What can I say that I haven’t said in every other Final Bout post? It has continually been my favorite drift event of the year, and this year’s was no exception. It seemed like the biggest turnout to date, and with notable exceptions like Breaking and Essence, there were a ton of teams and drivers from all over the country. The actual competition was exciting and ended in spectacular fashion.

On a personal level, I got to meet some people that I’ve been chatting with online for a while now like Adam from Koru-Works (@understeerking) and Neil Sheehan from Juiceboxforyou. I also ended up speaking more Japanese within a few hours than I have in the past few years. With that being said, let’s go on with it…

After parking, the first thing I saw walking up was Bai and Takatori running tandem on advanced course. Definitely a great way to start of the day. I ran into them later in the day and chatted. They both said that USAIR was a lot of fun.

Coming down from the track into the pits, the team I came across was Night Call (@NIGHTCALL). Their 180SX was a good example of how easy it is to make a hatch look good.

Full aero (BN-Sports style in this case), factory fenders with a roll/pull, and some nice wheels is all it really takes. Of course, you have to keep it all in one piece, which can bet problematic.

Their Miata absolutely won the wheel game. I’m sure Drake from Breaking (@dra3king) would agree. There’s nothing quite as cool as Advan Oni with dish. These came in at 16x8 -1 all around. If I could get these in 17x9 and 17x10 I’d never look for another set of wheels again. PS Duce style aero is also never a bad choice. Unfortunately I never managed to get a good shot of their S13 when it was back on the ground.

At first glance I thought this was the Ghost FC, but it’s also a Night Call car. It had also been swapped to SR20DET because the rotary that originally came in it had given up the “ghost” to many times. Pun totally intended. The white Works on black look great as well. Overall, all the Night Call cars were great looking, clean and well put together.

Next in the pits were the three Frenzy (@frenzy_us) S14s. It’s fun seeing a team all in the same chassis. In this case it was also interesting seeing the differences in styling. Their blue zenki was the wildest looking with 18” Super Advans and full PS Duce aero. Their other zenki was very OEM+ with Navan aero and R33 GT-R wheels. Their kouki looked very circuit-spec with a set of white TE37s and what I’d guess was Uras aero.

If you told me to close my eyes and picture the engine room from a drift S14 in Japan in 2006, this is what would come to mind. Stainless ekimani, front mount intercooler, Z32 maf, Blitz filter, relocated oil filter, aluminum radiator, and Kazama/GP Sports style oil catch can. The only thing that was missing was a boost controller solenoid mounted next to the power steering reservoir.

You know a car is slammed when it’s lifted off the ground and the rear wheels are still tucking. I didn’t get a shot of it, but the owner Juan (@relaxamigo!) actually raised the front subframe, rear differential and transmission by 35mm so everything was in line.

The fab work is great and he has been documenting the work on his blog !Amigo!, which is definitely worth taking the time to check out. All that work allows him to run the car slammed without grinding the bottom of the car off and raising the diff resolved the problem he had with killing axles.

Geoff Stoneback (@geoffstoneback) joined Front Street with his RB25 Neo powered S15 Silvia. I don’t miss my Skyline sedan, but I do miss the Neo. I also miss the days when no one knew how damn good they were, so they were nice and cheap. Best RB series motor hands down.

Tom Nazarro (@frontstreettom) and Josh Deliz (@frontstreet_josh) brought out their 180SX and S13, respectively. Front Street was rounded out with Jimmy Oakes in his S13, but I didn’t manage to get any decent pictures of it in the pits.

Haze (@hazedriftteam) was in attendance, and continuing to prove that the single cam KA24 is no joke. I love the fact that they took a motor that most people were swapping out boosted them to the moon.

Saiko (@team.drift.saiko) was in attendance again this year with their 180s, Cefiro, E30 and Z33. I’m assuming the “saiko” is 最高, which basically makes them team “Awesome”. You have to appreciate the commitment it takes to paint all your cars the same color. Matching livery is one thing, but it’s hard to beat the unity of a team that is color matched.

Another member of the slam squad was James Carper’s (@jamescarper) S13 from Karoshi (@carshopkaroshi). It’s low, with low aero, so it’s hard to keep things from exploding. By the time I took this shot the Wonder rear and Origin (I think) front bumper were off the car.

It was nice seeing the Karoshi SR20DET powered AE86 again. With everything getting a K24 these days, it’s satisfying to see a hachi owner not jumping on that bandwagon or sticking with the usual 20V or BEAMS swap.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, Eric Peterson’s (@rough.break) Z33 is a clear example of how easy it is to make these cars look great. No crazy riveted on fender flares or bash bars instead of bumpers. All they need is a bit of lowering, nice wheels and good aero. Unfortunately, I didn’t get a shot of it before the front bumper exploded.

There are a few ways you can go in terms of showing “uniformity” as a team, and it’s hard to argue that driving the same car might be the peak. It also gave the members of Night Style (@niightstyle) the freedom to have totally difference colors, vinyl, and styles of build and still look right drifting together.

Their black NB was running a 4-throttle setup and sounded really nice on track. I’ve never really noticed it before, but there is so much space in a Miata bay it almost looks like it came with a V6 and was swapped to a 4 cylinder.

The Zepka Customs twin Onevias have always been my favorite cars in the US. Paul’s (@paul_zepka) Onevia reminds me of the cars I used to drive touge with in the late 90s.

Tony’s (@zepkacustoms) Onevia showed up with a full color change. Previously both cars were essentially twins. Now it’s interesting seeing them together with Tony’s looking very 2006. It’s almost like seeing the same car’s style change over a decade.

You can see Mike Hahnen’s (@burstspeed) R32 on jackstands in the background. Unfortunately he lost a head gasket so didn’t get much track time.

I’m guessing this is Touge Factory Dave’s Onevia with a paint and aero refresh? Regardless it looked great and I really liked the color. Maybe Toyota voodoo blue?

This is about as nice as an S13 can look. Although, I’m starting to get tired of seeing this Origin series of kit on cars. It’s almost become the new D-Max Type 3. I know it’s pretty minor, but on of my favorite parts of this car is the fact that the rear overs are only held on with a few rivets.

I also quite liked the Good Feeling S13. BN Sports aero, Origin fenders, and Gram Lights are a good combination. At first I thought it was running factory brick headlights, and then I noticed they’re actually custom LED lights.

Riot Factory (@riot_factory_drift) made the trek all the way out from the Pacific Northwest with their big power sedans. Their C33 had dumped the RB20 in favor of a 1JZGTE.

Their Cefiro was swapped to 2JZ. It’s fun watching how aggressive these guys drive. It was also nice seeing them both in black, which is hands down the most appropriate color for these 90’s sedans.

The Fat Cats JZZ30 Soarer owned by Zach Triggs (@zachtriggs) was one of my favorite cars in attendance. It EXUDED 2006 D1GP vibes. Unfortunately I somehow managed to not get any good shots of it. At some point I’m going to have to head down to Texas to check out Knuckle Up, and try to convince Zach to let me do a feature on his Soarer while I’m there.

George Marstanovic (@gmarstan) brought both his FD and S13 up all the way from Arizona (I think?). I’ve seen plenty of pictures of his FD online, but it’s even better in person. I’m usually not a fan of yellow, but I don’t think he could have picked a better color for this car. It was almost too nice to drift.

He didn’t cut any corners under the hood either…

I’m going to wrap up the pit shots with Sebastian Suaza’s (@cerebulanebula) S14. He didn’t get it done quite in time to actually drive unfortunately. I’ve enjoyed watching his journey building this through. It’s been a platform for him to add a bunch of skills to his wheel house including tig welding and motorsports wiring.

Every year before the competition starts they have all the drivers line their cars up out on the track and invite all the spectators to come out on the track to check them all out.

With all the elevation changes of the track, I usually get some pretty good shots.

WMB Work XT7s might just be my favorite wheel of all time… I need to pick up a set, but they’re so hard to find in good shape these days. I used to have a perfect set on an R32 GTS-T I used to own. I’m not sure if I regret selling that car, or the wheels more.

Auto Real Dream (@autorealdream.us) was definitely the winner of the team unity prize in my books. Matching paint (mostly), matching livery, and all their cars looked great.

Front Street. They drove great in the competition and actually made it to the finals. More on that later though. I try my best to avoid any negativity in these posts, but I have to say it… the Origin Racing Line front bumper for the S13 is absolutely one of the ugliest things ever created. The rest of the kit is fine, but that bumper… bleh.

I managed to get a pretty good shot of Bai’s S13. From what I understand he’s had this chassis forever and it only has 20k on the odometer or something close to that.

I might be talking out of my ass here, but it seemed like this Final Bout had the highest attendance out of any I’ve been to. The bank stretching all the way across the back of advanced course was even full during the competition.

I’m well aware I’m a pretty shit photographer. In fact, every picture you see on this blog was shot with a Google Pixel. Or, in the case of my old Japan posts, a Sony Cybershot point-and-shoot. So when it comes to the action shots I take they’re usually garbage. So here come the handful they came out half way decent…

Proceed was down to 3 cars for a good part of the day as Simba (@ggsimba) was having some car trouble. However, he managed to get back out on track with the rest of Proceed as the competition started.

Night Style coming up into the walled section. Maintaining proximity without a good amount of power can be really difficult as you come out of the corkscrew and up that hill. Despite their power disadvantage they did a great job.

Rough Break. It turns out I did get a shot of their Z33 before the bumper exploded… It’s almost like these pictures aren’t exactly in chronological order…

This was probably the best action shot I got. Front Street was doing their best to stack up coming up the hill and it was definitely entertaining to watch. I think the big money was on them to win coming into the day, but Proceed stepped up and took them to the finals, eventually beating Front Street for their first Final Bout win.

This is where I’m going to wrap this post up because, frankly, I’m sick of trying to think of things to write. Fortunately, I did take a bunch of video, including all the competition runs and some pit walk footage, which I’ll be editing for another post.

Apologies to any driver’s who I left out of this post. I was only able to attend Saturday and spent half the time chatting with people so I didn’t shoot as many pictures as I typically do.