Gigantic Highlight of #FormulaDrift 2017 Long Beach Off Track Expo @formulad

2017 Formula Drift Achilles umbrella girls Nicole Marie Reckers and Arley Elizabeth in their umbrella uniforms
2017 Formula Drift Achilles umbrella girls Nicole Marie Reckers and Arley Elizabeth 

A great success of Formula Drift Long Beach season opener 2017 with great race competitions, amazing models, and tons of awesome cars!

www.wheelsandheelsmag.com / W&HM Staff * Please forward any requests or questions to info@wheelsandheelsmag.com

Note: don't miss our day 1 coverage of 2017 Formula Drift here: 
http://www.wheelsandheelsmag.com/2017/04/big-highlights-of-formula-drift-long.html

The 2017 Formula Drift Long Beach season opener is a great success!  It has many great elements in the working for them.  The weather could not be more beautiful, the blue sky, gentle breezy wind, and crispy air that lets you sense the true drifting smoke as the true in-person experience.

As carried by its tradition, Streets of Long Beach is the venue of Formula Drift competition round 1.  The competition track is at the compact space right by the convention center.  Even at the Google earth map, you can see the burn marks pretty much permanently settled on the tracks that they built.

With such pristine condition, the drifting competition has gone highly competitive and the final results are surprising as well, with the top three being from out of the country and all the big names did not make to the podium.  What these amazing gut-wrenching races are!!
Worthouse Racing driver Jeames Deane (left) with fellow driver and the awesome grid girls Vanessa, Christina Riordan, Kirsten Nicholson, and Jessica Diane at autograph signing
Worthouse Racing driver Jeames Deane (left) with fellow driver and the awesome grid girls Vanessa, Christina Riordan, Kirsten Nicholson, and Jessica Diane
 The winner of the 2017 Formula Drift Long Beach Round 1 is James Deane from Worthouse Racing + Falken Tires!  The great karma in this team including the top models at the event, has gotten the driver an extra wing and surged to the top of the competition.  This is surely a team that cannot be overlooked!

We also met many models at the Formula Drift.  This year, it's different than the past year.  This year, it seems that there are more models, especially with the introduction of the Worthouse umbrella girls. In the last few years, we witnessed a descending trend (not good) with less and less model presence.  This year, at the turn of many corners, you would encounter great personalities and grid girls.

In fact, there were so many of them, we ended up missing some of the key ones that we should have covered, despite the best effort of hot hours on the venue.  It is a professional fail... We shall do better next time!

Also can we say that it's an inflection point of the market that we will see more models in the future?  We sure hope so and we look forward to it!
Our cover model Jess Harbour for Nexen Tire
our cover model Arley Elizabeth for Achilles

Our cover model Nicole Marie Reckers for Achilles 

Nitto umbrella girls Courtney Riggs (middle), and our cover model Constance Nunes

Worthouse grid girls Jessica Diane, Vanessa, Christina Riordan in Worthouse uniform
Worthouse grid girls, our feature model Jessica Diane, Vanessa,
our cover model Christina Riordan in Worthouse uniform

Our cover model Anya Benton for Spearmint Rhino 

Our feature model Ahtena for Spearmint Rhino
 The car demonstration and car show aspect of Formula Drift has been beefed up, especially with the partnership of Autocon.  Mainly there are two sections of the vendor / car show space.  One right after the entrance and the other one is over the bridge above the track.

In the past, most sponsors and vendors are packed at the first area.  Then cars and some other vendors are situated at the secondary space.
 However, this year, with the Autocon's prowess on top line cars in car show presence, they brought in some of the coolest modified rides that gel with the Formula Drift highly souped up drifting power machines.  It's a perfect combination!

Definitely check out a lot more awesome photos of the models and cars at the 2017 Formula Drift Long Beach in this full article...

 The Awesome Umbrella Models / Grid Girls at Formula Drift

Formula Drift is no doubt the one event to see major and amazing umbrella girls / grid girls!  Many huge tire sponsors showed up with these instant-attraction talents simply gave the fans and attendees no chance to escape but coming to the booths and get autographed posters.

This great tradition has been on forever, but there wre ups and downs.  We are happy to see so many familiar faces as well as new to the Formula Drift event.  Yipee!!

Nexen Tire Models


Erica Nagashima, Kay Vee, and Jess Harbour 


Erica and friend and Vivian Nguyen 

You can always count on Erica to have a great fun moment with the camera!

 Worthouse Grid Girls

Kirsten, Vanessa, Christina Riordan, Jessica Diane

 Hankook Umbrella Girls

Erica Juliet, Alexia Cortez, Nicky Park, and Karol Priscilla 

Erica Juliet

Alexia Cortez

Karol Priscilla 

Nicky Park

Alexia Cortez is always so awesome that we have to take another one!



 Achilles Umbrella Girls

Nicole Marie Reckers and Arley Elizabeth
Do you know both of them are our cover models?

 Nitto Tire Grid Girls

Leanna Decker and our cover model Constance Nunes 
Constance Nunes is such a fashion model that always strikes an amazing pose!


Courtney Riggs!!  Such sunny blonde great model!

 Falken Tires Girls Returned!

Courtney Day and Heidi Fahrenbach

Randyl Dawn who promised the return of the Falken Girls and she is 100% right!!

 NOS Girls Also Returned!!

Liz Kara and Caroline Wade in NOS new uniform!



 The Behind the Scene of Competition Drift Cars

One of the cool things about Formula Drift is that they don't bar you from the pit areas where all the drift cars which are actually competing and real drivers greeting their fan base.  There is no exclusivity, nor special passes.

We totally love this democratic approach to linking the real things with real people.  We high applaud their set up and give them many thumbs up!!









 Autocon Formula Drift Debut!! 

This is the first time Formula Drift has partnered with a car show team to bring highly regarded modified cars to the show.  Autocon is a perfect choice and judging by the cars at the spot, it's an awesome showing!

 Autocon Girls




 The cars from Autocon





 Driver Autograph Session from Day 1







 Vendor Sponsored Models

We are so happy to see many ,more models showed up at the event!  Here is a quick capture of some of them.  There are some others that we totally missed, and we are still kicking ourselves for missing them.  We can only hope for the next time that they will show up again!

In the meantime, here are the ones that we captured, in an awesome way!!

JDM Sport Vixens

Bella always gives us full attention and great poses!

Asia is such a sweet girl!

Dalia Arceo is the first time model to us, and she has lots of great potential!

Here is the first time we met Analyn Lacap, and we were totally impressed!

The JDM Sport Vixens surrounding Marie Madore, what a happy scene!

  SPOCOM Model

Diana Mila, the crowning Miss Spocom 2016 Anaheim

 JDM Westcoast Girls


Beckie Joon and friend and Clarissa Mendez



 Marie Madore and Big Abe



  The SMG Girls

Andrea Jimenez, so tall and so fashionable!

It's always great to shoot with Brittney Bricker, especially in her first time natural curly hair!!



 JDM of California Girls

Alejandra Lopez and Fines Pena and friend


Fines Pena looks sooo epic with the drifting smoke in the background!

Montegi Racing Girl

Vivian Nguyen is such a great and professional model who sets up a great standard of being one!

 McLeod Girl 

 Vendor Rows

The vendor rows this year is smartly balance between the first and second spaces flanking the track.  In the past, it's been a problem of shoulder bumping and traffic jams due to very crowded vendor areas.

This year, they have spread out the vendors so that they are very well balanced between the two areas.  You don't feel the pressure of the crowd, and vendors enjoy more quality time with the patrons.

And most of all, this setup is well prepared to have even bigger crowd in the future and we totally look forward to it!