I had the opportunity to design all of the ‘Hero Cards’ for the Motorsport Nationals autograph sessions. I put a lot of time into these cards, and wanted them all to be slightly different… while maintaining a cohesive feel that I developed for the flyer. Like the flyer, I wanted the design to feel vibrant with energy to help reflect the chaotic nature of the sport.
Big thanks to Cody for taking the profile pictures, and to Panda and Alex for coming through with action shots of the cars!
This photo that Shawn took kinda sums up our weekend. Motorsport Nationals got pummeled by intense rain all weekend long. There was a lot of random drifting on a soaked course… and only two ‘proper’ demos got performed once the rain let up for a bit.More to come…
We will be down at Atlanta Motor Speedway this weekend for a drift demolition at the Motorsport Nationals. If you’re in or around the Atlanta-area… come on out and watch us destroy our Yokohama ADVAN Tires!I had the honour of wrenching on most of the print-collateral for the drifting portion of this event, and I think it turned out killer! I wanted the flyer to be packed with energy, and be something nobody in their right mind would throw away.
Chad, Kathy, and I headed up to Aiken, SC to help my good buddy Chris Rhoad and Amanda Martin move to Knoxville, TN. Chris just landed a killer new job at XS Power, and needed some help shuttling cars to the new locale.I headed north with Chad and Kathy in the Soarer. For the record. I LOVE this car. A lot.
This would be my chariot for the trip. Amanda’s S13 hatch. The keyless entry was going haywire on this car… so once we got it started – it had to remain on for the entire trip. We finally got the car running thanks to a donor battery from the Corolla.
I found some sweet stickers… along with some snowflake window stickers that went on the car for the trip.
Driving the S13 was fun, especially though the mountains… until it rained. Then I thought I was going to die. Let’s just say when a car ‘accidentally’ steps out on you… its a good thing you’re a drifter. No way to power out of a drift going 70mph, 5th gear in a stock KA.Some post-game Huddle House action.
We crashed the local Wal-Mart for some home essentials. We found Petey hanging at the front door.
SAFETY!
Rhoad taking a break amidst unloading the truck.
Got the 240sx all settled in.
Chris unloading the Corolla.
Now she’s home as well.
Petey overseeing the moving activities.
The move is finally done.
I met Byron and Alex down at Atlanta Motor Speedway to help promote the Motorsport Nationals at the ‘Friday Night Drags’. This was my first time at the weekly drag event… and it is safe to say that it will not be my last. There were a TON of people… and a lot of cool cars!We got to run a few ‘parade laps’ around the speedway which is ALWAYS fun. The embankment, especially between turn 3 and 4 is so intense! After the cruise laps, everyone just parks along the front straight and gets out… turning the track into a parking lot of cars to check out.
Alex rolled out in his killer s13 hatch.
The pictures don’t do it justice… but a lot of people come out for this every week. It was raining earlier in the day, so I can’t imagine how many people normally attend.
As we were getting ready to leave… Alex snapped this shot of our cars. Looks like something that should be on the cover of Rock Band.
The DriftMechaniks Chicago invasion for the 3rd round of the D1 Gran Prix was a riot. About 16-20 DriftMechaniks descended on this gorgeous waterfront city. Panda, Tyler, and I headed north in the Vitz. Byron and Greg were in the WRX… and Alex, Shawn, Hater Dan, and Wes were flossing a rental Mazda 5. We stopped outside of Nashville to rendezvous with Marlow, P. Haire, and Struka. A slew of folks from St. Louis came down… including Cankles and Koopa.
Northbound behind Marlow.
1st night in Chicago… we hit Geno’s East.
Genuine DEEP dish. We’re talking hella flush pizza here.
I’m stoked for good-offset pizza.
Saturday there was drift racing. Yay drift racing.
Sunday morning we hit some (amazing) breakfast a few blocks from Charlie’s place.
BEST. PANCAKES. EVER. Seriously. They are deep fried.
Atlanta College of Art (R.I.P) Crew. From left to right: Charlie Smith, Tyler Clayton, Myself… and Carlos “Panda” Richard behind the lens. All ACA grads.
There was a mass of sticker tagging along this trip. We did a rough count and figured Tyler bombed over 500 stickers by himself!rn.
Panda on the loose.
We hit the MOCA. Amazing works inside. I burnt my leg doing so many rail slides out front.
We had to rock out Sears Tower (sorry… Willis Tower just doesn’t sound right).
110 stories high… in a tiny li’l glass box.
That night we hit a local watering hole for more good times before we migrated back south.
Special thanks to Alex and Panda for the pics… and an even BIGGER thanks to Charlie for the amazing hospitality<3
I found this old news clip while digging through some old files. A pretty cool Fox News feature from the Hyperfest event at Summit Point Raceway in West Virginia. My buddy Tony Schulz gets a spotlight, and I’m in the video for a split-second around the 2 minute mark. A pretty cool find from way back. These were fun times for sure.
The revamp of the Slide Style™ site is finally complete, and live online. A lot of work went into this site, and I like it a LOT more than the old version. It looks a lot cleaner, and much more polished. I think the catalog of products looks awesome. I have some more items to get up on the site… but for the most part, she’s full-steam ahead.Take a look, buy something, and support American drifting!
Equally as overdue as the DriftMechaniks forum upgrade/re-skin, the new dM blog is up and running. We’ve had a ‘coming VERY soon’ page since 2004, and everyone else always seemed to come first… knocking the dM site down on the list of to-do’s. No longer. The whole crew has posting access… so subscribe at your own risk and commence the ‘elite’ mentality that is dM.
After 5 years of the same ol’ phpBB2 look and feel, I’ve upgraded the DriftMechaniks forum to phpBB3, and re-skinned it with a fresher, more updated look. I thought it would be a smooth transition until I found out you can’t embed HTML in phpBB3… which is not good, considering the amount of YouTube and Vimeo embeds we have on the site. I figured out a way to force embed – but now I have to go back through over 800 posts and at HTML bbcode tags before and after all embedded video.
Wasn’t I just saying it was a shame that the locals couldn’t get any seat time at Road Atlanta? Yesterday I got a phone call, and that dream became a reality. 3 hours. 10 drivers. One of the most amazing days of my life.
More to come…
My good friend Cody Wellons picked up a clean new hatch. Nothing over the top… just clean, simple, and awesomeIt’s rad to see Coders with a drift car again.
We’re so underground… we’re undergroundDriftMechaniks 2-3-4-5
SEDC Round 1.
An amazing snap of some team drift action from SEDCDetails soon…
photo c/o Zach Junquera
