Name: Rod Chong

Location: Stockholm, Sweden

Previous Locations: London, Los Angeles, Toronto, Amsterdam, Vancouver

Career Path: Need for Speed/Speedhunters Creative Director

Previous Career Paths: Music Video Director for many years also used to do Commercials, Motion Graphics, Multimedia and VJ Projects. Worked on a few video games along the way too. Most of these projects were basically excuses to shoot or create cars though!

Notable Projects/Wins: Birth of Pro Street film on the history of tuner based street racing. Speed Tribe: experimental documentary shot at the 2001 24H of Le Mans. Directed the first Marilyn Manson video! More recently worked as a Creative Director on SHIFT2 UNLEASED

Car: Lexus IS300

Fav Past Cars: Cal Look '62 Beetle, '82 Corolla SR5, Tuned '89 CRX

Next Car: Still thinking about that one.

Car Passions: Used to race go-carts from the age of 6 to 14 at Westwood Raceway in Canada. Also raced RC cars and build Hot Rod/Kustom model cars for many years before getting distracted with video, music, clubbing and girls in art college. Moving to London, UK in 96/97 developed unhealthy addictions to Sports Car Racing, Le Mans, Autosport Magazine and F1. These days the big obsession is Drifting and Time Attack, but I do tend to follow most types of racing: DTM, WRC, FIA GT, LMES, ALMS, Super GT, Le Mans, WTCC, F1 etc etc. Also have a real soft spot for Kustoms, Hot Rods, Vintage Drag racing and late 70s/early 80s Group5 GT racers.

Personal Style: Mod: I have a thing for wearing ties and narrow trousers ATM.

Favourite Band of the Moment: Yeah Yeah Yeahs

Personal Motto: I click therefore I am

 

Today Mad Mike Whiddett and 9 top level D1NZ drivers cruised the streets of Auckland, NZ to raise funds for a good cause. Local New Zealand drift fan, Daniel Baxter was diagnosed with cancer last year but with the help of the D1NZ crew, drivers and New Zealand Police, he was given something sure to bring some happiness, in what can only be described as a very difficult time for him and his family. Daniel rode shotgun in one of the police cars, leading the convoy while the passenger seats in the drift...

I find it truly amazing to see how two people armed with little more than a 5d camera, a 50mm 1.2 lens and an Iphone4S can make such a smooth and stylish automotive film like this. Props to the Crank&Piston team for this little gem of a video!

:Rod

More GT-R stories on Speedhunters

 

The legend of the Porsche 917 has it, that the car was such a frightening thing to drive, that many of the factory drivers felt a sense of relief when assigned to the lesser 908 open cockpit cars. With the 917s hitting warp speeds in excess of 240 mph at Le Mans, this isn't surprising.

Now much has been made of the 917s exploits at Le Mans but the history of the 917 at Daytona is also quite interesting too. This is especially true when you hear stories about how Pedro Rodríguez would literally drift the 917 around the superspeedway bankings. Remember back in 1970, there was no bus stop chicane on the back straight to slow the cars down. This combined with a profound lack of downforce and bia-ply tires would certainly have made for a hairy ride.

This Gulf Oil promotional video will give you a good feel for the state of motorsport in 1970, both in terms of the cars, but also the role of personality and film-making. I can't help but smile to myself when I see how formal JWA team boss John Wyer comes across in his interview. Times certainly have changed!

:Rod

Temple of Speed: The Porsche 917 at Spa 

I thought I'd post this shot, as I turn my attention to the upcoming Daytona 24Hs, a race which has gone through many different allegiances and phases over the years. As we enjoy this photo together, let's think back to simpler times and imagine the sound that this little GTU racer made while screaming around the Daytona banking! (Photo by Mark Windecker) Mark Windecker Daytona 1989 Photo Archive More Daytona 24H stories on Speedhunters

Here are the highlights of day three and four of the Monte Carlo Rallye.

The event has now concluded with Loeb taking a well deserved victory. The Mini team must also be well pleased with their second place result, not to mention Petter Solberg and Mikko Hirvonen's excellent debuts for Ford and Citroen respectively.

 

Final Top 5 Positions:

 1.  Sebastien Loeb - Citroen      

 2.  Dani Sordo - Mini           

 3.  Petter Solberg - Ford           

 4.  Mikko Hirvonen - Citroen        

 5.  Evgeny Novikov  - M-Sport Ford 

 

Best of Rally Live

Since the start of Speedhunters in 2008, I've made a point of reading literally every single comment posted on our stories. I'm always interested to see what you think of our work, both the good and the bad. There are always changes going on in automotive trends and tastes, and reading your comments helps to provide snapshots of the Speedhunters audience's mood at any given moment. So when the results of the Great Speedhunters Audience survey came up last month, there weren't too...

Stage Six on Dakar 2012 was cancelled due to snow and ice, so we move directly to catch the action from Stage Seven. The desert stage favoured the Hummers of Robby Gordon and Nasser Al-Attiyah who dominated the day and moved up the overall order as a result.

Current standings from Autosport.com -

Pos  Driver                Car           Time/Gap

 1.  Stephane Peterhansel  Mini         15h32m53s

 2.  Krzysztof Holowczyc   Mini          + 11m22s

 3.  Robby Gordon          Hummer        + 13m09s

 4.  Nani Roma             Mini          + 18m05s

 5.  Giniel de Villiers    Toyota        + 34m07s

 6.  Nasser Al-Attiyah     Hummer        + 42m54s

 7.  Leonid Novitskiy      Mini          + 54m26s

 8.  Carlos Sousa          Great Wall  + 1h12m50s

 9.  Lucio Alvarez         Toyota      + 1h41m38s

10.  Erik van Loon         Mitsubishi  + 1h48m39s

As we wind down the last of our 2011 stories, I thought it would be fun to put together a different type of themed gallery, which focuses on the much sought after Speedhunters stickers. Whenever we attend events, Speedhunters team members around the world are normally more than happy to give out these stickers. You just have to come up to us and ask! We estimate that over 20,000 of Speedhunters stickers have been printed since the website began, perhaps more. As a result, we often encounter our own...

Whilst you and I may all be car fanatics to the nth degree, it's also quite unlikely that we share the same automotive interests or express this facination in the same way. Some of us build cars, while others race them; some shoot photos of cars and still others work in the industry. It's all pieces of the puzzle called international car culture. This range of expression and taste is also likely reflected in our choice of car magazine purchases. Most of you Speedhunters will likely have wildly...

Larry Chen, Spa 24Hs, Spa-Francorchamps, Belgium Unless your name is Dino Dalle Carbonare and you're faced with a fully packed Japanese event schedule, the majority of the Speedhunters crew are slowing the pace down slightly and are getting ready to present our photographic year in review. So without further ado, here is my first selection of what I consider to be my best photos of the year. The above image is a nice showcase of Larry Chen, as he shoots through the night qualifying session at...