WekFest East 2013 Road Trip Part 1: Dankfest 3

This trip was pretty much last minute.  It started with a text message to Jon Davis asking if he wanted to go to Wekfest East on the Tuesday before.  I was hoping he would say no, but he was down for the trip.  I had already took the weekend off to attend Dankfest 3 in Winston-Salem, and had planned to drive my own vehicle to it since it was just a 5 hour drive.  But we planned to just go ahead and tough it out, and continue the journey north to WekFest for the first time.  I did not get off work until 8pm Friday night, so we were gonna drive out that night to North Carolina.  Trey Chavis of Hood Status Clothing  was generous enough to lend us his couch for the night once we arrived in Winston – Salem.  We had to be at Dankfest 3 by 9am to setup our booth, and we planned on staying there until around 3pm.  Since we had a long drive to make up to New Jersey.   We wanted to have a little extra time to explore the city, so we can be up at WekFest @ 11am.  And leave Wekfest at 6pm and make the 12 hour drive back home because we both had to work Monday morning.

So time was an issue with the trip , but not really, worst case scenario we would miss work Monday.  But the thrill of just going and not really planning was exciting enough to make the trip worth it.  We started out pretty late because of me not getting off work in time, which was not really a surprise.  Some of the photos are from my cell phone, some are with the camera, but I wanted to post up the whole experience as much as possible.  The photos in this part are from our trip to North Carolina for Dankfest 3.

The plan was to rent something economical, so I requested a Ford Escape that gets 30+ mpg.  BUT, one was not available when I went to pick it up that morning so they upgraded it to a full size SUV, which was good for comfort, but bad for MPG.  The 2014 GMC Acadia was really nice comfort wise for the trip, but I was nervous on what kind of gas mileage it would get.  Now that I look back , I probably should have declined it and opted to go down to a full size car.  We averaged about 21 mpg the whole trip, which was not terrible considering it was a full size, AWD SUV with 3 row seating.  But me and Jon had no use for all that space, and the biggest thing we had was our tent, which I am sure would have fit in a full size car.  But we needed as much comfort as possible for the trip, and the Acadia did the job.

I headed out and picked up Jon, and this was our view for the next 5 hours to Winston-Salem.

Luckily for us the Acadia was equipped with satellite radio and kept us awake and alert.  We were about 200 miles from Winston – Salem at this point @ 1:25pm.

We arrived in Winston – Salem 2 hours later at 3:30 am.  Ignore my cracked screen, I amm due for an upgrade next month, don’t judge me….haha

The plan was to meet up with Trey Chavis at his house and crash for the night, but Trey said he may or may not be at the shop finishing his car up.  Trey was still at Exotics and they were finishing up his s13.

They were finishing up installing and vinyl wrapping Trey’s Rocket Bunny S13.  Keep in mind, that it was almost 4am, and they were still at it.

Trey was working on the wiring for the headlights, while the team finished up the wrap on the bumper.

Trey’s S13 was on a set of 20″ Work VS-MS.  Trey had planned on buying these wheels for the S13, but it did not go through as planned.  But Trey was going to roll on them for the event.  It is rare to see 20″ wheels on S chassis cars, but  it looked proper on the the car, and the wheels filled the fenders perfectly.

The guys were working like it was the middle of the day, while me and Jon were barely awake.  So we decided to leave the guys to their work, and get some sleep in the truck until it was time to go.  Luckily for us the Acadia had plenty of space for us to stretch out and get some rest.

I was completely knocked out and Jon woke me up around 6:30 am, and said they were done.  I woke up to see Trey rolling out the shop and up front.  Trey has had the car down for a long time, and Dankfest 3 was the first time it would be back out since being down.  With a new rocket bunny kit, wheels and the wrap Trey was excited to bring it out.

George of Exotics doing some final touches on the hood.

Jon snapped a few pictures of the car fresh out the garage under the morning sun.

After the work was done, everyone headed to their houses to shower up and head to Dankfest by 9am.  Shout out to Exotics for putting up the extra time in to make sure Trey got his car done.  It is one of the reasons why most of  Carolina sends their cars to you for work.  A lot of places fail to go that extra mile for their customers, because they dont understand what it means to them.  By this time it was around 7:45am.  We followed Trey back to his house to shower and get ready to head out to Dankfest to set up.

We got to the venue around 10am, and set up our booth.  Me and Jon were so tired, we pretty much used the booth and chairs to rest.  I did a few laps around the meet and got a few photos of the event, we only stayed until 2pm, but really enjoyed meeting some of the folks in the area.  Here are a few photos from the event.

SRT4 on Work Equips nice looking combo.

The weather was really nice that day.  Perfect for this E36 convertible.

Edward Mayes’ Chrysler 300C from Wilkesboro Crew

A rare sight, a modified Ford Fusion.

Custom built one of a kind Rat Rod.  There were a few other older american cars at the event.

Team RPM Lexus LS

Team RPM Lexus GS

Wilkesboro Crew S2000

Wilkesboro Crew WRX

SNEED SPEEDS SHOP Mini Cooper track car

Bagged Jetta on Luxury Abstract Mador

Andrew Johnson’s WRX Wagon 

Aggressive flared IS300 

First time seeing one of these in person.  Lancer Ralliart Sportback 

TC and Civic from Wilkesboro Crew

Bill Miles’ S2000

s2000 from Team RPM

This SiR EG was a favorite of mine.  I have seen it before awhile back at Import Alliance in Nashville.  Not sure if it is owned by someone else or not.  I have always liked the yellow interior on the SiR.  

Zeb’s GS from ISO

TL from ISO

This was a custom bagged bike on display, had some pretty impressive body work on it.  

One of the nicest cars out that evening was this Buddy Club Civic Coupe.  I over heard the owner say he painted the car himself along with all the work.

Buddy Club racing seat

The paint on the car was flawless.  I wanted to talk to the owner, but he was swamped with people talking to him already, so I just observed it.  Gorgeous car hopefully we can see it again.

 

E92 M3 on HRE wheels

That is all for this part of our trip up the east coast.  I would have liked to get more details on the cars and wanted to talk to more people, but me and Jon were running on fumes all day.  And were trying to recharged for our journey up to New Jersey that evening.  Jon had never been to COOKOUT, I had to take him to it while we were in North Carolina, before we got back on the road.

We hit the road at around 2:30…the next part we will pickup from there!  Thanks for looking!

See all the photos from DANKFEST 3 HERE

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