This is the second installment of my Rolex 24 hours coverage. I have over 1000 pictures taken – but I feel without actually telling you what each individual picture is from or what time of day, it really doesn’t make sense to post a 600 panning shots, So instead I just picked through a few and put them together for a post. Sorry for the extremely long post – but I wanted to get out a good sample size.
The 50th Anniversary Rolex 24 hours was the first major race event I have ever attended. The atmosphere, the sounds, the money, and cars really made for an amazing weekend. We met up with my friends who were camping out in the infield; they had been there since Thursday morning cooking out and just relaxing. Any how, I decided I would make the first post from Rolex 24 hours on random images as opposed to a post of 40 panning shots. We’ll have more images soon.
Winners:
Magnus Racing GT-class – Porsche
Mike Shank Racing Concept Class – Ford
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Photos & Words : Ravi
These images paint a great picture of a guy who could never be “summed up”. Its never easy to say goodbye – especially when knowing its for the final time. Born as Michael Pandel, our friend Triforce Mike (Nerdy Show / A Comic Shop) was fatally injured by a vehicle while routinely traveling on his bicycle.
(video below)
As the key co-star personality of literally hundreds of podcasts and YouTube videos, Mike is in his own class of Internet celebrity, although his humbleness would cause him to disagree. Fun. Optimistic. Dope. Supportive. Inspiring. Free. Genuine. These are just a few words that friends are using to describe a true diamond in the rough.
We’ve provided a summary of what Triforce Mike’s forum and Facebook friends and fans are saying:
Mike was the kind of person you couldn’t help but love immediately. He was a force of nature, a hurricane composed of boney hugs and nipple pinches. When they made him, they broke the mold and hid the pieces across the land: there will never be another like Mike. It didn’t take much for him to have an impact on you. Mike had a lust for life – he enjoyed the heck out of it and (one way or another) made sure those he met did too. He’s known as one of the warmest, friendliest, funniest, and liveliest people you would ever be privileged to call a friend. Always the life of the party; always rambling on about stuff; ALWAYS entertaining. Super passionate about comic books, classic games, Pokémon and My Little Pony. Some of his antics are legend and will be told for centuries to come.
Triforce Mike also taught how to open up and be comfortable in your own skin. It is always really refreshing to meet someone like Mike; he touched a lot of people, and left a lasting impression on everyone he met. Many of us owe our fandom and discovery of many things to Mike, and we will never see any of them the same again. We will listen to no Protomen songs, collect no rupees, use no warp whistles, read no Robo without it being, in our own little way, for Triforce Mike.
Our thoughts and best wishes go out to all Nerdy Show friends, Mike’s friends, the A Comic Shop crew, and of course his family. He will live in our heartpieces – may he dance forever in them.
Majority word credits: Kristin, Bryan, Flawedspirit, Jenn, Cap, MuckRaker, mopkins, OmniG-Sage0, Tolan
-Dipz
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**In loving memory:
Michael “Triforce Mike” Pandel
A few real quick photos I did of two M3′s. When I say quick I linearly mean these are the only two photos I shot but hopefully we’ll be seeing more of both these cars soon!
Both cars are very nice with little bits that separate them from others out there. The white one for example currently has seats, exhaust and slicks off a Ferrari Challenge car on it.
-Garrett Wade
*click to enlarge
Just needed to shoot something to test out a few things – came up with these shots of Elby’s car. Trying to develop some techniques into more. Definitely a lot happier with the first image than the second image.
Ravi
The 2012 International Consumer Electronics Show or CES took place in Las Vegas, NV. There were over 153,000 attendees checking out 3100 exhibitors, in more than 1.861 million square feet. All 4 days were
needed to just get a glimpse of everything, well besides Justin Bieber. Didn’t help it was my first time in Vegas either.
More than 175 of the top executives attend CES from companies such as BMW, Chrysler, Honda, Jaguar, Lexus, Mazda, Mercedes-Benz, Nissan, Volkswagen and Volvo. As well as plenty of other names you will notice around meets Pioneer, Memphis Car Audio, Nikon, Canon, 3M, GoPro and many other invited us into their booths to check out their latest and greatest.
Tony
Everyone always asks for a Stanced-Saturn; So here’s a stanced, boosted Saturn.
Because wire-tucked K20′s never get old <3
Karla Molina
Congrats to our friend Ceejay Mendez in his All Motor CRX, winning his Class.
Congrats to our sponsor Kings Performance for winning in their class and breaking back into the 8s in their Evo.
And Congratulations goes out to Kindred Impulse on winning Best Team at IFO-Bradenton, We’ll see you guys at the next on in Gainesville
Ravi
For some reason I’ve been obsessed with taking profile shots of cars, at least they’re my favorite angle of them. Here are 2 from Australia. FD RX7 and an R34 GTR.
We headed up to Palm Beach this past weekend to go check out Palm Beach Supercar Weekend. Lots of supercars, motorcycles, and even the James Bond cars from Die Another Day!
Check out the gallery HERE for the rest of the pictures!
It is not often one gets to attend a car meet coupled with a somewhat traditional Vietnamese Tết (lunar new year) festival, so when the opportunity arises, you make the journey. Despite being frigid and windy, the event went off without a hitch and was a great way to bring in the new year and a fresh show season.
It wasn’t just the young “fitment” fan’s who enjoyed the event either! The festival and church goer’s enjoyed the cars in attendance just as much. We are all very thankful for their hospitality, great traditional food, and can’t wait for next year!
With a larger venue, more cars and more fun, this meet was sure to please. In it’s third year, the meet was hosted Eurowise, Wrong Fitment Crew, Insane Stance and Offset, and Fresh from Birth among others. Expect to see a few cars present at this meet receiving full features in the very near future.
Be sure to check out the FULL gallery at the end of this post.
Full Gallery —-> Wrong Fitment Crew Meet 3
I would have loved to grab photos of even more cars, but my hands were just too cold to carry on much longer. Either way, enjoy and check back for other great content from everyone here at Versiontwo.
-Tyler
Welcome to one of the first meets of 2012! Although still in its beginning grassroots stages, the Early Risers Car Meet held its very first gig at Einstein Bros Bagels in Casselberry, FL. Over 30 cars and its passengers braved a cold front with abnormal low 40 degree temperature to arrive at 8:00am sharp. As this was just the beginning of what seems to be a promising adventure in the near future, we’ll be keeping our eyes on the reoccurring event as it progresses. The Early Risers Car Meet will be held monthly on the 2nd Saturday of every month at:
Einstein Bros Bagels
150 S. 436 (behind 7Eleven)
Casselberry, FL 32707
DON’T FORGET THE NEXT MEET WILL BE ON FEBRUARY 11th!!
Check out the photo gallery (click) for a few more images from the event.
We also welcome you to “LIKE” the V2Lab friend and fanpage, where we continue to bring you exciting local and sourced features and event coverage.
-Dipz
Whether you have a brand new lease in the driveway or a less-than-perfect old school rod under a blanket of dry leaves, Kevin’s CRX comes to show that even the less fashionable rides can be worthy. A little bit of elbow grease and hard work goes a long way and it will never disappoint.
This is Kevin’s 1991 Honda CRX. After months of having a motor wrapped up and sitting in his driveway, he’s finally decided to take a week off for some extensive work. (And his oil pan leaking due to a combination of rough roads to a meet in the city and the next morning’s horrendous gas station driveway, it was pretty good timing.) The new swap is a 1992-1995 zc motor and transmission from Japan with a chipped ECU and intake. After his boss took it for a drive on a lonely strip of road, he returned with a smile on his face and humbly said, “This makes me miss my lotus.”
As for the wheel setup, the car is dropped on Function & Form coilovers with Blackworks Racing camber adjustments and sitting on 15×8+10 ROTA Shakotan wheels. Perfect combination of shine and matte.
Besides the recent motor swap and the fitment, the true heart and soul of this car is within its walls. Fully dynamatted with two layers, top to bottom and front and back, this car is a national competitor in the Sound Pressure League competitions, also known as simply SPL. There are 8 runs of over-sized 00 gauge wiring to move the power of pure throbbing bass. Kevin’s CRX is the current class leader running 2×12″ custom tailored RD Heavyweight subwoofers with a modded 12k RMS Soundigital amplifier and he is hitting an incredible 156.4 decibels (at least, the last time he checked).
Here’s another surprising note on this CRX: This is a daily car but not to just any guy. This is the beater of Kevin Ehm, the owner of the infamous cambered Mazda3i sedan. Yes, even his daily is a project car with several different agendas and the passion he has for broad fields of automotive lifestyles truly makes him unique. You don’t even want to know about his stanceboard.
Not many people are willing to spend too much money on their daily’s. It is a daily for a reason, right? However, Kevin sees the beauty in all automobiles, whether they are new or not-so-new. He pays attention to detail and potential, which results in something spectacular in his eyes.
