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Posted
Nov 19 2008, 05:40 PM
by
Rod Chong
with 10 comment(s)
Our resident video editor: Riley Vigier started calling this video "Ultimate Drift" during the course of the post production process. It's a fairly good descriptor for this Speedhunters drifting art film. We've basically taken all our favourite slomo shots from the 2008 Formula drift season and compiled them into a montage style music video. As ever, the film features a custom score from Speedhunters London, UK based audio producer: Ekstrak . Enjoy the film! It's a good one...
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Posted
Nov 19 2008, 04:03 PM
by
Rod Chong
with 11 comment(s)
... or should I say Zed?......Here is a question for you Speedhunters readers: are you old enough to remember first hand when Nissans were called Datsuns? Does this name have an emotive tone for you? Tx for Mark Windecker for the photo... we'll be sifting through his Nissan archive materials over the course of the next few weeks or so. Anyone care to tell us about this car and what year this photo is from? :Rod
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Posted
Nov 19 2008, 01:45 PM
by
Rod Chong
with 16 comment(s)
Last night our resident huggable Speedhunter, Antonio Alvendia went out to attend the launch of the new Ford Mustang... Being the world's number one drifting fanatic, his main interest was to point his lens at Vaughn Gittin's new Mustang. The car's all carbon fiber body work was presented with an all blue finish. You can be assured next time you see this car, it will have its full Falken livery in place. Although it has the appearance of a production style Mustang, this machine is every...
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Posted
Nov 18 2008, 01:00 AM
by
Rod Chong
with 14 comment(s)
Ok let's jump straight in and look at each Red Bull drift battle from the " Dirty 32 ", as Formula Drift announcer J-Rod called the Top 32. In some ways the Top 32 was the most fascinating part of the competition, as it featured the widest variety of cars from the corners of the globe. It felt for a moment that most of the world's international drifting communities had come together to create one of the biggest, most ambitious drift events ever. Hats off to every one who participated...
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Posted
Nov 17 2008, 04:04 PM
by
Rod Chong
with 17 comment(s)
Before I move on to getting you guys and gals (are there any ladies in here? hello?) a detailed, play by play report on the Red Bull Drifting event, I thought I'd better get on to writing our final wrapup from the Superlap Battle. Remember that?..... Ok let's have a look at some of the results and check out John Brooks' photo styles....
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Posted
Nov 15 2008, 06:02 PM
by
Rod Chong
with 15 comment(s)
Here is a quick snap shot (quite literally) of the official elimination table for tomorrow's Red Bull Drifting World Championship. Should be amazing day! The top 5 qualifiers are as follows: 1: Rhys Millen: no surprizes there... 2: Samuel Hubinette: the FD drift royalty comes out on top.... 3: Paul Vlasblom: BIG NEWS! he had the crowd screaming and yelling with his wall proximity and 100% foot to the floor style. 4: Katsuhiro Ueo: his drift initiations were amazing. 5: Darren McNamara: he looked...
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Posted
Nov 15 2008, 01:00 AM
by
Rod Chong
with 27 comment(s)
While the majority of western countries on the planet are bracing themselves for the cold of winter, today was a hot, sweaty day at in Southern California. I regretted my choice of skinny jeans today... they may be fashionable, but they sure as hell are uncomfortable in hot weather... Anyway blah, blah, blah... Let's look at the day's action from Long Beach. It was a day of hope for some competitors, but a day of frustration and carnage for many others....
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Posted
Nov 14 2008, 11:10 PM
by
Rod Chong
with 15 comment(s)
I thought it would be a cool idea to show you one complete run, on the Red Bull Long Beach Dockyards drift course. This way, those of you who can't travel out to the event can get a feel for the track.
The following sequence of photos is shot from the judge's tower:...
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Posted
Nov 14 2008, 01:10 AM
by
Rod Chong
with 28 comment(s)
Well I certainly have had a crazy afternoon... after working the morning away blogging and emailing, John and I thundered down to the Long Beach Dockyards to check out the scenery...We certainly weren't disappointed! The location is absolutely amazing....
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Posted
Nov 13 2008, 12:29 PM
by
Rod Chong
with 16 comment(s)
These are busy times for me right now... there is much happening in the business and creative world of Need for Speed I have to keep on top of, yet at the same time this Speedhunters project needs continual focus... it's like a eating monster with an endless appetite... the site always needs new stories! So with this in mind, let's get down to business, as I have around 100 emails that need to be answered... then we'll be heading down to the Long Beach docks to check out the setup, and...
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Posted
Nov 13 2008, 12:11 AM
by
Rod Chong
with 15 comment(s)
This year is going by quickly isn't it? I've had the Superlap Battle on my travel calendar since the start of the year and it's always seemed like something far down the road... so I'm finding it somewhat hard to believe the event has come and gone, and now it's already time to move to our coverage of the Red Bull Drifting World Championship. But before we start to submerge ourselves in this upcoming Long Beach mega-event, we'll try and do our best to communicate to you what...
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Posted
Nov 11 2008, 08:11 PM
by
Rod Chong
with 7 comment(s)
I am feeling a bit crabby at the moment... I started out today in Stockholm, Sweden and am now sitting here in a random motel in Buttonwillow, California.... It's been a long day and I need some shut eye.... But before my head meets the pillow I want to quickly show you a few scenes from Superlap Battle. John Brooks and I didn't make it out to the track until around five o'clock this afternoon, but we were able to grab a few snaps and talk to a few folks to get a sense of the setting...
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Posted
Nov 11 2008, 07:34 PM
by
Rod Chong
with 11 comment(s)
Ok last SEMA post for me… I’m on yet another plane and will be landing in a few hours to meet our British photographic sensei John Brooks at the Los Angeles airport. We’ll then saunter over to Shelby LA to pick up the NFS edition Shelby Terlingua. This will be followed by a blast up the I5 to Button Willow Raceway, to see the USA’s top Time Attack cars in action. Should be good! Anyway, back to the subject at hand…. Last week I was marching from one side of the SEMA...
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Posted
Nov 09 2008, 06:00 PM
by
Rod Chong
with 10 comment(s)
I first noticed this Chevolet Impala at SEMA 2007, where it was parked up in front of the Las Vega Convention Center. I took the opportunity, to take a pile of photos of the car, but at the time didn’t really have an outlet, other than my personal Facebook page. As you can imagine, I was very delighted to see the Impala on display at the Mother’s Wax booth at SEMA this year. Unfortunatley, there was no info board on display so I can’t tell you any details about the build or the...
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Posted
Nov 09 2008, 06:57 AM
by
Rod Chong
with 15 comment(s)
A lot of people in the Hot Rod world don’t like the term “Rat Rod”….. to them this usually means a car of poor build quality which is unsafe for any sort of road use. It can also mean a car that only half pretends to be a return to traditional purist rodding styles… or perhaps a counter-reaction to blinged out “cheque-book Rods” Another term coming into use is “Suicide Rod”. These are Hot Rods that have taken the look and feel of old school...
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Posted
Nov 07 2008, 09:57 PM
by
Rod Chong
with 11 comment(s)
As I type this blog entry I’m mashed up into the economy section of a rather medium sized airplane. SEMA is an amazing experience, but it is pretty tiring and I’m definitely in need of a proper night’s sleep… I’m well pleased to be heading home.
Anyway, let’s jump in to looking at some more cars from the show floor to see what we can see:...
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Posted
Nov 07 2008, 01:10 AM
by
Rod Chong
with 15 comment(s)
The first thing you see upon arrival to the Las Vega Convention Center, is a rather large and diverse collection of customized, modified and competition cars. Today, I spent a bit of time wandering about with the NFS team's trusty Canon digital SLR camera, to give you a feel for the variety of machines on show....
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Posted
Nov 06 2008, 04:00 AM
by
Rod Chong
with 14 comment(s)
Today for me was all about getting ready for the Formula Drift press conference and the big announcement of our own " mega event ": Need for Speed LIVE . It will see us bringing together an international roster of the world's top drifters, race, production, and time attack cars to do battle in the UK next June. The project has already been one year in the making, I'm quite excited that we've now able to reveal a little bit about it! So if you were to choose what Time Attack...
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Posted
Nov 04 2008, 09:54 PM
by
Rod Chong
with 45 comment(s)
It seems that part of the life of a Speedhunter is that you need to learn to keep finding new ways to increase your productivity. "Go! go! go!" is the operative term. So with this in mind I am going to jump straight in to talking about my day 1 experiences at SEMA. I'll try and walk you through my entire day on the show floor... This is the first time BTW I've messed with one of the EA digital SLRs that we have kicking about the studio. Figured it was about time for me to do a bit...
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Posted
Nov 03 2008, 07:00 AM
by
Rod Chong
with 29 comment(s)
Did you guys watch the F1 season finale yesterday? Wow that was intense. Probably the most dramatic race I've ever seen on the tele. I just about died from anxiety during that last lap! Congrats to Lewis from all of us at Speedhunters. So the racing season is winding down; Hamilton is now the F1 World Champion, Audi have cleaned up in both DTM and Sports Cars and we have a host of International Drift Champions on their way to Long Beach. It’ll be pretty interesting to see how the majority...
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