After walking the Formula Drift pits on Thursday afternoon, I headed over to Type S Night Lights with hours of daylight still left. The April edition of this meet drew around 30,000 people to the Aquarium of the Pacific garage, and once a crowd like that fills a parking structure there’s no clean angle on anything, so I shot as much of the 400 Garage as I could before the doors opened at 6 p.m. and the show cars were still sitting alone on their levels. The result is Night Lights coverage with the sun still up, which is why you’ll see concrete and daylight instead of neon in the photos below.
Night Lights is Larry Chen’s meet, hosted by Type S, the LED lighting and accessories brand, with Pennzoil presenting and Toyota Gazoo Racing USA, ST Suspensions, Magnuson Superchargers, and Formula Drift as partners. This edition ran Thursday, October 22 from 6 to 10 p.m. at 400 E. Seaside Way as the official lead-in to the Shoreline Showdown, free to spectators, with Formula Drift ticket holders let in half an hour early. Chen is Formula Drift’s official series photographer, so the meet doubles as a reunion for the paddock, and a good number of the competition cars I had just photographed in the pits were parked in the garage by the time I got there, alongside a show field that covered about everything you could think of from the tuner, drift, and import side.
The one thing I missed was Larry’s Accord, which was set to debut once the event officially kicked off, and I had to leave before then. If it turns up around the Formula Drift paddock this weekend I’ll shoot it there. If not, it’s Larry’s car, so there will be no shortage of photos of it online by the time you read this.
Coverage of the Shoreline Showdown weekend, including Thursday’s pit walk, is sponsored by Enjuku Racing.
GalleryPhotos by Jason Siu
