As if being the largest gathering of Toyota AE86 Corollas, Scion FR-Ss and Subaru BRZs in the nation wasn’t prestige enough for the team at 86Fest, they've returned to the hallowed grounds of Fontana’s Auto Club Speedway with even more added to their sixth year’s agenda — and we’re not talking just about the 2017 Toyota 86 and 860.
Building on the success of last year’s event, 86Fest joined with Global Time Attack (GTA) to bring fans the return of MotorMassive, which joined 86Fest with a GTA pro-am competition round, and clocked, open track time for a large assortment of qualifying cars and drivers who wanted to venture out on the Auto Club Speedway infield.
Plenty of AE86 Corollas and Toyota/Scion/Subaru 86 machines hit the tarmac in their own run groups, and joining their fray were examples of just about every track-prepped car you could imagine, from time-attack-favorite Mitsubishi EVOs and Nissan Skylines/GT-Rs, to less-common vintage American and Japanese iron.
Running quickest of the day in GTA competition — amidst that impressive field of powerful machinery — was Markos Mylonas in the No. 555 street-class (yes, street class!) Snail Performance Subaru Impreza WRX with a 1:11.298 and the new street-class record at the Auto Club infield.
Claiming a hot Second overall was Steven Chan in the No. 720 Nissan GT-R, with a 1:11.528, just ahead of Roy Narvaez in the No. 50 Nissan GT-R, laying down a solid 1:11.690.
Four female time-attackers sets egos and hearts alike on fire throughout the day, lead by MotoIQ’s Karla Pestotnik in the No. 254 Honda S2000 with a 1:18.064 in Exhibition AWD class, and followed closely by Sally McNulty in the No. 412 bone-stock, Enthusiast AWD-class Subaru WRX STI with a 1:22.150.
Turning to the show portion of events, some of the buffest and cleanest FR-Ss we’ve yet laid eyes on could’ve been found in the Auto Tuned camp, with efforts from Godspeed, Team Elevate and dozens upon dozens of privateers joining them throughout the pit-garage parking areas and vendor alley.
As for those non-86 makes, LTMW’s stable of incredibly clean exotics and Euros took that cake, but not without a serious threat posed by Team Hybrid and Platinum Vinyl, Tuning Technologies and NvUS, Motegi Racing and American Racing and plenty more.
MotorMassive and 86Fest even brought an autocross with them, which served not only as a great proving ground for enthusiast street-car drivers and experienced AutoX-ers, but also as a demo stage for rowdy pro-am drifters whose Top Drift machines filled the lot with smoke and thick black lines, and drew in the fans like only sliding sideways can.
Other notable inclusions to this year’s festivities included the packed pit garages, vendors’ displays, RC car drifting and lots of endlessly talented and friendly spokesmodels and showgoers.
But for more on all of that, we’ll leave you to check out our gallery below.
For information on 86Fest and MotorMassive, and upcoming related events, visit www.86Fest.com.