Throwing Rods has been topped of with car culture over the last week with the XDC Drift Finals and Remix car show. It's been great to get back into the car show season even if it is a late start. After years of missing out on the summer show season, it's great to be back in the swing of things. My first show season included the typical fair of local hot rods, muscle cars and a few exotics. Nothing worth writing home about, but it was someone's special piece of work and that's what matters.
The Remix car show is certainly more up to date, tagging a long side the XDC Drift Finals. Now I've been around a great deal of local dirt track racing, drag racing and even American LeMans racing. This was my first drift event. Granted I was no stranger to drifting, this was officially my fist attendance at a sanctioned event. Which is great because now, not only do I miss show season, I now want more race season. It was great to be around the sights and smells of race fuel and ziptied front bumpers. Nothing beats it. Well, almost nothing.
Just about any hoon I know does or at least should love some opposite lock and these drift pro's take it to extremes. In a great percentage of the drift cars, the equation was simple: Great RWD platform + Chevy LS V8 = Maximum Drift car. It may not be the absolute but it was a very worthwhile combination. Not only did it create an odd tick in the brain to see a 350Z and hear that deep pushrod V8 growl as the racers plowed through the corners at full pace. Again, the pictures tell the story but what isn't told is that drift events know how to have a pretty good time. The atmosphere was inviting and attitudes were in good shape. It's always a great time when spectators have a chance to see the cars in action not only on the track but with their crews back in the pit staging. Most racing events these days get away from the fan centric and energized feel of being able to see, touch and hear the cars as they are tuned and repaired before they run back out to the course for hot laps.
The local scene of show cars hasn't changed a whole lot but much of the attitude has. The last time I showed was in sport trucks and most of them were hot rod based and the answer to any question was either lay frame or MOAR POWER! This time around it's interesting to see the "Hellaflush" or "Stance" crowd start to make a showing. From my perspective they are the new version of Mini-Trucks. So not new to me but they are creating a social car culture that is built of of current trends and some pop culture assistance. Which is honestly a great thing to see these days. Most enthusiasts are just hidden in the burrows of car clubs and late night street races. These new kids on the scene have clothing lines, lingo and a culture all their own. But the thing is that it is much more main stream than I've ever seen anything I've been involved with. Especially the super outcast crowd of Truckin' guys.
This has given me a great amount of motivation to keep up the work for Throwing Rods as I would like to take the mentality of the more progressive auto cultures and mold them with the popular culture that should be making up a new crowd of enthusiasts even if they are commuter enthusiasts. Plenty of cars are out there these days that make a daily commute a great time. But only the cool kids set the trends and this has to be done with finesse.
The pictures certainly take the cake for how the car show went as a few of the Infiniti G car clubs that were my guide to the show, ended up taking some top honors! Find the pics here and let me know what you think!
No comments:
Post a Comment