From the moment we stepped into the fenced-in lot off the Long Beach Convention Center, I was excited. I exclaimed more than once, “This KICKS Nascar’s ass!!” This, my friends, is drift-racing.

That was a qualifying round. This is a head-to-head face-off:

TurboTiger was right. There were a lo-ot of niiiice, fixed-up cars and custom paint jobs. (Rest mouse pointers over photos for captions.)


Some cars are so fancied up I can’t even tell what model a lot of them are from just looking.


Of course, YA KNOW that if I find MY car model, I’m gonna take pictures of it. Because the IS350 is a new model, there are few after-market modification parts available for it. The owner of this car is doing almost all the mod parts from scratch himself, and expects to be done with this baby next week:


I just thought this little cherry-red number is cute:


Mr. W liked this RockStar car:


This dude’s one of the premier drifters in Japan:


After the race, Mr. W and I took a walk down to The Pike and chowed down on shrimp at Bubba Gump. And then we took a stroll to a nearby Borders book store, where he purchased a yoga/pilates book and a “better sex” book which he claims to have purchased only for the pictures. I had a really good time, and am looking forward to the October Formula-Drift event in Buena Park, where we’ll be in the VIP box. Jealous?

Well, don’t be. I think I’m growing a penis from all the testosterone floating around today. Speaking of that, this morning’s question of the day, introduced while still lounging in bed, was What would you do if you wake up one morning and you look down to discover you’ve changed gender? My answer was that the first thing I’d do is jack off. I wanna see what all this penis hype is about. After that I can panic.