Drifting – Royal Origin

Super D | Event Coverage

Super D Matsuri has been one of the events I”ve been wanting to go for a long time. It’s a two day grass roots drifting event where you can bring your car to shred it with Naoki Nakamura and Miki Takagi from team Pink Style. The stars finally aligned where I was able to attend this meet and I couldn’t wait to see where America meets Japan in drifting.

When we arrived, we were instantly smacked with a plethora of stylish cars.

Love that cars here drift so low like this Miata from Team Gleam.

Our friend Derek was shredding it.

No competition, just fun.

Finally got to see Auto Factory Realize’s cars in person. They even have a matching tent!

Man this widebody S13 vert looked so sick.

Rodney had already lost some style points and wrecked his bumper before we got there.

Seeing a clean S13 was a rarity here.

Team Storm making people green with envy.

Mike’s freshly painted IS300, too bad Grange was hella dusty.

Beast.

Palmer’s awesome driving machine.

I finally got into the groove of shooting moving cars and came out with some pretty good shots.

Shout out to Roxy for making me a sandwich!

DK being DK.

AJ’s IS300, sadly we didn’t get to see him in action because the car was having some engine troubles. It still looked good in the paddock tho!

Ready for action.

If there’s no grass in the field, play in the dirt!

I hope you enjoyed the photos! Next time I’ll get a media vest, so I don’t just stay stagnant in one position.

-NGUMINH

May 4, 2018

Throwback to Vinh’s S13 | Royal Origin Member

Thought I make a post of Vinh’s S13 from when I shot it for Stance Nation. These are some of the photos that didn’t make it into the article. Check it out!

Wet.

I miss seeing this car.

Vinh tore this car down to the very shell and made this beautiful creation.

Henry lives up to his name.

It was awesome seeing this car scrape the roads of Orange County.

Work Equip perfection.

The sun set too soon for this car..

Still missing you everyday. Check out this video I made of some old clips of Vinh’s S13.

-NGUMINH

July 21, 2016

Formula Drift Final Fight Irwindale 2015 | Coverage

About a week ago on October 11, 2015, the last Formula Drift of the year took place – the Final Fight in Irwindale. First off, it was probably one of the hottest events I’ve ever attended besides ones in Las Vegas. Ironically, it was about ten to fifteen degrees cooler that day in Las Vegas than Southern California, but despite the scorching temperatures, Formula Drift never failed to be an epic event – even the drivers were not phased with the two hundred-degree temperatures in their drift machines suited up – shit’s pretty fuckin’ gangster.

Fredric Aasbo always killing’ it!

Ma boy, Justin Pawlak!

Zayuumn, Ken! Gotteeeem!

I’ve always loved Wang’s ride doe! Shit’s flames!

Mad Mike’s MX-5 is straight-up FIRE!

Vaughn Gittin Jr. was performing some dope stunts in between eliminations in his Ecoboost F-150 with underglow and spark effects.

Top 16 got everyone screaming on their toes. Shit was gnarly, especially with the freshly altered course – there were a lot of accidents at the entry to the second bank. Ken Gushi went through some rough patches with a couple of engines, but still managed to “fuck shit up” – in a good way. As the night narrowed down during the top 16, everyone was hella stoked to see Aasbo, Gushi, and Wang place podium – congrats fellas!

Top 3 Standings:

Fredric Aasbo #151
Kenshiro Gushi #21
Forrest Wang #808

Aside from the main event, there was another life behind the k-rails and the grand stands. Hundreds of fans and enthusiasts roamed the vendor and show venue, making it almost easy to beat the heat! Let’s check out all the fuss at the Offset Kings venue.

Mizzark’s E60 M5 bebeh!

Hi Mizzark!

Edgar’s Z32

Yogi’s GS430

Oh hai there Yogi!

Mikey’s Porsche with the ass shot!

Mikey on that hotline bling with Noel.

Noel on that hotline bling with Mikey. Lol.

Arm’s IS300 with his fresh Elixir front bumper. It’s a dream come true!

It was fun shooting on the track with Paulo. This foo comes out from Las Vegas every time to shoot for SouthrnFresh. You’s a trooper ma boy!

I can never get over this Tailored FD. This car actually won Offset Kings a couple years back at Formula Drift Irwindale, and it just never gets old.

Hi Courtney “WING”field!

Dat Aimgain front end on the FR-S doe!

S14 Kouki with the Vertex Lang!

What do you feel about this Rocket Bunny flared RSX? Pretty insane in the membrane.

After shooting around the the car show, we headed back to home base at the Royal Origin booth to see how the crew is doing.

My zaughters Hayle and Vickie holdin’ it down at the booth.

They wanted Zaddy to be in the photo, so here I am!

Dem Derry Dexx holdin’ down the fort while Aye Ron’s trying to snapchat the one that got away.

Aww Jeff always sells them with his smile. Swapang talaga!

Got to meet this fine gal next door to us at the Chibi Cars booth. She’s the one behind all the cool artwork they had on display! She’s very talented and very bae. Nice meeting you, Stephanie.

Bruno Mars be like, selfie!

Bruno’s “Aww shit I got got” pose. Lol.

Damn it, Vinh, you’re a little too tall, squat down a little for the picture please?

Much better!

Looks like the booth was doing good and didn’t catch fire from all the heat that we dropped. So let’s take the crew over back to the Offset Kings venue to take a last look at my favorite part of the show, the Serial Nine guys from Canada.

This “Seams” about right, YAHNAHMSAYIN?!

It was LIT, fam!

Formula Drift Final Fight Irwindale 2015 was a jam-packed event just like every other FD there is. This Final Fight was one we will never forget. We also thank everyone that came by and showed us support. Even though this is our first event not showcasing any of our cars, it was still pretty LIT with all the homies. Just stay tuned to some of our builds during the next seasons – big thangs are going to be popping! ‘Til next time, folks!

-Celso Nimo

October 20, 2015

Moving Forward | Shop Visit

The year is already reaching midway and things have been changing rapidly for the people around me. Over at Robros Customs, we just finished some body and suspension work on Sparkle’s S13 our Taiwan HOODRATstuff dealer.

Jason making sure every little bit of this car is perfect.

Did some brake dust cleaning with JDM Chemicals Brake Dust Remover while Jason was working on Sparkle’s S13.

Rinsed down with a quick wipe and the grime is still hard to remove

Added some of JDM Chemicals Brake Dust Cleaner.

Let it soak.

And voila the grime is easily removed.

Brand new Klutch Wheels.

Time to install the frame mount Rocket Bunny wing on the S13.

A bunch of pieces for the puzzle.

Time to convert everything into blue.

Team work makes the dream work.

Frame mount wings are so hard.

Meanwhile waiting for the car at Street Faction’s newest shop..

We had Matt replaced the sub frame bushings with solid mounts.

Matt already had his first customer project car at the new shop.

A kouki S14 with some engine troubles that Matt is going to diagnose and fix.

This S14 is sporting a bash bar made by Matt.

This S14 looks like it’s been through some adventures on the track.

Bash bar supplies.

Matt and Kevin pressing in the bushings.

This table was welded together by Matt himself.

Those welds.

The custom sub frame bushing to make the S13’s chassis more stiffer.

Custom made because sub frame bushings were out of stock from all of the surrounding companies and these ones don’t move.

All pressed in.

Time for the smaller bushings, Matt fingering it to get it all lubed up.

So much finger muscle, Matt is able to press it in with just his fingers.

Hit up Street Faction for any fabrication work! Let them know you were referred by us!

Also I have a 70-200mm 2.8 NON IS for sale! $900 takes it! Email me at originminh@gmail.com for more info.

May 11, 2015

Auto Enthusiast Day

Sunny days in southern California means another car show weekend. Nitto Tire in collaboration with Formula Drift hosted a Auto Enthusiast day car show for free. That’s right, FREE 99. Car show participants just had to register to be in the car show, vendors only needed to donate a prize for the raffle and attendees just had to pay for parking. They also had a drift demonstration with some of the best Formula Drift drivers such as Matt Fields, Vaughn Gittin Jr. and Matt Powers. Attendees only had to sign up for a free raffle that could win many vendor prizes and a ride along in the drift demo.

Early in the morning we met up to caravan to Anaheim Stadium.

A fan favorite is Phat’s Cayman on white Forgestar wheels.

We were staged right across from this beauty at the event, Robert’s Rocket Bunny FRS now with a crazy canard set up.

Japan inspired canard setup.

86 Fest with a clean line up ofr FRS’s and Corollas.

What was great about this event was that it had cars from all over the spectrum from off-roading vehicles to hard core drift cars.

A drift look classic.

Not sure why there was a line up of Ford vehicles with their hoods opened.

Even if the car show area looked like a regular parking lot, this guy had a setup for a high end car show.

Perfection in this SC.

Oh I get it, Woody because his wheels are wood grained wrapped.

Speaking of wraps, Mike Vo continues to kill the Lexus game with his GS.

Some drift action, it was pretty cool that they took on spectators for a ride. It was even cooler when they did the 5 car drift tandem which I didn’t get any photos of…

The best thing to get at a car show lately, ribbon fries.

Crowds of people just trying to get free stuff. They had funny ways of giving away gifts like who has an expired licenses would get a free t-shirt.

Phat on that lurk.

Phat’s selfie game is way too strong.

Well, that’s a wrap. Thank you for checking out our coverage and I hope you enjoyed the photos. We would also like to thank Nitto Tires for inviting us to be a vendor at this event. We hope to see more of these type of events in the future!

-NGUASS

August 5, 2014

Formula Drift Long Beach 2014 and Offset Kings Show Case

I feel like I’ve been covering Formula Drift Long Beach for a while now. Not much has changed, maybe different cars but the same vibe. Seems like every year I get less and less content because I end up having other priorities on my plate. This year it was the first time I was working with a company that had a booth in the vendor aisle. So my deepest apologies if there isn’t that many photos. Just kidding, I don’t really care what you think. Enjoy the photos though.