Self-tasked with building the fastest Civic in Japan, Asai-san and Sapporo based shops GNR Racing and Rise-Up Garage, are constantly modifying the setup on their flagship EK9. Their hard work is paying off as they close in on the FF NA Record at TC2000.
I had the opportunity to see what was left of Tokue’s EK shell during my last trip to Garage Work early in 2019. Iwata didn’t want me to photograph it, for various reasons, but for a fan of the Honda Civic, I can only describe the scene as melancholy.
The Garage Work camp has been hard at work on several of their shop cars for the 2018 season. Iwata has chosen to put his personal build aside in order to concentrate on the advancement of a few select customers; which is a somewhat noble, but necessary thing to do when you own your own tuning shop. The dedication is paying off though, as all 3 of the cars they have competing have broken personal records. One of them stands out among the rest, however, and it all started last year when he broke a very important record at Tsukuba.
This past weekend I was able to knock out a lot of work on the car. For whatever reason I had this idea in my head that the rest of the build would be smooth sailing after the new motor setup got tuned; boy was I wrong. Getting the motor running properly was a huge milestone, but it far from marked the completion of the build. There is still much to do, and among them was to replace the overweight front calipers with a reliable, lightweight alternative – APG Performance answered that call.
Over the past years we’ve spent quite a bit of time at Garage Work; both at the shop in Chiba, and on track at Evome and Attack. It’s a shop that is known for pushing the boundaries of Honda’s FF chassis far beyond what anyone has ever imagined. Tora-san’s rich history and incredible foresight into the sport of time attack has been unmatched by many, and through Garage Work, he is able to channel that gift to not only his personal vehicles, but to his customers as well.
I mentioned last night on Instagram (@naritadogfight), that I got called out of state to work this weekend. Well, that’s no surprise, but I had planned on using that time to put together the Evome articles so I would be able to post them throughout the week. Unfortunately, I then had to decide whether to process store orders or get content processed, and since I believe customer service is the foundation of any consumable I chose to get the orders processed. Before I head out to the post office I decided to publish this post I had sitting in que for a bit now.
Hope to see this in Direzza Challenge again! Look for a more in depth article on this EK soon.
This past weekend marked the start of Round 6 of the Redline Time Attack season, and as it ends it will leave just 2 more rounds until the series final. As I’m writing this, […]
This past weekend I flew up to Nor-cal to attend Wekfest which was held in San Jose this past Sunday. Saturday night though, Huy and I took some time to drive up Highway 9 […]
At the beginning of the year, the 2014 Redline Time Attack series saw a new face join the ranks. Kristian Wong; by day a tuning specialist at SP Engineering in the City of […]
This car means a lot to me – it still shocks me that I got to see it in person, and on circuit. Especially because I wasn’t even expecting it. It was also the […]
So, one of the side projects that I’ve been working on over the past few months is expanding the site to include a very niche line of carbon goods, targeted towards circuit racing and […]
For as long as I can remember, there has always been one Civic build that I’ve always looked up to. Of course, it was in Japan, and of course I was blessed with seeing […]
Caught this cool, track styled SiR at Tatsumi PA last weekend. I didn’t get a chance to talk in depth with the owner because just about as soon as he parked, the police rolled […]
Looks like the owner of this EK is taking some styling ques from the ‘USDM’ style catalog; with it’s OEM body, and good amount of US based decals. The silver Meisters look great against […]
We pick up about 30 minutes before the general admission gates were opened, and the flood of people in line started to pour into the grounds. As Yuta and I left the […]
I can honestly say the last few weeks, for me, have been the busiest I’ve experienced in a long time. Losing a week in Charlotte for work, playing catch up back at the office, and […]
This past weekend Justin, who runs Autocon, messaged me about a trailer they were shooting in Los Angeles for the upcoming Autocon event on June 1st. It was last minute, so I couldn’t make […]
.
Well, it’s about that time to start wrapping up the show coverage. I was planning on posting the third and final round of coverage this weekend, but ended up working, as well as temporarily acquiring a vinyl cutter. The latter occurrence took up the majority of my Monday so I wasn’t able to work on getting the post up. Oh well, I have some time tonight and will do just that. We pick up mid-afternoon when the show was really getting busy. The turnout was really, really good for it being the first East coast show that Weksos has put on. I was very happy for everyone involved at the success of the day. I don’t really have much else to say in this post that hasn’t already been stated. In this post we’ll take a closer look at some of the nice Hondas at the show, as well as a look at the roll-out. Again, you’ll be able to see the insane amount of variety that these Wekfest shows provide. Just click past the break and enjoy the rest of the shots.
.
It’s 2 am on Saturday morning, I don’t have work tomorrow (edit – I DO have work today), and I’m stacked up on caffeine; I may as well get started on posting the second round of Wekfest East. Yuta’s civic was having some work done at a shop in Upland this past week, and this evening we drove up there to pick it up. While in the area, we decided to meet Kodi Chan at Maxim off the 60 in Rowland Heights. I don’t get to see Kodi that often so it was nice that it worked out that way. I ended up drinking way too much coffee though, and as a result am writing this right now. I’m sure I’ll wake up tomorrow…err..today, and read this and it probably won’t make any sense to me. I just thought for some reason you should know why this post will be comprehensively poorly written. Right. Now that that’s out of the way, let’s get back to the New Jersey convention center to check out more of the cars at Wekfest. In this post, I’ll wrap up what I have left of the roll-in and get started on showing the masses of cars that were in attendance. I gotta say, as I look back on each car as I edit them, I’m finding more and more cool things I didn’t notice initially. I’ll point some of the things out as I go. Also, you can once again see the thought that went into the variety of cars showing. If you’re not familiar with the tour, not just anyone can come show. The Weksos staff hand pick out of hundreds, and sometimes thousands of applicants to ensure a great show. For now, click past the break to see part 2 of the coverage.
.
Since there’s not too much left, I’ll go ahead and finish the rest of the pictures in this post. Like I mentioned before, the day just didn’t really unfold like a typical car show day for me, so I got very limited shots. I think most of these are going to be from around 6-7 pm in the evening, just as the sun was setting behind the hi-rises of downtown LA. This was also when a lot of the show cars were leaving, which made it nice to get some solitary shots of each. I’m always a little urked by how close together they park some of the cars; making it almost impossible to get a decent picture of them. Especially when you have a lot of open lot space, you can give each car another foot of room or so and it would be much better. I’ve never organized a car show before though so what the hell do I know? I’m sure there’s reasons for it. In a way I’m kind of glad I didn’t take many pictures, but rather enjoyed walking around and taking a close look at the cars – which is something I don’t often do. The lineup of Honda builds, organized by Joey Lee from The Chronicles, was pretty amazing. So in that sense, I’m glad I got a better look at them, instead of just taking pictures. I’m sure he’ll have massive coverage, so be sure to check it out. Click past the break for more.
.
Nisei Week in Downtown Los Angeles; a time to celebrate the Japanese-American culture in the best way; good food, great location, lots of celebration, people dressing up in Japanese attire and of course the Nisei Showoff. I wasn’t actually planning on attending this year for a few reasons, but because I sort of volunteered my car to help Yuta out, I ended up attending later in the day. I had work in the morning all the way in Orange County, so I didn’t actually end up getting to Little Tokyo until a little after 3. I had been driving Allan’s Fit because he had to drive my car to LA that morning to set up at the Wheel Flip booth. Actually a really good thing because his Fit has great air conditioning, and it was basically the hottest day of the year. So due to my time constraints, I didn’t get as much coverage as I usually do – which I don’t really mind as I wasn’t planning on going anyway. The cars I did really want to get shots of, the Loi-Spec Integras, all left a bit early so I never got the chance to photograph them. Not too big of a deal though as I’m sure I’ll see them at a Raceline event in the near future. It probably didn’t help that the first thing we did when we go into the show was…leave the show. I couldn’t help it though; I was starving and in Little Tokyo – I needed ramen and a beer. If I were to be completely honest, it seems like the turn out wasn’t anything like the previous years; the lot was not as full, and the crowds just weren’t there. This could be for a few reasons; one being that the Infamous Hellaflush meet was being held on the same day in Long Beach, and the other being that this event seems to always be ‘up in the air’ as to whether or not there will be a next year. Why the Hellaflush meet was planned for the same day is beyond me. It seems almost suicide for the ‘scene’ to plan two huge events on the same day, 20 miles apart from one another and tear people between which to attend. Anyway, most of my shots were from later in the day as people were getting ready to leave, so I apologize if it seems strange. Click past the break for the first part of the coverage.
.
I’m going to try and roll everything else I have left into a third and final, massive leftovers post of AutoCon 2012. I can only imagine how cool it will be – especially since I’m kicking it off with this fantastic coupe on Panasport G7s. As far as the timeline goes, it’s still pretty early in the day, and definitely still in the morning. The show opened to the public at about 12 o’clock, and that’s just around the time I said that I’ve had enough. I was fortunate to have a good jump on the show without too much foot traffic, so I really got a good look at the lot in it’s entirety before the gates opened. The lot was so big though, that I think even if I hadn’t I’d still be able to get some good shots. Recapping the show, I must say the entire roll-in process and media handling was a gigantic improvement over last year. Thanks to the AutoCon staff for another good show and I look forward to seeing this event gain in popularity over the next few years. Take a look past the break for a grip of pics that wrap up my coverage.
.
Man, I’ve been traveling a lot lately. I think I’ve flown about 3,000 miles in the past 3 days. Not normal, but I’ve been really busy at work recently. That’s probably the main reason that my coverage is so slow to come out – which I apologize for. I think just about all the other blogs have all but finished posting pics, but I’m lagging. I suppose that’s one of the side effects of doing this all on my own; I don’t have as much time as most people (running an airline is quite time consuming -_-;). With that said, let me quit wasting your time and let’s power through the rest of these photos. I’ll be making one more post after this and I’ll try to get the all edited and ready for upload in the morning. After 3 back to back 4am mornings, I have a feeling I’m going to be sleeping in tomorrow. I’ll start off round 2 with a few shots of this familiar Kouki S14 on Mag Blue Nismo LMGT-4’s – super clean build. Click past the break for more AutoCon 2012.
.
I’m sure by now between the roll in post, and other blogs, you’ve all gotten a taste of what AutoCon 2012 has to offer – so let’s just jump right into this. I’m admittedly not the biggest fan of car shows in general, but the thing I like the most about these annual shows is the chance to see various cars transform from the previous year, as well as getting the opportunity to see totally new and fresh builds for the first time. It’s also a great opportunity to meet people within the industry. I always make it a point to introduce myself to a few new people during each show. Not only to make new friends, but to get insight into new feature cars and stories; I can thank a lot of good material just from random introductions. I can honestly say that it is easy to see the growth of NDF simply by the reaction of others when I drop the blog’s name. I went from virtually no one knowing what Narita Dog Fight was and getting blank stares, to a good percentage of people who support it – and that’s cool to me. Alright, enough reminiscing – click past the break to see part 1 of Auto Connection 2012 coverage. It’s worth noting that I’ve been out of town all day, and will continue to be for the remainder of the week. So if the coverage is slow to post, I apologize.
.
As I wind down the Wekfest SF 2012 coverage, I was debating throwing everything I had into one final post. As I was going through the shots though, I realized I had a little too many for one post. So, in the sake of saving some time, I decided to split them up in to two posts. I saw though, that the majority of what I had left were photos of Honda’s! Which is actually pretty cool because now I have enough for a Honda specific post. If you’re a fan, then this will be a must to check out. There were so many nice Honda builds at the show and I hope I got to see most of them. Click past the break for a good sample of what was there.
.
By now I’m sure there is extensive coverage of this show up on every forum, blog, and auto site across the entire internet – so let me first thank you for sticking with NDF. There are a grip of sites out there to get content from, but I want you to know that, although new, NDF is here to stay. From where we are now, we can only get better. So I’ve gone through hundreds of photos and it looks like I still have two or three posts left for this show. Most car shows I just breeze through because I end up seeing the same stuff over and over; but since I don’t go to shows in the Bay area that often (I don’t go to care shows that often anyway; although I may attend more than I think!), I really got to see a lot of different things not from So-Cal. Enough with the talk, let’s get into some more coverage! I got some interesting stuff in this post, so click past the break for part three of NDF goes to Wekfest SF.
.
It seems like I can never fully finish posting coverage of a show before it’s considered old news. I guess with Motion going on today, I’d better hurry up and post the last installment of my Nisei coverage. So let’s get started with this famous ATS built hatchback.
.
The stragglers. Leftover pictures that didn’t make it into an event post. This is what you’ll get with the final It’s JDM Yo! event post. Seriously, these events are getting so big that it’s near impossible to methodically post every car that was in attendance. It’s too bad too because some really good builds go unnoticed sometimes. Anyway, I’ve been working mad 12 hour shifts at work and haven’t had anytime to dedicate to the site in awhile. I wanted to finish up with the final pictures before I go out of town once again. With that said, on with the pics.
.
Welcome back to the second part of the It’s JDM Yo! meet coverage. The sites traffic has been way up recently, I’d like to thank everyone who checks the site regularly. I’ll be getting some merchandise together soon too, so everyone that’s been interested in it, hold on just a little longer! Anyway, after we checked out what was in the outside lot, we ventured into the main warehouse building. They put up a DJ in almost every room in the warehouse, playing different music. I thought that was pretty sweet. Check out the pics past the break.
.
Alright, let me just start out by saying that this meet turned out to be way bigger than I had expected. I had originally planned to stop by real quick, say hello to a few people, snap some shots and jam to Aliso Viejo to the Tamiya RC track. Despite my attempts to hurry, we ended up staying for about 2 hours. The layout of the meet was really cool, with multiple doors leading to new warehouses; all packed full of self-built cars. Some were track inspired, many were heavily VIP influenced, all were cool in their own right. I didn’t have my 28mm with me, so the majority of these were taken with my 50mm – forgive the lack of full car shots, but at a meet like this, and the lenses I had, it was all but impossible to snatch a frame without anyone getting in the way. Click past the break to see the first of the coverage.
.
I thought it might be appropriate to end my Eibach coverage with a poster shot of the Eibach built CR-Z. One of only two at the show; the other being the Honda Tuning CR-Z that was parked next to the Chronicles booth. You can see behind the car the giant line that had formed in the afternoon as soon as they started giving away free stuff…scavengers. I’ve been at work everyday since the show, so I haven’t really had a chance to scope out what other people have been covering. I know for a fact I didn’t get as much coverage as I wanted to, especially around back of the building. Hopefully you enjoyed everything up until now. Check out the last gallery past the break, and I’ll see you all again at the JDM Yo! Anniversary meet tomorrow.
.
Elementary. The basics. Simplicity. Classicality. Yes, that last one is actually a word. All these words can sum up the look of Johnny’s fresh hatchback. It’s almost more about the things he chose not to do, then what he did do that makes this EK so clean. It’s a nice change from the over adorned, gaudy looking masses that make up the majority of modified cars these days. Johnny lives in my hometown, and we met through theJDM awhile ago. This is his second build and I’ve been wanting to shoot it for some time now, so I caught up with him at Eibach. It’s tough to get creative shots at a car show, so consider this a preview to a more worthy future write-up. Enjoy the pics past the break.
.
OK, on to round two of the Eibach Open House coverage. Hope you’re liking the content so far – the sites traffic always shoots up dramatically when I post event photos. Now that I’ve browsed through the shots I took and can truly say I am floored by some of these builds; like Mike G’s internet famous EG. I’ve known Mike for a few years now on theJDM and NWP but he always seemed to elude me at shows. I’m glad I finally got to meet up with him. Cars aside, these shows are a great chance to meet the people behind the scenes; those who constantly push the industry to new heights. There has been a ton of coverage popping up on forums now that it’s been a few days, and I thank you guys for visiting NDF. Check out The Chronicles for Joe’s coverage of the show from his point of view. He’s got a great knack for free writing, and his posts are always interesting. Enjoy the second gallery past the break!
.
For 7 years now Eibach Springs, with the help of some dedicated people, have been hosting the largest Honda/Acura meet in the country at the company headquarters in Corona, CA. Each year I attend, and each year I am blown away at the quality of some of the builds, as well as the sheer amount of people in attendance. Despite the rain in the morning, thousands of Hondas stormed the gate and filled the side streets even before the show officially began. If you’ve been before though, it’s to be expected. I tried to get the best coverage possible, but with this many cars it’s pretty tough. Click past the break to enjoy the new gallery feature of NDF.
.
Due to some unforeseen trouble with my own car (i.e. broken driver side knuckle), it took me a little bit longer than expected to get this second part up; sorry ‘y’all. In the last post, I mentioned a little bit about the breakdown of classes and regulations for the Circuit Challenge. So for this one I’ll just let the pictures do the talking. I really like this shot, with the CR in the background. As I was taking a second look through some of the shots, I noticed a few EK chassis that were worth putting up. Check um’ out past the break.
. Wekfest is probably the fastest growing annual car show in California, maybe the nation. The third installment of the Northern California show took place last week in it’s new location in Fort Mason, San […]
.
In the continuing coverage from Sunday’s toy drive & car show at Cerritos Honda, we’ll check out all the other great entrants; like the immaculate RyWire CRX. I recognized a handful of So-Cal regulars, but was happy to see some new builds as well. Click past the break for more.
.
Inline Four has been dedicated to Honda and Acura tuning for over a decade now. I’ve been going to them since I moved to So-Cal in 2005; back when they were in the tiny office off the 22. They have now moved to a better, larger facility in Garden Grove, but they’ve kept the same attitude about tuning and service. It’s a great shop that continues to grow in many ways, including a new line of their own performance parts. This year they have completed the build on their K-powered race car, and it’s already winning events. I made a trip down to Inline Four last week with a friend to inquire about some cams for his EG, and so I could pick up some wheel spacers for my coupe. Lucky for me the EK was parked out in front of the shop. I had only seen the car once at Nisei and since I had my camera with me I asked Brandon if I could snap some pictures.
