Sadly no ‘women of Importfest’ Theme Tuesday this year (model photos will just be rolled into later coverage) but what I do have today is another collection of awesome photos I’ve found collected here and there.
They really don’t have anything in common aside from being awesome, but that’s ok.
Another Importfest has come and gone which means this week is going to be almost completely dominated with coverage from the event.
I haven’t had a chance to go through all of my photos but on first glance I estimate about three posts worth of material.
Having my car in the show this year alongside four other incredible cars made my whole experience different than previous years but since I plan to touch on that more later in the week, here is some set up coverage from Friday.
Pure MB and SIE were back to back at Importfest which was interesting because it was the first time either of us had a setup of any kind.
Like last year Nextmod came out with an army of cars, their set-up went fairly late into the night too from what I can tell…
Tom and Nine 0 Five had a bit of an exciting night after he blew a tire right near the venue and he ended up having to borrow a wheel from Ty (Legacy below) that didn’t quite fit to get to the venue.
By Saturday it was all sorted out though like nothing ever happened.
BGP had one of the more elaborate displays for this years IF, carpeted and back-dropped, it looked great but I felt terrible for the people behind them who were basically cut off from the world.
Just a picture of the two trucks that were in the SIE area for now but look out for a post of all five later this week.
Check back later this week for more coverage!
S10forum members are perhaps the best in the world at finding some of the weirdest vehicles ever and this s10 is no doubt one of the weirdest s10s I have ever seen.
Usually I can tell (somewhat) what the owner was going for in the WTF Friday oddities but this one is really anyone’s guess.
The front is extended, the fenders are lost at sea, the motor appears to have been swapped, for reasons unknown the alternate is sky high, the exaust is well… odd, and the tailgate has been shrunk surprisingly well.
Also what the heck is going on in the ‘bed’?
Questions I have many, answers I have none.
Well Importfest 2102 has finally arrived and as I’ve mentioned before this is the first year in which Stance Is Everything has had any sort of floor prescence.
Thanks to the help of a few awesome car owners I’ve been able to bring a group of vehicles (provided they all make the trek) that I feel well represent the site, the audicence, and my own personal tastes so if you are in the area come by the Metro Toronto Convention Center and check it out.
I will have t-shirts, and stickers, on site as well in addition to a whole pile of freebies that sechemedia.ca dropped off last night.
Finally I will be passing the time with my old electric rc on the drift course so if you’ve got an RC and are in the show bring it out.
Obvious Flashback to Importfest 2011 is obvious.
Importfest 2011 pre show coverage.
Due to M.O.M. you already know I missed both CSCS and Vagkraft this year but before making the commitment to M.O.M. I reached out to Scott Holmes to see if he could snap a few photos.
Like always he came through and thus I’ve got some photos of his to share from one of the biggest Euro events in the area.
From what I have read the turnout this year was a little smaller than that of years previous but at the same time the quality was up significantly, so less is more.
Thanks again for helping out Scott!
On Sunday I skipped Vagkraft, Torque Modified, and CSCS to attend the 2012 Meeting of The Mazdas.
Last year, despite being a zombie from Importfest the day before, I had a good time at M.O.M. and liked the vibe so I made a point of being available for 2012.
While Lyndsey, myself, our dog, and some friends of ours all had a great time it seems that the same cannot be said for everyone else in attendance.
There was a bit of a mix up with the voting (judging) sheets and awards which resulted in some judged cars not receiving awards and others not getting judged at all.
I kind of understand why this upset people but at the end of the day did you show up for a plaque or to hang out with friends?
The food was free, the entry fee was reasonable, the weather was great, it was run by volunteers, and nearly everyone took home a raffle prize so it’s not worth getting worked up about… but what do I know I have never won so much as a participation ribbon with my car, so I can’t speak on how addictive awards may or may not be.
Anyway, onwards and upwards, this year was good, next year will be better.
One class that was judged for, but pretty small, was Mazda Other which consisted of Geoff’s B2200 and a Famila GTX.
Sadly I heard there were a lot more Miatas in attendance but they left once they heard their was no award.
Sucks, I like Miatas.
Personally the rotaries were the highlight of the show, really the FD RX-7s, but the rest were nice as well.
While looking for photos of the event I learned that but next year is the tenth anniversary of the last year of the Protege, given the speed in which Mazdas rust it is incredible that so many are still around.
Call it bias but I am going to end with the first gens.
‘Till next year.
I’ve been meaning to do a post where all of the captions are song lyrics for some time now but I had been putting it off because I kept forgetting which lyrics I wanted to reference soon after the song finished.
However using the last set of Importfest tickets I have to give away as motivation I’ve managed to pull together 14 for today’s post.
The first person to correctly identify (Song Name/ Artist Name) of each of these lyrics in the comments below wins a pair of tickets to this years Importfest.
Good luck!
Bonus points awarded for identifying the song the title is lifted from.
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.
This rounds coverage comes from contributing photographer Jon Ouimette and (at least for myself) it is cool to see his take on the event compared to my own and hopefully you all feel the same.
Jon didn’t spend too much time in the show and shine but he did manage to grab some snaps of the more interesting cars parked near the entrance of Cayuga.
With no rain in the forecast for this round it looks like both the time attack and drag strip were quite busy
Huge thanks to Jon for picking up the slack around here in terms of drag coverage, hopefully I can gkeep this going into round four.
Thanks to Jon for helping out with the camera work, might see if I can get him to help out again at the finale.
On Wednesday it was announced that local car meet Ertefa was -at least temporarily- no longer welcome at the venue it had been occupying.
If I am not mistaken this is the second time they have had to leave a location but unlike the first time size wasn’t the issue.
Apparently at some point within the last few weeks a street racing accident occurred on the near by highway and the blame has fallen on the Ertefa crowd, and as such they have been told to stop showing up.
With this news of Ertefa’s shut-down I have to ask… is anyone really surprised?
It’s not like this hasn’t happened before I’m sure (actually I know) I am not the only one who saw this coming. The writing began to appear on the wall pretty early, and as problems with burnouts, parking, fights began to pop up that writing only got clearer.
Really the whole thing was an ambitious endeavour by the Ertefa organizers because I can’t recall the last time any large scale (500+ cars) weekly meet lasted without incident.
Which leads me to the question of the day, can any meet the size that Ertefa is (or was) last?
No matter how hard an organizing body tries to enforce their rules (as ridiculous as some may be*) there are going to be people who don’t listen, and don’t give a fuck.
And even if someone did manage to remove those individuals permanently you still have to deal with the fact that if anything accident related happens near by the cops are still going to point their fingers at the gathering because it’s the most logical place to start.
Discrimination? Sure. Unjustified? No. Let’s not kid ourselves street racers still exist, so why wouldn’t the police start by killing the meet to see if that stops the problem? It’s a sad state of affairs but at the same time it kind of is what it is and if they let the meet continue the non car car loving public would see it as turning a blind eye.
So what’s the solution? I’m not sure, Classic car guys seem to be the best at having long term meets but at the same time they are generally half the size and not without their own issues.
Truthfully I am not sure there is a workable solution to the problem once numbers get past a certain threshold, but anyone is more than welcome to prove me wrong.
Will Ertefa make it back? Time will tell.
*By the way Ertefa organizers my offer to sponsor a trash can still stands.
For event weekend this Sunday, CSCS, Meeting of the Mazdas, Torque Modified, and Vagkraft. Flyers below, click each for their respective sites.
I’ll be at Meeting of the Mazdas but I should have guest photographers at ever other event provided things work as they should.
Might as well go back to last years Vagkfraft
Vakgraft 2011 Part 1 complete coverage
Vagkraft 2011 Part 2 complete coverage
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.
Of course the real reason behind the event wasn’t the awards, it was just an excuse to get together and I had every intention of attending but every time I set foot outside my door it started to rain so I ended up staying in.
Unlike myself Jeff Kerr of JK Photography isn’t made of sugar and went to the event and brought back this awesome coverage.
My apologies to the local truck community for missing basically every event so far this year, hopefully next year I won’t be so bad 😛
Thanks to Jeff for picking up my slack though, the rest of Jeff’s photos can be seen here on his flickr account.
When the second generation Mazda 3s came out I wasn’t really the biggest fan of the Cheshire cat grill and bumper combo but when I saw a few modified I warmed up a little bit.
Then when Steve -aka ‘Aitch’- sent me a Photoshop of what he planned to do with a 2012 SkyActiv Sport my opinion changed almost entirely.
The Photoshop was straight to the point, and proved that when positioned closer to the ground the front end of the new 3 transformed from a slap happy grin into a menacing smile.
Of course sometimes the simplest things take the longest and what you see today is the result of a lot of planning, dedication, and most importantly patience.
From December of 2011 to a about a week ago Steve drove at stock height and avoided looking at the wheels he saved from his previous build.
While it would have been easy to bolt up some coils and install his wheels at any point during this waiting period Steve knew that coils simply were not going to cut it for he and his growing family so he held fast for a pneumatic solution to his wheel gap problem.
Of course with his 2012 being a new platform his options were fairly limited, he could either build his own or wait for a kit to be developed.
Thankfully the suspension setups between the two 3 generations is nearly identical which meant the two companies already developing kits had a bit of a head start.
In the end AirRex ended up being the company to pass prototype phase first and Steve along with another local 3 owner wasted no time placing their orders.
Once some time opened up in his schedule to install the kit Steve was left with the almost exactly what he imagined back in December.
Steve’s cars have always stood out amongst the 3 crowd and this is no exception, and the fact that it sits exactly like this with no fender modifications at all is simply remarkable.
Congrats Steve for getting it all together, and now I can successfully say I didn’t blow the secret!
Here’s a quick video of it in action.
Photo Credit:Square Peg Images
