When I hear the word ‘Mfest’ I immediately think BMW’s. However, I learned this weekend that ‘Mfest’ was more than just cars. It was about family and community. I met Chris last summer randomly during Wekfest SF (in San Jose) through some mutual friends I had with him. I was blown away by how friendly he was. Later that night we reconnected to photograph his Off-White Liberty Walk BMW E92 M3. He wanted a specific silhouette done to the car to match a shirt he had made. After he saw the photos he asked if I could come out and photograph MFEST VIII (2014). I had never done a caravan/car show combination before, so I thought this would be an excellent opportunity to meet some awesome people and share my love for cars with other enthusiasts. When the time rolled around to get everything organized I was extremely excited while I had no idea what to expect. My friend (pilot) and I drove down from San Jose, CA on Thursday evening and slept in one of the smallest motels I’ve ever been in. We only were able to get four hours of sleep since the call time for the West LA meetup was 4:30am. Once we arrived in the darkness at the Bad News bear field, we saw a myriad of colored LED’s lighting up the paths in front of the parking spots the cars sat in. They were all parked with their back end in of course and the owners were standing around them.
The atmosphere at the mini-meet was slightly awkward.
Many of the guys were standing in smaller groups around their cars.
Once Chris arrived at the meet, everyone woke up and came to attention when they realized it was finally time to start. Chris brought everyone together to brief everyone what was going to happen on the drive. He told us we were to stay in the ‘slow lane’ while only going 65 MAX. We did EXACTLY THAT. We started rolling out around 5:30am.
Chris’ E60 M5
Chris explaining to everyone to stay in the ‘slow lane’
From the Bad News Bear field, there were about 30 cars that started the drive to Barstow. You could tell everyone was excited to start the caravan. Everyone was revving their engines and doing small burnouts as they left the lot. We entered Interstate 10 and mobbed with a group of atleast 90 MFEST cars in our immediate vicinity. Even as we were driving towards our first stop in Barstow, there were BMW drivers stopped on the side of the freeway waiting for us to catch up.
Green lights ahead ^_^
BMW’s….BMW’s everywhere.
SLEK designs brought out their Z4 and M3 (not pictured) to MFEST
As we were driving, cars were doing highway pulls and driving pretty erratically however it was in a controlled fashion. There were NO incidents that occurred on the way to Vegas. We stopped in Barstow around 10am for breakfast. That is where you could really see the full extent of the BMW crowd. The majority of cars at the show were E46’s and E92 M3’s however in that mix was a large amount of E60 M5’s. All of the cars at the show were modified to some extent. They all had a mixture of cosmetic modifications such as rims, lowering springs, or aerodynamic parts and performance parts. Many of the cars were customized to specifically be for the show, however there were a few that were modified for both the street and track.
“Fast Food”
The caravan crowd.
The local authorities came to check out what the lot had to offer. They only took cell phone photos.
Carninja and Ted7 photography were present to help organize and photograph all of the different cars and activities
During the caravan we drove past a group of bikers who enjoyed our large group of modified BMW’s.
Vinny brought out his MRG R8 for the caravan.
After leaving Barstow we had a fast one hour of driving to finish in order to arrive at Las Vegas. Everyone parked inside an ‘MFEST’ parking lot in the Palazzo hotel garage. We had to enter a different way than usual because they had raised the speed bumps in the original entrance by three inches. While everyone was checking in, I went to the drag strip to help Chris prep for the drag races.
The entire MFEST group at the Jean exit before entering Vegas
The police showed up while we were at the Jean, LV exit preparing to enter Las Vegas. They came to check in with our activities for the weekend.
By 6pm, everyone was starting to show up at the drag strip. Cadillac was at the strip giving away shirts after participants filled out a quick survey. Once Participants started filing in to the staging area, you could feel the anticipation everyone was feeling waiting for the first car.
The new corvette stingray came out to release some ponies on the drag strip
Ironically, the first car was a classic modified E30 chassis. It had wider tires mounted to the rear and a modified engine. The fastest car on the track was the Shift Sector M5. It finished the quarter mile in about 11.4. The day on the drag strip ended around sunset where everyone packed up and went home. As we were leaving we saw a man draining a liquid from a white and green Mercedes C63 AMG. We went up to speak with him and he explained that he was flushing out the car’s coolant system.
Finally after learning about the Mercedes we went back to the hotel and slept…FOREVER. Just kidding, we had to be up at 5:30am the next day. The day started early, but the cars didn’t start rolling in until 11am however, there were non-BMW’s that were being prepped for the track around 7am.We set up very close to the drag strip next to the road track.
A giant Cadillac tent was the anchor for the parking lot right next to the MFEST tent which housed a Center BMW table and an MFEST souvenir table as well.
During the day participants could walk around and enjoy the well thought out modifications of each vehicle, watch other car enthusiasts track their cars, enjoy food from the nearby food truck, and meet other people passionate about cars.
Midway through the day, Cadillac drivers brought out their track ready CTS-V’s to race with the other track cars. They were easily the loudest vehicles on the track. Not only were they the loudest, they were also incredibly fast. The majority of them were passing the other cars on the track. Eventually the Cadillacs had the track all to themselves with the addition of Cadillac’s sponsored race driver Jonny O’Connell.
At the end of the day,Chris gave a speech to all of the participants thanking them for coming out, some all the way from Chicago. He explained, that the end of the day even though we drive different cars, we are all automotive enthusiasts. Chris hopes to expand MFEST beyond BMW’s and wants to include other car makes join them all the way from Los Angeles on the caravan.
Feel free to follow my adventures: @brosumi on instagram and twitter!
