After spending half a day driving 800+ miles and surviving off of food at rest stops and convenient stores, then another half a day post-processing the photos to go with it, everything is finally done. This trip was definitely a great experience, something I probably wouldn’t have thought of doing on my own. I was fortunate to travel with Rod (http://autongraphic.blogspot.jp/), Casey (http://shirtstuckedin.com/), Park (http://high-top-fade.blogspot.jp/), and their friends Curtis and Charles on by far the longest and fastest road-trip I’ve ever done. Everything would have been perfect if the mirror inside my 5D didn’t break halfway through the show. I managed to continue shooting with it, but it was a tedious process of having to remove the lens to reposition the mirror into its correct location after every shot. Some of the shots I’m using came from my point-and-shoot Canon Powershot S95, so see if you can spot the difference.

Hellaflush Kansai was ridiculous (in a good way). So many quality cars came together, similar to last year’s HF carshow at Fuji Speedway in Kanto region. It was crazy to see how far some cars traveled to come to the show. There were 2 cars I remembered from the last HF show, which caught me by surprise when I realized they were both under a fresh new coat of paint from the last time I saw them.

–Black to Maroon E46, last year he took Best Euro at HF Japan and unfortunately cracked his transmission casing coming out of the parking lot.

–Red to Lime Green Z4

The talk of the show seemed to be the 326 Power cars; their Silvia’s are amazing. It’s just intriguing how low they roll on coilovers. It’s definitely something that can only be done in Japan with all its perfect roads.

Being a “Honda guy” I couldn’t help but drool over this Forest-Green Odyssey. I’m sure every US Honda enthusiast would kill to build a car like this back in the states. Everything about this wagon was so perfect and well done. The wheel fitment was on point and the bodywork was clean. I already anticipated this car taking home a trophy and it ended up taking 1st Place VIP.

There were just so many great builds, it’s difficult to mention all of them. I’ll just let the pictures speak for themselves. Mark definitely knows how to throw a good show, thanks and congrats to him for another successful Hellaflush Japan event.