The red carpet world-premiere for Slide America could not have gone better. Being the night before Round 2 of Formula Drift here in Atlanta… we had a large segment of the drift industry right here in town. We were WAY over-booked on seating, but a huge part of Team Falken got stuck at the track performing emergency repairs all night. It was a hectic night for me… I wanted to stop and talk to everyone, but was constantly pulled in a million different directions. It was crazy.

My favorite part of the night, was just sitting back and listening to the theatre’s response to different parts of the documentary. I’ve easily seen each section thousands of times… so it was definitely a treat to hear the entire theatre yell, cheer, laugh and roar. No matter how much you pour your heart into something… there’s always that grey area of uncertainty about how receptive people would be. I think Slide America passed the test.

I nearly killed myself making this documentary (literally). I worked harder on this thing than I have ever worked on anything in my life. I never thought I would see this project come to fruition… let alone completed, and in front of the eyes of my closest friends, family and colleagues within the drift industry. This premiere really was a magical night for me… one that I will never EVER forget.

My family.

DriftZone Interview.

DriftMechaniks are always making moves. Always.

Angie Romasanta interviewing Antonio Alvendia. DGTrials’ Eugene Chou to the left.

Drift Alliance’s Ryan Tuerck, Chris Forsberg, Tony Angelo, and Vaughn Gittin, Jr.

The theatre.

Shout to Collective Efforts.

I’m on the big screen!

Formula Drift events at Road Atlanta are always amazing. I ran in to some issues with a broken passenger-side control arm… which definitely threw a wrench into things. I mis-calculated my entry back into 10A, and spun… catching the inner lip of the passenger-side wheel on the inside of the rumble strip. It basically pulled on the wheel enough to destroy the inner bushing on the control arm. At first I thought my weekend was done… but Kieran from GTE and Erin Sanford ran up to Strictly German, which happens to be the largest BMW salvage yard I have ever seen. They managed to get an entire control arm & bushing back over to me, and Matt from Foerst Motorwerks got it swapped out on the hill. It was INSANE.

After all of that, I managed to initiate my fastest entry into 10A… I didn’t lift the entire way down the hill… I was hellbent and pissed off, and I remember thinking “I hope this works”… then stabbing the clutch as hard as I could. I didn’t end up qualifying Top-32… but I gave that track hell considering the circumstances. So overall, it was an amazing weekend..

I will be competing in the 2nd round of the SCCA Formula Drift Series at Road Atlanta! I’m super excited to get back out on that track. Hopefully there will be no technical difficulties with the car this year. :)

See you all at the track!

We got the proof back for the Slide America disc art today. We are going to run the discs using both matte and gloss black inks. It will look like a spot UV, but with actual inks. I’m super excited to see how these turn out!

The magenta represents where the matte black will be screened.

After a year in the making – Slide America is finally complete!

I won’t lie… after completing the final author of the DVD, I watched the documentary the whole way through. Once the credits ended… something came over me, and I couldn’t help but cry. This project means the world to me. The fact that I had this crazy idea in my head to begin with… then to see it come to fruition, and transformed into the final product is simply amazing. Words can’t really describe the feeling of accomplishment now that it is complete. I feel like this documentary is really really different… and I think people will be surprised – this isn’t your stereotypical “import racing” DVD. I really feel like I am giving something back to the drift community… and that is a priceless feeling

I have 1 iMac G5 & 3 MacBook Pro’s cranking out all the final renders and video compression for Slide America. The DVD Authoring is complete… I’m just waiting on everything to be compressed MPG2 so I can rip the master.Every computer in this room has the processors burning at full-speed… all with the fans on high. It is extremely loud, and definitely a good 20 degrees hotter in this room right now.

I finished up the final cover for Slide America! This is the final artwork to appear on the DVD that drops in next month.

Theory PR sent out the Slide America e-mail blast today.

Take a look:

This is quite possibly the best 30 seconds I have EVER edited, and the raddest trailer ever made.
www.slideamerica.com

Slide America Trailer. from Andy Sapp on Vimeo.

My li’l eight-six was just picked up to be shipped off to Wisconsin. She had a great li’l run. I feel like I salvaged that li’l car from a life of gloom, and made it shine. I’m sad to see her go.

An original 1st run of the sticker that started it all.

I love these flip-ups.

Goodbye

A small piece of eight-six history… the Bronson cigarette.

She’s gone.

I ended up getting WAY more for the car than I thought… but that somehow doesn’t make it any easier to let go.
That little car will be missed.

Some new techniques I’ve been messing with on a picture I shot of the rig all suited up with battle armor. What started out as a simple retouch, turned into a nice composite!

The original photo:

I’m a sucker for yellow headlights… so the Destroyer™ was destined to get them. I also picked up a nice black bull bar that I can mount some Hella 500’s up to.

What started out as a simple retouch for a sticker, turned into an all out Photoshop-a-thon. It was kinda cool applying some of the techniques I learned through doing retouching for Vanity Fair at work.

Thanks to Joey Redmond, for snapping the original photo.

This is going to be the sticker that will double as my new business card.
(Screen captured from CMYK):

I’m proud to present to you, the Destroyerâ„¢! It’s an ’06 Chevrolet Silverado 2500HD.

Due to the malfunction with the e46, I was forced to up my time-table on getting something reliable that can tow and haul.

It has a 6.0L V8 Vortec motor pushing 300hp/360tq – rated to tow 12,000lbs!

All done! HUGE thanks to Erin, Byron, and Matt for helping with the install! The car feels so much better. The struts were so blown… the fell apart when we took them out. Oil went everywhere!.

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