2nd place ended up going to Michihiro Takatori in the Autobacs R34 Skyline, and Drift Alliance member Ryan Tuerck took 3rd in his Maxxis Tire sponsored Pontiac Solstice.

Be sure to check out our full gallery from the weekend here (big thanks to Brady Stribling for the photos)

First, a couple of shots from the S3 booth in the pit. Our good friend Marcos of southeastdrift.com was cool enough to let us use his amazing S13 coupe in the booth and it managed to grab a ton of attention. LS1 powered, 18×10/18×12 Weds Wheels, and just about everything else makes it pretty insane. I brought my personal SR-powered S14 out as well, although staring at it next to Marcos’ car all day just made me want to abandon my wheels and SR20 for something a bit different. Anyone wanna buy my stuff?

Next, a few of the memorable cars/drivers from the top 16 seeded practice.

Vaughn Gittin Jr. was tearing it up all day in his Falken sponsored Mustang until a mechanical issue towards the end of the day. Hopefully it will be straightened out by tomorrow, we all predict good things from him this weekend if the car holds up.

Conrad Grunewald’s C5 Corvette was one of my favorites to watch for the day. The sound this car makes is all out evil, and again contributed to my desire to shove a good ol’ American V8 into my 240.

2007′s overall champion Tanner Foust was performing very well as usual and seems to be off to a good start for the year after a 3rd place finish a few weeks back in Long Beach.

Ken Gushi made it out in his new RWD converted Scion tC, although he seemed to be struggling with mechanical issues throughout the day and only made a few passes. We hope these get taken care of tomorrow as this car will surely be interesting to watch in competition.

Current points leader Chris Forsberg seemed to be having no problems with the track or car today and was driving extremely well. After winning Round 1 in Long Beach and the Atlanta round last year, he’ll definitely be a tough competitor.

Darren McNamara’s new RHD V8 powered Saturn Sky was unique and entertaining to watch.

After a few years of driving various S-chassis cars, Dai Yoshihara has moved on to join team RMR and is now piloting Rhys Millen’s old Pontiac GTO. Dai seemed to be taking to the car very well though, and will likely put on a good show during tomorrow’s competition.

Kenji Yamanaka’s new S15 came out sporting an awesome Mazzora color-shifting paint job that I really enjoyed.

Overall, today was a good start to a fun filled weekend up at Road Atlanta. Even though we don’t have any shots up from the unseeded qualifying, the results for it were as follows:

1 Rhys Millen: 95.00
2 Hiro Sumida: 93.33
3 Stephan Verdier: 92.33
4 Tony Brakohiapa: 89.92
5 Robbie Nishida: 89.92
6 Blake Fuller : 89.08
7 Tyler McQuarrie: 87.25
8 Seigo Yamamoto: 86.67
9 Pat Mordaunt : 85.17
10 Tony Angeleo: 85.00
11 Stephan Papadakis: 85.00
12 Dan Willie: 83.92
13 Brian Peter: 81.33
14 Henry Schelley: 81.33
15 Taka Aono: 80.67
16 Ross Petty : 80.67

Be sure to check back soon for more pictures and a run down of how Saturday’s main event goes.

The DA crew before the start of their film:

Myself and the rest of the DriftMechaniks crew showed up in full force and with proper bladed weaponry.

A quick glance at the screen during the start of the movie:

S3′s man of action and photographer, Brady Stribling, with his wife Jessica afterwards:

My opinions on the film:

And finally Jonathan after it was all done:

Awesome movie and evening overall (except for me taking my fully drifted out S14 to the movie and having to drive it home in pouring rain with no wipers or AC/defrost, but oh well). If you haven’t checked it out yet, you can pick up Stay Hungry at the DA Shop. Also, thanks to the Wrecked guys for hosting the event.

Anyway – here are some pics. And congrats to the Mahdavi crew for the victory. And thanks to the Mahdavi crew for their good sportsmanship on the show… and for representing The ATL with style and grace.

Sam Memmolo from Two Guys’ Garage

Mahdavi Motorsports – looking in

…show’s about to start

Pablo & beer

Sam Mahdavi looking presidential… as long as you ignore the plastic fork/knife/napkin package.

Here we see some of the goods while still in the warehouse section of the store. Note that the cool mini palm tree had to be abandoned today (we probably could have gotten it but it would have had to sit in my lap), however we’ll surely be back for it soon.

Around this point, we were starting to get seriously worried about all of this stuff fitting in Wooley’s cruiser, but continued anyhow. Made it through the checkout after about 15 minutes (we had this ordeal of wanting to use part cash/part credit card, and apparently the “real people” lanes don’t accept cash. This left us in the self checkout lane which wouldn’t read my credit card, but finally got help and got it all taken care of). Anyhow, finally got our goods down to the parking garage and quickly realized that the zebra couch was a bit too long for the PT. No worries, I had some MacGyver tactics up my sleeve and quickly grabbed up a few of the nice fabric Ikea bags I saw sitting on a shopping cart. With a little help from my multi-purpose pocket tool, I chopped off the cloth handles, ghetto rigged them together with some terrible knots, and managed to secure everything in the vehicle.

I was fairly certain that my rigging wouldn’t exactly hold, but amazingly enough we made it all the way back to Buford with no incidents. Upon our arrival there, we assembled the couch, coffee table, and side table, and got the beachy hang out room in the new place looking decent.

We’ll hopefully be returning soon for a second couch and a few other odds and ins (possibly a sandbox and hammock?) so check back soon to see the progress.

Anyhow, figured we’d start this off with news of us moving to our new office. For the last 2 years, we’ve been renting a 5000+ sq. ft. basement in historic downtown Buford, GA, however we’ve decided it’s time to move on. The basement has a certain neat style to it, but sort of lacks heat, air conditioning, windows, among other things, and is way more room than we need. It’s also gotten to be a bit of a wreck over the years so in place of actually cleaning, we decided that moving would be a better option.

Our new home is pretty much right on top of our current office, and is a 2nd story space in a late 1800′s building on Main Street in downtown Buford. Even though it’s a smaller area, it’s laid out much better and has 6 individual rooms, windows, working heat and A/C, and a bit more style. There’s even a big hang out room that features an awesome beach wall print which we’re already enjoying. Check out the pics below, or click here to go to the gallery and see even more. Be sure to check back soon as we’ll be documenting the move over the next few weeks.