Wekfest Texas 2013 Part 1: WFTX Pre Meet presented by Mayday Garage x The Chronicles
Once again we hit the road from Atlanta out to a Wekfest event. This one is very special for us because it was in our region. It was also the first time that the show had been in Houston. The previous years it was in Austin, which I read that it was booked for another event so they chose to make it Houston this year. After our trip to Wekfest East in Nw Jersey(see coverage here) we had to make the trip to Texas to see the best of Texas in person. The amount of support we get out of Texas is unreal, and it is all due to Jason Scott, Josh Smylie, Stacey Troutman, and Dennis Nguyen. SF started in Georgia as a local thing, but has grew to something much bigger, and we get so much content from Texas. So we always show Texas love with any event.
From the outside looking in Wekfest seems like the typical car show. But the Wekfest team take it very serious and put a lot of time into organization, and making sure its worth everyone’s time and money, which is why we make it out to as many as possible. The speech they give to the drivers in the beginning says a lot to the people that have spent hours, months, and thousands of dollars on their cars. The Wekfest events are bringing back what made this all fun. When you build a vehicle, you do it for yourself, but its always good to be rewarded for your original ideas against cars of the same level. For the longest there was never really a event that was relevant to whats going on now. There are a handful of companies trying to make a comeback into the scene, and wonder why no one really takes them serious or comes out and supports them as much as a Wekfest event. Its because they are stuck in the past, and do not take the time to educate themselves on what is actually going on.
Texas came out and made a impact this time in Houston, and had around 400 cars that registered for the event. The line a hour before the doors opened was a block long, and the temperature was unusually cold at 34 degrees that morning. I always am happy to come back and speak highly of a Wekfest event, because it is a great event that pumps up the region and gets people motivated to go all out with their vehicles.
With all that being said, Jon and I decided to take the scenic route to Texas. When we took the trip to New Jersey for Wekfest East , we rented a GMC Acadia, which was really comfortable. But put a hurting on our wallet. Doing 2000+ miles to Jersey and back, the trip costs us about 300$ in gas alone. So we went the economy route. The Prius above was our choice for transportation for the 1600 mile trip to Texas and back to Atlanta.
It was a very interesting trip, but not as weird or different as you would think. The biggest issue with the Prius is the obvious lack of power. The space is not as bad with only 2 of us in it. The car managed to average 43-44mpg. Most of the MPGs were lost because of the hills and we were doing 80mph 80% of the time, but the closer we got to Texas it leveled off and drove a lot better. But the car never took more than 29$ to fill up. I believe we only spent just over 110$ on gas the whole weekend, which was much better than the Acadia. We are planning on making the drive out to Wekfest in Cali next year so we may have to go with something a bit more space and comfort, the Prius has the absolute worse headrests, that are impossible to fall asleep on. But overall the Prius did very well, a lot of our fans gave us a hard time on Instagram and Facebook about it, but it was well worth it.
We left Georgia at about 6pm, and got into Texas line about 5:30am. We were dog tired at that point, but the sight of that sign above gave us a second wind. And the speed limit had increased to 75mph so that helped to give us a bit more energy. Once we got into Houston, Jon told me that Cars & Caffeine was that morning. The Wekfest Pre Meet was not until 6pm, so we had a lot of time to kill. We headed down there to stretch our legs. So we will stop with bad cell phone pics, and get on to the real pics of some of our photos from Cars & Caffeine Houston.
The location for Caffeine & Cars was about 45 minutes away from where we entered the city, so when we got there it was light out. We were hoping that there was a side entrance to the event so we would not have to roll through a crowd at a event like this in a Prius…haha. We walked in, and we were immediately greeted to the sound of a Alfa Romeo 8C Spyder humming V8. I am not to up to date on exotics, but I know these are really rare in the states.
As I get older, I turn more and more into a Porsche lover. This RS 4.0 is another rare bird that was on display.
There were all kinds of exotics around, but these events type I spend more time looking and wishing rather than taking pictures. But the Maranello was always a favorite of mine, until the 599 came out. I just prefer the big front engine Ferrari over the mid engine ones.
The newest front engine Ferrari F12 was in attendance, for now the 599 still holds my heart, but the F12 will take that spot soon. I was only able to get this shot of it, because of the crowd.
Another personal favorite cars that I will hopefully be able to afford one day, is the Noble M400.
There were 2 very rare Lamborghini Aventador Lp 720-4s one roadster on the left and one a coupe on the right owned by one lucky guy. But the crowd was crazy around them, and this was the best shot I could get of them, so I attempted to make it artsy.
We did not stay long at C&C, we just really needed some time to walk around and stretch from the 12 hour trip we had just made. So we secretly escaped the premises in our eco friendly Prius, and headed to get breakfast. We had a plan to stay at my Aunts house, but we ended up getting a hotel about 10 miles from downtown Houston, and caught a few hours before the Pre Meet at 6.
We managed to get about 5 hours of sleep, which was refreshing to say the least. We woke up refreshed and ready to go…BUT in those 5 hours the temperature had dropped like a rock. When we left the Caffeine & Cars it was mid 60s with the sun shining, but when we stepped out the hotel it was in the low 30s. Keep in mind we are in Texas freezing our asses off.
We arrived at the Mayday Garage x The Chronicles Pre Meet at about 5:30. It was being held at 8th Wonder Brewery which was in the shade of the George R. Brown Convention center where Wekfest was being held the next day. The location was perfect with the city as the backdrop, but the temperature was absolutely brutal. There were a handful of us in attendance, Josh Smylie, Derek Matherne, and myself tried to stay warm by taking some photos.. The first one being Aubre Houck’s S14 pictured above.
Bagged VW Rabbit on a custom set of BBS RF
Danny Nguyen’s Passat on Work Equips
Chris Hout’s Datsun Bluebird Coupe was nice to see in person. I had seen photos of this beauty the past year all over the internet. It brought back all kind of memories of my 80 Mazda 626. A lot of the old cars are over done sometimes with really powerful motors, that turn these cars into uncontrollable cars that just go straight. Chris’s Datsun being powered by the SR20de makes it a perfect power plant for the classic.
One thing that I didnotice in Texas, is that 1 out of 3 of the cars out were on bags. I am sure the BMW purists absolutely hate the site of a bagged M5.
Proper Garage’s Subaru brothers. Chan Le and Joshua Williams. I think Joshua needs a “Big Wang” like Chan.
Karl lang’s bagged Camaro., bold move by Karl to take a traditional american styled car and modify it this way.
Chan Le’s WRX
Mayday Garage being represented by David Do and his FD Rx-7 (Needs a 4 rotor).
Roy Moncada’s bagged and widebody IS300 built by Annihilator Customs. Three different designs later and I think the car is finally finished minus a big turbo.
CCW LM20’s look great on all Supras.
One of many clean Hondas from Hybrid Racing brought to Wekfest.
Danny’s RWB Porsche named Catalina.
Cars continue to roll through the packed area to locate a parking spot. The turnout was crazy. The location seemed to fit everyone nicely. It was in a Industrial park, and the parking was all along all the business doors and in the streets.
Brad’s drift car created it’s own parking spot.
John P of Mayday Garage had the Rice Box (read about it here) food truck out feeding us. The Mayday Garage guys seem like they enjoy food just as much as I do, so i had to try it out. I went with the sesame chicken box, and was pleasantly surprised how good it was, and the portion was well worth the 8$.
We had planned on giving out as much free stuff this weekend as possible, so the only way was to leave some on the Rice Box for people to pickup.
Another satisfied customer Chris Young getting wild with his veggies from the Rice Box.
By then the crowd had thickened up as the streets started to fill up. There was also another food truck on hand right across from the Rice Box theEatsie Boys, who had some great things on the menu. But I never got to try any of it. They had some chili which would have been a perfect choice to warm up with.
The troll of SouthrnFresh Jason Scott sleeping mid sentence on the right and the ON3L3G’d wonder Stephen Bales on the left.
Another night time shot of Chris’s Datsun
Clean Civic Ek hanging out on the outskirts
David Do’s Mazda RX7 on the classic gold TE37s
Widebody and bagged Silvia
Civic Sedan sitting on the ground on a seat of Work Meister S1
Subaru BRz on Work VS-KFs from Square1
Always loved this generation of the Acura RL
Acura TL on Volk Ce28s
Jessica Blood’s AimGain Widebody IS250C on ISS Forged RM-15s
Bagged Fiat 500 on Mtechnica turbo wheels
At some point someone got wind of the event going on, and decided to come out and enforce parking, and charge 5$.
Bagged Audi S5 on Avant Garde F520 wheels that was a favorite for a lot of us that weekend from Team Prospekt
Bagged Cadillac CTS on Leon Hardiritt Ordens from FAT CATS
Big money S65 from NOLA Stunna out of Louisiana
Evo X from Low-Weezy-Ana
Bagged Altima Coupe on Vossen CV7s
Accord Coupe…yep its bagged. Not sure what wheels those are.
While Derek was light painting every single car he could, a crowd always stopped and watched as he photographed this M3
Toyota Corona
Scion Xb onWeds Kranze Brazeria
TC on VS-XX, looks bagged, but it is not all static.
Bagged Turbo Diesel rabbit, that was a crowd favorite the whole weekend.
Bagged Lexus IS from Square1
We all hung out for awhile, but the cold weather got the best of us, and we headed out to finally get a good nights rest. Mayday Garage put on a great event, and Texas really came out and supported it despite the crazy cold weather. Thanks again to them for hosting, and 8th Wonder Brewery for being good hosts. Next we will pickup with the coverage from the actual event!
Awesome pics SF!