Final Bout SSE 2021 Look Book

Final Bout SSE is in less than a week so it makes sense to post 2021's coverage before that. Originally I wasn't going to make a blog post for this event because I lost my film rolls I shot and my SD card corrupted so I lost a lot of digital pictures, but it's a shame to leave them on my hard drive forever so rather than a complete coverage, this will be more of a disjointed collection of pictures from the event.

Better late than never!

2021's event was held at Thompson Speedway in Thompson, Connecticut, my home track on the Clubhouse Circuit. Clubhouse was designed within the original road course specifically for drifting.

Simba trailered his S13 all the way out from Chicago for the event to be the Final Bout ambassador. Seeing him tear around was rad! It's always exciting watching him drive.

Ford's S550 generation Mustang is slowly creeping into drift events around the country and I'm excited about it. This gen sports the most universally appreciated styling of all the modern Mustangs and don't need much to accentuate that style. Powertrain options range from a powerful stock 5.0 V8 to a super tunable 2.3 Ecoboost. The V6 option is gross. A small turbo engine doesn't feel very muscle car, but it does give the feel of a Japanese FR sports car. Hoping to see more cool looking ones like this at events in the future as prices drop.

Luke Zawistowski came through in his Sil80 running an SR20DET as God intended sat over Bridgestone BIM ZEIT Version RRs.

Bosstown was represented by PJ Prendergast in his ex-Sexy Knights FC3S wearing BN Sports aero and OG TE37s. This is a car he bought and drifted in Japan before shipping it stateside to add to his collection of FR machines.

Jake Henriques of Street Heat was running his GP Sports/Vertex mashup S13 hatch. The Select Speed Shop manifold he runs on his SR was creating music out on track all day.

All three of these Street Heat cars run SR20DETs!

Timmy LaQue's weapon of a Cressida has evolved into a potent machine! Low and long with Serial9 Type 1 aero, a favorite of mine for the chassis, over Work VS-XX and Work XD9s. Motivating this X8 is a 1JZGTE making about 400whp; enough to tear ass for sure!

David Bob, owner of Futago Line and representing Auto Real Dream, was tearing it up rocking his own aero line.

Also of Auto Real Dream, Nick was flinging his BEAMS AE86 hard around Clubhouse all day throwing down. This was one of the last events before he sold it for an imported FD3S.

Auto Real Dream has a cool take on matching team cars. All four radiate the same aura without being replicas of each other. All four run a different take on the dark color, bright wheels scheme and seem to draw inspiration from similar eras.

Diego and Sebastian both have two of the coolest IS300s stateside for sure. Coolest on the east coast at the very least. Both ooze style in a way that can't be replicated by just copying a build list.

KC's JZX90 Mark II is a pretty tough representation of the chassis. Before being brought stateside, it was a drift car that saw regular streeting in Japan. Blitz Technospeed Z1s, another Blitz wheel people are unfortunately being reminded of, reside underneath the flares. Buy a set now, kids. I don't know how long prices will stay "reasonable."

Dave O'Leary's S13 is a crisp example of a good street car.

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Cutting Room Floor