So I’m back from a fairly major pc related mess up, I’m still working on my new project and some pretty interesting stuff for that.
But for now here’s some real Gymkhana

It’s Pikes Peak weekend, at 60 years old Monster Tajima really doesn’t have anything else to prove. Currently holding the course record at 10:01.408 set during a run in 2007 he knows he could win the event outright without too much trouble.

But Monster is driven by an all consumming desire to break the ten minute barrier, most guys would quit but Tajima’s enthusiasm never wavers.

After a previous weeks worth of sunshine I pictured an afternoon of cream tea’s, chattering wastegates and diff’s snapping ageing Escorts sideways. After last years washout, the day started ominously with rain, lots of rain.

After a great year, a good year and a wet year the show seemed to have lost some of its former glory. And most of the way there I realised something. i’d left the Nikon D50 at home. Still it was an interesting experience using an old fashioned digital camera.

Young upstart Craig Breen was doing hotlaps in the Ford Fiesta s2000, this was my first encounter with the Fiesta. The M-sport derived machines look streets ahead of the Peugeot and Skoda efforts

The airbox is the first thing that strikes you about the 4 cylinder 16v Duratec engine. With an output of 280hp not shy of what some of the ageing WRC cars produced in the early 90′s. I’m still unsure as to whether this is the future of the sport, with the WRC’s to be phased out for 2011 in favour of a new s2000 derived machine I fear we could see the final swansong of the 4wd Turbo’d monsters.

At the opposite end of the spectrum Steve Perez, owner of a fleet of rallycars and principle sponsor brought out most of his collection.

Henning Solberg, Petters older more hilarious brother undertook driving duties in Al Qassmi’s Ford Focus WRC. I’ll be sad to see these cars disappear from the WRC the Super 2000 spec cars just don’t have the same appeal to me.

Ryan Champion was out campaigning N555 BAT an ex Piero Liatti Subaru Impreza Group A.

I’ve a great respect for the Honda scene, still streets behind what our US cousins are doing. It’s growing, so when I heard Manchester Vtec were having a dyno day at a local garage it’d be rude not to drop by.

Strangely I was hoping for more rain so I could grab some arty shots, I never get inclement weather when I want it.

You don’t see many del-sols around the civics mostly unloved brethren. Most of them have rusted away, you can also spy distant cousin the S2000 in the back.

I never had much love for the FD2 I always found the sedan body-shape a little awkward, even Japan is getting the FN2 now.

This was pretty nice though.

And yeah i’m still waiting on my rims from Japan, the saga continues.

One of the surprises of the recent P1 Gathering at the spiritual home of UK Subaru tuning Prodrive. Was this ex Garage Trial Subaur Impreza.

I’ve no idea on the spec, but i’ll get back to you on it!

I’ll try and get to shoot this at some point in the near future.

So your probably wondering why i’ve been so quiet of late, well i’ve been working on something i’m pretty proud of. What started ironically as a photography site around 3 years ago for me has grown into something massive.

It’s weird when you come across someone who reads your blog, let alone likes it and i’ve been inspired to make a real go of things.

Some of you may see this as selling out, i’ve no idea why but my goal has always been clear. Provide honest, meaningful and interesting content from the Japanese car scene in the UK.

So with that i’d like to announce 8J.

8J is the culmination of Dogboxmedia and the beginning of something new and exciting for me. But don’t worry it’ll all be a similar format.

I’m a designer I want to build a brand, mostly inspired by Jay of JDM Ego 8J will be a push by myself to really get where I wanna be with this blog. Ive already had some great feedback from the UK guys, the logo is already rolling round on some of my personal favourite cars over here.

And hopefully i’ll still be able to attend all you guys in the States and beyond.

This blog will eventually be replaced by this but the content won’t disapear, so who’d like a sticker then?

For now you can join my new Facebook group: http://www.facebook.com/EightJ

Or follow me on Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/eightj

By this point I was continuing to survive on a diet of Pepsi, not so much sleep and not much else. With so many cars, clubs and stuff going on the sheer numbers of people made it difficult to get a look in at most of the stuff in the main show area.

I’ve no idea if this is genuine Veilside, as with anything Veilside knockoffs are prevalent but I thought this was pretty cool. Secretly I like Bomex, NAWS, danger to manifold displays and anything from the Fast and the Furious Franchise. Sadly in taking this picture I completely missed that the now imfamous “Banana” was tucked up behind it.

Pretty cool Civic in the now much imitated Spoon Civic style, strangely this never gets old.

This rolla makes its own trend in what we’ll dub “special awareness offset frivolity” with wide wheels at the back, and a jdm classic up front.

After 6 weeks of waiting my magical wheels they didn’t show so i’ll wait a little longer. I’m rockin’ the JDM Ego plate again for 2010 and I even polished the Swift, which in itself is an achievement.

I spy Adam Ivell’s civic from 6two1 I quite like the current gen civics. Tried to find him about but no joy!

I’d seen this in Banzai a few years back, and in reality it was almost like a caricature. I despise Chargespeed aero the front bumpers always follow the same lines. Strangely though I liked this, deny it or not this Supra has presence, you can also store household goods in the intakes.

Things get even more lairy at the rear, I wish I had the self confidence to rock a wing that big.

Keep your eye out for this because i’ll be featuring this very soon. And you can see on the rear window the beginnings of a project… more on that another day.

I’ve no idea what this is other than it seems to be some sort of minivan, and its deceptively fast.

So all in all another great Japfest, its cool to see how the Japanese car scene is moving forward in the UK. In particular the continued growth of the Honda scene. But ultimately you can’t beat kicking back with your mates and having a good old fashioned road trip.

Every year I say Japfest will be last, I squirm, make excuses, say I have other plans but every year I make the gruelling 220 mile drive from the North to the deep South. Who better to accompany you on a road trip than Chris? Chris was one of the first guys I met locally through my car club and he’s always shared my outlook on things. Naturally for Japfest he had to have something new, so he’s powdercoated his Lexus IS200 wheels red.

So after driving 220 miles on a diet of Wimpy burgers, Pepsi and my freshly prepped two cd collection we made it. I say we made it I lost the rest of the Northwest guys and I rolled most of the way with a Yaris. Whoever owned that.

With Dave buying a Japspeed strut tower bar, which arrived literally hours before he left from the North East Friday. The Swift Owners crew set about fixing it properly and adjusting his new set of Gaz coilovers in the carpark. Naturally judging by the photo I was no help whatsoever.

The Honda accords rolled in late Friday night near where we’d camped out. My dad used to have one of these when I was a kid allbeit the lower specced sport model

With every aspect of Japanese culture starting to filter through to the UK Jap car scene. Nissan Cube’s are the in accessory for the style savy, what you can’t picture from this is that it was rolling on a set of teddy bear wheels haha!

Stavros had on display this crazy RX7, once campaigned in the D1 series in Japan. The car now scares the elderly on the highways and biways of the UK.

I see this supercharged Rolla ever year yet I never look at the spec. Check out the minature flags.

People thought I was a little weird sticking Subaru alloys on my Sport, but how about Evo 8 Enkeis?  with 8J wide and a relatively low offset a little stretch was required to get these rims to sit nicely.

One of the newest trends for this year is what i’ll deem “Cali style” echoing what you guys are doing on the westcoast. Ironically an interpretation of an interpretation but subtle touches like the yellow headlights grabbed everyones attention.

The latest gen Celica doesn’t get much love, a front wheel drive platform and relatively low power held the car back. But this white on white combo was pretty cool.

My toptip for car shows is to take a look around the carpark. For anyone not familiar with this Toyota Aygo it was produced by Toyota. Mating a 1.8 litre supercharged engine from the MR2 to a converted rear wheel drive chasis with an Aygo body on top. This Aygo puts out 200hp through the rear wheels.

Mitto opted to bring down his ex MCR Nissan Silvia S14

Another carpark find I spied this Amuse kitted R35 GTR sporting Advan wheels. This put half of the cars on show to shame.

Dave took his ZC31S out on track and he didn’t disapoint dispatching a spinning Evo an easily matching a higher specced turbo’d ZC31S.

So here’s part two, Japfest is going down next Saturday so i’m pretty busy getting the Swift in a reasonable condition. Anyway after a quick look round the paddock I made my way away from the usual spectator areas, down to “hill top”.

You know you’ve dumped the crowd when all you can hear is cows and a bloke ranting about immigration (I swiftly moved away from him). With the cars braking hard for the hairpin, it was a sight to see how the cars squat and launch back up the hill towards Knickerbrook.

6r4 roflomgzor! the distinctive red Metro 6R4 of Mark Pollard was entered in the N/A class. The group B supercar looks strangely out of place in Time Attack against the bewinged Evo’s and Imprezas. But the little Metro flys.

With Matt Neals overtaking moves you’d think this ex BTCC might have been confined to the crusher. Now the rolling shell has been given a new lease of life as one of two Time Attack cars. Again running in the N/A class

Pip Gardner now running without the numberplate! showed how well he knows the Oulton Park circuit setting some blistering times. And making Babies and the elderly cry all the way through the rev range!

Suzanne was peddling the car well through the morning heats.

I managed to sneak into number 34′s pit garage, I didn’t see how the car did. The bonnet came up after each 2-3 lap stint.

Looking a little tired the old Zen Performance Impreza is now privately owned and still going hard.

Check out the guys, totally pulling the “damn he’s taking a picture look super fly” although the bloke in red looks like he’s having a heartfelt moment with a dude ha!

The Buddy Club car was treated to a wash after mechanical woes forced a switch to the second car. Had this car been running Paul would have easily clinched a first round win in the N/A class. This teg is fast.

Pulsars suffer from overheating problems with the standard topmount intercooler. Clearly this isn’t going to be an issue with this one.

One of two hard parked R34′s this Bayside blue example caught my eye.

So after some delay here’s part two of my report. The action took place in one of the Trafford Centre’s overspill carparks, after recent disappointment with the European Drift Championship I wasn’t expecting much from JDM Allstars.

With the course dominated by the biggest flat screen I’ve ever seen, which would letter be used to project someones arse from the crowd to the height of 60ft. And later Bryn of Tafftune fame in his now infamous red hoodie.

Local guy Ant Cahill from Team Japspeed came out top in unseeded qualifying, Ant would make it all the way into the top 8, losing out to Luke Fink ultimately.

Shane Lynch boy band member turned drifter, took advantage of the down time between runs to shakedown the now V8 powered S15.

Mark Luney was my winner of the day, I thought he edged out Jon Calvert in the final. But the judges declared Calvert the winner. The wildly kitted Toyota Supra created its own weather system shovelling smoke into anyone unfortunate enough to be trailing.

Simon Perry scraped the wall almost routinely his fantastic run would be ended by Driftworks Dan Chapman late in the day.

Apparently starting out life as a Taxi in Japan Dan Chapman made sure

With Twin Turbo’s this E36 punched its way to 800hp whilst looking relatively stock externally, struggled in the match-ups Wills pulled off some mad angle during the demonstration runs. Pressure does that to you.

Both Team Driftworks cars would bow out of the competition early. Phil Morrison’s day ended by a clutch failure on the S15.

Considering Luke Fink’s mammoth trip from Madrid it didn’t show in his driving easily dispatching most of the drivers. Mechanical problems would force Fink’s retirement after two gruelling OMT’s against Dan Chapman.