Joey Redmond - My Blog

Mind you this place is 100 miles south of Las Vegas and antiquated everything is formed by the fact that American law doesn’t allow gambling in Arizona or California. But let’s go beyond that…….Laughlin, Nevada probably has an average age of 65, maybe 75 so the motorsports festival has to be a frightening time for them in the city. Well the city had grown a little (it now has an IHOP….more on this later) and some other things on the other side of the Colorado River in Bullhead City, Arizona.

We were smart this year and crashed at the River Palms Hotel and Casino. The River Palms is one of the quality hotels with Harrah’s and the Tropicanna in Laughlin. In for you poker players an FYI, if you document four hours of table play in the poker room in one day’s time you get a comp’d room. What kind of deal is that? Well finding something to do in this city is quite a struggle……so Chuck Litterist from Adrenaline Motorsports and myself hit the water taxi casino hopping, looking for some No Limit Poker. Here is a picture of
our hotel from the water.

We ran back to Vegas that same night and picked up Brady. Then we sat down at the $1/2 No Limit table with Brady and Jacob and I made like $500! Excellent night, we crashed out and woke up and scooted to the Pro Am!

Okay so listen, if you don’t know about The Hills then your an idiot but this is okay work with me here……I am not one to just outright rant and blast someone (at least on my blog) but we have some MUCH deserved hating that needs to get thrown down. Heidi Montag is one of the main characters on MTV’s show called “The Hills,” and she has to be the biggest witch on reality television right now. To make a long story short, Heidi and Lauren use to be BFF’s and Heidi stabbed her in the back and spread rumors with her boyfriend Spencer about personal things of Lauren. Jen Bunny who is about as big of a witch stabbed Lauren in the back as well and she has to be about as worse as Heidi. Anyway, I feel like a loser talking about this right not but listen……….

In case you didn’t know…….. Heidi Montag being the star she is *rolleyes* decided to launch a music career like every other stereotypical wouldbe movie star would do. The beat is awesome and her singing sucks but that isn’t the best part………Spenser (ok are you sitting down) RAPS on the track!? Are you serious?????????????? He is rapping in this song, well apparently Ryan Seacrest aired this on his morning show at around 7:30am (lucky for Heidi and Spenser most “cool” people are asleep at this hour) and apparently got so embarrassed they had the track pulled from the radio. This is a great story and if you haven’t heard the song you need to listen……..

Here is his part of the song………

“{spencer pratt rap}
check out
chillin in the back of the club tonight
make kin between us only right
dancing show me your step
and go ahead speed it up like
get in the left lane up
in the jet plane
fuel about a mill mill
from paris to beverly hills
with that girl
with my eyes on a sassy pearl
heidi montag
yeah thats my girl”

I have to provide a link to it’s on air premiere and demise!

Ryan Seacrest’s Premiere of Heidi’s song

Anyways,

You need to get the full story here. The song is pretty much a hideous 80’s sample from Grand Theft Auto Vice City mixed with computerized vocals and a hideous hook. But wow, the deal maker was Spencer rapping! Get Serious!!!!!!!!! Well here is the better part of the story, David Foster produced this song who is a Grammy Award winning producer/composer but here is the irony…….he is Brody Jenner (from the show The Hills) step dad. Interesting stuff I know…..Ryan Seacrest made fun of you on air. THAT means you suck in case you were wondering Spenser.
I am glad they look like huge idiots. Go Team Lauren!

Yea so we moved into the Sahara on Sunday afternoon and I don’t think I have left the hotel since then…….it’s now Tuesday and I don’t even hear the slot machines when I go downstairs. I cannot tell you how many times I have bought a $7.50 six pack of Diet Dr. Pepper and I think I am going nuts, no, scratch that, I know I am going insane. I don’t even hear the slots when we walk through the lobby.

Jay Canter is on his way over and we are going to kill the Rio World Buffet (best buffet in Vegas) it’s like 16 miles long of delicious food like corn dogs and pizza. Things like the Rio Buffet need to remind you why America is such a great place. I think I am going to Fry’s to buy DVD’s to help my insanity…….and I think we have blown $100 minimum at the Sahara Arcade battling in games like Outrun 2 and NASCAR. We leave tommorow or the next day for Laughlin……help us all, if we live to see the end of the Pro Am I would be impressed.

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.

We crashed in Palmdale for the night and headed out to Horse Thief Mile in the morning (well the afternoon) at Willow Springs to enjoy the Ziptied weekend. The first day was the Just Drift finals where Forest Wang took home top honors. Check out the video on Wrecked Magazine’s Podcast- Itunes channel- Wrecked Magazine.

Little Pat “Pat AttacK” and some other drivers staged at the top of the track. Pat ended up smashing his car up with a friend in the Saturday tournament! He had his car back together for Pro Am and did an amazing job!

Tony Angelo from Drift Alliance came out and ripped it up with the local guys for the weekend as well. I helped Andy out and helped shoot some of the cover for the new DA video. If it’s anything like the heavy.com episodes, it is going to rock!

We got some more coverage of this event coming out in Wrecked Magazine- Issue 2! Comes out next month.