Most of us in the United States are celebrating Independence Day today, the Fourth of July. This weekend, Mike Kim, Larry Chen and I represented the Southern Cali chapter of the MotorMavens Crew were out at Willow Springs International Raceway, shooting photos at the Ziptied/Just Drift All Star Bash drifting festival. (more…)
I just saw this “VD Checkup” video posted on the VegasDrift site. The VD Checkup is basically a “driver profile video” of sorts, which allows people to get to know the folks involved with VegasDrift. In this particular installment, AE86/S13 driver Mike Bolanos sits down for a quick one-on-one talk with AE86 bretheren (and MotorMavens chief editor) Antonio Alvendia, who just happened to be in Las Vegas for a bachelor party. This soft spoken individual (I’m obviously talking about Mike) briefly talks about his experience as a driver and a Vegas ProAm judge.
I always see Mike at drift events, and I think it’s cool that he’s so committed to fully living out his drift lifestyle. For those not in the know, Mike is also very much involved in Just Drift, thanks to JD event organizer Charlie Ongsingco. Want to learn more about Mike? Check out his website and add him on Facebook. While there, also be sure to add the new MotorMavens Blog Fan Page. Pleasure getting to know you Mike, you too are a true MotorMaven.
There sure were a lot of car events to hit up this weekend in Southern California, and the Formula D season hasn't even started yet. Man, it's going to be a super hectic year for sure. On Saturday morning, Formula Drift held their annual pre-season tech inspection at Universal Technical Institute in Rancho Cucamonga, CA. This tech inspection is open to the public, and it gives drifting fans an up close and personal glimpse at the cars that will be running in the series before the season starts.
For those who don't know, Universal Technical Institute is a mechanic's training school, located out in the IE (Inland Empire), right across the street from the old Falken Tire headquarters, and right next to Kumho on Sixth Street and Haven. I've had an increasingly extremely full personal calendar, filled with things I need to do and places I need to be... and this weekend was no different. As much as I wanted to, I couldn't even make it out to the tech day myself, so I am super appreciative that new MotorMavens contributors Horacio Flores and Mike Kim (no, not the Mike Kim from UrbanRacer) offered to go to UTI and see what was going on. Thanks a lot guys! Enough about these details though - let's have a look at the cars! Read more...
It has been over one week since the epic All Star Bash drifting festival took over the Mojave Desert, but that isn't stopping Motor Mavens from continuing the coverage. We had to take a very brief hiatus from updates this weekend, as some of our crew roadtripped to Chicago for D1 while others had to divert our concentration for a moment to finish other client projects that help us pay our monthly bills. This being said, we'd just like to make sure you know that even though it happened a little over a week ago, All Star Bash is not old to us.
All Star Bash is still very vivid and exciting in our minds, and we don't plan on pushing off our grassroots drifting photos to publish coverage from other big events that took place this week. We know other sites have already moved on, but we don't care. We're still all about the ASB. Drifting is where we live. It's in our hearts and on our minds, and it doesn't just stop when events are over. Even though the MotorMavens site is new, the members of our crew have been down with drifting since day one. It's like that... and that's the way it is. We show love to grassroots drifters, and grassroots drifters show love to us. This being said, we are proud to continue our coverage of the Ziptied/JustDrift All Star Bash, as we bring you the long overdue, eagerly anticipated... Part FOUR! Read more...
More All Star Bash!!! We love it, so Motor Mavens keeps it coming! Most of the people in the MotorMavens crew live in different states... but yesterday after everyone got off work, we were able to put our photos together and organize them!
Continuing our coverage with more photos from the ZipTied/Just Drift Summer All Star Bash this past weekend, I'd like to start off by giving props to Charlie, Mike, and everyone behind the All Star Bash! This was the biggest All Star Bash yet, and I'm sure it's just going to get bigger and bigger. There were more members of the media shooting photos and video at this event than any ASB event in the past! But media aside, this event also had more cars than any previous All Star Bash! I'm proud to see a small grassroots drifting organization like Just Drift come up on such a bad ass event, with tons of participation from drifters all over the nation! ...and I'm sure the next event will be even bigger!
And now, on to the photos... THIS IS GRASSROOTS DRIFTING! Read more...
All over the USA, this has been a pretty exciting weekend for grassroots drifting enthusiasts. On the East Coast, many of our good friends made the trek to Virginia International Raceway for the North vs South drifting competition. However, in Southern California, the hottest thing happening is definitely the Just Drift/Zip Tied All Star Bash drifting festival at Willow Springs International Raceway. I've been to many All Star Bash events in the past, but it just doesn't seem to get old for me. In fact, the more events I go to, it keeps getting better and better. In the United States, the All Star Bash is the closest you can get to the actual look and feeling of an authentic Japanese grassroots drifting event, like the legendary Drifting Matsuri events at Ebisu Circuit or the regional MSC events.
Willow Springs is in the high desert - the Mojave Desert to be exact. It's two hours north east of Los Angeles, and the summertime sun just seems to sear anyone or anything it sees. As I write this, the event is far from over! In fact, we're about to leave the hotel in a few minutes to get back to the track, where the course just went hot - literally and figuratively.
This weekend's All Star Bash was exciting because there were drivers and cars that came from all over the United States just to drift with California's best. Cars came from as far as the San Francisco Bay Area, the Pacific Northwest, Arizona, Las Vegas, Chicago, and even South Dakota! Read more...
