2012: A Racefriv Review

Man 2012 what a crazy year! I ended the year thinking we could have done a lot more racefriv stuff but once I went back and looked at what we covered we really did do a lot. Our first Formula D events, trips to the Nurburgring, trips to San Deigo, LS1/240 builds, and photo shoots in between. It was a pretty busy year and 2013 looks to be even crazier. So before we get to 2013 shenanigans lets take a look back at 2012!

The picture above had to be my opening picture. It's probably my second favorite picture of the past year and it actually made it on the FD blogs front page thanks to Phil and mines post on fittedlife.com. Big ups to fitted.life for giving us the opportunity to partner with them and get some FD passes. The picture really represents a lot of my first half of my 2012, FD and the Save Atlanta Drifting movement. Sadly the movement did nothing to sway the completely fucked up government here in Atlanta but it was quite amazing to see the entire world community come together to express their feelings on this.

An amazing shot by Phil of Atlanta Winner Justin Pawlak. Hopefully this year he will have some better luck later in the season.

Phil does seem to know the right moment to shoot, he's not one of those guys that spray and pray when shooting. He'll take about one or two shots when he needs to and it shows. He can really put together a shot. 

Another good photo I took at FD Atl. Dai looks like a boss with Dan and Rhys beside him. I would love to know what they are talking about here. 

Moving on to the first(ish) KMS drift event after ATL drifting got banned. The venue is not as good but they're working on it. 

This may be the last photo we have of Alex's S14. He's building an insane LS240 right now for Proam and is selling this one. 

Took the photo below on a random day I popped by Garage Zero. They are straight up the coolest shop on the planet, if you need any old school car worked on I highly recommend them. 

Moving on to a new contributor Kevin Lu.

Kevin decided to do a little shooting for us last year and his shots are down right awesome. Not only because when it comes to quality cars his knowledge is second to none, but his photography skills are quite good and here's to hoping he keeps writing for us!.

A beautiful shot by Kevin in front of the Golden Gate. 

I didn't think to much of this photo when I first saw it, but the more I looked at it the more I liked it. 

Kevin with the RHD drive rolling shot. 

Another one of the best shots of the year. The illest RWB was a huge car this year and Kevin was there to get some photos before anyone else was there and Phil did a great job on the editing of these. Kevin more of your work please, we will double your pay!

Moving on to FD Palm Beach, I dragged Russell down to Palm Beach to shoot the FD event for Fitted.Life again. It rained a tad but by race day it dried up quickly.

Shooting at FD Atl was a piece of cake compared to Palm Beach, it was just about impossible to get a good shot here.

I had to share tiny cutouts with many smelly people to get the shots I wanted.

Not the best photo but Denofa just drove straight into my soul this year (no homo dude) and his driving skill is second to none, sadly his E36 was totaled at Jersey. 

Again not a good photo but a very important one, I was the only person to catch this at palm beach, I think I have the only photo of Vaughn's steering issue before he wrecked. If he had won this race he'd be the champion right now. 

Here's my favorite photo of the year. I hate to say but Russell shot it and it was edited by Phil (who edits almost all our photos by the way) and it is the perfect "calm after the storm" shot. It's just a great color blend with a cool setting. Not sure why I just really like the photo.

Speaking of good photos, Phil and I shot the Lopez brothers cars and found an extremely awesome location to shoot it at. I had a lot of fun that day. The back drop on this photo is just sick!

Then.... NURBURGRING. I still cant believe I drove on the 'Ring. It really hasn't hit me yet, I still think of it as a place I've never been. It's almost like it was a dream.

This Porsche was zooming around while we waiting for our  race cars  Suzuki Swifts.

Totally mind blowing still. The company we rented our race Swifts from now has BRZ's to run the ring in. I MUST GO BACK.

Caught this mid-evil Panamara roaming the German country side.

and saw these hilarious tiny cars in Amsterdam. Damn I loved that place. XXX

Got a few good pictures of racefriv stig Christian Retterer. Also got to drive his bad ass 505hp beast at an auto x.

Picked up a Rubicon for DD dutys and did some off-roading adventures. With jeeps its not really about the Jeeps themselves it's the places they can take you, and the small discoveries you make. Like this insane cactus thing. 

Then as many of you know I put an LS1 in my vert. It went from totally dead to orange and LS1'd in about 5 weeks. It was an insane build and still not 100% complete but it will be in the coming months. Look for more updates on this soon. 

Now to some more pictures from the local KMS drift event. Thanks for making my photos look good Phil. You're my hero.

Took this shot at a 60 shutter speed. No blur added.

Howard and Sammy killing it.



Love this shot of Neil running the wall!!


 Now off to Petit Le Mans!!

I took this shot super fucking hung over. Had to jump a fence and climb and mountain to get this shot. I may or may have not thrown up in the woods after taking this.

Slightly more sober taking this shot. The ZR1's just scream to me. I yearn for one. This shot came out to be a very 'Merica photo with the flag in the back. 

The purple heels do it for me. 

Shooting a high speed race like this, especially on the Road Atlanta back straight when cars are going about 150mph is a lot harder then shooting drift cars going around a bend. These cars just fly by and you have no time whatsoever to get the shot. 

But sometimes you do get lucky.

Phil did a quick photo shoot of some Skylines at a local drift event and the photos turned out excellent. It's not everyday you see R32's and R33's here. Much less a matching pair at a drift event in Georgia.

This photo isn't from 2012, Phil posted his old Land Rover on the site last year, but it's a really cool photo that makes me want to drive my Jeep through a river so I thought I'd add it. 

I've done a lot of small work to Devins 86 over the year and he is really kicking ass in that little Corolla. Nobody locally can touch his 86 skills, and I just love his style with it. Got to do some tandems with him at KMS when the LS was done and had a blast. Here's to next year bud!

Chris Ward the FD rookie that could, really showed me what drifting at a Pro level is all about. This dude is dedicated!

Quite a funny picture from the Second to last S2 Turner event. Maybe there was a short skirt far to the left. 

Last but not least Tyler's Starion. I didn't really even think we did this in 2012, it felt like such a long time ago but it was. So here is the goofiest shot in our racefriv catalog. 

Thanks everybody for reading our little blog. I know it takes us forever to post certain things and we appreciate everyone's patience. We have some really bad ass ideas brewing for 2013. I'm really excited about the new year. Excited about finding some cool things to break the camera out on and really really excited about hammering on the 240. Can't wait to see everyone out there!!!! Thanks again for reading we love you guys!!!!!