Guest Coverage

Going to take a quick break from the CSCS Beach Burnout coverage and light up the main stage for June Jitter Bug, a local Volkswagen show that takes place every year at Fireman's Park in Niagara Falls. Like Vanfest June Jitterbug is one of those shows I've wanted attend for a few years but can't swing due to other events or personal commitments. I have however run guest coverage from it before and this years comes from Mark Armstrong a long time reader and local enthusiast.

I'm generally pretty lucky when it comes to scheduling events around personal commitments, for the most part things just kind of work themselves out. There are a few exceptions to this however and one event that seems to consistently fall on a weekend I'm busy is Vanfest.

Last weekend the 47th Annual Auto Value World Of Wheels took place at the BMO Center in Calgary Alberta, and contributing photographer Mike McConnell just so happened to be in attendance with his trusty DSLR. Based on his coverage World of Wheels looks very similar to Performance World (now Megaspeed) here in Ontario. It caters mostly to classics --something I don't mind at all-- but every make, model, and style of build is welcome.

By now I'm sure many of you have already been inundated with Tokyo Auto Salon coverage from various other online media sources as it seems like everyone was at TAS this year checking out the latest and greatest Japan has to offer. Everyone except myself of course, but thanks to the great people over at Nextmod I've got some excellent TAS coverage to share here.

Mike McConnell hit me up last weekend to let me know that he was in Penticton BC covering round 3 of the Drift West series. It looks like the Drift scene out west is thriving and Mike is always great behind the lens so this is easily some of the best drift coverage to ever hit the site.

Sunday was one hell of a busy day here in Ontario with four events occurring simultaneously, which is actually something that has been occurring more often than not this year. The first of event getting coverage this week is round fourth round of the 2012 Canadian Sport Compact Series which was back at Toronto Motorsports Park Cayuga.

Last Saturday some of the local minitruck community got together for a cruise in at Gulliver's Lake Park hear in Ontario. I wasn't a show but Facebook altered me that there were a bunch of cool handmade awards for things like furthest travelled, lowest roof (limbo), best van, longest daily driver on the road etc.

Canadian readers have probably heard of Illmotion before but for those of you may not have Illmotion is a group of enthusiasts from Calgary who in 2010 decided their scene needed a bit of a kick in the pants. Last Sunday they had their second annual "Sunday School" show and shine at the Max Bell centre in Calgary and like other great events in the Calgary area guest contributing photographer Mike McConnell was there.

Mike McConnell is an awesome event photographer, like myself he is the kind of guy who will do multiple passes of a show to make sure nothing gets missed and he isn't against revisiting the same car a few times in order capture those fine details. His latest contribution is from theDropsicles Sideshow held in Lethbridge Alberta and while I had never heard of it before these photos have made it a show I am going to keep an eye on. Great variety and quality.

The inability to be in more than one place at a time is starting to become a problem, I had a great time at last years Truck And Tuner Expo and would have liked to attend again this year but I had never been to Grand Bend prior to Sunday so I ended up there instead. However the Nine O Five guys have always been very supportive of the site so there was absolutely no way I was going to let the show go by without some guest coverage and as luck would have it my friend Jon O was close enough to Niagara to head out for a couple of hours.

Weekend posts on SIE are a rarity (I like to ride my bike) however I do make the odd exception for great content like today's guest coverage. It's not often I get a chance to share what's going on in Calgary so luckily for all of us previously featured photographer Mike McConnell happened to be at this years Driven aftermarket & performance show in Calgary with a brand new camera he was dying to test out.