m3gtr

Here are some pics of the Toyota drivers. Ralf was way friendly and Jarno was too. that photo with ralf was taken on the friday. BEFORE i f**ked my goatie up... i had access on friday and Saturday! Met Webbo both days.. if you look carefully you can see Michael trying to avoid reporters in the background. I didnt even notice! This sequence between Briatore and Ecclestone was fascinating to watch! i had no idead what they were talking about but Flavio was pissed at something....Bernie looked like he didnt give a sheeite. seeing Bernie was a massive power trip..

as promised on another thread ive got the photos ready to post from my experience at Suzuka 2006. Needless to say most of you wont believe who i managed to meet and where i managed to get into!! and FYI, these are all genuine pics. NONE of them are photoshop. Enjoy! me and Schuie outside the press rooms. I basically had him to myself for 5 minutes!! He took a keen interest in my swivel lense S4 Nikon. A couple more.. here he was on his way back from the press conference after i spoke to him...he took time signing stuff which was cool my japanese friend who organized the access to the pits and paddock got his car signed. Needless to say we were both buzzing! Alonso signing my cap.. i was the only one he signed something for but i guess thats because i was decked out from head to toe in renault gear! i was trying to pull off an alonso impersonation but failing miserably! Ove andersson was really chatty..nice old bloke! good old Webbo. The guy was mega friendly and pretty damn tall to boot.. . i tried to talk my way into getting garage access but he couldnt do anything! oh well...you never know if you dont ask..

or Gaba for that matter eh Pete? LOL!

ahaha, ok BB, ive done the deed. the mag is in the bin. Wow..im pretty surprised how quickly theyve depreiciated over only 2 years! Still...the evo wagon hasnt been bought into Oz and thats SURE to turn a tidy profit!! ive seen them going for under 30k here in JPN.. send me your addy via PM and ill post the GTR mag asap!

so you think it didnt look extreme? granted the camera angle and length of shot blunted the sho but just remember... a tyre exploded and he flipped at over 200 MILES per hour..in a freakin missle and he was at the pointy end of the thing.. just imagine how fast that would actually be.

what are you saying? the renault looks like a dogs breakfast?? no way mate. i think its pretty damned slick. I especially liked how they bought back the colour scheme from the 90's renaults on the nose..reminded me of the fw14b. although i will say that last years renault was much prettier. Lenovo signing with williams was a surprise and a great move by a shrewd operator. Thats a vault full of chinese yuan to dip into! Alonso is being forced to fit the "Dennis" mould. How well do you think it would go down if he still had his flowing locks at McLaren? not too well i think. personally i think he looks terrible with a buzz cut. But thems the breaks..apparantly Dennis is keeping em well away from booze and beatches in light of Raikkonens past drunken debauched antics. poor bastards. try telling that to david couthard. and for the record i agree Webbo will send him into retirement this year. DC's had a good run but its time for Webbo to step up and take the leaders mantle. Just so you guys know i was at Suzuka last year and had the privelage of meeting most of these guys. i had a quite a chat with Mark. Hes really as down to earth as he looks. I met Michael and he took a few minutes out to stop and chat to me. At one point he told me i talk too much but was till nice enough to sign something and have a few pics. He thought the design of my S4 nikon was cool. Ralf was definitely the more approachable of the two. He seemed much more relaxed than Michael. Alonso stopped for a minute and signed my cap and shirt. I was decked out in Renault gear, but one of the highlights was sitting in the log cabin with a pissed John Button ( jensons dad ), A chatty wine drinking Fischella, and a gorgeous canadian underwear model until 1 am! top stuff. The british journos there were a bunch of rude, but piss funny , jackasses. another nice thing was being invited into the red bull motorhome by Gerhard Berger, a man who i have immense respect for, to have a drink, a snack and a bit of a chat. i got photos of all this so when i have time ill show you what this ex pat managed to achieve.. what blew me away most, was that i got to meet schuie 1 RACE before his retirement. I couldnt believe how fortunate i was and im a guy who came from Adelaide and watched GP's all his life and i NEVER ONCE got that close! Japans great for so many different reasons. ill post pics soon.

..and he was like " i feel so alive...i feel so alive" nearly more like " i feel so dead"

thats absolutely unbelievable!! to think someone could walk away from a crash like that.. hammonds head hit the ground at 2 hundred and thirty frikkin MILES per hour! very Very VERY lucky little vegemite. i would have given it a go! ...did you hear the audience at the end applauding him???!! yeah congrats you nearly killed yourself! how bout a round of applause then eh?

bump! make sure you check out the pics! and download to your hearts content!

interesting thread. Bobo, im in a similar position as insanity mentioned and im glad you asked the question again, because the answers here seem to differ. Its the old adage.." theres more than one way to skin a cat". anyway, youve received some good advice on the Evo series and its actually cleared things up for me too. The evo has been largely overlooked by the government after getting burnt on the overpriced ( by Oz standards ) Evo 6 and 6.5 and while the GTR, supra, WRX et al have received much of the publicity ( some of the VERY negative kind ), the Evo in a way of sorts has gone under the radar and has in essence become a black sheep of the import scene. The flow on from this is that they are scarce and desirable. with that in effect, what has happened is that prices have remained quite decent. i have a copy here in Japan of unique cars Jan, 2005 and evo 4, 5 6 and 7 were fetching between 35k and 50k. prices done seem to have shifted much and in Car smile, which is a free car mag you can get from the convenience store in Japan, they have around 10 evos now between evo4 and evo6 asking for around ( once ive converted it to Oz dollars ) 12 thousand dollars! Thats dirt cheap to buy but then you have to factor in having the car here for a year and then sending it back. To house it here which can be expensive, depending on whether or not you get "shak-en" ( which is compulsory road worthiness every couple of years ) included in the deal plus all the necessary, by oz regulations, driving of the car, plus receipts on basically everything, and youre looking at between 4 and 5 thouand. Then you have to import it and that could, depending again on what you do, set you back an additional 4 or 5 thousand. all up you would have spent 12 to get plus 10 in having it there and sending it back. thats 22 thousand and could be even less if you manage to cut corners. this is all speculative because how longs a peice of string? lets say you get the thing back at 20k. it has the potential to make you AT LEAST between 10 and 15 thousand. find the right person and it could be anywhere between 15 and 20. To me and this is based on a lot of research, the Evo makes the most sense when it comes to private importing. It wont be hard to find a good 40 to 50 thousand Kms example in 4 5 6 variation for 10 to 15 thousand Oz dollars in Japan. They are largely overlooked by even the Japanese themselves. If you want a GTR for comparisons sake, just having the badge will cost you 10k!! perhaps a slight exaggeration but you see my point. ...by writing this, what ive done is cleared the matter up for myself as well! Time to start shopping! which would it be though? 4...5...6...or later?

then there was this wide body GT style soarer. It looked the biz and considering the price, these kids did a great job. yes it was rough around the edges but it still looked pretty tough.. the supra style front bar looked the goods.. nice 6 series with gullwing doors... WRC subaru fresh from the monte carlo rally mitsubishi had a pimped out version of the evo 1X the mitsu girls were pimp too... gotta love lodio drive...japanese english often makes no sense at all..

thesse calipers were made by tunng house, "parfume"...wtf? The guys that had the NATS stand are a group of studentss studying at the aussie equivalent of automotive TAFE... They had a budget, including car purchase of 1 Million yen...thats only 9 Grand!! and just check out what they managed to create within those guidelines! this used to be a run down FD.. try to guess what the donor car was.... not bad for a 9k R32, is it?

well the thread has taken off and on that note i would like to post round 2 of the photos from TAS 07'. more babes, rides and action. enjoy! oh and please dont forget to post a comment. Cheers! The chopped S2000 was wicked! Its a shame they dont make them all like this. This Celsior was one of my personal favourites. I simply could not believe the level of customization the tuners took this car to... It had basically everything, including 4 water screens, hydro's, a single seat conversion with modified accelerator pedal and 4 gullwing doors... the interior was incredible..[attachmen =77784:attachment] as i mentioned it had a few features..

yep, hes correct. the 5.0 280ps 1GZ-FE. Im sure smoky is strangling more than 1200 ps out of it and God knows how much torque..

youre welcome mate. hope the res was good enough. the salon has traditionally been held at the Makuhari Messe in Chiba which is roughly an hour and a half by train from Tokyo station. Its not hard to find and you cant really get lost because thousands of likeminded people are heading in the same direction. It will cost you about 20 dollars to get in and then its a free for all once you do... if your funny, witty enough and foreign , Japanese girls will take a likening to you. Just dont get busted with your camera up her skirt!

nice pics mate, the res didnt come out too bad. i didnt see that ogura clutch babe! she looks a lot like my ex... did you check my thread on general automotive discussions thread yet pete?

im out for tonight but ill try and post some more as soon as get time. if you appreciate the piics, leave a post! cheers.

mate how do you think i felt with my wife at the show?? there were a couple i talked to that were keen as mustard, but then wifey decided she wanted to meet me there!!

yeah too many to remember.. heres a quick sample..a full in house worked 1jz built by ARC and i couldnt help but kiss the beautiful thing.. my wife took that photo btw! it depends what sort of stuff you mean.. there were some staggering rims on offer, brake calipers and rotors from tuning houses i havent heard of, bodykits..LED tail lights are big..

check the general automotive discussion thread pete. you got internet hooked up at home again..or you pilfering from work?

oh and your opinion is based on Australian girls being better?? \......let me think about that. umm.. i dont think so.

lol i admit some of them didnt have the best teeth but they are getting better! the majority were majorly %&$#able... my wife was happy to let me take the pics too..she knows if i go any further shell chop me up!

glad you liked it. it was funny, coz i literally stumbled over it on my way out at 5pm! i couldnt believe my eyes. probably the best example ive seen out of about 8 of them. one blew past us on the highway when we were on our way to D1 at ebisu.. wild to see in the metal..

yeah its the way it goes...we take for granted what they spend their lives developing.. bvh

hope the pics soothe the pain a bit! remember theres always next year!