COVERAGE> Gymkhana Block Party!
This weekend, while I was out of town handling some family business, drifting sharpshooter Larry Chen was out at Hollywood Park attending the media preview day of DC Shoes founder Ken Block's Gymkhana Invitational. I'm pretty disappointed that I wasn't able to make it to the event myself, as I absolutely LOVE gymkhana.
For those who don't know, gymkhana is kind of like a cross between autocross (slalom/solo racing in a parking lot, in a course laid out with cones) and drifting. Back before I started working the media end of the drifting scene, I was pretty active in driving at autocross events. It's fun, it improves your driving skills, and it's not too expensive.
Ken Block isn't the first person to try to organize a gymkhana event though. Erik Jacobs from DG Trials in Atlanta GA was the first person that I had ever heard of trying to make a series of drifting and gymkhana events... this was back around 2004 or so, when drifting was just beginning to blow up! To put things in perspective, back then, Vaughn Gittin Jr was still working on getting sponsored by Falken, and he was driving an S13 240SX, not a Ford Mustang! Read more...
For those who don't know, gymkhana is kind of like a cross between autocross (slalom/solo racing in a parking lot, in a course laid out with cones) and drifting. Back before I started working the media end of the drifting scene, I was pretty active in driving at autocross events. It's fun, it improves your driving skills, and it's not too expensive.
Ken Block isn't the first person to try to organize a gymkhana event though. Erik Jacobs from DG Trials in Atlanta GA was the first person that I had ever heard of trying to make a series of drifting and gymkhana events... this was back around 2004 or so, when drifting was just beginning to blow up! To put things in perspective, back then, Vaughn Gittin Jr was still working on getting sponsored by Falken, and he was driving an S13 240SX, not a Ford Mustang! 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...
