Continuing my walk around of the Queen Mary grounds where Wekfest was being held, we pick up around 1:30 pm when the crowds started to get bigger. The tour of shows that Weksos organizes has […]
Tag: Weksos
Event: Wekfest LA 2013 – Long Beach v.1
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 […]
Event: Wekfest East 2012 – New Jersey V.3
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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.
Event: Wekfest East 2012 – New Jersey V.2
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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.
Event: Wekfest East 2012, New Jersey V. 1 – Roll In
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I had first played with the idea of coming to New Jersey for Wekfest East back in June during the LA show. Towards the end of the show at the Queen Mary, I had been talking to Geoffrey and Kenneth a little bit about the turn out in comparison to the rest of the tour. LA had a great turn out, a close second to the Fort Mason show in San Francisco, but the home show is hard to beat. I had asked him about the general turn out and response to the rest of the stops, and they basically responded with an invitation to come see for myself. I’m in a pretty unique position compared to most people as far as traveling goes, so the idea wasn’t too farfetched. I’ve made it to the East coast and back in less than a day, so there was really no reason why I couldn’t make it work with a car show thrown in there somewhere. I’m not really affected by jet lag or time zones anymore as I fly quite often. In fact, I’m sitting in an airplane, writing this, right now on the way to Phoenix; on a non-car related trip unfortunately. As the show date neared, I was able to rearrange some things in my work schedule, so I decided I would make the flight out to Newark. The show was on a Sunday, so I elected to take a red eye on Saturday night to avoid an additional night in a hotel. I would land Sunday morning around 5am and shoot straight over to the New Jersey Convention Center in Edison in time to catch the roll-in and setup of the show. Leaving on Monday would give me a good night’s sleep and an opportunity to cruise into New York for a little bit; and by little bit I mean a good 35 minutes or so – I’ll get to that later though. Click past the break for part 1 of my exploits in the East.
Preview: Cross Country – Wekfest New Jersey 2012
. So, yeah, I’m on the East Coast right now, finally relaxing in my hotel room after an incredibly long day. It’s a one man show here at NDF (well, in the States anyway), so […]
Feature: Neighborhood Watch Program – Algier Built EVO VIII
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If you were to imagine a specific car that, in your own mind, possessed the qualities of protector, or a guardian; what car would you choose? For me, it would always be the Mitsubishi EVO. Something about it just gives off a ‘sentry’ feel. Perhaps it’s the bold, boxy lines, it’s potential for great power or even it’s masculine stature. There is quite obviously a good amount of guardian like character in any EVO, but this one in particular, has more than most. I’ve never seen where Algier lives, but I bet I would feel pretty safe with his EVO standing watch over the neighborhood. Right, I’ll admit that the theme to this feature is a little far-fetched; but it’s still a bit amusing if you think about it. Modified cars coming to life to protect…the…people…oh my god I’m describing Transformers…damn. I knew I had heard of that concept somewhere. Anyway, all that aside, Algier has put together an extremely quality build that I’ve really taken a liking too. This past weekend I flew up to the bay area and made the short trip over to San Jose the next morning to meet up with Algier. He had just spent the entire previous day at HIN so I was thankful that he was able to make it out for a few hours the next morning. Click past the break to see more of this insanely clean 8.
Event: Wekfest LA 2012 – Long Beach, California V.4
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It’s almost been a week since Wekfest LA, and I’ve just about wrapped up all my coverage. I’m going to try and squeeze everything I’ve got into this final post – so it’s going to be massive. I went ballistic on this one so, by far, you’ll see the most diversity in cars throughout this post. I’ve also included another slideshow gallery at the bottom for the masses. Hope you see your car! Also, if you want some special VIP only coverage of the show, check out our friends down under at Street-Cover. I supplied them with a few shots to help spread the Wek love over in Australia. You should probably check the site out anyway because it’s pretty rad. Again, special thanks goes out to all those at Weksos Industries involved in organizing such a massive tour, as well as the city of Long Beach for being cooperative. Let’s just jump right into the coverage. You know the drill – click the break for more.
Event: Wekfest LA 2012 – Long Beach, California V.3
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I’m running out of ways to start these posts, as usual, so I’ll just start off by saying…here is part 3 of NDF’s Wekfest LB (A) coverage. I even had trouble coming up with that. I think from now on, literally this second, for the rest of the show coverage, I will highlight a handful of shots and then post a slide gallery of some cookie cutter coverage of the show towards the bottom of the post. There are really way too many cars to try and put them into this format. This will allow you guys to see the show in a more timely manner as well. As a side benefit, it will also allow me to concentrate my commentary on just a few memorable shots. After previewing the new layout, I think you’ll like it as it allows you to briefly preview a lower sized picture, as opposed to loading an entire page worth of pictures. Once you click a thumbnail, a slide feature will pop up allowing you to view each shot in the gallery in succession. Typically, towards the end of posts my comments turn from semi-informational to just blatant observations (e.g. here is a civic on Volks). You’re probably reading that type of stuff and saying, “Well, no shit”. I think I left off around early afternoon, just before the gates opened and the flood of show goers rushed the grounds. I think it was right about this time I decided to break off from the guys I was hanging out with and start taking photos again. Click past the break for continued coverage.
Event: Wekfest LA 2012 – Long Beach, California V.2
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Let’s continue the Wekfest LA 2012 coverage, shall we? I left off somewhere around early afternoon just before the gates opened to the public. By this time a line had formed at the entrance that wrapped around quite a ways towards the Queen Mary. I don’t think it was as profound as the San Francisco show, but it was still pretty large. The good thing about it being an outdoor venue was the amount of people that could come in wasn’t limited because of fire law restrictions. Although Fort Mason is a cool location to have a show in the city, it limits the capacity in several different ways. After I made my first round through the cars, I was getting pretty hungry. My buddy Jon had ordered a pizza, so I took a break with him and some other guys and ate a little bit. Sitting in the grass, under the cover of the mornings marine layer was extremely relaxing. After a good 30 minutes though I decided it would be best to do another walk through before the crowds arrived. Check the second round of coverage past the break.
Event: Wekfest LA 2012 – Long Beach, California V.1
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This past weekend the Queen Mary park in Long Beach played host to the second stop in the 2012 Wekfest Tour; Wekfest LA. It’s hard to believe that it’s already been a year since the show stormed the grounds in 2011; and as I was expecting, the show was unreal. Honestly, if I could choose one show to attend for the entire year, there is no doubt it would be Wekfest – LA specifically. There really is no better venue than the Queen Mary; great weather, beautiful ocean and downtown views, off-shore breezes, shaded grassy areas to relax, and plenty of room for the 300+ cars and the thousands of attendees. The Wek get better at organizing these shows with each event’s passing and for like minded people, their efforts don’t go unnoticed. I’d like to give a big thanks to Kenneth Li, Adam Luong, Geoffrey Nguyen and all the other behind the scenes people at Weksos that make this tour what it is. I had a blast checking out the builds, catching up with familiar faces, and meeting a handful of new people. With that said, I need to work on getting more sleep before these shows. I’ve slipped into the unconscious habit of getting a maximum of 2-3 hours of sleep before any particular Wekfest show I’ve attended. Somehow I managed to arrive a good two hours before media was allowed in; two hours I spent sleeping in the parking lot. With about 30 minutes to 11am, I walked towards the entrance where I saw my buddy Jon. As we were talking Geoffrey came up to say hi. We talked for a few minutes, got my stamp a little early, and I slipped into the fray of glossy metal that is Wekfest. Check out the first part of coverage past the break – hope you enjoy!
Event: Wekfest 2012 – Fort Mason, San Francisco v.5 – Final
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It’s now been over a week since Wekfest SF and I’m still finding myself pouring over pictures from the event! I think I’ll just combine the few pictures I have left in this post to wrap up the coverage. Typically people start losing interest in shows after the first couple days, but I gotta say, Wekfest traffic hasn’t slowed at all! In fact, I’m still getting almost as many hits per day as when the first part of our coverage dropped. That’s some bay area love right there. Click past the break to see what everyone has been talking about.
Event: Wekfest 2012 – Fort Mason, San Francisco v.4 – Honda Time
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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.
Close-Up: The Wheels of the Wek’
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I thought it would be a cool idea to make a post from an entirely different perspective for once – or, one perspective only actually. There were so many people at the event, that as I stanced myself down to photograph the wheels of cars, I’d always catch someones shoes in the background. It’s a little funny if you think about it – a car’s wheels are kind of like it’s shoes. I thought it was fitting (ha! fitting – get it?) to throw together a little post of some of the best shots that portrayed this. Plus, I love how these shots come out with the 50mm prime, so I wanted to share anyway. This just makes it a little more fun! Click past the break to view the ‘shoes of the wek, starting with these yummy step-lipped Meisters!’
Event: Wekfest 2012 – Fort Mason, San Francisco v.3
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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.
Close-Up: Rising Suns Motorsports NSX
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So I first saw this car at the Canibeat meet in Fremont on Friday night, and although I tried to snap some shots of it, they came out not great because there was absolutely no lighting in the lot. I wasn’t too concerned though because I had a good feeling it was going to be showing at Wekfest. This NSX belongs to Rothsen of Rising Suns Motorsports – and although I didn’t get to meet him, I know this because I’m really good at using the internet (:|) Rising Suns is a car club out of Salinas, CA and has a few nicely built cars. Click past the break to check out more of this one.
Event: Wekfest 2012 – Fort Mason, San Francisco v.2 – back story
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So I had my first chance to look at my opening post on Wekfest SF, and it looks as if all the pics are grossly under-saturated. I think this might be a result of the monitor I processed them on. I was staying at my friends place in East Bay, so I took advantage of my time there to throw together that first post. I wanted to get the first post out because I wasn’t sure about how much time I’d have when I got back home. In hindsight it looks like I should have held off! His monitor settings may have had the saturation and contrast way up, so I tried to compensate. Oh well, it’s a little too late to change them now, but this next round of pics should look much crispier. Anyway, like I said in the first post, this second round of coverage will be much less cookie cutter. Shooting car shows can get a little boring – so if there’s no story, it’s just a photo dump. I found my ‘lost’ CF card that had my shots around the city on it, including all the great places I ate at this weekend. I’m no stranger to San Francisco; as I used to fly there every week for about a solid 6 months in a row. This post will include some shots of the day before Wekfest. My coverage will probably end up being around 4 or 5 posts worth – so there is still plenty more! Click past the break to check out my view.
Event: Wekfest 2012 – Fort Mason, San Francisco v.1
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According to the internet, there are currently around 800,000 or so people living in San Francisco; I think roughly half of them were at Fort Mason this past Sunday to attend Wekfest. Yes, that is a gross exaggeration, but the Weksos crew did manage to more than oversell the show. The massive following the show has garnered over the years resulted in an attendance number much larger than what was expected; so large in fact that the police and fire departments had to refuse entry to some people due to fire code regulations – which was obviously out of the hands of the organizers. Other than that, from the eyes of a photographer, this show was unbelievable. The venue is by far the coolest I’ve been to, the lighting is great, the people are all awesome, and the selection of cars was really well thought out. Before I start the coverage I’d like to say thank you to the guys at Weksos and everyone one else involved in the organization of this show – something as large as this isn’t easy to pull off, and the hard work is appreciated. Click past the break to kick this off.
Encounter: S2000 On Time Attack – Canibeat Pre-Sos Meet
. When I got the bay area yesterday, I saw the guys at Weksos tweeted that Canibeat had posted up a pre-meet near an In-N-Out at Fremont. Thought it might be worth checking out, so […]
Site News: WEKSOS Interview – In Transit with NDF
. I was browsing my Twitter feed and came across this update from weksosUSA of an interview I had with Geoffrey. The day after my departure from WEKSOS HQ in the bay area, I was […]
Interview: The Wolves behind Wekfest – A Visit To Weksos Industries
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Every once in awhile, my life points me in the direction of some pretty great things. I have a passion for this industry, and above all, I enjoy sharing it with the people who share my same sentiment – sharing and networking have always been the heart of my blog. As a result of this, I’ve had the opportunity to meet some really amazing people. Last year, if someone had told me I’d be having conversations with the pioneers of the industry all across the world, I would have laughed; or chuckled at least. Well, it turns out it wasn’t such a funny concept. Getting a chance to meet the people behind the brand, or the builders behind the cars is something not everyone gets to do. A few days ago I had the chance to sit down with Kenneth Li and Adam Luong from Weksos Industries in San Jose, CA. We chatted for a couple hours about the current state of the scene, where it came from, where it’s headed, a little about Japan, and a little about wolf fighting. Click past the break to learn more about what Weksos is, and who is responsible for one of the greatest shows in the US – Wekfest.
Event: Wekfest LA 2011 v.4
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It’s been so long since this event I almost didn’t want to finish posting up the last of my shots. I didn’t want them to go to waste though so, while the epoxy dries on my carbon sunroof delete project, here are the last 40 or so shots of Wekfest in Long Beach. Think of it as a trip back in time; just not that far back in time.
Event: Wekfest LA 2011 v.3
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I might as well just dive into part three of Wekfest coverage. This post is going to have a lot of Honda’s, and a lot of S2000’s – as if that were a bad thing. I was pretty surprised at the amount that were in attendance, and all of them were awesome. By this point I pretty much lost all determination to cover this show in an organized fashion, so most of these will appear scattered. Enjoy.
Event: Wekfest LA 2011 v.2
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Let’s get on with some more Wekfest LA coverage from Long Beach, CA. I ended up writing this entire post before I even wrote the introduction. I never know how to start off the second part of event coverage. This second part has a huge variety of cars, which is pretty cool, but it made it look kind of sloppy. The grass section was gigantic and hard to cover methodically, so my pictures are a bit scattered. At this point I was also running purely on Red Bull and Skittles, so it’s likely that I got a little sidetracked. Oh well, enjoy.
Event: Wekfest LA 2011 v.1
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Up until Friday I wasn’t even sure if I was going to be able to attend Wekfest LA. Requesting days off isn’t as easy as it used to be with my new position. Somehow, last minute, I managed to get my shift covered; so what did I do? That’s right – I went to Las Vegas. Good idea right? I hopped on a flight out of LAX Saturday afternoon, chilled on the Strip for 10 hours, and made my way back to Long Beach in time to shoot Wekfest. Well, it turns out it wasn’t such a good idea. I ended up losing way more than I intended, got no sleep, and smelled like cigarettes all day. I gotta say though, Wekfest more than made up for it. On top of that, it was probably the most beautiful day in Long Beach this year. Unbelievable cars, good food, music, friends and great weather; can’t ask for much more. I’ll do my best to try and walk you through the show a little before I go ballistic with the pics. Click past the break for more.
Event: Weksos Wekfest 3
. 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 […]