On the Saturday following SEMA there were two drifts event going on, Vegas Drift and VERTEX Drift festival. VEGAS drift was at the speedway about 15 minutes out of Vegas and many top names were going to be there, Alec Hohnadell, Forrest Wang, Kristaps Bluss, and other heavy hitters as well as some local talent etc. The VERTEX drift festival was of course put on by Takahiro Ueno of Vertex Japan at Grange Motor Circuit in California, around 2.75 hours away from Vegas and A-Bo-Moon was drifting his R32 Sedan there. We had spoken to a few of our customers and old friends (Auto Factory Realize) and they were going to be drifting at VERTEX, it was also rumored that Ueno (president of VERTEX Japan) had built some crazy Soarer practice car and perhaps Hibino (of AE86 fame) was even going to be there. Although watching Kristaps shred the new EUROFIGHTER and other 800hp FD machines would have been amazing, we decided that it would be most beneficial to our company to go where our customers were. We felt that connecting with more grassroots drifters and meeting potential customers would be a better idea and that they would appreciate meeting us in person at the event. It was also Henry ZERO's first drift event and we wanted him to see average dudes just like us getting sideways in their street cars.
We had rented a car on the last day of SEMA for this exact reason and although we had had a long night waiting to pack up our booth and were facing an almost 3 hour drive, we were up and at em around 9 AM. Off we went on our journey to Grange, rolling down the highway in our sweet Kia sportage? Honestly can't even remember what that pile of garbage was. I just remember it was Korean, some type of crossover, and fully inadequate for 4 adults and highway travel. Shortly after leaving Vegas we saw some cool Gigantic painted rocks, of course wondering what they were, (later to find out is was the Seven Magic Mountains art installation) seas of H1 Hummers, and then we saw this REALLY cool group of free standing buildings completely covered in graffiti, I LOVE graffiti culture and we were all super curious to check it out, so we said on the way back we HAVE to stop there.
So we arrive at Grange after leaving the highway and off roading for a bit, the "road" to the track is gravel and super gnarly so luckily we have something with ground clearance. I felt bad for dudes that drove their slammed cars there! We get to the track and see cars shredding, instantly see A-bo, Fred in his Q45, and the Realize boys tandeming on this lil track. I like these little courses as they're reminiscent of PGP where we used to drift back in the day. Better than an oval but not as good as a real track where you can get into higher gears. After a few minutes of watching I decided to walk around, and HOLY there were SO many IS300's!! like i swear there more IS's than S chassis?! this was a good thing since we make almost every thing for IS300's. I walked around and spoke with as many of the owners I could, there were a few sick Cressida's there as well and even a couple of JZX100's. SERIALNINE style indeed!! We also met up with Roy Cardoso of "Team Gold star" at his booth selling S chassis fender braces and harness shields under his new company "Auto Collect Storm". Roy and SERIALNINE go way back as he has had two Fully sick looking Cressida's.
So rather than ramble on ill let the photos do the talking.