WEKFEST SEATTLE 2021 - RETURN TO FORM
TEXT & PHOTOS - VINNIE NGUYEN
Wekfest Seattle 2021, what can we say? It’s one of the events that we look forward to participating in each year aside from our own events. With 2019 being the last time that they were in town, our community was buzzing with excitement. Since the event date was moved to mid-October, many of us were prepared to show, rain or shine. We think it’s safe to say that all of us are VERY familiar with rain or shine events. Luckily for all of us, the rain held out until after the event. The show felt a little smaller this year, but that was to be expected as our friends from Canada were not able to come down due to COVID restrictions. If this was a “normal” year, we imagine that the Canadians would’ve added at least another 75-100 cars. Nonetheless, we knew that this was going to be a good event because what can we say, the Pacific Northwest always brings it.
Over the years, we’ve done our best to highlight many of the amazing people and their builds in our area and while many have gotten recognition outside the Pacific Northwest, it seems that our community as a whole is still slept on. Everyone else is definitely missing out on the culture that we’ve all cultivated up here. For those who do know, they are able to see that not only can we build amazing cars, the people behind those builds are just as amazing. We’ve said it before, the people in our community are unlike any other. We’re not saying it’s perfect, but you can sense the support and camaraderie from everyone. We all want each other to do well and to build our cars the best we can. We’re all a part of one community. It is nice when someone outside of the Pacific Northwest like Wekfest comes to our slice of automotive paradise and puts on a quality show because it helps showcase the quality builds we have in our community.
We arrived to the convention center really early and so we didn’t get that many photos of roll in, but we did catch this pretty dope Datsun 280z rolling in. We believe that @lucky7.jp is his Instagram profile.
Dale Ibiaz, hanging out while waiting for the Wekfest crew to let us all in. His Spoon equipped FK8 is immaculate and we believe he now has all of the exterior Spoon pieces with his latest addition, the aero side mirrors. And if you guys don’t remember, he won best FK8 Type R at HondafestNW.
We couldn’t resist snapping a photo of the our friend’s Exotix Snacks & Goods rig! If you guys need the plug for snacks from all over, they are your guys!
Rolling in is Ajay Berry and his TSX. Spoon front bumper, TE37s, a Voltex wing, and a whole bunch of other goodies makes his TSX one of the cleanest we’ve seen in our area. Following him was Mike Legaspi’s Honda Integra Type R. Looking good as always on the Mag Blue TE37s. After waiting for a bit, we finally made our way into the convention center to help set up.
It has become a tradition where we get to catch up with friends whom we don’t usually see due to everyone having different schedules or just life in general. It’s nice with events like these because we get to meet new people whom we don’t see at our events. It’s a chance to network and create new relationships! Running a show is great because it keeps up busy, but it’s always nice to sit back and relax for change. This year, our NSX was a booth car for our friends at Never Content.
We were excited to see that Austin Pennington chose to display only his FEED FD3S RX-7 instead of both cars as he’s been working really hard to get the UFO buttoned up this past year. It was great to see all his hard work on display. His attention to detail is second to none and it is definitely shown not only in his builds, but in his business as well. His car took home the Mazda of the Festival award!
Another car that we’ve been wanting to see was Nikolay Konstantinov’s Koguchi Power S13. He originally debuted the final product at FD and man, seeing it in person is so much better than seeing it in photos. It’s been a while since we’ve seen Nikolay and funny story is that he was the one who sold us one of the pairs of TEs that are on the NSX. His hard work earned him S-Chassis of the Festival.
The boys from Eazy Duz It Car Club always making a statement with their low riders especially since they have their own line up in the show. We’re not exactly sure who owns the Continental up front, but behind it was Jimmy Ojeda’s ’87 Monte Carlo and Edgar Corado’s ’80 Monte Carlo! So much attention to detail goes into these lowriders, it’s amazing.
This event was the debut for many builds in our community, one of them being Backyard Boogie’s very own Derek Malla and his B-series swapped Imola Orange EF hatch on some bronze Mugen MF10s. Can you guys believe that he built this car himself and he is only 16!
Another build we couldn’t wait to see was Hiro’s Hotrod’s Wonder Civic! Being the first project for his new business, Austin Hironaka spent the last year building it from the ground up. If you guys saw what he started with, your minds would be blown. No area on the car was left untouched. Austin partnered with our friend, Walter Franco of Namsayin to design this awesome livery. To make it even better it’s painted on, not wrapped. That is dedication. It rightfully deserved the “Car of the Festival” award.
We’re happy to see Austin pushing his business and like we’ve talked about in our conversations, things are entirely different when you have your own brand and business. Building cars as a hobby is one thing, but when you turn that passion into something more, there is a lot more involved. But we have faith in him. He’s always been a supporter of NWMotiv and we’re excited to see where Austin takes his business! We know he is going to kill it.
There were many builds that we’ve been wanting to see, one of them being Mikee Andrada’s new ITB K24 swapped EK. If you guys don’t know who Mikee is, he is one of the best fabricators in the Pacific Northwest and his builds are always on another level.
“Take the time to build it for yourself and at the pace that makes sense.”
That is what Mikee told us during our past conversations and he couldn’t be more right. These days, everyone is so focused on building a car for the public and not for themselves. Take the time to do it right and if his hatch is any example, less is definitely more.
Raul Rodriguez and his fully equipped Mugen hatch was another car on our radar as we were hoping to see it at HondafestNW. We believe he’s over on the faaaar Eastside across the pass, so it’s pretty cool that he made the trek over. You can’t be afraid to drive your cars!
Lawrence of IntecRacing brought out his Pandem FC RX7 and we have to tell you, when we first saw Greddy debut it at SEMA 2018, we fell in love with it. The Pandem kit definitely suits the car very well. We’re stoked to see this up here in the Pacific Northwest and what Lawrence does with it!
Micheal Bush brought out his HKS powered Spoon S2000 that goes by Natsuki. Who said that a track car can’t be a show car? The Takata green TE37s against the yellow pops! It’s come a long way and we’re happy to see him finally enjoying the car.
Next to Natsuki was Tristan Besabe’s R32 GTR. It was his first time taking his car to a show and though it’s in its early stages, you won’t find a cleaner GTR. He’s as meticulous as they come and it’s looking so good on those Advan TCIIIs. Peep all of the Greddy goodies under the hood as well. We can’t wait to see the next stages of his build! In the words of his brother Tony, killin’ it!
Pow Pinprasert’s EG Civic was sporting some new pieces since the last time we saw it at HondafestNW. We’re loving the addition of the Mugen lip and the new side mirrors. We can’t get over how good it looks sitting on the Sprint Hart CP-F’s. We wonder if Tony made him change out any hardware during the show….
Speaking of Tony Dau and rounding out our coverage, Mr. LCMGarage himself with his 997 on Mag Blue TE37s. He’s our favorite judge…. at our events and everyone else’s! But in all seriousness, there is one thing we can all agree on, the small details matter! So don’t get caught slippin’ when Tony is around!
Overall, Wekfest Seattle this year did not disappoint. COVID is still a huge deal and while almost everyone was masked up, it was nice to be at an indoor show again. We apologize ahead of time that we didn’t snap as many photos as we would have liked. Definitely too busy catching up with the homies! It’s better to live in the moment and enjoy right?
We’d like to thank the Wekfest crew for running it back this year and for helping shine a light on the Pacific Northwest. We know you guys get it and we hope that as us locals continue our work of building the community, you guys will continue to come back!
See you all at the next event!
