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Posted
Sep 25 2008, 03:20 PM
by
Mike Garrett
with 10 comment(s)
I was just going through some more photos from last weekend's MSC event at Nikko Circuit and realized I have some more cool stuff to post. I can't say enough how fun MSC events are to shoot. The vast number of cool-looking cars and exciting driving provides a wealth of good shooting possibilities, and even though Nikko is a small course, there are still tons of nice angles to be found all over the place. In the shot above we have the Spirant JZX100 Chaser with it's sexy shade of red paint and ZG style overfenders. We talk about JZX's all the time on Speedhunters, but this car is certainly one of the best I have ever seen......
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Posted
Sep 24 2008, 03:15 PM
by
Mike Garrett
with 5 comment(s)
Last weekend was a busy one for drift events around the world, and with the coming of fall, many of the international series are starting wrap up their seasons. The fifth and final round of the '08 Drift Australia series was held at Oran Park Raceway last weekend, and not only was the national title up for grabs, but a pair of invitations to the Red Bull drift event in Long Beach were on the line for the top two finishers in the season points standings. How would things down?...
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Posted
Sep 23 2008, 06:34 AM
by
Mike Garrett
with 18 comment(s)
Time for more some more action from last weekend's MSC Challenge event at Nikko Circuit. There is just something about these MSC events that offer the perfect balance of talented drivers and impressive cars without the drawbacks of a "pro" drifting event. MSC events are run on smaller courses meaning there are few grandstands or other amenities seen at the larger circuits. While there are many big sponsors of the series, MSC is still about the drivers first and foremost. I feel that the above photo does a good job of portraying the atmosphere of MSC. Everyone is just chilling in the gravel spectator area taking in the action while standing only about 20 feet from the track....
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Posted
Sep 22 2008, 03:30 AM
by
Mike Garrett
with 14 comment(s)
What is your idea of the perfect first wedding anniversary? A gourmet dinner and a walk on the beach perhaps? Maybe some soft piano music and glasses of wine? What about taking a trip to see the best grassroots drift series in Japan tearing it up on one of the world's most iconic drift courses? That is just where I found myself yesterday as I somehow convinced my wife to not only let me go out and shoot drifting on our anniversary, but also to tag along with me on the trip. I guess I am pretty lucky sometimes....
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Posted
Sep 16 2008, 08:00 AM
by
Antonio Alvendia
with 44 comment(s)
Yeah, that's right, I said it. It had to be said. I wasn't the only one who noticed it... just maybe the only one who outspoken enough to say what's really on my mind. As we watched the tandem battles in the Formula D Top 16 eliminations at Infineon Raceway this past weekend, the lead car brake checking the following car seemed like the new fad in Formula D - almost everyone was doing it. If you're not familiar with the term brake checking , it's when the lead car in a tandem...
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Posted
Sep 01 2008, 04:00 AM
by
Andy Blackmore
with 4 comment(s)
A few weeks ago, Antonio mentioned the Toyota Corolla AE86's birthday was in August. I didn't realise cars had birthdays, but there you go ;) So, after adding the AE86 to my birthday card list, I started to wonder how many people knew the AE86 was a two-time British Touring Car Championship Champion? As you now know from Antonio's post last week on the Spa winning AE86 , the car was a successful 'tin-top' racer back in the day, I first started going to races in the 80's, when...
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Posted
Aug 29 2008, 08:00 AM
by
Antonio Alvendia
with 17 comment(s)
In the past few weeks, we've been in Japan, so the Speedhunters website has been going crazy with photos and stories from our trip. As you can imagine, I have a million more photos dealing with legendary Japanese drifters and street drifting style... but we just thought we'd break things up a bit and show off some more scenes from our trip to Europe a few weeks ago. Rod was telling me last night, "hmmm it might be good to show something other than drifting m8, some people are saying...
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Posted
Aug 17 2008, 01:46 PM
by
Antonio Alvendia
with 20 comment(s)
Off the chain!!! Exactly what I was thinking in my head when I saw this group of JZX chassis 4-door sedans doing a three-car tandem at the MSC Challenge at Honjyou Circuit !!! It was sooo exciting, I was actually cheering for them as they passed me!!! It was so incredible... Team Orange they're not, so they didn't have a completely perfect combination driving lines and angle and distance between the cars the whole time... but I don't care. I am also big, big fan of Magician - the Chiba...
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Posted
Aug 14 2008, 05:39 PM
by
Antonio Alvendia
with 11 comment(s)
More AE86s again?! Are you serious? Yes I'm serious. After all, we post photos of S13s and S14s and S15s all day anyway. I think I have the right to show a little more 86 love on here! As the Ebisu Summer Drift Festival was wrapping up, I spotted this trio of AE86 Levins at Ebisu West Course. I was immediately drawn to inspect the white N2 flared Levin, because of its big TRD style N2 flares, the front chin spoiler, and rear wing. The car appears to be a zenki Levin, and sits on 15 inch SSR Formula...
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Posted
Aug 14 2008, 12:01 AM
by
Antonio Alvendia
with 20 comment(s)
Since my previous images from the Ebisu Circuit Summer Drift Festival (aka Natsumatsuri ) seemed to get a pretty good response from Speedhunters readers, I wanted to show you guys a few more photos from this year's event. I was pretty disappointed that my friends from the Kanagawa-based AE86 team named Peak couldn't make it to the festival; they were busy with an event over at Fuji. However, I did see alot of AE86s at the festival, and while I couldn't take photos of ALL of them (we were...
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Posted
Aug 13 2008, 10:15 PM
by
Jeroen Willemsen
with 8 comment(s)
The JDM Allstars is an invitational only event where the best drifters from Europe battle it out for top honors. Round two was held on a parking lot in front of Wembley stadium in London. To me it has the same feeling as the D1GP Odaiba event in Tokyo where the background consists of the landmark Fuji TV building. The track was laid out on the parking lot and build with 275 tonnes of concrete barriers. During the event some drivers found out the hard way and crashed their cars into the concrete walls...
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Posted
Aug 06 2008, 02:31 PM
by
Jeroen Willemsen
with 15 comment(s)
As we all know, Antonio is one of the biggest AE86 fans. He thought it would be a cool idea to post our favorite AE86's on august 6, Hachiroku day. I was browsing through some of the pictures I had and found this Hachi build by JDM Garage in Australia. I have many favorites but I had to choose one. The car is owned by Brett Mattingley, it features a SR20 (yes I know) with a HKS turbo and Tomei goodies. The most noticeable are the custom build Longchamps XR4 wheels in 15x9.5. I know it will not...
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Posted
Aug 06 2008, 03:39 AM
by
Antonio Alvendia
with 21 comment(s)
HAPPY HACHIROKU DAY!!! Right now it's August 6th , and I'm in London, typing this on my balcony while looking out at the boats moored to Canary Wharf. Later today I'll be flying to Japan, for my annual visit Ebisu Circuit ... so I thought it would only be fitting to post up some AE86 photos from Ebisu, in honor of Hachiroku Day, 8-6-2008! My good friend Herbrock One from Cipher Garage was the first from our group of friends to declare 8-6 as Hachiroku Day, about 9 or 10 years ago. It...
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Posted
Jul 29 2008, 09:45 AM
by
Mike Hayes
with 9 comment(s)
My father was a bit of a car nut. He introduced me to the term "kicking the tires" at the local dealerships. We weren't a particularly brand loyal family either. Dad cycled through Chevy V8's and even an '86 Corolla (At the time this was the new hotness!). (The image is from a Toyota brochure circa 1980's, and isn't the exact car that he had) My first car was the epitome of reliably bland. A 1990 Toyota Tercel (Thank wikipedia for the image of exactly what my lump of...
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Posted
Jul 28 2008, 08:20 PM
by
Mike Hayes
with 7 comment(s)
I was asked recently to pour over some JDM magazines and get a feel for them. I have to say, I love seeing the high level of tune on the JDM rides in the magazines. They have such a diverse scene over there. Truth be told, the majority of the drift scene appears to revolve around Nissan Silvia's and 1 & 2-JZ powered Toyotas, but there is also a fair bit of coverage to be had on the other players in the scene as well. Drift Tengoku as a magazine drops right into the mix as a more feature focused...
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Posted
Jul 24 2008, 05:00 PM
by
Mike Garrett
with 10 comment(s)
It's time to finish up our week-long look at the cars of the various international drift series as we examine some of the cars from the European Drift Championship. Before working on Speedhunters, I had only a vague knowledge of the EDC, but I have been learning more and more about the series and its cars over the past few months and have been quite impressed with what I have seen. While you won't find quite the variety of cars that you see in the US Formula D series, the EDC has plenty of top quality cars and they seem to be getting better and better......
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Posted
Jul 23 2008, 04:30 AM
by
Mike Garrett
with 7 comment(s)
Snakes, Kangaroos, Koalas, and drifting. The adventurous Aussies have a love of drifting that can rival any other country in the world and when it comes to Australian drifting, the Toyo Tires Drift Australia Series is where you will find the country's best drivers and most serious drift cars. For this post we will be taking a look at some of the notable cars that can be seen competing in the Drift Australia series. You will find that some of the cars in the series fall under the category of "traditional" Japanese style drift cars while others bring a unique Aussie approach to drift car style......
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Posted
Jul 22 2008, 03:47 PM
by
Mike Garrett
with 22 comment(s)
Yesterday we took a look at some of the cars seen in Japan's top level D1GP series but now it's time to take a look at the other side of the Japanese drift spectrum. the MSC Challenge series. Since MSC is a grassroots level series filled with privateer drivers, you have to look at the MSC cars from a different viewpoint than the pro level cars seen in D1. MSC events are held at all corners of Japan from Kyushu in the south to Hokkaido in the north, so few or no drivers compete in every event. Because of this, you also get a wide variety of cars depending on the region the event is being held in. I will try to show some of the more interesting and unique cars seen at MSC events as well as some of my personal favorites from the series......
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Posted
Jul 22 2008, 07:30 AM
by
Antonio Alvendia
with 8 comment(s)
By now you must have seen my fellow Speedhunter Mike Garrett's posting on " The Cars of the D1 Grand Prix ." I thought I'd continue this theme, with photos of the cars in the Formula Drift Championship series. Here are the Top 16 cars (in order, based on the rankings on the Formula D website) in Formula Drift, as well as some other cars that I just thought were interesting! Starting with car number one, we can't forget Tanner Foust and his AEM/Rockstar Z33 350Z (above). He won...
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Posted
Jul 13 2008, 05:46 PM
by
Antonio Alvendia
with 28 comment(s)
When you're playing the Craps tables in Las Vegas, my good friend Brian Urbano always says " always bet on the 8 and 6. " That appears to be true also at drifting events in Las Vegas, because late last night, legendary AE86 driver Toshiki Yoshioka from Team Droo-P piloted his AE86 with its normally aspirated (nitrous assisted) blacktop 20 valve 4AG to beat everyone in the entire Formula D field!!! This was only his second time competing in a Formula D event - the first time was at Formula...
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