Mazda

A few weeks ago Importfest hosted a 'Mega Meet' --aka a show and shine-- at Sherway Nissan is Mississauga. The event was open to all make and model of vehicles with speciality awards reserved for Nissan entrants. Dealership shindigs are often hit or miss but this one was pretty solid offering up a variety of cars from classics all the way to big money exotics. In addition to cars there were a few food vendors, the Grey Cup, a handful of cheerleaders, and a couple Toronto Argonaut players.

It's no secret that people here in North America are becoming increasingly obsessed with the enthusiast culture in Japan. Print publications like Super Street periodically run features on shops and gatherings in the land of the rising sun, while on-line media houses like SpeedHunters have hired Japanese correspondents to provide an in depth, on-going look into their scene. On the flip side Japanese enthusiasts have begun to take great interest in what we are doing and one of the magazines providing those in Japan a close look at the North American Enthusiast culture is USDMFREAX.

Since opening their flagship Markham store in '09 Nextmod has been steadily working hard to become a household name among tuners in Canada. A Montreal store is in the works and their Ottawa location opened mid summer. Exactly one week ago Nextmod opened their third store in Mississauga to an extremely positive reception and large turnout.

If I am to be perfectly honest it took me a awhile to warm up to Mazda's last production kick at the rotary can. In stock trim the RX-8 didn't do a whole lot for me and many I saw at shows were hilariously over the top. It wasn't until I saw Moneesh's car  that I realized the RX-8 really just needs a refined tasteful touch to look 'just right'.

Dean’s 1991 Mazda Miata has a laundry list of modifications that make it look just right. Everything is carefully considered by its owner to be just the way he wants it. The first thing one might notice are the CCW Classic wheels with 245/35/16R European spec Toyos. Yes, that's right, 245 width. That means the wheels must be pretty wide!

While I was at Torque Modified, a little closer to home in Mississauga Tires 23 was holding a charity BBQ/show and shine as a show of thanks for the years of support they've received from the community. In addition to free food, the event had speciality trophies, giveaways, raffles, and live music and at the end of the day Tires 23 raised $1,022 for Credit Valley Hospital.

With Importfest coverage just barley out the door we can move things right along with the third round of CSCS coverage for 2013. Round three took place at Mosport and while that's a venue I particularly like shooting I opted to sit things out this round because I was a little run down from a week of preparation for Importfest. Luckily I was able to find a few photographers willing to pick up my slack and judging from the photos contributed by Kevin Tam and Kenny Barnes, CSCS Mosport was a blast just like years previous.

Time to jump right back into the second of three Importfest show day coverage photos. Despite the "can't beleive I missed that car" feeling I get after every event I am pretty happy with the coverage this year compared to years previous. I'm finally on my way to figuring out the tricky Metro Toronto Convention Centre lighting. Part 1 ended off with a lot of the cars Nextmod brought out and today's coverage hops from crew to crew before ending off with a few vehicles from Street Outlawz including their insane v10 Nissan s14 project.

Now in it's thirteenth year Importfest is a firmly established staple of the Toronto scene and for the second year in a row Stance Is Everything was there via both media coverage and a physical booth. Like last year 201 coverage will be split into three parts with the third dedicated to the awesome group of guys who were part of the Stance Is Everything display at Importfest 2013.

Lots of people seem to think that trucks are only really good for hauling around couches, dirt bikes, debris, and people. These same people believe that trucks should stay stock height and should never be pretty as that "defeats the purpose of a truck".

Going to even out the LSX in everything Theme Tuesday with a Toyota 2jz Theme Tuesday. Versatility wise it could be argued that the 2jz is on par with Chevrolet's legendary V8. Originally finding a home in the Toyota Aristo the 2JZ GTE soon became Toyota's power plant of choice for the Supra before eventually finding it's way under the hood of all sorts of different enthusiast owned vehicles world wide.

Going to finish up the 2013 CSCS Beach Burnout coverage before moving on to what will be an onslaught of coverage from Eurokracy 2013. Today's coverage is made up of the photos I took while not on the track or hiding in the shade from the heat.