Scion APA Event

Yesterday, I attended the APA Scion Event at Toyota Headquarters.

It was a small event catering to Asian Americans that work for Toyota. Being a part of the Asian American Society, I participated in an autograph session and helped out Scion with free give-aways. It was an extremely small event but a good turnout. It's amazing to see how much Toyota is involved with making their employees feel special.
The food was pretty good too! They had Korean BBQ ribs and macaroni salad.

As you can see, it was not like a normal drift event crowd. Most of the people were older-aged, Toyota employees. All very nice people =)



One display car that caught my eye was this HAKO coupe. Apparently, the Toyota Japan Design studio designed this car as a concept car. Its all electric, including the steering. It kind of resembles a rat-mobile doesn't it?







Inside the Scion show room, the T2B was on display as well as a few other custom one-off cars.





I also had the great chance to drive the infamous Scion xB DJ car from the display area back to the Scion Building.
This little mean xB is riding on air. I got to play with the air suspension!! It was much fun.



and then there was Fred.

Hello

Let me introduce to you, my mechanic/builder/beer boy/filipino/resistor name remembering crazy guy who built lawn mower engines in 5th grade.

Gary Castillo.



This is the guy who built my RS-R Scion tC.

Dont let the looks fool you. He builds awesome cars intoxicated also!

Hope everyone had a pleasant Memorial Day Weekend!
I went to Las Vegas! It was too packed..

Now I must focus on Englishtown, New Jersey.

I saw the course layout on Youtube as JR and Ryan from Drift Alliance has introduced the track layout to us new drivers.
Remember, this is the first time Formula D will be at E-Town!

Im getting exciteD!!

Anyway, tomorrow is an APA at Scion headquarters. I have to go and sign some autographs! Hope to see some of you there!

Scion United

This past weekend, I had the opportunity to attend the first ever Scion United event in Boulder City, Nevada. This event catered to about 500 Scion owners who signed up to have their car showcased for a Scion ad. All of the cars that attended were all mild-to-extremely fixed up. I saw tons of nice xDs, tCs, xAs, and of course the bad-ass xBs. I drive a 2008 Scion tC, but deep inside I am in love with the xB.
I got to Vegas Friday night around 7:30 and met up with some of the Scion guys (Cory, Steve, and another Steve) to go out for dinner. We ended up eating at this nice fancy Italian restaurant where I had Occobuso(?) Veal chop. There lobster bisque was delicious..MMmMmmmm.
Saturday morning, I got dressed to go to the event. It was super hot and all I had were jeans. I needed to get out of them so Steve bought me a pair of shorts at Walmart.
It was his first time inside Walmart! congrats! haha
So I got to the venue and saw my car displayed at the Scion Racing rig.


The venue was on top of dirt and wind was blowing in all directions.
But the crazy part was that they built this venue from ground 0.
They had white tents everywhere including a club-like set up for entertainers RedMan and Flo Rida.


Inside the dining hall was huuuuge and packed with Scion owners. If you look at this picture, you can see the scale of the tents and roughly how many people attended.

Overall, It was a great event! I heard Rap-artist Too-Short was scheduled to come in and perform as well, but he flaked.
If i were him, I would be regretting it by now. Don't mess with Scion and the Toyota family.
Thanks Steve and Thanks to the rest of Scion! I had fun!

Rd. 2 Road Atlanta

Atlanta was a nightmare.
The RS-R Scion tC was down the entire weekend.
For Friday's seeded group practice, we had electrical issues and the car did not make any power. If it did, as soon as I induced a drift the engine would fall on its face.
That night, we noticed that the ecu in the car was not originally for a 3SGE motor. Believe it or not, it was running off of a VQ35 ecu. This has got to be one of those mistakes that can't be helped but to brush it off and make sure it never happens again. When you are on the verge of getting the car ready for a race in a very short amount of time, mistakes like that can happen.
There is no one to blame for this, but to make sure we have the right parts on the right cars. Besides, it's only our second event with the car. You can say we are still in the process of shaking down the car to get all the bugs out.
Friday night, JW managed to pull out a resistor from a home theatre DVD player. Yes, a DVD player saved our night. Gary had this brilliant story of his technique of remembering resistor codes. You HAD to be there. =)
(Thank you JW, you never let me down)
That night, I was able to sleep... Kind of..
I woke up the next morning ready to kick ass and perform to my best.
BUT....
during the last practice session before qualify, we blew the clutch.

=(

One problem after another. I guess the car wasn't in the mood to go drifting.

So here I am looking very sad.


We are going to have another test session before Rd. 3 Englishtown.
Even though we are still in our first year of developing the RS-R Scion tC, I want to win. I want to get on the podium.

On the brighter side, a friend of mine who I worked with during the Forza Motorsports Showdown show, Chris Bartram came to visit me. It was nice seeing him. We had time to chat and catch up. =)
And another faithful fan of mine once again made a sign for me. Soul-kun!! Thanks! you are always there to support me!

And to the rest of the fans, Thank you! Sorry to let you guys down this time! but I promise next time, Ill make it to the VERRRRYYY top.

Jasper and Yo from the Rogue Status team were there too. Man! They were giving out free t-shirts. If i was in the crowd, I would have gone berserk!


Its always a good time with them. Thanks for the support guys!
oh before I forget, Check out what i got from them.
Its awesome. Get one. and Rock it.


you can go to www.roguestatus.com

See you guys!