The first weekend of May, every year, is a dream come true for Bavarian motor-heads all over the world. Car enthusiasts come to Santa Barabara from all walks of life, bringing their prized possesions to one of the largest BMW automotive events yearly. From e21s to brand new e92 M3s, and engine swaps to turboed track-specced race cars, you could find anything and everything in the midst of 3,000 cars on the beautiful concours-like grass fields of the SB Polo Club. Major vendors like HorsepowerFreaks, VMR, VF Engineering, DDM, and many others were out in full force bringing their new products to the table. Overall, it was a great day of sun burns, but well worth it. Check out the highlights below and the main gallery.

5 AM meet up at IKEA for the caravan

Caravan to Santa Barbara

Some pictures of the event

Socal Auto Pics – Full Gallery

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A few weeks back, I attended the Toyota Grand Prix in Long Beach, California. This year was the 35th annual event, as well as the 3rd consecutive year with the American Le  Mans series making an appearance. With the sound of high-revving engine cars, beautifully stripped track cars, and the amount of Gs and braking power for each corner, what a better place than to take pictures.

Due to the crowds on the weekend, I attended the Friday qualifying event, which included more than enough exhaust fumes for one day. It was a nice change from the usual static pictures I take at various local car shows. If you’d like to check out the rest of the photos, be sure to head over to http://socalautopics.com or follow this direct link.

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The parts finally came in this week and finally got everything put together.  Rode it tonight and it’s very smooth. Refer back to the first post to view all the parts I used in the build. Click below to view a gallery of the bike.

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I’ve been meaning to do a fixed gear build for a while now with a an old Schwinn Voyageur I had lying around. Finally took the plunge and began ordering the new parts the other night. They are planned to arrive mid next week and I’ll attempt to build up the bike as soon as possible. Below are what I have planned for the build.

• Schwinn Voyageur frameset
• Formula laced Alex DA-28 (White Deep V) – rear
• Zipp 808 – front
• Alien Crankset 46T 144 BCD
• Sytance Stratos bullhorns
• Campagnolo headset
• Cinelli stem
• MKS GR-9 pedals
• Cobra Track Cog 17T – Will upgrade later on
• Dura-Ace lockring

Once the project is complete I’ll make a post with details and pictures throughout the build.

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A few of us decided to get together on Saturday and do a shoot just up north in Newport Beach.  I woke up and attended the local weekly Cars and Coffee car show and then met up with a few other guys.  There was also a UCI car meet that we attended…. and promptly left.  There was much in the means of the european scene, but rather JDM which I am definitely not a fan of.

After we left, we grabbed some food, met up with a few other guys and headed out to our location.  We jumped on the 405 north towards Newport Beach to a location Joe recommended.  He said the location would be vacant but it turned out there were quite a few events being held on that day.  We manage to do the best we could to avoid the people and crowds but it was very tough.

After shooting all the car in this location we moved onto Irvine for rolling shots to Lawrence brought us to a local street which supposedly had “minimal traffic”. The road had great scenery but was very curvy which made it hard to get rolling shots when your not sure what’s coming around the corner going 50 mph.  We manage with a two-lane road by riding side by side taking up the entire road.  We had to do spurts of shooting at at time because we had to keep ducking behind each other to avoid the incoming cars.

At one point I had half my body out door while taking up both lanes in the street.  We merged over to avoid an incoming car, which we later found out was Irvine PD.  That would not have been a fun ticket for not only me with no seatbelt, but the driver driving on the wrong side of the road – luckily he didn’t pull us over.

After the rolling shots and the close encounter with our friends in the black and white, we decided to call it a day and head home.  Shots turned out pretty well, despite shooting in direct harsh sunlight in the middle of the day.  The e92 M3 was a lot of fun to shoot; you will definitely see more photos of it in the future.

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