June 5, 2010. Wall, New Jersey. Vaughn Gittin Jr. battles Daijiro Yoshihara in the 2010 Formula Drift Round 3 final.

For this year’s Formula Drift race at Wall, NJ I was privileged to be shooting for two publications. After a lot of fun down in Atlanta, AutoImportCraze asked me to keep the streak alive and provide shots from the other East coast event on the calendar. You can check out the full gallery of shots here: http://www.autoimportcraze.com/coverage2.php?menu=3&Warn=0&ShowID=561&car=1.

June 5, 2010. Wall, New Jersey. Yoshihara, Gittin, and Foust (middle, left, right) made up this year's podium for the 2010 Formula Drift Round 3 event.

The other publication was Drifted.com. I was contacted by Alex Quail not long before the race, and asked to provide not only photos but also editorial coverage. I enjoy writing about motorsports almost as much as photographing it (hence this blog), so it was a no brainer to hop on board as a contributor.

I crafted six posts going over the whole weekend, and adding a few words of praise for APEX’i/Hankook driver Ryuji Miki. A link to each is below.

1. Welcome to Wall
2. Qualifying Results
3. Ryuji Miki’s Past Rides
4. Ryuji Miki’s New Lexus SC Drift Car
5. The Main Event
6. Crash Still-frame Video

Be sure to browse the rest of the site and show them some love in the comments. Alex and Jord have assembled a great crew of photographers and film makers from around the world. I am honored to add to the USA perspective.

Click past the jump for a few more of my favorites from the weekend.

June 4, 2010. Wall, New Jersey. Ryan Tuerck takes a practice run in his Pontiac Solstice GXP drift car.

June 4, 2010. Wall, New Jersey. Ken Gushi duels with Conrad Grunewald as the sun sets over the track at Wall.

June 5, 2010. Wall, New Jersey. Rhys Millen tries to keep up with Samuel Hubinette's Challenger around the figure eight Wall Speedway circuit.

June 5, 2010. Wall, New Jersey. Darren McNamara sliding the tail of his Falken Tires Saturn Sky drift car.

The new opening tiles for Andrew Jennings' Portfolio

I’m happy to announce that I recently completed a refresh of this humble website. I actually started showcasing my photography on the domain Andrew-Jennings.com back in the summer of 2005. The five year anniversary just passed, and I figured it was a good time to update it with a new look, some added content, and functionality.

The big news is new portfolios. As you can see from the image above, I have doubled the number of portfolios that are now showcased on the site from three to six, now accessed through a mouse-over menu on the top right. The automotive portion has been broken into four subgroups: Transportation, Motorsports, Drifting, and Auto Shows. To make each worth while, new images from some of my most recent work have also been added (some never before seen on the web!). The Entertainment and Travel portfolios are virtually unchanged, for now. I have plans for both of those in the future too, so keep an eye out for them to grow and evolve with my work.

The other news is a revamp to the blog. The old one had a more stand-alone feel. It was an adaptation of a pretty basic WordPress theme to tide me over as I got used to posting. The layout you see before you still uses the underpinnings of that original Plainscape theme, but has been heavily recoded to fit the overall brand feel that I want to convey. Mobile phone users should also be greeted to the new WPTouch app that I installed on here to make the experience simpler for small screens. There are still some things that I intend to clean up, such as the look of the menu on the right, but nothing that should impede your regularly scheduled programming.

If you’ve had a chance to familiarize yourself with the new site, I would be glad to hear any and all feedback in the comments here. For aspiring web designers, if you are interested in how I did it, let me know that too. If I get enough requests that may prompt me to write some detailed posts about my process, from conceptualizing, to coding and testing.

Thanks as always for visiting this site and viewing my work. Here’s to another five years of great fun and photos to come.

As I mentioned in my live blog, after some funky cover music from a conveniently-named band called “The Rays,” Kia unveiled their Ray plug-in hybrid concept car at the 2010 Chicago Auto Show. But the story doesn’t end there. I’ve been to enough press conferences to know that generally they follow the same formula: a company executive comes on stage to wax poetic about the brand, then pull a cord from the ceiling to light fireworks and POOF! a car appears on stage for all to see. Kia decided to get a little bit more creative this time around. Follow me after the jump to find out how.

Before Michael Sprague, VP of Marketing for Kia Motors America, took the stage, they replayed their ad for the new Sorento that aired during the Super Bowl. Check it out below:

Catchy, no? As Mr. Sprague gets into his market share growth monologue, it was interrupted by a few hooligans on the left side of the stage. Who could they be?

Oh my, and they’re coming closer…

That’s right, Kia decided to crash its own press conference with the costumed ‘childrens toys’ from their latest ad.

How did they get to Chicago? Why, they drove all the way from Miami in the Sorento of course!

Naturally, they brought along a quick montage of their trip (similar to the commercial) with still photos from some famous locations, museums, etc.

But wait, said Mr. Sprague, where are the rest of the guys? All five of you need to be here to promote this shindig?

Whoops. Looks like the others decided to root for the wrong team this year, and they won’t be joining us anytime soon. Thanks for stopping by anyway guys! Now, off of the stage so Mr. Sprague can continue. You were saying? Ah yes, Kia has been very active in many forms of media, including motor racing. This year they’ll be fielding Forte Koups in the Grand Am’s Continental Sports Car Challenge series. The actual race car was on display next to the stage, and looked pretty good.

With that said, it was time to bring up the design team to introduce their new concept car. Massimo Frascella took to the podium with pad and pen to see if he could work his magic in front of a live audience.

As Chief Designer Tom Kearns narrated, Mr. Frascella went to work, crafting something that would encompass all of the eco-environmental elements that they were looking for.

While this was all scripted, it was still really cool to watch as he sketched the outline of the car, making you realize how much thought had gone into the project.

Is this the car you’re looking for?

This continued for a few minutes and sketches until they had mentioned each of the best features, including the flat underbody for smooth aerodynamics, and an extendable trunk lid to decrease drag at higher speeds. A lot of cool stuff in concept, but I’m not sure how much is actually going to make production (if any of it). Without further ado, bring out the car!

The headlights are one element of the styling that I would not be surprised to see on a future sedan or coupe from the automaker. They have a very nice outline, and their slanted appearance gives them a very aggressive personality.

Finally, they asked all of the designers in attendance to stand up and be recognized for their wonderful concept.

And that’s a wrap! No fireworks, but otherwise one of the more interesting and entertaining press conferences that you’ll find at an Auto Show. Thanks for following along, and be sure to share your thoughts of the presentation in the comments below.