As if two east coast Formula D trips two weeks apart didn’t make our lives hectic enough, Joe and Justin invited Fabian Fernandez, Luke Lonberger, and Ryan Kado to come to Drift Evolution up in Oregon on the weekend in between. I usually think of Oregon as just the California-Washington border, but hey, if Joe and Justin invited people to come, it might be fun.
Fabian’s S14 was still in San Jose since he didn’t go to the east coast. Ryan had just bought a street beater S13 so he could bring that since his competition Z33 was in storage in Miami. Luke’s Corvette was in Baltimore and his S14 was missing a lot of parts so he opted not to come along.
Geoff and I drove up to Sacramento where we met up with Ryan. Ryan drove the rest of the way to Medford. It’s actually not that far away! It only takes a little bit longer than going to LA. Fabian and his crew drove up earlier in the day.
Being from the Seattle area, I’ve done the drive up and down I-5 and through Medford a bunch of times. I don’t know if I’d ever actually stopped there before though. Maybe for gas or something.
Before we knew it, we were there! We met up with Joe and Justin at Justin’s dad’s house and met his dad, his step brother Shane, and their friend Scotty. Justin’s dad’s Chevy LUV was there too!
Oh and Fuzz! Can’t forget that guy. What an awesome dog! He can sit on his butt like that for hours if you have food that he wants.
We couldn’t find any Sailor on the way up. Should have gotten some closer to home! Bacardi and Coke had to hold us over that night. By the way, Geoff rented this Sigma 8mm fisheye lens. It’s actually touching the bottle in this photo.
We all woke up bright and early the next morning and drove to the Jackson County Fairgrounds. I wasn’t super stoked about the chance of rain, but Geoff loves foul weather and Ryan didn’t bring any extra tires so they were both pretty happy.
Geoff was really into Scotty’s Ranger. It was all he could talk about the whole week leading up to our trip. I think he wants one.
The drivers set up their pit spaces and we got to debut our new Life Blasters banner! Isn’t it dope!? We brought Joe and Justin a Tandem of Die banner too, but I don’t know if anyone took a photo of it.
There was some drifting now and then.
But somehow Justin’s dad managed to sleep through it.
Did you know Joe’s married?? Here’s his lovely wife Brooke. She looks kind of like Khloe Kardashian, don’t you think?
D-Loc and Hot Dogg were hanging out for a while. They’re from Hot 98.9FM and were blowing up Fabian on the radio. They didn’t even care that Ryan was there.
Hella people came by to get ride alongs with Fabian. I think he was getting kind of annoyed. Haha!
Geoff wanted to get his picture taken with Mannerz, since Mannerz is so awesome.
This was for sure the highlight of the event. Ryan, Geoff, Joe, and Justin all did handstands while Fabian did donuts around them. “What’s safety??”
This is Ryan’s S13. All stock except for the S14 seats, coilovers and welded diff. Perfect car to bring to a place like this!
Justin’s step brother Shane wishes he was old enough to drift. Just a few more years dude!
For now he has to be Justin’s pit crew.
He had lots of fun anyway.
Geoff got lots of ride alongs and got to drive a lot of different cars. I just took photos of all of that.
Justin has the same steering wheel as Norcal’s favorite drifter girl Erika Miyazono!
After Day 1 wrapped up, we went to get pizza and beer. In Oregon you can ride in the back of a pickup as long as all the seats in the cab are occupied. Awesome!
Kinda dangerous, but still awesome!
After dinner we went back to the fairgrounds to party and camp. It started off as a regular hangout kind of party.
Skateboarding drunk is never a good idea.
“Ahhh! A monster!” -Geoff
You know it’s going to get crazy once people find fire. One guy even caught himself on fire. Luckily I had the good sense to tell him to stop, drop, and roll!
Ryan felt good the next morning.
So did RJ.
Justin and Fuzz slept most of the day. Justin finally woke up for the last time right before the competition began!
Skateboards were the preferred vehicle for moving tires to and from the tire guy, as they well should be!
Joe just used his to move himself around.
Nicole was the only girl drifter there. Yup, that’s a CA in her S13! She was even competing. What’s up Erika??
RJ had some Matt Powers styling going on. He wasn’t driving too bad either!
Joe was super excited when I let him use my 300. It’s cool, I got to use his 85 1.2!
Overall this event was really fun! I’m looking forward to the next one! I may have a different opinion of Oregon the next time I drive up to Washington 😀
.:Bohan
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