Things Eye Have Seen

  

  Since I have not been to any car shows lately, and am concentrating mostly on working on my own Car. I decided to share these pictures I have taken lately. Most have been shared through Instagram using #AsEyeSeeThings and some on Facebook. www.facebook.com/AsEyeSeeThings 

  These are some of the sunrise, and Skylines, and some shots of cool cars, and some cool angles I have found on some. I also really like how some of the same shots, are never really the same.

 I hope you guys enjoy these shots! 

- A.K

Time of My Life

  Ever since the O'reilly's SMMCN/TCI Autocross event i went to last March (http://www.AsEyeSeeThings.com/2014/03/a-great-day-at-races.html) and went for a ride-a-long with Robert Byrd (The Racing Byrds), and then the week after when we went to the first of the Hotchkis Autocross events, and this time going on a ride-a-long with Aaron from Hotchkis in the E-Max Challenger (http://www.AsEyeSeeThings.com/2014/04/i-officially-hooked.html). I've been looking forward to, and working on my El Camino to be able to enter my first race.
  I had been enjoying our many canyon carving cruises with some of my buddies, through the Santa Monica Mountains and Malibu canyons up to this point. I felt like those were a great learning start point on how my El Camino handles and responds to the hills and turns. If I only knew how much it would actually help me for the Autocross, I would have tried to be up there every weekend!!
  The most important fact i learned after running through the cones this past Sunday, is that I have a lot to learn! But more importantly I also learned what i need to learn for starters, which i think is the most valuable lesson. Not just to where my car is lacking from grip on my old Radial tires, which was pretty obvious right away,  to the need for more power (I think everybody feels that way Hahaa!) but to work on getting my timing better on entering a turn and coming in to hot and loosing the apex, and when to get back on the gas coming out of it toward a straight away, and how to control the car's balance by using the gas instead of just relying on the brakes and steering.
  Those are just a few of the thoughts going through my mind since the event. There's way to many to list here, but believe me there will be a lot more "Learning Experiences" for me!
  I didn't spend to much time taking to many pictures this weekend, and some of the pictures, and video posted up here were taken by my Wife (My Biggest Supporter!), my buddy Ismael,  and also Trish Byrd (The Racing Byrds) who i would also like to Thank, along with her husband Robert Byrd for all their support. and not to forget to mention all my old, and new found friends alike for  their motivation and encouragement.

p.s. - I think it was really cool that Rita W. won the Hotchkis cup for overall most consistent best time for the weekend!
-A.K.

Motor4Toys - H-Team Cruise

  I headed out early this past Sunday morning, to meet up with the Hotchkis H-Team going to the "Motor4Toys" car show in Woodland Hills. Ironically enough, after about 10 minutes of driving up the 405 fwy my exhaust hangar broke again! The same one as when we were driving out to the Hotchkis open house. I couldn't do anything, but just laugh as I pulled off the freeway. I still had the steel cable my friend had made for me (as a security latch for the hood) which I used last time, and said I'd always keep it in the car. I just wrapped it up around the trailing arm and got back on my way.
  I got to the meeting place at about 6:15am and drove in to the car show with the H-Team guys. As we pulled up I was amazed at the size of the event, and amount of cars that were there. I'd say at least several hundred cars, and by 8am I'd guess 1000+ cars. Not to forget to mention 3 helicopters! What I really liked was that there were all different types of cars, and car clubs. From exotics, supercars, vintage, muscle cars, and everything in between. The best part of the day was after leaving the event, I went along with the H-Team guys on their 62 mile canyon carving cruise through the beautiful Santa Monica Mountains (Thank You to H-Team member Jon B. for planning out such a fun course). Which I did with the muffler dragging and scraping on the dips, and hard right turns. Hahaa!! But I didn't want to miss out on that drive, so I just went for it!
  At the show I focused on taking pics of mostly the muscle cars, and a couple that really caught my eye.
I hope you enjoy these pics.

P.S. - I got an old film camera I started playing with, so I'm going to make a part 2 of this post with those pics if they came out good.

-A.K.