Formula D Finale, Irwindale

These pics were taken with the Casio Exilim little point n shoot. Huge difference from the pics above, huh...






My zenki 86 was going to be displayed in the ACT Clutch booth at Formula D, but my car was dirty. It was hella early in the morning, and I was too tired to wash it the night before, so I went to a carwash and paid to have the guys wash and wax my car.

They were so surprised that I came in for a car wash because it was RAINING. I know it's weird, but I think it's okay to have a WET car. But I certainly didn't want people seeing my car all dirty. That's not acceptable. Anyway they did a shitty job, and they messed up my chrome Cipher Garage stickers on the side windows in the process. How hard is it to wipe a window without messing up a sticker? It's not. Idiots. No wonder you wash cars for a living.

Anyway, I woke up at 6am that day and removed my black Nardi Classic 360, in favor of a old school Momo Prototipo 350mm steering wheel with my favorite, the Toyota Katakana horn button, which is pretty rare nowadays. Also installed my aluminum shift knob I got in Japan. It has the same logo on it. Cool huh...







Here's a quick snapshot of the Cipher Garage booth at Formula D. As you can see, the hottest chicks around always rock Cipher Garage gear because it is fashionable as hell. Just like the cars in the Cipher Garage Collection, the clothing line has good style. These ladies wouldn't be rocking it if they didn't think it was stylish.

Charlene is on the left, Heidi is in the middle (lookin fly in that gray tank top and striped grey shorts), and Thao is on the right. They were runnin thangs in the booth, and sold a bunch of copies of my new book, as well as clothing! Thank you ladies!!!! Love you guys. You're the best.







Karlo jumped into the photo with the ladies, he helped out a ton at the booth as well, doing inventory and helping deliver the clothing! My boy Felix would have been in this pic, but that guy was out picking up the new 86LIFE hoodies and buying lunch for everyone. Felix was such an incredible help the whole weekend, he was on it! THANK YOU SO MUCH FELIX. I mean it.

BTW, those license plate frames are cool huh! Brand new from CipherGarage.







OG AE86ers with good offset right here. (L-R) Johnson's wife, Johnson (blue kouki coupe with mad wide XR4s), me, and Jeff Huang (white kouki coupe with deep SSR Starsharks and MarkIIIs).

See my shirt? That's the fresh new 86LIFE shirt from Cipher Garage. If you're down with AE86s, represent that shit by getting one of these shirts ASAP!







This is Damien and his girl Jessica. I met these two in New Joysey. They bought a copy of my book at the Pacific Rim booth at Wall Speedway, and had me sign it. They said that they loved the book, and now they're crazy about drifting! They even flew to Los Angeles for the FD Finale, just so they could be a part of it! Now that is incredible! These two are super nice!









Here are the guys from Euphoric Designs in Carson CA. Jesse from Euphoric does alot of vinyl work for some of the top cars in the drifting scene, like Taka Aono's AE86, Papa Gushi's Impreza and S13, Forsberg's 350Z, and alot more. My boy Daryl from Belle-1 told me to call up Jesse to get my banner made for my booth, since it was so last minute, and Jesse got it done in time! AND it was pretty cheap!

Thanks alot Jesse, the Cipher Garage banner came out dope! And thanks to Taka and Yoshie for picking up my banner at Euphoric and bringing it to the track for me!







This is my boy Ivan from BC Ethic Clothing, and to my right is my girl Verena Mei. Ivan designs the rock n roll licensed stuff for BC Ethic that you see in stores across the world, and Verena is a pretty bad ass female drifter. She started out as an umbrella girl at the first Drift Showoff, but she got hooked on drifting itself and got involved in the sport as a driver! Now she's tearing up the track in her red 350Z. Good work Verena!







I never really realized this, but most people don't get a chance to be in the middle of the field during a drift event at Irwindale. This is what you see from the photographer's area in the middle of the track during the Top 8 tandems.






Mark Gearhart from Floridaracing.org was out there taking spy pics of me shooting blog photos with my small POS Casio Exilim camera. He thought it would be funny to take blackmail photos of me in the photo area shooting pics with my little point n shoot, cause I'm always talking shit about people with media passes in the photographer areas, who try to shoot with small POS consumer cameras. Get out of the way, your photos won't come out anyway if you use those little cameras and cameraphones! Come ON people!







Here's me with Steve Levy, the publisher of C16 Magazine. This is the cover I shot.







CONGRATULATIONS DAI!!! My friend Daijiro won 1st Place at Formula D Round 7. I might be mistaken, but I think that's Dai's first ever 1st Place finish at an FD event! He battled Rhys Millen, who is always a difficult guy to beat! Dai seems to go up against Rhys alot, and he finally won! Congratulations Dai, and congratulations to JERRY the team owner!

With them is my friend Steve Starr, he is an 86 guy and a hell of a videographer. I don't know why he's wearing a Ducati shirt to a drifting event though. You can ask him. Good planning Steve!







This is Gordon and his fiance. Remember his face, and whenever you see him at his official Formula D Merchandise booth, ask for Cipher Garage clothing! Because it's cool.







My boy Felix was such a huge help throughout the whole week, when we were preparing the booth. He's here with my super close friend Tsukasa Gushi, aka Papa Gushi. I had to give Gushi san this flywheel I owed to him. He's here with a copy of my book, he said he loved it and he bowed to me and shit. Wow that is nuts. Means alot coming from him. He is an old friend of mine. And an AE86 guy!