The second day at FormulaD began with a walk around the pit and paddock areas to get a look at what the vendors/teams/builders/shops had on display. Right away I was drawn to a rather iconic set of colors…

Anyone who follows Subarus or sport compact racing in general will have seen the Crawford built 2008 time attack STI.

The details on this car are stellar. I was surprised how good the condition of the car was considering the punishing it takes on the track. The carbon front splitter was pretty immaculate and didn’t look like it’d turned a lap in anger…

And the very pricey looking carbon roof skin and spoiler were also stunning.

Gotta love the dual cannons facing out the back of this car. Not sure why they went with twin tips when it’s not dictated by the actual engine – maybe to keep the look somewhat?

I’ve seen more recent pics of the car running a second roof mounted spoiler which I guess helps add some high speed stability or keeps the tail of the car more planted in high speed corners.

There was another Crawford prepped car there though that caught my eye more… can you guess it from this pic?

That’s right it’s the Gymkhana 1 car! This car is so impossibly badass in person it’s awesome. Everyone who walked by it uttered “ooooh that’s the car”

Love those meaty tires on meaty wheels behind meaty fenders…

Who knew DC sold ICs?

I’m biased but the 06/07 front end really is the best of the GD era!

The WRC style wing on Block’s car was a beautiful piece, the fit and finish looked stellar.

There was plenty else to see around the paddock though, and while I didn’t get crazy shooting every possible tuner car down there my eye was caught by this IS with a stonking big HKS turbo kit on it.

Painted in the blue the E46 M3’s came in, this car had a bit of a German feel to it more than a Japanese tuner car usually would.

There was fantastic paintwork and suspension work as far as the eye could see.

The actual Mines 370z was there too and I shot a lot of it, but here’s just a teaser. Unlike most people who call a car “Mines” because it might have a spoiler, this car was the genuine article – replete with Mine’s decals everywhere.

This clean Evo on CCWs really caught my eye. Look at that offset…

Ok you twisted my arm, here’s another of that Mine’s 370z. All of their cars are just so clean looking. I like the dual inlets for the twin intakes in the front bumper.

The guys at DSport mag had a great sense of humour. This guy upgraded to 20″ recently from his 17″ necklace.

The paddock really was rammed with cars you couldn’t look at a car without seeing a great detail of another car behind it you wanted to check out

Even the driers were working hard promoting their sponsors and wares – here’s Taka Aono spreading flyers across the front of his Hachi.

The Pro-Am guys were hittin’ hard and trying to nail the clipping points as tight as they could!

Definitely putting on a good smoke show.

Ultimately one or two of them go ta bit overzealous…

Like this beautiful gold 240 that hit the wall 15ft in front of me at about 120km/h!!

Thaknfully the car was built right and the driver wasn’t hurt.

But the day was over for that car!

Inside the Garage Boso S15 cockpit. Gotta love a drift car with a full system! (and nav?!)

Such a nice car, great stance, all the right creative flare.

DMCC Champ Matt Waldin was out here too, representing the Canada eh!

During ProAm there was a little Miata that was running the course – putting in some great show and absolutely annihilating the tires!

One thing that sort of bugs me is the number of cameras and GoPro’s stuck all over the cars. I understand how cool the footage is but it sorta takes away from the cars to me. Here’s one on Dai’s car’s tail.

Some more details on the Garage Boso S15.

The cars were getting really hot in the late afternoon sun and the guys spraying the intercoolers were working hard. I don’t get why these cars don’t have IC sprayers built in really, it’s not like its a heavyweight system or complicated to set up?

During practice the Hachi’s weren’t holding back at all, here two of them tangled up and Taka Aono got left holding the other’s bumper in the wall.

Not sure what this guy was thinking he was going to do by grabbing onto the tail of this G35 doing a burnout…

Here you can see Matt Powers doing a burnout and how the tails of the cars were constantly sliding down the incline of the banked corner. Again, did he think he was going to push the car back up?!

The more powerful cars could light the tires up at the top of the incline with enough speed to keep the car from sliding down it seemed.

Matt Powers is a joker and while he was focused in the car he seemed to always be having a lot of fun.

The beautiful Hankook STI had a hickup and went into the wall pretty hard. Breaks my heart… You can see how off kilter the tow hook is!

Check out the camber on this Hachi. You can see where the bumper in front of Taka’s car came from.

Another of Matt Powers, the car would look so much better without that handicam on the roof!

It’s really easy taking pics in the California sun when it’s low on the horizon.

Here’s a peek inside the Falken/Japan Automotive Supra.

The inside of the cars were full of smoke after every run, the Hankook STI was no exception. Looks like the rays in a cathedral.

Chris Forsberg went into the weekend as the points leader and only needed a few more to clinch the championship…

Which he did! The rest of the drivers were instantly on him as the first to congratulate him. It was pretty cool seeing how much these guys support and root for each other.

Here’s Vaughn congratulating him, these guys were honestly really happy for Chris, pretty nice to see.

With that over it was all focus and determination again for some of the drivers…

Tuerck in particular was doing very well throughout the day putting in solid practice and first round runs all through the afternoon.

Can’t get enough of those SSR Type Fs! They’re everywhere…

I gotta get a line on some of these at not-stratospheric prices.

Nissan was amazingly well represented, it boggles my mind that the S15 can be such a fan favorite at huge events like this and yet car manufacturers are so reluctant to bring cars like that over to North America.

Tuerck was right up the tail of everyone he tangled with that afternoon including Matt Waldin who he easily trounced. Not to say that Matt didn’t put up a good fight though!

Tanner’s new haircut has him looking more focused than ever…

Earlier in the afternoon the Need For Speed Shift booth had a competition for all of the FormulaD drivers with a grand prize of $5000. Here’s Carl Rydquist doing some smack talk.

Carl would turn in a 7:05.460 in the Maserati MC12 around the Nordschliefe.

His smack talk would be short lived though as it was Quoc who took the win!

The bleachers were packed at the start of the evening rounds of competition and I was stationed in the middle of all the action at the media ‘island’ for a bit.

Which got me up close to the action as the cars swing around the second section!

But soon it was back to the start/finish line as that’s where all the detail shots were.

Competition was fierce, here’s Tuerck on a mission up against Ken Gushi’s Scion TC, the little Solstice was having little trouble riding the inside line of ever competitor it came up against.

Matt Powers was all thumbs up to a couple of fans with “MATT IS #1″ posters sitting on the other side of the fence from the start/finish line. Nice to see him acknowledge his fans!

Tyler McQuarrie was hitting hard throughout the evening too putting lots of angle and opposite lock going around the final section.

At times it was hard to judge which cars were which, here’s the Hankook 350z… somewhere in there.

Dai looked VERY focused at the start/finish line with his eyes on the track, competitors, and little else.

The track became a haze of blue tires moke and shadows as the more powerful cars like the Rockstar V8 ScionTC absolutely roasted tires on each run.

Falken was fairly well represented, it was pretty hard to get a shot in the pit area WITHOUT a Falken or Hankook girl in the background!

Here you can see Tanner Foust’s V8 Scion up against Matt Powers’ 240 and you start to see why the insane horsepower numbers really matter, it’s hard to stay inside a car with 800hp when it has time to open up a lead like this on a short straight.

Not the best shot but probably my favorite of the night as you can see the hot side of the turbine housing lighting up as the MazdaRX8 comes out of the final corner!!

Matt Powers had endless thumbs up!

The Hachis were firing flames all night long which made for some cool light shows.

The Matt Powers fan club/Pit Crew.

Ryan Tuerck won the night and celbrations were quickly under way. He drove hard and definitely deserved it. I gotta say this was the best time I’ve had shooting an event and can’t speak highly enough of the guys from EA who put the whole thing together. I definitely plan to get back to another FormulaD event sometime next season on my own ticket and try do some more shooting.