Everyone is entitled to a 10 minute break/Smoke break. My buddy Josh at work and I decided to take the term ‘Smoke Break’ into another form…a bit healthier.
Both of us are Supercharged now, we initially came out to take photos of our cars, but then I sweet talked him into letting me do some fancy driving around his car…took more coaxing than you would think!
Thanks Josh!
-Melissa Miller
Generationz
Generationz
Generationz
Generationz
Video taken by Billy Buzbee
Man in video running and owner of supercharged 370Z; Josh Gains
Saying we were going to change the complete paint job/livery AND install a GTM Supercharger and all that goes with it in less than 10 weeks was going to be extremely challenging. I wanted it to be ready to drift at the DriftKitchen event in Memphis. We all set goals, some are easier than others to obtain, I got laughed at when I set this one. All in all, we did it. We completed everything but the final color sand and buff on the car. I still cant Thank Chris Waters, Tom Sippel, Kristy Sippel, Daulton Cockerell, Russ Rana, Country-ass Jon, and Z1 Motorsports enough for getting this done!
The Drift Kitchen Event was really fun, smaller track, more technical than fast, and the girls were all super supportive of everyone else. There was even a little gift bag and snail mailed thank you for coming!
Thanks girls for getting this event together and making my ‘break in’ event so much fun!
Every time we go to Memphis we have to hang with our Memphis Z club friends. Really great group of people I’d like to think of as an extended family. Thank You Burch and Erin for letting us stay with you guys! Your house/Garage set up is inspiring!
Out with the old
Out with the old
…In with the new
…In with the new
Neon pink pops!
Supercharger going in!
The teardown
Coming back together
A little wrapping
Hardest panel to wrap
Finished product
Rainbow flake in the paint
Locked and Loaded!
Ready to go to Memphis!
DriftKitchen Drift event/All girls!
Killing tires.
Start them young!
BFF’s
Memphis Z peeps
Photos and Video taken by Melissa Miller and Chris Waters.
Drone footage in the beginning of video by Tom Sippel
This year ZDAYZ for us started in San Diego, stopped in Tucson AZ for Mothers Day to visit my mom, went off-roading in her new jeep, then off to Dallas.
West Texas is not for pussies. Going eastbound there was a series of potholes and raised ground… avoiding one patch of shitty road led us directly into another patch of even shittier road. We got a bit of air in the Z and then lost all tire pressure in the left rear tire. The Drag Wheel was perfect, not even a bend, just a tear in the sidewall.
In Fort Worth we stayed with a long time friend of mine John Gamble and his girlfriend, caught up on his recent move and crashed at his house. From there, the next morning we visited my Z32 that Mitch from EP Racing has rebuilt and was at Wireworks Performance for the tune, took some pictures to let people know the car still exists and it is still mine 😉 and headed out to Dallas where we met up with Billy, Vince and the guys ant Courtesy Nissan, grabbed lunch, and headed out to Birmingham, AL to stay with Todd and Nicole Weld.
Once in Birmingham Nicole and I stood in the grass for .5 minutes while we watched Chris Waters wash my Z when I got so many mosquito bites that my ankles formed kankles—tmi? nahhhh.
Leaving Birmingham with Chris, Todd, Nicole, and Amanda, our next stop… ZDAYZ.
ZDAYZ this year was a little bit mellower than years past, maybe i’m getting older, maybe everyone else is getting a little older, maybe a combination. The Z1 Deck party was still awesome as usual… got a little rowdy at midnight when a couple cars turned on in the parking lot and started rev’ing and shooting flames-thats how I knew I wasn’t in CA anymore…Freedom…’Murica… yah.
Chris Forsberg showed up with his rig of awesome. He brought his 240Z, NOS 370Z FD car, and the really mean M45 and took out the 370Z out for a little drifting in Fontana Village streets.
At the start of this trip to Willow Springs I had a series of unfortunate events, which started turning around. Cruising up from San Diego to Lancaster I’m cruising up the 2-lane highway and hit a tire-which surprisingly keeps my front lip in one piece, but takes the paint off of it 😦 We make it to the hotel the day before the event, and everything was fine, wake up the next morning and I’ve got a flat tire… which means drift spares are going on…less tires to cruise on during the event! We start driving to Willow Springs from the hotel in Lancaster and there was a cop that was going the opposite way as me, noticed i was speeding a little bit (flat tire made me late for the event so I had to hurry!) and turned around to start following me on the freeway…. I managed to downshift and slow the car down enough so by the time he actually did get behind me and follow me for a few miles he realized I wasn’t going to do anything wrong and got back on the median and busted a U-turn…phewww!
Overall this event once we got there was a blast. Much more structured than the usual drift events I’d been in attendance to. I only had the tires at this point that I had rolled in on for the whole day of drift and to get me the 4+hour drive back to San Diego. Horse Thief is a much faster track than just your basic parking lot event or skid pad, so conserving tires was hard… Some straits I wouldn’t manji and I would just cruise, and other times I would go all out. At the end of the day, my last run I ended up hearing “THUD THUD THUD THUD” on the second to last corner…oops… i babied myself off track, took a razor blade I had in the car for times like these and cut off the excess tire tread, packed up the car, and went home. I basically closed my eyes, crossed my fingers and hoped that everything would be OK and I would make it home safe.
Drift Buffet is back! When Terry Henderson moved to China quite a few years ago, he left all of us grassroots drivers without his great events too.
Well, 2015 is the return of Drift Buffet! Thanks to Bryan Rogers for the resurrection of these great events. The first one was a smashing (no pun intended) success.
Here are a few photos from the event:
(Picture creds to Tyler Barnick, Chris Waters, Limuell Casinio, Myself, and Rachel Hernandez)
Knowing it was going to be close if the Z32 would be ready or not…
1. Buy plane tickets to Texas.
2. Fly to Texas to pick up race car aka Z32 from EPRacing.
3. Bring car to the Tail of the Dragon for ZDAYZ.
What actually happened;
1. Get notice Sunday that the car was not going to be ready.
2. Ditch plane tickets.
3. Pack up the 350Z
4. Start driving one hour later
Passing a few states, visiting my mom on Mothers Day in Arizona, getting into Dallas Monday.
Visiting the guys at Courtesy Nissan, getting the Z washed, and grabbing some lunch with them on my quest to find the road trips best BBQ we went to Bone Daddy’s… super good food, and for the fellas there were scantily clad dressed women.
Needing to kill a few hours we took the Z to a few spots and did a photo shoot around Mckinney and Plano;
(photo credit-Chris Waters)
Getting an invite from Billy at Courtesy to come to Mad Mikes house for a BBQ/party we decided to stay another day in Dallas. The next morning we cruised out bright and early with Mad Mike and Tetsu from Japan who were both also going to ZDAYZ.
We parted ways with Mike and Tetsu around the Birmingham area and we headed north while they headed towards Z1. We made it to Chattanooga Tennessee later that night and met up with the guys and gals from Louisiana and cruised up with them for the rest of the road trip to Tail of the Dragon. Stopping at a Walmart on the way for some necessities.
Once we got to Fontana Villiage we didn’t waste any time getting into the Moonshine
A few rolling around ZDAYZ pictures;
Cant forget Beer-limpics… well i’m sure some did.
A couple shots around Deals Gap and The Dragon;
(First three photos courtesy of Killboy)
Here is the #Selfie video if by chance you haven’t seen it yet… I’d like to think of it as a funny video yearbook of what really happens at ZDAYZ;
Since the Dam Photo was cancelled due to weather, we decided to venture off and check it out and take a few photos as well…
And who can forget Nissan making the 2015 Nismo 370Z debut at ZDAYZ!! (Those seats are to die for)
Before leaving Sunday morning, Aaron-winner of the best tape job and I cruised by the dam and did a few donuts around him.
The day we left, we cruised out with the Memphis Z Club and took more pictures. Once we got to Memphis we got some amazing BBQ.
Cruising out of Memphis back to Ft Worth were I visited Mitch at EPRacing… oh yeah and my race car 😀 It’s so close!!!
The next day I started my long journey from Ft Worth back to Phoenix where I was going to be drifting in a Car Street Journal event, but it got postponed until June. Instead of sitting around, we decided to go to the big car show that happens every weekend at the Scottsdale Pavilions. Met up with Shane Schuller, Simon Parsons, Nicole Ellan, and Rebecca Nguyen.
It all started yesterday when my hands got the itch to paint something. So I started sanding my roof and rear view mirrors and thought to myself ‘how can I make this super badass?’ LACE.
So this was my first 626Drift event, and it was a blast! Some new faces, and some familiar, it was good to catch up with everyone and lay some skids! I didn’t have much time so take pictures of everything, (I’ll try harder next time) but here are some pictures mainly taken by Julien Thiebaud and Chris Waters on video.
If you’ve never drifted before, and want to give it a go… or if your a super awesome drifter and want to do some multi car tandems and just eff around, come out! No excuses! My 350Z I took out is riding on stock suspension…the only modification done to it currently is a welded diff.
MelissaDrifts.com 