COVERAGE> Wheelspotting At Wekfest Long Beach
Long Beach is quickly becoming one of my favorite venues for automotive events. This weekend, our friends from Weksos Industries made the trek down to Los Angeles to hold yet another Wekfest event in Southern Cali. Even though the event is pronounced "weak-fest" and their company name is pronounced "weak sauce," the turnout was anything but weak. Lowlife car owners from all over California and Nevada scraped their oilpans all the way to the Queen Mary to show off their first class wheel fitment. Read more...
PERSPECTIVE> My First Experience At Nurburgring
First impressions are lasting impressions, and my first impression about the Nurburgring is that it's absolutely unreal. As you make your way into the Eifel Mountain region of western Germany, it becomes more and more difficult to comprehend that something like the Nordschleife exists. The cascading mountains covered in dense forest, although the perfect place for your dream course or a video game, don't seem a feasible locale for a high speed, high stakes race track. I would liken the feeling to going to an amusement park as a kid and trying to fathom that so much awesome could be in one place. In today's world of rules, regulations, and protocol, this place should not happen (at least not easily and with lots of paperwork). However, the automotive dreamland that is the Nurburgring was conceived in a time when they only cared about one thing: racing. Read more...
CENTER STAGE> Mastermind Spirit Rei S13 Odyvia
Seeing the MasterMind Odyvia for the first time at our MotorMavens Mass Appeal Show in Irwindale, CA was a mind-blowing experience. Hearing the car start up for the first time left my ears ringing for hours. However, rather than just telling tell you why I fell in love with this car, I thought I should tell you how this car came to life instead. Please fasten your seat belts, this ride is about to get CRAZY.
You're probably asking yourself, what is an Odyvia? In case you didn't know, it's when you combine Honda Odyssey headlights with a 1991 Nissan 240SX (S13 Silvia) body. Hence, the name ODYVIA...I find it rather fitting for the car - the name sounds like it was plucked from an epic poem like The Iliad.
The reason I felt so passionate about this particular car wasn't the one-off Spirit Rei Japan widebody kit, custom fabrication, custom interior, nor the Z06 LS7 motor swap. It was because it took incredible persistence and attention to detail to accomplish - this project was riddled with issues that would make an average mechanic lose his mind. Read more...
The reason I felt so passionate about this particular car wasn't the one-off Spirit Rei Japan widebody kit, custom fabrication, custom interior, nor the Z06 LS7 motor swap. It was because it took incredible persistence and attention to detail to accomplish - this project was riddled with issues that would make an average mechanic lose his mind. Read more...
ROADTRIP> Spectre 341 Virginia City Hillclimb
This weekend, the MotorMavens Crew split up and went to several different events - while most of our friends were out in New Jersey for the latest round of the Formula Drift Championship, I decided to check out the annual Spectre 341 Challenge (aka the Virginia City Hillclimb) event happening roughly 30 minutes outside of Reno, Nevada. As I arrived into the wild west town of Virginia City and walked through the parking lot of the Silverland Hotel (designated the pit area for the race teams), I saw a good mixture of professionally prepared race cars, classic American muscle, and privately owned exotics getting ready to run up the treacherous winding road of Nevada State Highway 341. Read more...
GALLERY> The Forza Motorsport 4 Experience
As some of the readers of this blog may (or may not) already know, I've been away from my Southern California hometown for the past few weeks. In fact, I'm still out of state, dealing with an illness in the family. Last week however, I was able to come back to LA for just a few days to pick up mail, pay bills, and pack some additional clothes for my extended stay with the family.
On one of the nights I was back in LA, I was lucky enough to attend the exclusive Forza Motorsport 4 launch event/E3 Expo afterparty at the LA Live Event Deck in Downtown Los Angeles. Since my time in LA was so brief and packed with errands, I unfortunately didn't even have time to go to the E3 show itself, even though I had passes at the ready.
Even though I didn't make it to E3, I didn't feel too bad, because the Forza Motorsport 4 event had it all - hot cars, hot girls, catered Korean BBQ tacos and sliders from the Kogi BBQ truck, an open bar, an appearance from The Stig from the world renown BBC show Top Gear (or at least, a person dressed in the Stig's racing suit), special exclusive performances by legendary drummer Travis Barker from Blink 182 and Mixmaster Mike from the Beastie Boys, and did I mention... an open bar? Read more...
On one of the nights I was back in LA, I was lucky enough to attend the exclusive Forza Motorsport 4 launch event/E3 Expo afterparty at the LA Live Event Deck in Downtown Los Angeles. Since my time in LA was so brief and packed with errands, I unfortunately didn't even have time to go to the E3 show itself, even though I had passes at the ready.
Even though I didn't make it to E3, I didn't feel too bad, because the Forza Motorsport 4 event had it all - hot cars, hot girls, catered Korean BBQ tacos and sliders from the Kogi BBQ truck, an open bar, an appearance from The Stig from the world renown BBC show Top Gear (or at least, a person dressed in the Stig's racing suit), special exclusive performances by legendary drummer Travis Barker from Blink 182 and Mixmaster Mike from the Beastie Boys, and did I mention... an open bar? Read more...
GALLERY> Scenes from the Long Beach Grand Prix
This past weekend, the Toyota Grand Prix took over the streets of Long Beach, CA. This annual three-day festival of speed consisted of the Izod IndyCar Series, the American Le Mans Series, Firestone Indy Lights, Toyota Pro Celebrity Race, SCCA Pro World Challenge Championship, and a team tandem competition from Formula Drift. We don't normally cover open wheel racing on Motor Mavens, but since we were all in Long Beach two weeks ago for Round 1 of the Formula Drift series, we thought it would be pretty interesting to experience the annual Long Beach Grand Prix to show a little bit of contrast on the site.
Britain's Mike Conway (above) emerged as the winner of the IZOD IndyCar race. Last year, Conway fractured a vertebrae and broke his leg during the Indianapolis 500. An injury like that would spell the end of a racing career for some people, but Conway was able to overcome that incredible setback and take his first IndyCar win at Long Beach. What a way to make a comeback! Read more...
COVERAGE> Kop Hill Hillclimb 2009
Set in the beautiful country lanes of Princes Risborough, the Kop Hill Hillclimb is one of the oldest hill climbs in England. During the early 1900s it was one of the largest motorsport events in the UK. The hill itself is a pretty straight road, but it's over 1000 metres long to the summit and rises to 100 metres high. Big crowds would line the edges of the road to watch drivers and motorcyclists try to achieve the fastest times and speeds up the hill. Unfortunately, as the speeds got faster, so did the risks, and on the 28th of March 1925 an accident involving a spectator led to the end of the original Kop Hill event and led to the RAC banning all motorsports on public roads.
On the 26th and 27th of September, organisers decided to do a Kop Hill Commemorative Run to bring the sounds and sights and even smells (mmm, Castrol R) back to Kop Hill again. Over 250 cars and bikes were there, ranging in age from the 1900s right up to 1980s and even some very special modern cars. Read more...
On the 26th and 27th of September, organisers decided to do a Kop Hill Commemorative Run to bring the sounds and sights and even smells (mmm, Castrol R) back to Kop Hill again. Over 250 cars and bikes were there, ranging in age from the 1900s right up to 1980s and even some very special modern cars. Read more...
WEBMINING> Crank and Piston
Shortly after opening up the MotorMavens Twitter account (Follow us on Twitter!), we learned of a really great site called CrankAndPiston.com. Based in the Middle East, the site owner Phil McGovern has assembled a great crew of writers and photographers. Read more...
