COVERAGE> The Formula D Atlanta Experience Pt.1
For the MotorMavens Crew, Round Two of the 2011 Formula Drift Championship at Road Atlanta represented a lot of hard work, and about 6 or 7 total hours of sleep for the entire weekend. Since our Associate Editor Jonathan "J-Mac" McWhorter lives in the Atlanta area, he volunteered to be the team leader for the weekend, and coordinated everything for the out-of-state crew members that would be flying in for the event.
Some people may not realize this, but Road Atlanta is a very special place for the MotorMavens Crew. Anyone who knows MotorMavens co-founder Andy Sapp can tell you that he has a very fond place in his heart for Road Atlanta. Even though Andy coined the now famous phrase Keep Drifting Fun, he has been drifting competitively at Formula D events in Atlanta ever since 2004 - the very first event in the Formula Drift series. Ever.
Read more...
Some people may not realize this, but Road Atlanta is a very special place for the MotorMavens Crew. Anyone who knows MotorMavens co-founder Andy Sapp can tell you that he has a very fond place in his heart for Road Atlanta. Even though Andy coined the now famous phrase Keep Drifting Fun, he has been drifting competitively at Formula D events in Atlanta ever since 2004 - the very first event in the Formula Drift series. Ever.
Read more...
COVERAGE> FD Irwindale Title Fight Weigh-In
25 hours and 2,200 miles later, I am still awake and in California for Formula Drift at Irwindale Speedway -the final installment for the 2010 Formula D season. I woke up at 5am EST to head to the airport in Atlanta, Georgia for my flight out to LA earlier today - Friday, the 8th of October. Right now it is nearing 3am on the 9th; I just might be tired. It's all for a good cause, though. The weather is fantastic this weekend, and the drifting is even better. Everyone came out to play, and I'm sure it's going to be quite the battle to win the championship.
This post is definitely going to be a short one but it will not lack in content. Below you'll find some selected images from the day of qualifying just to whet your appetite for the main event. Read more...
This post is definitely going to be a short one but it will not lack in content. Below you'll find some selected images from the day of qualifying just to whet your appetite for the main event. Read more...
COVERAGE> The Underdogs of Formula D Atlanta
Continuing the photographic coverage on MotorMavens with even more stories from Formula D Atlanta, I know that several of our readers have asked to see more images revolving around the Formula D Pro Am and the drivers that participate in the series. I'm more than happy to follow through on requests like these. After all, I think it's the local Pro Am drivers from different regions that add flavor to the larger Formula D series.
I feel even more of a connection to the grassroots/underdog drivers sometimes, because I think that if the MotorMavens Crew were a drift team, it would be exactly like a team of privateers that's striving to elevate its game to a big time level. The members of the MotorMavens Crew are extremely driven and passionate about car culture. Even though some of us might have backgrounds that include professional experience (working with big print magazines, newspapers, video production companies, or larger blog sites) in our particular niches, we have come together to join our collective talents and build something we truly believe in.
MotorMavens is not a big company with major sponsors and an expense account. Unlike some of the big magazines or corporate-financed automotive blogs, we can't spend hundreds of thousands of dollars every year on our travel, marketing, and camera equipment. Hell, almost all of the members of the MotorMavens Crew work other jobs and spend hard earned personal money to travel to the different events we cover for the site. For this past Atlanta event, we didn't even have the budget to stay in the official Formula D hotel with the rest of the people on the tour. Instead, we gratefully crashed on the floors and couches of our good friends in Atlanta (Thanks to Erik Jacobs from DG Trials, Cody Wellons from S3 Magazine, and Andy Sapp from MotorMavens) in order to make this trip happen with the small budget we had to work with.
The grassroots drivers that showed their skills at Road Atlanta's Formula D Pro Am definitely impressed me. I'll be honest... I wasn't necessarily impressed with how all the cars looked or performed... it was very obvious that many of the cars were grassroots "budget builds" and that's just fine. However, what impressed me about the drivers from the South was how much heart they had. They definitely wore their hearts on their sleeves as they drove in the intense mid-day heat of their Friday practice sessions. Pro Am qualifying took place at around 8:00pm on that Friday night, while most of the drifting fans at Road Atlanta packed up and went home. I'm sure it must have been somewhat disconcerting that many of the people in the audience didn't care enough to stay and watch them, but the grassroots drifters of the South were their own support group. They watched their friends and competitors intently from the top of Road A's famous hill, clapping and cheering for each other as each driver took their turn running the course. I suppose some people may just say it's Southern hospitality, but I was honestly impressed that the Southeast drifters seemed to be such a tightly knit group. Now that's the spirit... at least, that's what the real spirit of drifting is all about. Read more...
I feel even more of a connection to the grassroots/underdog drivers sometimes, because I think that if the MotorMavens Crew were a drift team, it would be exactly like a team of privateers that's striving to elevate its game to a big time level. The members of the MotorMavens Crew are extremely driven and passionate about car culture. Even though some of us might have backgrounds that include professional experience (working with big print magazines, newspapers, video production companies, or larger blog sites) in our particular niches, we have come together to join our collective talents and build something we truly believe in.
MotorMavens is not a big company with major sponsors and an expense account. Unlike some of the big magazines or corporate-financed automotive blogs, we can't spend hundreds of thousands of dollars every year on our travel, marketing, and camera equipment. Hell, almost all of the members of the MotorMavens Crew work other jobs and spend hard earned personal money to travel to the different events we cover for the site. For this past Atlanta event, we didn't even have the budget to stay in the official Formula D hotel with the rest of the people on the tour. Instead, we gratefully crashed on the floors and couches of our good friends in Atlanta (Thanks to Erik Jacobs from DG Trials, Cody Wellons from S3 Magazine, and Andy Sapp from MotorMavens) in order to make this trip happen with the small budget we had to work with.
The grassroots drivers that showed their skills at Road Atlanta's Formula D Pro Am definitely impressed me. I'll be honest... I wasn't necessarily impressed with how all the cars looked or performed... it was very obvious that many of the cars were grassroots "budget builds" and that's just fine. However, what impressed me about the drivers from the South was how much heart they had. They definitely wore their hearts on their sleeves as they drove in the intense mid-day heat of their Friday practice sessions. Pro Am qualifying took place at around 8:00pm on that Friday night, while most of the drifting fans at Road Atlanta packed up and went home. I'm sure it must have been somewhat disconcerting that many of the people in the audience didn't care enough to stay and watch them, but the grassroots drifters of the South were their own support group. They watched their friends and competitors intently from the top of Road A's famous hill, clapping and cheering for each other as each driver took their turn running the course. I suppose some people may just say it's Southern hospitality, but I was honestly impressed that the Southeast drifters seemed to be such a tightly knit group. Now that's the spirit... at least, that's what the real spirit of drifting is all about. Read more...
NEWSWORTHY> Roegge and Herron 2010 DVD
Will Roegge and Joshua Herron are combining their killer creative talents to produce a DVD about American grassroots drifting, called Keep Drifting Fun! These two filmmakers have upped the ante on automotive video content ever since their visually stunning, yet technically precise work hit the web. To hear that they are joining forces to tackle this project is definitely exciting.
This news is of particular interest to me, because the last time this sort of project was attempted was in late 2006, for a project near and dear to my heart, called Slide America. Needless to say, I am pretty pumped to see something like this come together again, and I could not think of a better duo to pull it off.
It is my pleasure to give you a sneak-peek.
Enjoy!
Drift Mechanik’s Keep Drifting Fun from Joshua Herron on Vimeo.
COVERAGE> Southeast Drift's Land of the Great
What’s up MotorMavens readers? My name is Jonathan McWhorter and I’m a photographer from Atlanta, Georgia. On Saturday, November 28th, I had the privilege of attending Southeast Drift’s Land of the Great practice and tandem drift competition at Gresham Motorsports Park in Jefferson, Georgia.
It was a lot of fun because not only was a friend of mine driving, but I somehow talked them into giving me a media pass. With the media pass I was able to get down onto the track and up close to the cars as they made their runs. It was an incredible experience, and I think I got some pretty killer shots as well. I was at the exit of the bank on the first turn. It was a pretty sick spot because I was behind the wall, maybe 10-15 feet from the cars. Read more...
It was a lot of fun because not only was a friend of mine driving, but I somehow talked them into giving me a media pass. With the media pass I was able to get down onto the track and up close to the cars as they made their runs. It was an incredible experience, and I think I got some pretty killer shots as well. I was at the exit of the bank on the first turn. It was a pretty sick spot because I was behind the wall, maybe 10-15 feet from the cars. Read more...
