WekFest East 2013 Road Trip Part 2: WekFest East 2013
Back with part 2 of our WekFest East trip. We headed from Dankfest in Winston – Salem, North Carolina at around 2pm. It was a straight 9 hours to New Jersey, and we had planned to go through DC and just do a quick run through. But we got caught up in a lot of traffic about a hour and a half outside of DC. And we got there very very late, so we did not get to DC until around 8pm. There was a big event that had just ended for the MLK “I have a dream” speech, so there was a lot more traffic than usual. Neither one of us had been to DC so we were trying to soak it all up. We strolled around for about 30 minutes, and finally found a 20$ parking spot by The White House. So we will pick up from there…
WekFest East 2013 Road Trip Part 1: Dankfest 3
We parked almost right across the street from The White House, and walked over. It was about 9pm and the place was crawling with people checking out the capitol. It was really breathtaking to see The White House in person for the first time. And to also see majority of the visitors seemed to be from all over the world taking photos in front.
We severely under estimated the walking distance in between the landmarks. We figured we could just walk real quick from The White House to the Washington Monument, and on to the Lincoln Memorial. We really should have moved the car, but we paid 20$ to park, so we just sucked it up and walked damn near 20 plus blocks. Here is a picture of the Washington Monument still under repairs. It was almost 10pm, and there were still many people out and about in the area.
We walked past the Washington Monument and headed toward the Lincoln Memorial. This is a picture of the walkway down the side of the Reflecting Pool.
Almost there…..
Alongside the Reflecting Pool, there were birds just chilling in the dark. I got really close, and could not tell if there were sleep or what. But it was slightly creep that the birds did not move an inch the whole time I took the photo..
Finally we reached the Lincoln Memorial. As you can see there were a lot of people in and out the memorial, at this time it was almost 11pm.
Seeing the Lincoln statue in person was really an honor. I literally starred at the statue for almost 10-20 minutes. It was clearly one of the best experiences of the whole trip. If you have not went and viewed the memorial I highly suggest it.
After we left the Lincoln Memorial, and we made the long trip back to the truck and headed on to New Jersey at around midnight. It was unfortunately my turn to drive so I got behind the wheel and put the GPS in and we were off. The trip out of the city was entertaining for some reason and kept me wide awake, there was something about being in a new city. But once we got outside the city the trip started to wear me down. The radio was doing a terrible job keeping me up, the only thing that kept me up was a late repeat of the Howard Stern show that was slightly entertaining. We got about 30-45 minutes from the convention center and I was just out of it…and struggling to stay awake, and I was literally struggling to stay awake and counting the mile markers.
I had the navigation set to the convention center, so we drove straight to it just to check out where it was. We ended up going to the Edison motel and spent a little too much on the room, for about 6 hours of sleep. But I was too tired to care about price. Jon and I finally were able to get some sleep since we left Atlanta.
Luckily Jon and I got passes to attend under media to come in early and take pictures of the cars before the crowd comes in. So we got there around 11am to see if we can get in at that time. But they told us to come back at noon. So we went to Sonic and got some food, came back and it was about noon, and we got our stamps and went in with a plan to take photos of as much as possible, and spend the rest of the day mingling with the owners and getting some information and meeting people. But we were in for about 10 minutes and let the fire marshals do their inspection before the show. We were so tired and worn down, we just did not have the energy to do do as planned. Jon and I split up and checked the show out and took photos a much as possible.
The show was a lot for me to take in, this show was the first show I have been to in months. So I was generally excited to go, and it was also my first personal experience going to WekFest, and it lived up to the standards just as I expected. Most of the time I spent most of the time observing and checking out the cars. It was nice to go to a event and not know any of the cars.
We spent about 4 hours at the show, but it really felt like only an hour. Probably because everything was new to me, so I spent most of the time observing the cars and looking for fresh ideas for my own vehicle. And also taking notes and checking out how the Wekfest team handles everything and puts on such a high quality show.
A row of VIP styled vehicles lined up next to the Canibeat booth. Was really a fan of the S Class out of all the 3. From what I read on The Chronicles , the car is owned by Roy Jang of Canibeat.
I was also a huge fan of this Evo. Every time I walked by it I took a picture of it, trying to capture a good shot of the color on camera. I was struggling a bit with the cars since I did not have a tripod.
For me I always thought of the Northeast to have a huge Euro scene. There were a lot more European cars in attendance than what I usually see at WekFest shows.
The Jsutai booth was full of favorites. I am usually wondering around minding my business at shows and rarely talk to the guys in the booth unless I am really interested or I know them. Only because sometimes the people in the booth are just that…people in a booth trying to sell stuff, and the real owners of the company are away. But I felt the need to talk to the Jsutai guys at their booth to see what they are all about They specialize in putting together cars for people who do not have time to do so, or who just do not know what to do with their money. And they also do wheel coating and vinyl as you see on the EVO.
I did recognize this car from last year Import Alliance Summer 2012 in Charlotte. Pictured here, the wheel color and complete red leather interior was a nice update.
I recognized these two from previous events summer Import Alliance meets.
Loved the color on this bagged Evo.
I have seen this civic in plenty of photos online. The VIP Modulars was a reach on the car, but it works well.
FR-S with the favorite Rocket Bunny kit.
A shot of another car in the Jsutai booth. The guys do a good job in “styling”these vehicles, the subtle color choices in the wheels and vinyl go perfectly with the M3.
Bagged Passat Wagon
Being a Mazda lover, I already love the car based on principle. But I can openly admit I am on the fence on the wheels on the FD. Every time I walked by it my opinion changed.
Row of the Skyline family cars.
Another car I have seen all on the net. This SC was just as gorgeous as it looks in the photos. I have always had a appreciation for this generation SC. It flew under the radar when it was released, and I do not see many on the road. But I do think we will see more being modified for VIP styling in the future as they come down in price.
Really liked the refreshed Merlot Mica paint on the M Edition Miata. The custom built BBS RS match the oem styling of the factory BBS wheels it came with. Id love to see these wheels on the red FD posted above.
Compared to majority of the Evos at the event. This one followed the more traditional styling of modified Evos.
It was a pleasure to finally see Big Ty’s car in person. I dipped into the VIP style a few years ago, and got very familiar with Liberty.
Another Liberty car, Acura RL
Also this Jaguar was one of the many builds I followed closely on VIPstylecars.com. Mainly because it was out of the ordinary, and each update was something we never seen before. I have not been on VSC in a long time to see what has been done to the car. From the looks of the car in person, it looked like it was driven a lot and had some battle damage, but it is impossible to drive cars like this on a daily basis without some casualty.
Martin’s Lexus GS was one of the few cars that I knew personally. Martin once lived in Atlanta years ago, and he left us years ago and has not called since…haha. I truly did no realize it was the same car, until I was going through the photos. I blame my lack of good sleep on that, really happy to see the progress of the car, and to see the car turn into a known car all across the US. Here is a picture of it years ago in 2008
Spent a while looking at this EVO X, really liked the over all styling of the car. I appreciate when people build the car in a way that adds to the natural characteristics of what the car was built for. The photo I took of the exhaust came out terrible so I do not have a better photo, but it was similar to the Lexus ISF stacked quad tip exhaust. I mentioned on facebook, that this show motivated me to put some more time and effort into my own personal vehicle. And this was one of the cars that I pulled a lot of ideas from.
I like when people go a little out of the ordinary with their colors and wheel choices.
Ravspec’s Varis Widebody Subaru BRZ
Great build on the fairlady roadster. So much put into the car. Every time I went by the car, I would hear the owner giving someone a very in depth description of every inch of the car. The guy really loved his car and was very proud to show it off.
Another favorite was this Aristo. Years ago before the big blog bug hit all of us, we would see random photos of cars like this and admire it. Great to see something like this in person, I would much rather see a first gen Aristo built like this over the traditional low and slow approach.
Chris Taylor’s G42 from ISO. I say “42” because it is a stroked 3.7 to a 4.2 and supercharged. Chris is from North Carolina, and brought the car up for the weekend. Much like the Aristo above Chris’s car follows a uncommon road with this touring sedan with an emphasis on performance rather than low and slow. Chris just recently got the fenders done, and also the R35 GTR hood vents. As I have expressed to Chris many times, his car is one of my favorites if you cant tell.
This Subaru was a sight to see. It was hard to catch a good photo of it because there was always someone around it. We posted a photo of this car on our Instagram, and people commented on the car having useless parts that never get used. But I listened to the owner explain several times that he does drive the car a lot, and drives it hard. He did comment on the fuel cell, and said the car still has the regular fuel tank, but the fuel cell holds the race gas. So when he wants to drive it like a normal car on pump gas he can switch it to pull from the pump gas from the factory tank. And when he wants to play a little he can hit the switch to the race gas from the fuel cell.
There were plenty of cars that we did not get photos of, by this time me and Jon were exhausted from the trip. And just the thought that we had to make the 12 hour drive back down to Atlanta in a few made it even worse. You can see the whole gallery of photos are here in our flickr, there are a lot of cars not pictured. But we were on a tight schedule which kept us from interacting and soaking up the show as much as we wanted to. But we really enjoyed the event and it was really worth the trip if it had ended there. We wanted to stick around until the end for the awards ceremony, but we had a plan to go to NYC for an hour and be on the road by 6-7pm. So it was about 430-5, when we headed out from WekFest.
We headed over to NYC, this was the first time both of us had been to The Big Apple. As we got closer to the city we started to true tourists pointing out each landmark building and snapping photos .
We came in through the famous Holland Tunnel. The tolls really started to add up at this point, I think we may have paid 13$ at this tunnel. The guy asked for a ticket, and I had no idea what he was talking about. But I remembered that I did get a ticket at a booth long ago at a toll that I thought was free…haha. So I handed him the ticket, and he asked for 13. 00$…I was completely lost and confused but I paid him and drove on.
Cell phone picture of the Holland Tunnel. We spent a good while in the tunnel because of some light traffic.
We drove around and had no idea were to start our journey, so we just put Times Square in the GPS. At this time I was trying to adjust to the scenario of NYC, I have to admit it was quite overwhelming. I had to first get used to the driving, and than neutralize the sound of horns. In Atlanta a honk of the horn could spark severe road rage, but in NYC its common road language. So once I learned to cut off all the Taxis and honk at people everything became clear and I could navigate properly.
We wondered close to Times Square, and we got really lucky and saw a car backing out of a space on one of the side streets right off Times Square. It took me a good 15-20 minutes to parallel park the Acadia ill admit. It was me being scared of hitting the X5 behind us, and or damaging the brand new rental on the work truck that was parked in front. We really lucked up because the spot was literally 10 foot steps from Times Square and it was free since it was Sunday.
Me and Jon had literally been there for less than a minute and a guy asked Jon to snap a picture of him in front of Times Square. And as I was snapping this picture there was a guy with a Iphone that was behind me asking me to do the same…lol.
They were wrapping up an event there, and had some chairs out. So Jon and I sat and just soaked up the fast moving atmosphere, by this time our 1 hour visit had went out the window. It was just amazing to see so many people in one area just moving. We walked a few blocks site seeing, and decided to find a spot and grab a nice Ny Pizza.
On the way to John’s Pizza, there was a NYPD officer on horseback letting the children get photos with the horse.
Cell Phone picture of our Pizza from John’s Pizza. I was happy that the pizza did live up to the hype of a true NY pizza.
We had a schedule, but by this time we were just going with the flow, we had been in the city for about 2 hours. Naturally I expected it to be slightly calmer in the City. Clearly I had forgot what city we were in. It seemed like the amount of people multiplied.
As we waited to cross the street to head back to the truck. There was a couple crossing the street dressed for a wedding, at first it caught me off guard. But I also saw a guy with a DSLR directing them and taking photos of them. Putting that all together it seemed like they were taking their wedding photos at Times Square, which was really cool. We walked across the street, and most people just seemed like they were used to it. Every other person had some sort of camera in their hand so I assume most people in that area are used to that sort of thing.
We got back to the truck shortly after, and decided to make some more stops before we left the city. We rolled by Central Park, and tried to catch a glimpse of some landmarks around the city. By this time it was about 9pm, and it was time to get back on the road back home. We ended up taking another route back home that took us slightly west and travel around DC. In hopes that it would provide for a different atmosphere to keep us awake, but I failed to realize that it was going to be dark the whole time. We did good for the first 6-8 hours, but after that and once we got deep in the it all started to take its toll on me. About every 2 hours me and Jon would swap out so we could get some rest, I found myself stopping on my drives to get coffee or a snack to stay awake. But after awhile it stopped working.
We finally arrived back in Atlanta around 10am. I dropped Jon off, and headed back home and unpacked the truck and returned it at about noon. The photo above shows our trip meter. We had put 2,029 miles in a matter of 3 days, the truck had barely 1000 miles on it when we received it. So we gave it a proper break in, and I was pretty sure that one of the rear shocks were blown from the NYC streets.
Overall we really did enjoy the trip, it took us a few days to get back in the swing of things and rest up. But Jon and I had said we wanted to do more traveling this year. We both have real jobs and obligations so we can not just hop up and leave when we feel like it. So this trip was a good experience for us, especially being a last minute thing. We are looking to plan another road trip again, hopefully out west. Thanks for looking!
