there (hard to miss with his 600mm lens) as well as a host of other friends and colleagues.
Conrad had the stock front suspension back on the Camaro, since the limited steering angle makes the car more controllable when not drifting. Kyle felt pretty comfortable during practice and wanted to put money down that he'd win. He was thinking $5. I was thinking $100 would be more fun but he declined my offer.
Conrad ended up taking the win with a 1:57.896. Good thing Kyle didn't take my bet!
Mar/100
Grunewald testing at El Toro
Irvine, CA - I traveled down to Socal with the Blu808 crew to shoot Conrad testing out the Camaro's new front suspension setup, which gives the car 51º of steering angle. We met up with Rhys Millen and his crew at MCAS El Toro, where the Long Beach course was set up on one of the runways.
After some tweaks and tuning, the Camaro was a pretty amazing sight, spewing as much smoke as the Tanaka Corvette, which Conrad drove through the 2008 season.
To end the day, Conrad and Rhys did a few tandem runs. If they do it in Long Beach they way they did it at El Toro the crowd is sure to love it.
Mar/100
Hankook Camaro at WSIR
Feb/100
Wekfest 2010
San Francisco, CA - I headed over to SF today to check out Wekfest, the huge car show in the Japan Center parking garage. I missed last year's show, so this was the first one I'd been to since JDM Theory was still hosting the show. Wekfest was allowing non-Japanese cars in the show, so there were a few domestics and Euros in attendance, though Japanese cars were still a big majority.
The first car I stopped to see was this lime green '74 TE27 Corolla owned by Joey Gauthier of Performance Options in Oakland. The car caught on fire last week, so Joey had to scramble to get the left quarter panel painted before the new graphics could go on, and then he got the rear window done just 4 hours before he had to have the car in the garage. Talk about cutting it close!
Next I stopped to see this silver S13 owned by Josh Chang. I hadn't seen Josh in several years so I was surprised to see him there with a car. Under the hood is an LS2 complete with hot pink fuel rail covers. It goes well with the rainbow flake in the paint that you can't really see in the picture. Josh is planning to take this car to Vegas ProAm for a shot at a Formula DRIFT license.
Calvin Wan had his S14 on display, promoting his new Drift Sumi-E app for the iPhone. Calvin wasn't around so I didn't get to talk to him about the car, but it pretty much speaks for itself!
I stumbled upon this old Mini Cooper, very proudly wearing its 13" shoes. The paint was super nice too!
And then it was time to leave. I've always loved the view from the bridge over Geary. Too bad that Toyota semi was there for most of the day. Oh well, there's always next year!
