I’ve been contacted a good bit about my editorial in Issue 15 and most people seem to be puzzled if I am serious. I am dead serious on the fact because I feel it’s a true tragedy going on right now in American Drifting. I have never been one to ruse people with “Buy American” catch phrases or anything in my life just because you know “American is better,” or anything of that nature. I am quite the supporter politically of the dieing “free market” where things are purchased based on quality and merit…..not just from where it is made.

The big issue I am trying to bring up here is not trying to call some people in the series out or point any really fingers at people in the sport. I just want my voice to be heard that so many talented young American kids all over the United States exist and are being looked over with no logical reasoning other than laziness. If your a team owner…..go visit a local grassroots event in your area (where you are stationed they have events close by, I promise) and see what the scene has to offer. I just think at the end of the day I am verbalizing something that everyone else notices but won’t say outside closed doors.

Let’s look for example at the 2009 Formula D Pro Am finals at Irwindale Speedway to finish off my rant. The top three guys at that event were Mike Pollard, Ian Fournier, and Nikolay Konstantinov. Of those three guys none of them have run both Formula Drift events in 2010 and between all three drivers just one of them has been to a Formula Drift event period, Ian Fournier at Long Beach. Of those same three guys one of them has run both rounds of the D1GP Japan series making the event attendance double in D1GP Japan compared to Formula D in the states. Just some things to think about before the 2011 season gets here.

These are two quick teaser videos I shot with my Canon SD1100 photo camera while getting a ride along at Ebisu’s famous Nishi Short Circuit. Wrecked Magazine will have some amazing full video coverage up soon thanks to NOS Energy Drink. For now, here is Chris Forsberg in front of our S14 in that white 180sx with the exhaust bouncing on the ground.

Here is a second video I shot while riding with Chris in his black S14 aas we chased down Andrew from PowerVehicles.com in the video. These are a great preview to how awesome the whole weekend of Spring Matsuri was! A huge thanks is owed from me and Chris Forsberg to everyone at Powervehicles.com and Allen from Tomei for really making our trip amazing!

Sorry about this problem guys but we kept thinking it was fixed and it just kept coming back. You will notice a change in how our comment system works which sadly is the only way we could fix this issue. Once you have posted your first comment with name/e-mail and it has been approved all of your other comments will be approved on the system. Sorry for the inconvenience and all the annoying SPAM that went through while we figured out how to fix this. Enjoy Wrecked Magazine!

Last night there was a great open house at the ID Agency in DTLA. I had some photos featured in the art gallery along with Estevan Oriol and Mo Satarzadeh. All three of us were on the 2009 Gumball 3000 rally and had some photos featured from it along with some of our other photography.

Here is a display of my photography hung up on the wall.

Here is the DJ with a great crowd going behind him at the Open House. Mo’s photography is stage left and you can see my Vaughn Gittin Jr. print over on the right.

Here is a close up of my T-Pain photograph I took years ago at his house next to Vaughn Gittin’s 2005 Sonoma drifting picture.

Here I am receiving Ricky’s special beer delivery. Not only is Ricky great at beer delivery he is an excellent photographer that does tons of work for Wrecked Magazine! The Corona was for him and the Bud Light was for me. It ended up being a great night and I really appreciate all the support of people who came out. Thanks to Bob Hernandez for these photos he put up on Facebook and I will make new posts when other people send me or put up some photographs.

I am sure you have seen we launched Fantasy Drift over at Wrecked Magazine and it is one of the most exciting projects I have worked on since we launched this website back in 2007. The concept was a personal vision of mine after being hooked into fantasy NHL hockey and fantasy NASCAR.

Now all of the die hard Formula Drift fans can enjoy a great game to play while following the 2010 series. The video above walks you through the registration and draft process. If you still have questions or are confused on any element of the Fantasy Drift please use the website contact form at the top right of the site to ask any questions.

I just want to thank everyone who contributed thoughts, marketing tips, game building logic, or time to this project. Everyone at PM Lifestyle was a huge help on this project especially Jason Small who single handily coded and created the logic my concept to a reality. My last thanks goes to all the media who blasted out our project: MotorWorldHype, UrbanRacer, Fatlace, Formula D, and everyone else!

This second video walks you through the process of how to play the game once your draft is complete in April. Bookmark this video since you will need it to really play the game at 100%.

Here is a snapshot Jon from DSTROYR sent me from the other night. I am in Daijiro Yoshihara’s Discount Tire S13 that we released how to build on Monday at Wrecked Magazine. Jon is in the DSTROYR x Van Halen IROC.

To find my interview, hit the On Demand button and find the section labeled Dave Mirra and I come in around 14 minutes.

So once you hit the 14 minute mark I come in the show for around 10 minutes with Jarod DeAnda. We talk about my favorite SEMA car, my true thoughts on the Rhys Millen RM450, and the first time I have talked about our 2010 project Fantasy Drift that we are excited about in our staff. We also brought up our UTI Nissan 350z Project Car and my fun 1966 Mercedes to finish out our interview. Thanks to Jarod for giving me a minute to chat on the live stream for SEMA.

While reading the LA Times today I learned that 40 miles of Angeles Crest Highway is closed indefinitely due to the Station Fire. Just before the fires I took out this 2009 Scion tC RS 5.0 for a photo shoot and drove around half of the highway. I hadn’t been up the highway and up Mount Wilson since December 2004 when I came to visit for JGTC. With the whole area closed down for quite a long time I am glad we captured the area in it’s beauty before the fires attacked it.

According to Caltrans the reason for the long road closure isn’t from the pavement being damaged but the fires have ruined guardrails, street signs, and the road stripping. Lucky we took the Scion tC up when we did because I am guessing the road will be closed close to the rest of the year. Anyone that has any recommendations for any other roads I can use to shoot on in Northern/Western Los Angeles I would love to hear suggestions.

You can check out my review of the Scion tC 5.0 Release series over in our Road Trips section of Wrecked Magazine. I know next month we will be testing the new Nissan 370z for our website so stay on the lookout for that hitting the Road Trips section as well.

2009 Pre Season Sit Down: Daijiro Yoshiharagood

We made a trip to SPD so we could unveil to the world Daijiro Yoshihara’s new Lexus IS350. With a sponsorship partnership between Discount Tire and Falken Tires they were able to bring on Daijiro Yoshihara from his Pontiac GTO to take on this Lexus. The car was getting it’s finishing touches done at SPD before pre season testing when we came to visit.

Jonathon Bradford from Falken was super accomedating and Daijiro was quite some fun on the microphone with us. These two photos are of this gorgeous Lexus V8 motor that I couldn’t get enough of.

My favorite part about Daijiro Yoshihara’s Discount Tires x Falken Tires Lexus IS350 is the new rear radiator setup. A gorgeous mount job which will prevent putting this car out of comission on a front end collision. If this works out I wonder if the whole Falken team will convert to a rear mount setup.

On Daijiro Yoshihara’s GT Channel blog he posted a photograph of the Wrecked Magazine crew after we shot the interview. Check it out!

Follow Daijiro more here: http://www.gtchannel.com/user_blog.php?uid=38

I twittered about this a few weeks ago and I keep passing it since it’s on my way home off I-10 from my new place. Today I snapped a photo of it for all of you DTA x Rogue Status fans out there in the blogoverse. It’s at the intersection of Crescent Heights and 3rd if I remember correctly. Sadly nobody has scaled the building to deface it yet.