Street Life Auto Club

Investigation By Pearl Nalani and Carter Jung
I'm stumbling through a pitch black hall brimming with people. In my left hand is my Canon 5D and in my right, a Gitzo tripod that grows increasingly heavy. Bright flashes of light and pulsing music fill the air. A few feet in front of me is, or at least was, import model Pearl Nalani. Normally I don't stalk models-in public, at least-but this is different. We're working.

Photo Gallery: Hot Import Nights L.A. - The 20 Hottest Cars Of LA

Hyper Meeting 2008
Tsukuba Circuit, Japan
Foreign correspondents are invaluable to the publishing industry. That's why we love Mike Garrett so much; he lives in Japan, paradoxically has both ears to the ground of the JDM tuning scene, and resides a stone's throw away from the Tsukuba Circuit-meaning we can always count on him to pull through with the sickest event coverage anywhere, like his snaps of the Hyper Meeting 2008, for example. The staple event in the world of all-wheel-drive turbo-four tuning, the Hyper Meeting invites Japan's greatest Subaru and Mitsubishi tuners to prove their mettle on the scene's most sacred battleground each year-and with the debut of the new generation EVO and STI only months prior, this year's meet was one of the best to date. It was JUN's EVO X with a 1:01:31 that claimed the fastest pass by an '08 at the event, with little more added to it than when we shot it for last month's cover. The Runduce Impreza GRB followed closely, claiming the top '08 Subie spot, but the more heavily modded veterans remained atop the competition with sub-minute passes, including Sun Auto's 56.28-second Cyber EVO VII, Varis's Cyber EVO V, and Zero Sports' Impreza, driven by Tarzan Yamada. Still, our favorite machine of the event had to be CS Hiro's chop-top super clean Impreza-with a roof so low, Nakamura-san had to peer through the steering wheel to drive it. In addition to the time attacking, D1 champ Nobushige Kumakubo and Team Orange threw down multiple four-car demo drift runs, and of course, race queens were in abundance to keep their drivers cool...and look hot doing it! www.hypermeeting.jp

Photo Gallery: Meets Around the World - Four One One

As journalist reporting a motorsport event, we try diligently, at times, to recount, the happenings in text form. Cnversations with drivers and crew are recorded, notes from the race are taken, and images are pored over. But at the end of the day, what we write is pure speculation sprinkled with facts, times, scores, and so on. The ones who really know the story are the people who are themselves part of it. And in Formula D they are the drivers-pardon my expression, the drifters-who are deeply involved in the plot. So for the first time ever, we gathered seven of the greatest drifters to write in their words what happened at Round One of Formula D: Long Beach.

Photo Gallery: Long Beach Grand Prix - Formula D Diaries