Event>>fd Cars On Parade In Long Beach

I'm sitting here in my downtown Long Beach hotel room as we get ready for Friday's Formula D practice and qualifying day. This evening a number of FD drivers and their cars took to the streets for a get-together at the corner of Pine and Broadway in the heart of Long Beach. I headed down there to have a look and thought you guys might want to have a quick look at tonight's pre-race happenings.

The city of Long Beach blocked off the streets as the competition cars rolled in from the racing course a few blocks away. Picture your typical urban car show – except replace the chromed hot rods with pro drift cars, most of which aren't even street legal. There's always something cool about seeing race cars in street settings, as shown here by Vaughn Gittin Jr.'s 2010 Mustang parked curbside…

A few of the cars competing in this weekend's event didn't even look unusual in this street setting. JTP's FC3S and Matt Powers' S14 come to mind…

The gathering was open to the public, and the locals came out in big numbers to check out the drift cars and to get autographs from the drivers. This is just one of the great things about a racing event held on a street course in an urban area. From what I saw, people were having a blast seeing all the drift cars lined up outside of the restaurants and bars along Pine Street.