You guys know that my posts usually contain a little bit of humor in them, but i’d like to take this opportunity to be serious for a moment and to address an issue that has come up lately about why I blog for MaydayGarage and what the purpose of this blog is about.

In the mid 90’s, I grew up here in Houston, TX and witnessed in my opinion, the birth of import tuning in Texas. Back then, if you saw an Integra with 17 inch wheels and a touring wing, you’d go apeshit, and break your neck just to catch a glimpse. With magazines like SuperStreet, Sport Compact Car and TMR, it was easy to follow trends being set in the west. Attending drag races such as Battle of the Imports was something to mark on your calendar and look forward to every year as the local shops such as Osaka Racing, Endless, Carboy and Apexx Racing would bring out their cars and duke it out to see who had the fastest Honda in Houston. And every Saturday night on the streets of Westhiemer was not just about catching street races, it was about rolling around with your friends and showing off those new clear corner lights to others who shared the same passion. Houston was the home to many large shows and events such as Import Expo and World Import Challenge held at Houston Raceway Park. Living in Houston was great if you were into Imports.

The Carboy EG tearing up the strip. Photo credit-Modified Mag

Fast forward to a little over a year ago, and everything has changed. Shows such as Hot Import Nights and Import drag racing were few and far between. Shops that thrived in the 90’s closed their doors due to the ever popular rise of online shopping and knock off products that are found when browsing through sites like ebay. Driving with a modified vehicle on Westhiemer on Saturday nights guaranteed you a fix-it ticket, and maybe even jail time.

Even with all of those negative things going on, one thing hasn’t changed- the cars. Or to be more specifically, the people that still modified these cars. As styles and trends changed, modifying cars has not. Every once in a while JohnP would host local car meets and this was THE place to show off your ride. In the absence of car shows, the venues to showcase these cars were getting more rare in Houston to do so. Slowly, Houston began to slip away from the National limelight and for a few years, you could count on one hand how many total events would even happen in an entire year. As an Enthusiast, this decline in events and venues made it a bit more difficult to keep going as there was nothing to look forward to in the year. There weren’t any events to plan for.

Photo Credit: TorqueMagazine

At these meets, myself and JohnP would have these conversations about Houston’s decline in events and what would need to change to bring more to our hometown. We eventually agreed that nothing needed to change. We have the cars, we have the passion, but we just didn’t have the attention on a national level.

One day, JohnP comes to my place where I work and asks me if I would like to contribute to a blog that he wants to start. Why he chose me to blog, I haven’t a clue, I think there are lots of people that could do a better job than me. His idea for the blog was to showcase the people and the cars that made up our city. We would cover local events that would happen, and bring to light cars hidden away from the internet. Our goal was to show everyone else what we already knew, that Texas was THE place be.

I eventually called the help of my roommate and long time enthusiast Khiem to snap photos for us. His first car shoot was of Justin Rogers’ 240sx, and we received a ton of attention for his amazing photography skills, and he keeps getting better and better with each car.

Khiem's first car shoot for MaydayGarage

From there, we just kept pumping out the coverage from our little town and met a lot of cool people along the way such as Antonio, Justin and J.Evins from MotorMavens, Linhbergh from SpeedHunters and even Alexi Smith from NoriYaro during my stay in Japan.

Bromancing Antonio

If you’ve noticed our site, it’s not much glitz and glamour like a lot of other blogs. We don’t have any sponsors on our site, and we pay for everything ourselves, out of pocket. We don’t do this for any type of self gain, or to make money. We have sold our limited edition stickers not so we can buy some new shoes for ourselves, but to pay to have stickers made so we can give them away at events. We have asked for nothing in return for what we do except for one thing- your attention.

You never know when we're gonna take your picture

We do this because all of us here at MaydayGarage love our town, our cars and most of all, our people. We do not try to copy anyone’s style and have mad love for anyone out there that wants to bring more attention to Houston because that’s what we are here for as well.

I feel better.
If you have any thoughts, please feel free to comment away!

–David–
David@maydaygarage.com

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