Diehard drift addict & HR Member Sam Holz was once again ripping up the taxpayers tarmac at this years Super GP! The four days of Super GP were said to be almost dreamlike: drifting the main streets of the Gold Coast with the cops waving at you to speed up – not slow down!

After taking some time out to recover from the post-race ‘celebrations’, we caught up with Sam for a little insight into his weekend:

The car was fitted with a matt black BN body kit from Ant @ Kaizen Garage. It had to be fitted to participate in the on track demos at the Super GP and also for thee Friday night competition (where the pics are from). Basic stickers were added to ‘spice’ the car up a bit too. New diff gears were also added two weeks before the event due to damaging the old ones. With only limited choice of a solitary diff centre, I had to go with a somewhat odd 4.8 ratio which was a big step from the 3.9 I’ve been running for what seems forever. All in all, the car held up well and with high temps on track, a water cooling setup was added at the last minute. In typical 86 fashion, we just moved the windscreen sprayer lines to the front to cool the oil cooler and radiator. It was budget but it worked – and well!  The throttle was sticking on full throttle all night at the comp and making things interesting but that was fixed for the GP with some backyard spacing and adding a large return spring to the throttle.

We’re you there to see it? If not, the boys should be at it again next year, so keep and eye on the Super GP website.  Hit the jump for more pics!

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Just like Sebastian Vettel at this weekends Japanese Grand Prix, Mark Rogers stood atop the winners podium having taken out the win at the fourth round of the Specialised Performance Garage Tasmanian Drift Series. Everyone here at HR congratulates you Mark, and are super proud to see that distinctive icon adorn the bonnet of your 3S-powered beast!

Thursday night, I was at home doing nothing special and a call came through from DK admin and HR blogger Mr Beauman Jones. “Hey what are you doing Saturday?” Nothin’.

“I’m going to check out this this guys sprinter with an SR20 in it. Its one of the first with an SR engine in it, wanna come?”. Cool I’m down for that!

So after a bit of stuffing around and going the right direction we end up at Bob’s house. Bob is a mature aged man, or as he puts it “An old bastard”, who has had his AE86 for the last nine years.

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Local Brisbane HR member and all round good guy Hao got down to the event last weekend to snap a few shots off (all before his camera running out of battery power…) and i must say it’s a pretty impressive turnout.  Catering to all kinds of Japanese cars, both young and old, the Brisbane All-Japan Day was a huge success! Good job on a fairly impressive turnout from the AE86 scene up in Brisbane. Represent!

Check out the photos here, or just the ’86 related ones after the jump!

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Today we have the first of a few interviews on the people behind the HR blog.  Adam is one of the driving forces behind HR Blog’s editorial content and specifically the writer of the much loved AE86 Tuning Guide. We catch up and talk shop with a die-hard member of the ‘AE86 For Life’ crew.

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Four months of solid work has paid huge dividends for Mark Rogers, who has been building his 3S-GTE powered AE86 in preparation for Saturday’s second round of the Specialised Performance  Garage Tasmanian Drift Series. It was the car’s debut event and what a debut it was!

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Possibly the most outspoken and in your face person in the Aussie AE86 scene, Beauman Jones, son of legendary hot-rod builder and multiple-time Summernats Champion Mark ‘FAT57‘ Jones, gives HR Blog a few minutes to fill us in on his new project: DriftKulture.

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Tom from Perth sends in his flying two-wheeled Kung-Fu style. Got a tip or a car you want featured? Email us! blog(at)hachiroku.com.au

Our first HR Victoria monthly meet of 2009! This month we just planed to have a low key meet which included some beers at one of my favourite cafes called Cafe Garage. Its the only place I know of where you can park your car inside the cafe! Beers flowed and everyone had a blast. Festivities were followed by a photo-shoot at the top of South Melbourne Market with us hoping to catch the skyline of Melbourne as the backdrop. Unfortunately we got there too late and it was to dark to take any good photos, but we did manage to get one decent photo! (Thanks Peter!)

Stay tuned for next months HR Victoria monthly meet which will involve some cruising on one of the twisty roads around Victoria….

While everyone else on the blog team was up in Queensland at the 86 Annual, I was stuck back here in Sydney due to a university exam on the Monday. However, on the Sunday I made the trip out to Oran Park for the Improved Production Racing Association (IPRA) Nationals.

I was pretty excited as I really wanted to see Chris O’Shannessy car in person and i was very impressed. It was definitely one of the best presented cars and the stroked 1888cc 4A-GE sounded amazing going around the track. Chris had a great weekend finishing up second in Under 2L class and finished 12th outright (out of 80 cars) in the final 18 lapping after starting in 30th place due to some car issues in earlier heats.

You can check out some shots of the car in action after the jump.

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