Last year Midnight Rev Up made some waves in the local car community when they announced that that years show would be at the Edmonton Expo Center, so I was delighted to hear that it would be back there again for this year. It’s such a great venue with lots of open and clean space, offers good lighting, and even has both food and drink available as well. We had a blast at least years show, so this year my good friends over at RA Motorsports decided to have another booth at the event and invited me to tag along again. How could I refuse?

Unlike at previous events, this year I was helping with the RA booth more than ever, so after a quick round of photos I was pretty much there for the rest of the day. There was essentially a constant crowd and lineup of people all day, all patiently waiting their turn to try out the new RA sim rig which we’ll get into later, but first, some photos.

Li’s ex-R1 Titan Tokyo Auto Salon S2000 demo car on the red carpet.

Amazingly well executed build from Posh Detailing, this FR-S really had it all. From a 2JZ swap, Endless brakes, KW coilovers, Wedsport TC105X’s, Rocket Bunny over fenders, all topped off with a Millennium Jade paint job. My goodness.

Derek’s FR-S isn’t just for show as we would see the following day as it was doing the rounds at Stratotech Park.

Ben’s Supra taking a break from track duties for the day.

Carlo’s M3 on TE37’s sitting quietly off to the side.

A rather unusual sight, this Volvo 240 was certainly different and was even sporting some Gram Light 57DR’s wrapped in Bridgestone RE71RS’. Neato.

Oh hell yeah.

Shout out to the owner of this Supra who constantly came back to the RA booth throughout the day to try and top our sim rig challenge (maybe next time!).

The SSR Mesh isn’t the first wheel that comes to mind when it comes to VIP styled builds, but I think it suits this Celsior rather well.

John’s Supra on TE37’s (not as good looking as his old ZE40’s though…).

Leo’s GR86 with full Voltex lip kit and Advan RG-4’s.

Daniel enjoying himself with some of the Bride seats on display over at the Invision booth.

Peter’s FR-S on ZE40’s (which look way better than his old TE37’s).

Kevin striking a pose next to Nick’s STI.

Kevin not striking a pose next to his own Crosstrek.

Lito’s RB26 powered Z looking good as always.

Jay Hoang’s Mugen equipped FK8 CTR.

Leo’s old BRZ still looking good.

Really cool looking Mini Cooper with a Liberty Walk widebody, BBS wheels, and some super sparkly paint.

Yifan’s RX-7 sitting pretty. It’s so damn clean!

John’s GX with the new prototype roof rack by RA.

Rick’s 1J powered S13 is starting to become a regular on this site. I hope you’re all ready to see much more of it as this Saturday is round one of the Spec-D Pro Drift Series!

Story time: this is actually my FR-S which wasn’t originally supposed to even be at the show. We were hoping to bring a certain K-swapped S13 under its own power this year, but sadly that wasn’t finished in time. I only found that out the morning of the show and had to scramble to at least wash since it was so dirty from daily use. I probably should have brought out the Integra instead but that car is currently trapped in the back of my garage…

Matt wondering if he forgot anything on his AE86.

And finally, we have this effing thing. This Foxbody Mustang is the car that me and Matt have been working on endlessly for the past month or so, desperately trying to finish it for the show. Just some of the things that had to be done were the Vortech supercharger, Holly ECU and engine harness, Wildwood big brake kit, UPR brake booster delete, Mishimoto radiator, and new rear end gears. I’m sure I’m missing a ton of stuff too as I recall writing out an endless to-do list, but with the help of multiple good friends, we somehow managed to get it done in time (we were actually up until 2:30AM the day of the show working on it and still had a little more to do in the morning).

The first drive of this car was actually to the show, and at first it was going swimmingly, until it wasn’t. Long story short, we ended up with car trouble about halfway to the venue. Thankfully, Rick had trailered his S13 to the show and was already there waiting for us (we were running incredibly behind), so he was able to come out and trailer the car the rest of the way. Thank goodness.

As with any build, there were a lot of ups and downs while working on it, so it sure felt damn good at the end of the night when the car took home one of the Top 10 awards. This was quite the surprize for us but we were definitely both excited and proud.

Next to the Mustang were some Enkei, Superspeed, and Konig wheels on display, all featuring some of the custom powdercoating colours that RA offers. Makes me crave some Skittles…

Earlier I mentioned that RA had built a new sim rig setup, and this is it. While there’s no actual name for it yet, the setup features a frame designed by Matt with some input by yours truly. It has been designed with flexibility in mind (not literally) and can accommodate a variety of different wheel, pedals, shifter, handbrake, and even seat setups. It also has a neat little swing-tray for a keyboard, and both that and the shifter/handbrake adapters can be configured for both LHD and RHD depending on your preference.

It also has two cup holders which have been confirmed to fit Coco bubble teas no problem. The release date hasn’t been set in stone yet as we work out some final quirks on it, but for the most part this will be pretty close to the final design.

To help promote the release of the new rig, we decided to throw on a little contest for the day; fastest lap around Tsukuba Circuit TC2000 wins a $200.00 store credit to RA Motorsports!

This promptly resulted in quite the lineup…

…which essentially lasted the entire day, with many people patiently waiting for their turn while I fed them Welches fruit snacks. In the end, Ben with the green A70 Supra posted above took home the glory with a lap time of 1:06.somethingsomethingsomething (I don’t remember it anymore). Congrats!

To finish off this post I would just like to say thanks to pretty much everybody. Thanks to the crew behind Midnight Rev Up for putting on such an amazing show and accommodating our incredible lateness, thanks to all of you who came out to visit our booth as well as try out our new sim rig setup, thanks to Rick for coming in clutch to bring the car to the show and to Warren for helping to get it back to the shop, and of course, thanks to everyone who dropped by over the past month or so to help us work on the Mustang. There were a lot of late nights, fast food, and Red Bull, but to see the car take home an award made it all worth it in the end.

Until next year!

-brandon.