As a change of pace, I pulled the trigger and bought a media pass for a local drift event. Located about 30-45 minutes north of Denver is the IMI Motorsports Complex. As a host of dirt biking and go-kart rentals, the site is also responsible for hosting drifting events like Drift Matsuri + Grassroots competition. It’s a 2-day event where Saturday is the competition day and Sunday is the open track day.

I have always been into drifting since Fast and Furious: Tokyo Drift but haven’t taken it seriously up until 2-3 years ago. During COVID, I was watching re-runs of Hot Version on YouTube. However, it really started with YouTube channels like Josh Behrens aka E_ought, Alexi from NoriYaro, the Auto Factory Realize drift team, HertLife, and Shirtstuckedin. After moving to Colorado, I was getting a lot of feelings of missing out on automotive events. I began diving more into the culture and started to learn about FinalBout, Meihan, and Recollection Auto Fashion. There were drift teams from the Bay such as Run Up (Instagram) that had really clean builds that they also happen to drift – that’s f*cking neat lol. I discovered them at Wekfest San Jose 2019 before COVID. The more I dove into drifting, the more I wanted to become a part of it.

And here we are! I arrived at the track right upon opening and I quickly learned a couple things… First, I needed a hi-visibility vest if I wanted to get on the track and snap some photos. Second, since it was a grass roots event there was a LOT of E36/E46 chassis. I knew what to expect coming in but I was surprised by the amount of BMWs in attendance that day.

I went in with no expectations and with a mission: capture some panning shots. But before we get to those cool panning, action shots, let’s take a look at some of the cars in the pits.

Pit Walk

In a secluded section of the pits, I spotted this black S13 Onevia on grey Gramlight 57DR wheels. It caught my eye in the sea of Euro’s and was in the realm of what I was looking forward to at this event.

This S13 is owned by @jdmary (Instagram).

In the cockpit we can glance over at the Nardi steering wheel in front of the custom instrument cluster. Features include AEM gauges and an APEXi Super AFC NEO.

For the driver seat, it’s a Bride seat adorned with the traditional Bride gradient.

Exterior wise, it’s a stock body S13 Coupe with “sleepy” pop-up headlights, Type-X front bumper and rear spats. Super simple setup and overall clean.

Something I usually don’t see often in Colorado are E92 chassis on Japanese wheels – specifically SSR Type-Cs. I believe this was a support vehicle in the pits.

Paint lookin’ wet! I’d kill to have paint looking like that – sincerely from an 8th Gen Honda Civic owner… I also want to add that the E90/E92 chassis have aged well.

Coming off the enclosed trailer was this dedicated Pro-level drift car. It’s a S14.5 – S14 chassis with an S15 face. In the engine bay, a V8 replaces the stock 4-cylinder.

Walking a couple more steps in the pits and I spotted this Toyota Chaser (JZX90) on Gramlight 57DR wheels.

I always have a soft spot for big body sedans… Spoiler alert: I didn’t see this on the track that day.

As previously mentioned, there were a lot of E36/E46 chassis in attendance of the drift event. It’s a chassis that many people in the drift community would recommend – alongside the 350Z/G35 and the S-chassis. There’s huge aftermarket support and from factory, they’re known to handle cornering well. Once you’ve got a decent chassis, enthusiasts recommend welding the rear differential and hitting the track.

From left to right: E46 Touring, E36 Coupe, and E36 “Ute” conversion.

A couple steps away was this Subaru BRZ (ZC6). This was probably one of the newest/youngest cars in the fleet of drift cars and it’s owned by @noluckmatt (Instagram).

It was also one of my favorite cars in attendance that day. It’s reminiscent of builds that I would see in the Bay Area.

Not pictured here is the Origin Lab Stream Line front bumper. The side skirts are from Origin Lab as well.

Matt’s “186SX” sits nice and proper on a set of Volk TE37SLs in Dash White.

That’s a short summary of the pit walk that morning. Next, let’s hop into the action!

The track opened up at 10am and I still didn’t have a hi-visibility vest. There were only 2 cars on the track to kick-start the day. I went on Google to search for “hi-vis vests near me”. Luckily, there was a Home Depot 10 minutes away that had vests in stock. There were a considerable amount of cars that were loud too so I made an adult decision to buy noise protection along with my vest lol. Also, I couldn’t forget the sunscreen!

After buying some protection, I missed a highway on-ramp and instead took an unpaved road back to IMI Motorsports. 7 pure minutes of white, rocky/gravel road and coasting at 30mph later, I arrived with my hi-vis vest, sunscreen on my brown Filipino skin (rich with melanin), and hearing protection resting around my neck. I made my way onto the track and hunkered down in the foliage around the 1st corner. I set my camera settings and shot away…

Although there was a huge presence of BMWs that day, there was a handful of Domestics; to be more specific, there was a handful of Mustang GTs. Here’s a shot of a 5th Gen Mustang GT attacking the 1st corner…

Here’s a shot of another Mustang GT. The 3rd Generation Mustang GT Foxbody looks really good going sideways lol. My ninong (Ilocano term for “godfather”) owns a red Foxbody. He’s the Ford fanatic of my family which makes him an outlier of my pop’s side who enjoy their Toyota’s and Nissan’s. I digress but here’s me showing love to my bald eagle, 5.0L-lovin’, muscle car fanatics.

One of the first cars that I saw link the whole track that morning was this Infiniti G37 coupe owned by @dreamchaser_303 (Instagram).

As opposed to the black E92 in the pits, there was this black/green E92 shredding up the track.

I finally had a chance to see the black Onevia go around the track. Here is Mary coming out of the first corner with the Z32 burner wheels on the back. The dedication to OEM+ is real when you have Z32 stock wheels to be your drift spares.

Green Miata leading with a E46 Sedan following behind…

If you didn’t take note, Matt’s ZC6 was one of my favorite cars on the track so please pardon the spam! It’s a good looking car and seeing it sideways made it even more cooler. I couldn’t help but keep pressing the shutter button on my Fuji X-T2 with its decent autofocusing.

The fronts were switched out to R33-style wheels while the rears remained the same from when it sat in the pits…

I moved to a different spot on the track that felt like the “Ring of Fire”. To break it down, I provided a bird’s eye view with markings to give you a visual of the track layout.

• Blue Square = The Pits
• Green Curve = The First/ “Entry” Corner
• Red Dot = First photo location
• Red Circle = “Ring of Fire”

The track layout that day ran in a CCW (counter-clockwise) format. When I got in the ring of fire, I had to be hyper aware of cars that may come at me in every direction. There were cars gunning it at the first corner, cars coming from the hairpin into an s-curve and finally into a right-hand turn. It was sketchy!

The point is: it was risky but the resulting shots were rewarding. I had views of the entry corner, the first s-curve, the hairpin, and the second s-curve before the right-hand turn. I was able to get cool angles as the cars came towards me and drifted away from me.

This is my favorite view on the track. It provides a lot of opportunity to compose cool shots with the right cars and the right timing as you’ll see later…

Here’s a more professional-spec’d 3rd Generation Mustang with its light-medium blue paint and vibrant livery – a complete 180 degrees from the black Foxbody we’ve seen earlier.

Here’s one of the few V8-swapped Japanese cars that attended on Sunday’s open track day.

Just when you think a Mazda RX-7 (FC) with a V8 is enough, wait ’till you see the next few photos…

In front of the FC was a S13 hatchback also running a V8 swap.

They seem to be homies with the similarities in their builds: custom fabricated front clips; V8 engines; missing hood, fenders, and bumpers.

Last photo of the American-powered Japanese hatchbacks in black and white and in tandem…

A switch-up from the bunch of E36/E46 chassis was this BMW 1-series (E87) coupe. In the US, we were only granted the coupe as opposed to the wagon and hatchback.

To finish off the action portion of this event coverage, I just want to say that these photos and cars were my favorite of the whole set. If you dig them too, please show some love on my Instagram!

The best sounding car – to me – that day was Eric’s JZ-powered kouki S14 (Instagram). His grand entrance resulted in his driver-side sideskirt popping off because of a misplaced traffic cone while he was following his Drift Factory teammate, Jay.

The duo from Drift Factory (Instagram) were shredding and eventually got within close proximity that later left a tire mark on Eric’s door…

The presence of these 2 Nissan’s was a crazy experience. Hearing the JZ and SR hitting rev limiter as they’re speeding through the corner was literally music to my ears.

On top of that, the S14 and R32 had matching paint which I describe as a sea foam green.

I had no expectations of the drift event that day but these guys really put out for Colorado. It’s dope to see enthusiasts like Eric and Jay from Drift Factory showing their skill in drifting in such clean builds. I wish I stayed longer to witness more of their runs. It was fun watching them and I’m glad I got to capture these moments.

Poetry in motion…

This was one of my favorite shots of that day…

Here you can get a glimpse of how close Jay and Eric were getting as they drifted in tandem. They got about 3-6 laps in before they pulled back into the pits to change their tires. It was bittersweet because those would’ve been the last photos I’d catch of them drifting that day… It was really fun watching those two shred!

As they headed back into the pits, I started to feel some heat exhaustion and dehydration in the 90 deg F. weather. It was a good time for me to start heading back to the pits as well to get some shade.

As I left the ring of fire, I was at my 3rd and final spot where it felt a lot safer. I stayed here for a maximum duration of 15 minutes. The track had less cars but there were these two matching E36 coupes maintaining good proximity, speed, and angle throughout the long right-hand turn.

I thought it was cool to capture the passenger of the following car throwing “double horns” up to signify good, fun vibes haha. That’ll be a good way to end this section of the Open Track!

After leaving the fun on the track, I went over to the pits to check out the Drift Factory cars. There was also some hope that more people were filing in to the open track day since it was around 12:30PM. Unfortunately that wasn’t the case but I’m satisfied with what I captured so far. Anyhow, let’s dive deeper into these two machines!

Here’s Eric Councill’s JZ-powered kouki S14. Exterior-wise it’s fully kitted with a 2F Performance Super Doof Kit. Front and rear fenders are from Origin Lab in the Type 4 variant and the drag wing is from Uras.

For wheels and tires, Eric’s running Wed Kranze Cerberus 1’s wrapped in Kenda tires. For stopping power, Parts Shop Max Z32 calipers are used up front.

Interior-wise, the dashboard is flocked. Some pieces also include the AEM digital dash/instrument cluster, Nardi steering wheel, and hydro E-brake.

Here’s Eric himself getting ready to swap to a new set of tires!

This is Jay Rogers prepping his SR-swapped R32 for another session by switching out his rear tires.

In the engine bay of the R32 is this SR20 mated to a Garrett turbocharger. Various parts come from Radium Engineering, Nismo, Koru Works, and Chase Bays.

This was a fun event to attend and shoot. I had the intention that day to capture panning shots of the cars in attendance that day. With little to no expectations of seeing clean builds like Matt’s ZC6, Mary’s S13, Eric’s S14, and Jay’s R32, I left with a huge appreciation for grassroots drifting events like Drift Matsuri + Grassroots Competition. This was a way for me to build up my skills as an automotive photographer since I’m usually getting static shots of cars and not dynamic ones like you’ve seen above! Furthermore, I get to hopefully form more connections with people within the community!

I was in my introverted, shy mode because I was in a new environment and knew no one. There was a small part of me feeling some impostor syndrome but I silenced those doubts by giving myself some self-talk and focused on capturing dope moments. My hope is to eventually get coverage of bigger drift events like FinalBout, Recollection Auto Fashion (aka RAF), and Dori Dore.

It was interesting to see the different skill levels on the track. Of course not every run was perfect but I was rooting for the people spinning out. I’m jealous that they’re the ones on the track getting seat time. I have dreams of drifting my own car(s) one day so this event was sort of my way of dipping my feet into the drift culture. It was overall good vibes at IMI Motorsports that day!

If you’ve attended the 3rd Round of Drift Matsuri + Grassroots Competition and want hi-res photos of your car, contact me on Instagram and I’ll get you set up! JVZY OUT!