Parties, alochol, girls, no sleep, alcohol, eating in excess, and, of course, alcohol are all things that is a part of the whole Las Vegas experience. Add in copius amounts of tire smoke –shaken, not stirred, of course– and Vegas becomes an absolutely unforgetable experience. The Las Vegas is, I believe, the Formula One Monaco Grand Prix equivilant on the Formula D calender. There’s glamour, glitz, and the constant mention and the actual consumption of alcohol throughout the weekend. This is the one drift event in the year where the drivers’, media’s and staff’s girlfriends and girls beg to come along!
But the one thing that is almost mentioned even more so than alcohol and partying was the relentless heat. Imagine walking down the strip at one o’clock in the morning and the ambient air temperature hovers just under 90* farenheit. No amount of three foot tall strawberry daquiries, margaritas or pina colatas can give relief to such temperatures…
Now, imagine even further when the next morning, all the Formula D drivers have to get up from their previous night of living it up Vegas style, climb into their heat boxes, and sit on the starting grid, in said heat boxes, to then proceed kick as much ass as possible on the Las Vegas Speedway . This is the life of Formula D Las Vegas! And well, its quite a life to live…
Here’s a look at the event in presented in widescreen format!
Because Las Vegas is so insanely hot during the day, the Formula D event doesn’t offically start until just about sundown. The opportunity to shoot anything, during what photographers call “magic hour,” will make any photo that much more magical. And add in a hint of gear head nerdiness with a few table spoons of photography, and you get a recipe that really is unmatched…
Here’s a phoot of Kazu Hayashida and Daijiro Yoshiara having a fist fight. It ended with Dai crashing into a tire wall during the top 32 and thus, giving the victory to Hayashida.
I agree with what Mike Garrett said previously how you can never have enough photos of Matt Powers’ car…
Here is Matt Powers and Katashiro Ueo duking it out in an epic struggle which resulted in two one more times and with Ueo walking away with the victory. Before the top 32 tadem battle started, I had was having a conversation with Matt in the pits when Ueo walks up to Matt’s car, then start to look it up and down. Matt stops mid sentence and says, “Hold on, Ueo is checking out my ride, I need to do something about this…” He walks over, puts his arms around Ueo some unaudiable words are exchanged, and Ueo walks away smiling… That is a great example of the hardcore competition and comradere that all these FD drivers have for each other.
Eric O’ Sullivan intitates into turn two. I love the colors of the livery, it really pops in photographs in any form of lighting.
Justin Pawlak leaving Tommy Brakiohiapa in the dust and with a defeat.
Here’s a shot of Vaughn Gittin’ Jr. drifting with what is left of the sunlight. Anything becomes beautiful when shot during magic hour…
Mike Essa and Yasu Kaondo.
Kyle Mohan and Patrick Mordaunt’s now boso car duke it out.
More Matt Powers…
This is one of my personal favorite shots from the weekend –a warm geniune, non-scripted, and non-practiced smile.
This is Tanner Foust’s Scion TC which is being powered by 1.21 gigawatts and straight into the future!
There’s something about shooting drifting at night that brings a whole new level to the photos. Chris Forsberg’s car is a car we’ve all seen over, and over again, but at night, it looks like a completely new monster…
Tyler McQuarrie throws his smoke monster into the high speed corner –not too far behind is Mike Essa in his RX-7…
If any of you had the opportunity to see the Formula One Singapore Grand Prix last season, the great thing about that grand prix was being able to see the sparks and backfire from the race cars’, which you would normally would not see during the day. The same thing happens at night during Formula D, you see sparks and backfires that you normally would never see. For example Ross Petty mega riced his Boso-Garage S15 with an underglow kit, drift strobes and under fender glow too. Stay with me here, because it really looked amazing in motion with tire smoke billowing out from the rear tires. Ken Gushi’s team fitted his Scion TC with violet colored LED lights. You’ll be able to see examples of these on both Joshua Herron and Will Roegge’s FD Vegas videos which should be out very soon…
Half of Kazu Hayashida’s car has already been warped into the future.
Ruji Miki walks away form an epic battle with Chris Forsberg, moving onto the finals, then taking second place at FormulaD round 4!
Ueo vs. Tureck. The stadium floodlights made for some amazing and moody imagery…
I close with this shot of Mike Essa because this is how the whole Las Vegas FormulaD experience is like. It’s a huge epic blur and cycle of heat, eating, alcohol, and tire smoke. Like I’ve said previously, this is the only event on the calender that has such glamour, glitz, and out right sleeziness at times. Everyone goes home, a bit hung over, with tons of amazing stories from the weekend and stories of fierce battles in the relentless heat of the Las Vegas Motor Speedway.
Nearly passing out because of the heat? That’s worth it to experience the bibical epicness that is Las Vegas FormulaD!
-Linhbergh Nguyen