Damn, I watched the last 20 minutes of the race at Laguna Seca earlier and that was some of the most intense battling I have seen. Really wish I could have been there to see that race in person. The GT2 battle had me at the edge of my seat.

Also the Brazillian GP in Sao Paolo is this coming weekend. Practice sessions friday, practice/qualifying saturday, and race on sunday.

Yes, behold!

I cannot wait until this young man named Luke (who also runs Hashiriya Exports/Running Life) is able to release this documentary. The feel of the footage on each of the trailers has definitely left me wanting the final product for sure. He is doing a perfect job on it! Great video quality and the mood that the composition brings is really just awesome. Please check out this trailer as well as the other few that he has.

Happy motoring!

Had a pretty decent day..anxiety filled because of this job offer, but it evened out for sure.

Smoked an Oliva Connecticut Reserve 7″x50 this after noon..

It was a really nice, smooth stogie and the draw was just perfect for my liking. Definitely going to get another. I hope the roll quality is consistent with them like Padron. Then I smoked a Sancho Panza Double Maduro (not sure about the size for this one). They are alright, I will complain that the caps are pretty easy to mess up and the draw is not as easy as I prefer my smokes to be. I cannot really complain about the price though.

Other than that, it looks like things are going to be lookin up for me really soon. Really happy about that.

 

Evening to all.

Raising Hell

So this coming weekend is F1 Japan GP at Suzuka. I have not been able to keep up with the races lately, as the last one I saw as Valencia. But I love Suzuka Circuit so this weekend is a must. Things are starting to pick up for me, looks like I will be able to get back to school starting January so I am stoked about that. Not sure when I will be able to get another car but hopefully pretty soon.

Had a chill night tonight, went to the coffee shoppe and read while smoking a Padron 2000 Maduro. I like the 3000’s better but this one was nice though. Stopped smoking cigarettes but I will still enjoy a nice cigar every once in a while.

Welp I will leave you with a picture of the event that is taking place this weekend.

 

またね。

Artist: Fastway
Track: “Raising Hell”
Album: Eurobeat Compilation

Quickie..

Speedhunters made an awesome post covering Seven Stock for this year…only part 1 so far, so it should be amazing when completed. Please check it out! Also Motor Mavens made one too!

Interesting..

The most popular subject on this blog, according to the search results, is the Hakosuka. I did not know there was such a craze for them..

Post-script..

Had to add this, but if you garner inspiration from Nagata Kazuhiko (a.k.a. “Smoky” Nagata) or his tuning company Top Secret, then please check out Ben Schaffer’s guest post on Speedhunters. It is very well worth it. Also check out VRT’s updates, C’s Garage, The Real JDM, and WreckedMag. If you are open minded as well, I suggest you check out “The World of Jates” and 40DEADMEN. Neither of them are automotive related, but written by two of my really good friends. Just go to the links section at the bottom of this page and navigate to any of those blogs.

じゃあ また

Good morning, adventurers.

This weekend actually turned out to be the busiest I have had in a while. Friday was pretty easy, went to a birthday party and met some people. Saturday, I woke up really early, did some productive things, hung out with my buddy and fiddled with his NB Roadster (which we actually planned on getting some things done but concentration was not strong and seized bolts and mosquitos kept us from getting stuff done). After that, chilled with a friend who is going away for school soon. Then kicked it from then until I went to sleep. And then yesterday, slept really late and went to the coffee shop afterward. So here are a shit ton of pictures that goes with all of this. Enjoy.

Saturday’s festivities…
So on this Roadster we were going to install a wideband and boost gauge, and possibly clean the header side of the motor since Matt said he was unhappy with the shape of it after he installed the blower. I would like to do a feature on this car once I can get some time set aside for it and possibly a new camera. This is not a good “photoshoot” setting since it is in a carport and there was limited space, but here are some mediocre pictures of what it looks like, what we were messing with, and some goodies he has added to it so far:

 

SPOTTED this AP2 with OE add-ons:

 

 

Yesterday’s shenanigans:

 

And lastly, this is what I made myself for dinner last night…yellow rice with hand-shredded chicken, black beans, crushed tortilla, assorted spices/seasonings, baguette, and a couple beers (yes, that is beer in the mason jar, not piss).

 

 

Welp that is all for now. Uploading the photos was a bitch. WordPress needs to make it a little smoother or something.
Late-

 

Artist: Morrissey
Track: “Speedway”
Album: “Vauxhall and I”

 

EDIT: The gallery setup was not working with the Roadster pics and was deleting a few others some how, so I had to insert them individually. What a pain..

Pretty inspiring videos..

Some really really good videos on youtube that I found a little while back and neglected to update about, until now.

Just meh.

Well, I got to see what the publishing companies have been up to the past month. Went to a bookstore and checked out some of the magazines. Got to say I was not really impressed at all. Most of the cars were nothing special in my opinion. Only thing I found good was Super Street’s article on sizing up turbos and picking out the right size for any given application. Now, I did NOT read every magazine in detail – front to back – but I usually look at the contents and see if there is anything interesting. I thumbed through them but I cannot say I saw that much. The only car features that got my attention were the Evolution GT Wagon and the Amemiya Genki 7 (duh!). Saw an article on PE’s quad charge setup for the GTR, but that is not too terribly new.

It is just my opinion, all of that. I would rather read about a car that the owner/builder spent the amount of time they did on the looks, on the tune and setup instead. Sure building a show-like quality car takes a lot of time and money, etc. But I personally would rather read about cars that the builder put the time and frustration into tuning the car itself – suspension, air/fuel layouts, chassis, tweaking things and making one-off modifications just to get the car that much closer to perfection [in their eyes]. I used to be able to say that it was just Honda Tuning leaning that way (publishing mostly show-like quality cars), but now that virus is just spreading.

By no means am I putting down all the people that create these individualistic, custom vehicles. That is great, for sure. But I suppose in my opinion, the perfect car would have at least 80% function applied to it and the rest for aesthetic. Also I think it is better to have more articles like, for example, the turbo one I mentioned above instead of so many reviews of sci-fi influenced wheels, monster-like audio equipment, or even few less bling-bling car features. That way readers that are relatively new to the car scene (and ultimately are somewhat like a clean slate) are actually being educated on something that will help them and to where they can make up their own mind on what to actually DO with the car, instead of throwing trends in their face. Not sure where I am going with this…more like a rant than anything. I guess I should just read Grassroots mag and get the rest of the BMIs that I do not have. Bleh.

Artist: Mono
Track: “L’America”
Album: “Under The Pipal Tree”