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The shirt I designed for our demo at the Motorsport Nationals. When it wasn’t pouring insane amounts of rain, we sold a lot of these tees. If only we had the insight to make raincoats. :P

If you’re interested in picking one up, they’re available over at Slide Style™.

BH Design coming through with an amazing chop of what pretty much sums up DriftMechaniks in one image: something that makes zero sense, that you will never understand… much less be a part of.

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.

I teamed up with Southeast Drift to produce some more ‘Trophy Decks’ for the end-of-the-season “South East Drift Challenge”. Taking cues from BH Design’s killer bear motif… and following my idea from the last set of SEDC Trophy Decks, I made the decks piece together to form a giant image of a bear. Overall I’m very pleased with these.

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.

Lieze and I joined my Mom and Dad for a trip north to Parkersburg, West Virginia… where my parents are originally from. A large part of my Dad’s family lives up there, including my awesome Grandmother. For her 75th birthday, she asked that we come up and run the annual 2-mile race with her. We started running this race with her back in 1995, and even though we can’t always make it… she runs it every year! I always love going to Parkersburg, because even though I didn’t live there very long… it brings back so many childhood memories.In the airport… we just happened to run into this guy! My badass brother Jamie was headed to Manhattan for a wedding.

This was our old house. I was very young when we lived here… but I remember learning to ride my bike in this very front yard.

My Dad is the man. We all ran the 2-miler… while my Dad took on the half-marathon. Peep his medal… so awesome!

My Grandmother won 1st place in her age division! She is 75… and no joke… passed Lieze and I during the race!

Here are her trophies from over the years.

We wound up on the front page of the paper for having the most family participating in the race at the same time. This race has sorta become a family reunion of sorts for us. You can kinda make out the t-shirts I designed for the race, which I posted about here.

I designed a quick t-shirt for my amazing Grandmother. My entire family will be wearing this shirt when we head to West Virginia to see her this weekend. The typeface is set in Salome, using the alternates. I wanted this design to be a bit more elaborate, but it got down to the wire on time. I can’t wait to see them!

With the help of the amazing photographers on the team – I put together a cool eighth-page flyer for MotorMavens. If you’re interested in promoting for us – drop me a line and I will send you some flyers!

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

All packed up and loaded down for the DM Chitown Invasion. Panda and I are shooting media for Motor Mavens at round 3 of D1GP USA at Soldier Field… and something like 10-12 other DriftMechaniks are heading to Chicago as well. Hopefully we don’t burn the city down this time. No promises though.

Panda and I spent the last couple days putting wrench time in on my Dad’s old Peugeot road bike. There is a good story behind this bike. It has been neglected for many many years. Since I want to get to doing something more active than one sit-up a day… I wanted to resurrect this thing from the depths of the basement. This bike was so much fun to work on. Maybe now I understand the fixed gear craze a bit more… because I really had a ton of fun working on this with Panda.This was how the bike started. It is hard to tell in the photo… but it is hella dirty. Someone sprayed it with a fire extingisher… then it molded over. Tires are rotted out, brakes didn’t work, etc

Here you can see the fire extinguisher grossness… and some insulation. The grip was all sorts of rotted/torn away

Dirt detail.

The seat was falling apart

Simplex gear shift paddles… and… some mold

More mold, and cool emblems

My Dad got this bike when I was 1 year old

First night of disassembly and cleaning. Panda was shining up the chrome on the wheels. I was working on cleaning and polishing the frame.

Got some new bits from Cycleworks

Panda working on the brakes

Cycleworks sold me the wrong tyres… so Panda is letting me use an extra pair he had. <3

Panda finished the brakes, we got the wheels all mounted up, and re-gripped the bars… and viola: so fresh and so clean, clean!

We decided to make it a single-speed. I don’t want to go with a fixed gear because I will hurt myself.

MEGAAA THANKS to Panda for all the advice and help. This really was a blast to fix up… even more-so since this bike has family history