Pat

(Readers note. this is my second time typing this the first time i was about to click send when my safari decided to "stop working" and exit on me..... NOT COOL!)

For the last few week or so as you may have herd or seen here on our blog we recently have move into a shop! this allows us to wrench late, street test late... and as we found out last Saturday party late! This past few days we have been wrenching on Pat Lee's 2JZ S13 In preparation for Trent to drive it at The Evergreen Drift Pro-Am series event #1. Here is our  past few days in a post.

Let me start where Mat left off in his last post... ( The shop all nice and neat and empty with trent being bit by Edward Cullin... yes i made a twilight reference. )

Heres Ian mounting up pats fresh Work VS-KF's ( since non of us felt comfortable mounting them and Ian was familiar with the machines from his days at The Skyline Shop. Also Wheels specs are as follows FR: 18x9.5 +2 RE: 18x10.5 -2 )

Fronts sitting all fresh like!

As any shop owner knows it does not take long for a nice clean shop to get really really messy. It did not take us long to figure this lesson out.

Here we are doing what we do best! sitting around!!

So this brings us to Saturday night Trent, Pat, Brayden and myself were  thinking we were miles ahead of the game to have the car completed that night and ready for sunday morning. Much to our displeasure While mounting our last tire we kicked the electrical breaker and soon found out our fuse panel is in the shop on the other side of the wall which no one was inside.  After some creative thinking Pat started chopping up electrical cords in effort to wire up some crazy contraption which drew power from the front office into the shop! Although we were unable to have the lights on and run the compressor or the tire machine which left us mounting the last tire in cell phone lighting.( sorry for the lack of photos  It was 1 am and with lots still to do i was not thinking photos.)

Now was do or die time, We loaded up tools and tires into the truck hooked up the trailer, All that was left was to get the car off jackstands and finally see if it ran and if so how well.  * kill switch on *  *turn key* "...... nothing...... oh wait i forgot to turn on the fuel pump"  * turns on fuel*   fired up like a champ.  After a few run up and down the side of the shop our goal was shattered. brake booster was leaking and the e brake wouldnt work.  It was a long tiring emotional night.  We all headed home and slept in.

I was awoken early id say 9 am by Trent asking me for my set of shop keys  he informed me Ian was waiting for him there to fix the booster and e-brake. Trent called a friend and  organizer of the event, Russle. They had worked out a plan for trent to show up late and still qualify, after getting the booster and e-brake working Trent decided to take a look at the boarder wait...... again our goals crushed 45 minute wait on top of a 2 hour drive. we could not make it.

All said and done, This past week has been the most fun i have had in a very long time, We are a huge family and its times like this we all come together and spend countless nights and hours of blood sweat and tears to get one or many cars running just in time for an event. we ravage and pillage parts for all the cars in sight just to make one work. This is what we do for our family. we put aside our daily grind to get together and share times we wouldn't change the world. I want to thank Ian, Mat, Pat and Trent for just being totally awesome and teaching me so much in the last 3-4 years i have known you.  Thank you guys.

-Zack.

Well, Pat and Trent sure did have an adventure last night. After finding the coolest car ever on Craigslist, we decided to go take a look at the Crown Wagon. We could not beleive how mint the interior was and that everything was original minus the horrible wheels choice. We looked over the car for 15 or so minutes, and decided to take off and let the seller know what we would be willing to offer. 10 minutes later, Trent called the seller back and offered him a trade for Pat's 1980 Volvo 242 GT and a bit of cash. Some quick negotiation took place but alast, we struck a deal! Once we found a battery and some transfer papers, we were set!

This car is the Ultimate Cruiser that seats 8! Ya, thats right! Rear facing seats in the trunk!

We arrived Friday for the qualification and schmoozing day at 4pm and it was hot. The pavement was ...

HOT. Imagine the air temperature. After the drivers meeting, the driver signing took place, and it was more apparent that Drift Safari is building a name in the Pro level now too, people actually were knowing who we were, and who Ian was. Wow we are famous.

The line for Crown and Coke was even gone, with all the drivers signing posters. It is crazy to see the alcohol flowing at a track so openly. I guess that is Vegas.

As the sun set, practice before qualifying begins...

Ian was doing well in practice, and went for a killer fast and gangster entry during qualifying, but that proved unsuccessful as we did not have enough steering angle to keep it going after such a hard entry. It was a killer entry, but it just did not make the rest of the course happen. Ian still showed some love, knowing he tried his hardest.

The next day, we picked up our new Drift Safari x Fatlace Collab shirt from the Hella Flush clothing booth, and we turned into models...

we even met up with a local friend, AJ at the track, he had come down to support Jeff Abbott with some other Roadster Drift guys. It was cool to hang with a local bro and watch the show. 

While enjoying the Fatlace car show, we came across this AE86, and when I started talking to the owner, he showed me a pic of Kevin Peterson's old AE86, saying that the car was his inspiration. LOL He painted the vinyl color, and even copied the interior style seat. He told me, he went flip up lights so people knew it was his version. Nuts.

After packing up the truck and trailer, we went through the drive through and left Vegas right after the event on Saturday. It was late, as you can see below...

later in the morning, in the state of Utah we were enjoying the sun rise and the new speed limit...

80 mph. Hell ya.

The terrain in these parts is like another planet. We had to take pictures of this stuff.

Somewhere in You-Da-Hoe, I mean I-Da-Hoe, we stopped for club houses with fries and gravy. Yummy. We had some good laughs, and then Ian tried to see if his hair was long enough to hold tooth picks. Not the head hair, FACE hair. Yup... 

Wow. 

Some hours later, the sun was setting again, meaning we had been up for about 32 hours at this point. It was a sad and beautiful moment. 

Around the same time, we started noticing one of the trailer tires was losing air. We filled it at each stop, until it was losing it faster and faster. At one point, near Ellenburg, we put a plug in the tire, to hopefully stop the leak, well a few hours later, when we entered Seattle, we checked the tire to find this...

Oh Snap! The air was really low. lol. We were able to grab a spare trailer tire from Roland's collection, as our spare was no good as well. We then continued to Canada, making it home around 5:45am, seeing the sun coming up again. What a trip.

The Drift Safari shirts were sold out in Vegas, and there will be more soon. As well as stickers. Just you wait. 

We started on our journey for Las Vegas for the Formula Drift round, leaving Canada all loaded up, ready to rock. We were loaded a little lighter, as Toyo Tires has stepped up to help us out, and they were bringing out tires to the track for us. Ian, Pat, Trent and Ian's girl Felicia all loaded into the truck, and to quote Taco Bell, headed for the border...

Here we are at a rest stop in Oregon, Ian and Felicia decided to enjoy the ground... lol

then Felicia was teaching us Crouching Tiger Karate Kid moves.

Still driving, it is 1 million degres outside, and even hotter inside the truck. We cranked the heat to see how long we could take it, extreme!

In the lovely state of Nevada, we were just amazed at the crazy rock formations

and Alien Meat for sale.

After unloading the car, we went to some Vegas sights, here we are enjoying Fremont Street's offerings. Did I mention it is hot, like 35°C at night. 

The next day we hit up the outlets before heading to the practice, which started at 9pm, the outlet has some cool buildings around it, like this one...

while at the outlet, the Sham Wow sucked Ian in. The guy presented it so well, that we all bought one...

WOW

We headed to the track, and went to get our tires mounted. When we picked up our wheels from Toyo, we noticed the wrong tire size, we had ordered 245/40-18, but they brought us 225/40-18's. After a lot of talking, Rhys Millen offered us his 10 spare fronts that were the size we needed to use. Thanks so much Rhys. When we went and put them on the car, the over fenders had to be adjusted, the tire tread on Toyo R1R 245/40-18 is the same width as a 265/35-18 which is a lot wider then we expected. After the adjustments that Pat and Ian did, the car was flush and grippy.

Abbott and Ian from Seattle supervised the modifications...

9pm came up and practice started, Pat took the role of spotter, and Trent acted as the crew chief, Ian decided to be the driver, 

after many hours of practice, until 1am, we were tired hungry and a little grumpy, but still very happy with the new grip. There were a few hard crashes, including Fredric Aasbo, Tommy Roberts, and Forest Wang, their cars were severely damaged, which sucks. 

We leave you with the view from the stands of the track, Friday will be exciting.