UtahHondas.net December 2009 COTM

BOOM3R's Del Sol VTEC




I approached him about doing the shoot as soon as he was announced the winner. He was down, but there was one problem: the car was in winter mode and wasn't coming out of it until...well, earlier this month. Thankfully winter ended, and we were able to shoot.

Underneath the hood is a JDM B16 SIR-II swap. The valve cover was black, but now it's gold thanks to UnknownCoatings.com. The intake is a Password:JDM Carbon Fiber chamber intake, aka the whale penis. Spent gasses are sent out via a Kidd Racing narrow header, through a custom 2.5 inch mandrel bent exhaust and finally out through an Apex'i World Sport 2 muffler. AEM light weight pulleys help the engine spin better, and a 255lph Walbro fuel pump in conjunction with an AEM fuel rail make sure the JDM mill doesn't get thirsty.




The outside of the car has been accented properly with carbon fiber. Lots of it. Not Science of Speed CF NSX amounts, but a good amount nonetheless. The carbon touches include: the Seibon wing, the hood, the door sills, sail garnish, and rear garnish. Tasteful, not over powering, clean.




The car rolls not on the stock wheels, not on actual TE37's, but knock off TE37's. Is this a problem for some? Yes, but those who see this as a problem AREN'T myself or Thayne, the owner of this Sol. His 15 inch faux TE's are shod in Yokohama S.drive's.




We've talked about everything else, now let's talk about something I thoroughly enjoy: suspension! The car is lowered on TEIN SS springs. A Beaks rear tie bar in conjunction with a 23mm sway bar out back and a VTEC upper strut tower bar in the front keeping the chassis from flexing too much. A Skunk2 camber kit prevents the Yokohama's from getting chewed up too much too soon.




The rest of the photos from the shoot can be seen here. And now, for your viewing pleasure, are some bonus shots:

Miller

Miller Motorsports Park is one of my favorite places to shoot. It's a big road course with plenty of picture-esqe turns, and most of the time when I'm out there there's SOMETHING ELSE equally interesting to shoot. I went out there for a Wide Open Wednesday event and there were ALMS GT class cars in the paddock getting ready to turn practice laps. It's great. And I never go out there alone. I'm always with my friends. It's like an oasis out there: good friends, amazing cars, memorable times.










I'm going out there tomorrow to shoot photos of the drifter kids. Gonna be a good day

Favorite photos from '09

A shot quite a bit in 2009. Not nearly as much as I wanted to, but plenty nonetheless. So here are my favorite photos from last year. Feel free to tell me your favorites. By that I mean favorites of mine, of yours, of whoever's. What photos got you going last year?



This was one of the first times Kat and I hung out. She's awesome, I hope we can hang out and shoot more in 2010





I skate with lots of people, and I love em all but if I had to take 2 guys and get tricks it's gonna be Garrison and Jeff. They just go at anything! Jeff blew out his knee, but he'll be back by the summer. Garrison is Garrison, I know he's been angry but I really only remember him having a huge grin on his face.

Side note: Brock's video is done, and the homies (which I'm not apparently) have seen it. Jovi told me about it, he said it was really good. AND it's got some of the guys in it: Glenn, Jovi, Garrison, Jeff, Nick, Matt, Hads and some other favorites. When Brock has a proper premier, or I see it, I'll let you know about it. Anyway, back to the list.



Brody's race car. I love this fuckin photo



The Legacy Bridge at the University of Utah. Everyone likes the color photo, but I like the black and white one better.

So there you have it. My favorites from '09

Lesson Learnin Time

So this week I've had 2 shoots in which I've learned some very important lessons. Let's start with the first shoot and what I got out of that:



Lesson 1: Fresh Batteries every time, all the time.

If you poke through the massive 4 picture set on flickr you'll notice that there's a lot of flat light going on. Why is that? Well it's because my transmitter/receiver set was low on batteries, specifically on the receiver side. That meant I had to be hella close to the receiver in order for it to fire. By hella close I mean 18 inches, therefore the flat light.

Lesson 2: Do not piss off the locals, cause they were there first. I managed to piss off the neighbors when I took this shot:



From what I was told (I was being yelled at in Spanish, so the owner of the car had to translate) my flashes were lighting up their house about 125 yards away. I didn't understand much, but when I heard "policia" and "aqui" I decided to change my set up.

Lesson 3: Photoshop when you need to.



Look at the CRX. Look closely at it. Look around the passenger side headlight. Notice something? It's the flash I used to light up the Civic. I was going to take care of that, but I got lazy. And now it haunts me, like the beating of a hideous heart!

That was Wednesday, now on to Thursday's shoot:



Lesson 4: Chicks > Cars

Don't get me wrong. When I saw it coming down my street I thought it was an R35. It's a gorgeous car, no arguing about that. And the owner's girlfriend (my friend Kathleen) is equally gorgeous. This brings me to my question: Which photo is more popular?:

a:


b:


If you guessed A then you're wrong. B currently has 24 views while A has 16. This trend is true of every photo on my flickr page where there's a girl and a car. The girl picture always has more, no matter what. Hot girl pwns record holding Supra, 9 second Civic hatchback, drift car. There is one odd trend, but that's another topic for another day.

Lesson 5: Look before you leap.




I'm catching a lot of flack for these two shots in particular. Why? The glare from the over head lights and my reflection in the front bumper. Did I notice the glare? From the moment the owner parked the car, but I didn't care. It looked cool and and brought out some of the more subtle lines in the car. My reflection, on the other hand, I noticed when I was in Photoshop cleaning up the front bumper. I would have nixed it, but the owner and his girlfriend don't seem to mind (or if they do they aren't telling me) so I'm in one of their pictures.

Learn from my failings and you will succeed! Well, maybe not succeed but you'll do better.

AND I made a literary reference somewhere in this post. First person to correctly identify the reference (title and author of oiginal work, and quote the reference back to me) gets a free reasonably priced lunch on me!