Joey Redmond - My Blog

It’s a sad thought but Joeyredmond.net has NOT been updated or maintained at all so I am going to move the blog to one of the “Staff” blogs at Wrecked Magazine. Currently as the head editor/part owner of the magazine that is where I seem to spend all of my off time from doing client work so it makes sense to stick my blog over there. Now go visit the blog, I promise you this one will stay updated!!!!!!!

http://wreckedmagazine.com/joeyredmond/

http://wreckedmagazine.com/joeyredmond/

http://wreckedmagazine.com/joeyredmond/

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All that I really recall was waking up from a deep slumber at say 8:00am to champagne flying in every direction in celebration of a wedding from last night……scary. Well I hopped in the limo with everyone and headed to LAS to pick up my rental car. We got a sweet Dodge Magnum and I headed back to the convention center. We met up with Russ from Exedy and picked up all our crap we hide at the booth. Then we drove to the strip mall, met up with Chris from Weapon R and drove back to the convention center for a photo shoot. I actually just added a photo from the shoot with the Weapon R Scion XB to my portfolio site. Go check it!

We tore up the Hilton Buffet with Russ and then watched the Michigan/Michigan State game. We crashed at Harrah’s for the night on the strip to wake up and switch hotels again!

Trust me last night was a little crazy…….okay a ton crazy but I’ve been told I cannot post pictures from the parties of last night. So let’s move to Friday’s fun. Somehow once again we woke up in amazing fashion. 6:00am bedtime and 7:30am wakeup is the best way to go in Vegas. I think most of Friday I spent hiding at the Exedy booth or inside eating the awesome catered food. Russ pointed out on the back of the Exedy booth I was on one of the huge posters behind Rhys Millen. Here it is!

Here is a close up!

Leaving that day we wound up in a Mobil 1 taxicab. We worked for Mobil 1 for the week and put together some excellent tuner highlights and a SEMA recap for them. Mobil 1 did an awesome job at promoting outside and beyond the show. They ran two billboards on Paradise and sponsored taxi’s through Las Vegas. They touched off the SEMA promotion with a huge Mobil 1 bottle up front! It was an excellent campaign for SEMA 2007!

My homie Ro came into town and visited us in Vegas for a few days. Friday got more out of control than Thursday but I missed the activities luckily to play some poker. This was a few hours before Ro’s Vegas wedding. Who even knows…..if you look hard enough you can find photos from Cody Wellons who well documented the weekend. Many Drifting stars arrived like Blake Fuller, Damien Bagley, Vaughn Gittin to name a few.

What’s day there again? Oh man…….at this point I was losing my mind if people are convinced I was still sane. I met up with Bob H. from Urbanracer and we shot some stuff at the Scion Booth (Scion Challenge) and the Rockstar Energy Drink Drag Cartel Scion. You can check out the videos in the SEMA 2007 section of urbanracer.com. Also I finally made it down to the wheel/tire booth to visit the Nissan booth. They showcased Enjuku Racing’s new Nissan 350z vert. It has a JGTC look to it that I just love. Robby Unser will be driving this thing next year in Formula D! I would look for Unser to be a major contender for 08 in this thing.

The wheel and tire hall also had Calvin Wan’s Nissan 350z. Calvin Wan’s Infiniti G35 finally saw it’s demise after hitting the wall very hard in Sonoma this year. I think the car is fitting to Calvin Wan and reflects himself still very well. I am partial to the G35 of course at the end of the day but the Z will be good for him and I think a fresh chassis will help bring Calvin a fresh mind for 2008 and possibly some more first place finishes?

It’s hard to really even remember the minor details of what happened and what I did on this day because the huge announcements that kicked off shortly after 1:00pm. First it started off with Formula D announcing several huge things…….

April 12th- Streets of Long Beach

April 18-20th- Streets of Long Beach (Team Drift)

May 9th/10th- Road Atlanta

June 14th- Wall Speedway

June 20th-22nd- Burke Lake Front (Team Drift)

July 12th- Las Vegas Motorspeedway

August 9th- Evergreen Speedway

Sepetember 13th- Infineon Raceway

October 11th- Irwindale

World Finals- Nov/Dec TBA

***Also currently an 8th event remains TBA

They have a confirmed event in Mexico in February and also will be confirming an event in Singapore shortly. Singapore will be making history in 2008 with the first ever Formula 1 night race, perhaps a demo or event in accordance with that. Jim Liaw promised news soon on these events. Mexico City demo has been in the works, I met one of the gentlemen from Mexico City in Seattle, Washington Formula D event. This should promise to be great, more information soon.

Also!!!!!!

Formula D World Finals is a confirmed event in November/December 2008. More info later this winter.

These announcements mean Formula D is definitely make some positive strides for 2008 and ESPN2 seems like it will give them a huge kick they need to push Formula D to another level! Right after this press conference we didn’t even get out of our seat because the NOPI press conference was about to start. Another bomb was dropped for sport compact racing.

Gary and Michael confirmed the NOPI Drag Racing by NHRA. The Sony Xplod series will no longer exsist and events taking place at NHRA tracks will be sanctioned and conform to NHRA rules and non NHRA tracks will fall under NOPI. All the NHRA events will count to the final points count of NOPI Drag by NHRA. Schedules will come soon and Formula D announced a Las Vegas event, what could this all mean for the future of that and a possible Formula D NHRA event plan together?

No one was able to provide a schedule yet but more information should be coming as the off season winds into the new season.

For after hours it was Halloween, we swung by a few parties and then went to battle it out in the Sahara $42 NL Hold Em poker tournament. I last a little past the second break to going out with A/J to someone with A/7. Jayke went out right around the same time as well.

Somehow (trust me I KNOW) I was at the show at 7:15am awake and ready to work. We conducted our first Mobil 1 Tuner interview at the booth and then migrated to the Hyundai booth to interview NOS Energy Drink employee Ernie Manansala and then shifted to Status Racing to hit up the famous Status Sean. We did some other interviews that day and then visited the Maxxis Tires booth. Mike Fine unveiled the new style that NOS Energy Drink is playing with Chris Forsberg in the 2008 season! The new graphics look killer.

A ton of other stuff happened on Tuesday but I couldn’t tell you what happened. I know we had a ton of fun if that counts.

We finally got into Las Vegas for the trip and headed to the convention center. We ran into the guys with Exedy and planned our Tuesday film project with Mobil 1. After planning that out for hours we went back to the condo and recovered for a little bit.

Somehow Jason and myself talked ourselves into walking to the Wynn Hotel. It was far and we ended up cheating and taking the monorail to the shuttle bus, what a pain! The General Motors party at the Wynn is a great way to kick off SEMA week! The first ballroom showcased great food and some key cars for GM. Tons of people were in attendance from the automotive industry made it one of the best events of the year. After some time well spent in the main ballroom we went to the VIP afterparty in another ballroom.

One of my favorite cars for SEMA 2007 was located in the second ballroom for GM. The Pontiac Solstice SD-290 Racer Concept in a custom candy apple red paint was gorgeous. The revamped Ecotech engine is making 290hp (hence the SD-290). I’ve been on a huge vintage kick lately as we all know and this modern car with the old school vintage kickback I just love. The redone grills and front make the car easy on the eyes. I hope to see this thing appear some more in the future.

At this event 50 Cent came out with Will Castro from Unique Autosports and they presented 50 Cent’s Pontiac G8 for the show. 50 Cent was a big hit at the event and overshadowed many of the other cars and presenters GM had for the evening.

Yea I was at the show for a few minute and Chuck dragged me to the right place to be in Vegas! The casino’s! We first hit up Harrah’s and entered in a $100 freeze out tourny. I went out actually after Chuck but we both didn’t do so well.

My favorite tournament of the day was the 7pm one at Sahara. I had an absolute blast. It started around 15 tables and I made it down to the final 3. I was constantly making goofy and absurd comments at the table and it was the most fun I had in a game. I lasted till about the third break. I went out in the high 20’s somewhere. I really had some lucky draws. I learned poker is really a game better to be lukcy than good sometimes. Everytime I went in behind I seemed to win. I went out with about 10k in chips as I went in the favorite.

Well we tried our luck at Sahara again for 11pm. I pushed out a ton of chips at first. I came out with some great hands after losing a quick 3,000 chips and landed a few 2 pairs, pocket Kings, and a full house. I grinded out for about 90 minutes and worked up till about 11,000 chips. I got into a hand with a swedish guy who was just playing loose loose poker. I raised pre flop with A/J and he called me with Q/3 of hearts. The flop comes A/8/J. He raises me all in and I take a good minute….I have to call him. Well he nails a flush on the turn and my game is over. Oh well, life happens. It was a great day of poker.

Somehow I left my bag in Chuck’s room. As I am eating at the Paris around 2am at this point or so he calls me to tell me. Cody Wellons and I run down to the monorail and make it before it gets closed at 3am. We run to meet Chuck at the front of his hotel and miss each other. 2:50am……..3:05am. Finally we head towards the monorail like “Where the hell is Chuck?” “Did he fall asleep?” But no….we somehow just managed to miss him and had to grab a taxi back home. I finally got a decent night sleep and got ready to head to the airport.

So day 4 I was more productive which is always good. No sleep forever in forever which is always exciting but SEMA doesn’t wait for you! So I was looking around the show and my favorite car of the week was found in the Chargespeed booth. Jason Siu’s DC2, which he has worked so hard on lately and got done just in time.

The car is simply amazing. You can follow the build up in Modified Magazine. Adam did an amazing work on the cage and the Lexus paint is gorgeous. Nice to see people sticking it to the “roots” vehicles at SEMA and big ups to Chargespeed for letting him put it on display.

Another one of the Tjin cars was sitting just a few booths down at Status. Status is a new seats company on the market based out of Redmond, Washington. One of the only good looking Volvo’s I saw at the show, props to Gene! I love the battleship color, I want it for my next project.

Also I cannot skip over all the big news in drifting. JIC announced it’s new Porsche and a second driver coming into the 2007 Formula D season. The new driver is Tyler Mcquarrie (RSR s2000 driver in 2006) which should prove to be exciting.

Also Dodge had the Dodge Charger in the booth once again. We hope to see it in action in 2007. If you look hard enough you can find some sites online playing a test/tune video of Sam Hubinette in the Charger at Irwindale. I hope they get this thing together after he comes off his second series victory. I would love to see him do it in the Charger as well.

NOPI had a press confernce today making the drift series an official announcement. Not to much said in the meeting but this is the best information I can find on the web for you guys.

I hope this helps.

The final drifitng news came from Camp Honda. Which happens to be my favorite auto company so I was hella excited. They are bringing out a Honda Element drift car! You can catch some action shots I know at driftlive.com. I have heard a few rumors on teh driver (former AEM driver) but I have my doubts. More info to come soon I hope.

Another member of Team No Brakes! This Yaris was a sick car but umm where are the callipers.

One of the most memorable cars I came across at SEMA I found on the morning of Day 3. I don’t even remember what booth this was but wow! This is basically what I invision for Barbie’s car if she grew up in the OC.

My favorite car in the Honda booth has to be Neil Tjin’s Honda Fit. Just a gorgeous car that I found out will be receiving some more goodies after SEMA as well. Watch out for this car in the show scene.

Running around the show I ran into Jenny Chu in the SUV room somewhere marketing some products and her new package deal.

My phone died at some point in the afternoon. Chuck from Adrenaline Motorsports came into town and I couldn’t find him for a few hours due to a stupid broken Sidekick 3.

I ran to Tao at The Venetian which was a pretty wild Industry party tossed by C-16 Magazine. I said hi to the angry and drunk Jason Siu and some others and rolled out. I met the guy from Green Bottle Productions as well, seemed like a cool dude and grabbed his card. Quite to loud to talk inside. My favorite touch of the event was the girls in the bathtub.

I made my way off to Sahara and met up with Chuck. We sat down at the Aladdin for the 2am tourney and both went out pretty early. Around 3:30am we determined the night was still young and headed to the Belliago. Didn’t really have much going on to our taste so we headed to Bally’s and sat down at a $1/2 No Limit table. About 4 hours later (and both of us doubling up) we headed to a great breakfast buffet next door. I showered and returned to the show which will start the Thursday blog.

Here is the Belliago.

And after I charged my phone while showering for 15 minutes……this is basically what Bally’s looked like when I left the poker table from the night before.