Category Archives: Zen Garage

Top Gear Festival Sydney – Media Day

Sergio, Ved and I were invited to Motoring in Motion, a preview to the 2014 Top Gear Festival Sydney at Sydney Motorsport Park.


Look what I painted! That Jayson Fong is so talented. His painting was going to be displayed in the Senna Tribute display. So cool.

A very small group of media were treated to an awesome day out. First up we had lunch (the steak and salmon were great!) and had the Australian Top Gear presenters run casual Q&A’s with Craig Lowndes, Robert Dhalgren, Neal Bates, Beau Yates, Lee Holdsworth and Will Davison. Amazing that they got all these top shelf drivers in to chat in front of us! Very cool.

Next up we were introduced to Volvo’s new S60 Polestar. Got to love that blue. What’s better we got hot laps in it on South Circuit with Robert Dhalgren at the wheel. He muscled that car around, the brakes were damn amazing. Super punchy.


Beau Yates’ 86.


This thing was a beast. Seeing it squat and drift… awesome.

After that we got to ride shotgun in either Beau Yates’ 86 or Neil Bates’ old school Celica rally car. I got to jump in with Beau (I’ve been a fan of his ever since seeing him drift at Oran Park when the Japanese D1 Drifters first came to Sydney). Damn his car is amazing. When it grips, it’s got so much torque, the shifting is amazing and the whole car just feels so smooth when sliding. Beau treated me to 2 laps, what a champ! Was great having a bit more of a chat than the past couple of times I’ve run into him.

After that we got happy laps on South Circuit in a couple of 911’s. I jumped in the convertible. Lovely car, my driver did a little grip driving and a little drifting too, full locking it nice and smooth.


Ved snipering Jeremy Clarkson.

Then the new Mclaren 650S was revealed to us. Bit of a treat as this car was only just revealed at the Geneva Motor Show 3 days prior.


What a thing of beauty.


Senna and Ved!


Ved’s Zen Snapback signed by Bruno.

To top the day off we got to meet Bruno Senna and check out Ayrton Senna’s 1988 McLaren MP4/4 F1 race car.


Ramspeed Twin Turbo Gallardo spotted in the carpark.


I walked away with this poster… oh noes it might be game on again!

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Harry’s Cafe de Wheels

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broner

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Zen has a core group of mates, we look out for each other, share laughs and great times. We love each other. We call ourselves ‘the broners’, what better a way than ripping off the ‘brother’ logo (Alain’s idea and I just had to do it lol).

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What would you like to do if money were no object?


Watch this video, be sure to turn your sound up. The voice is Alan Watts a philosopher who passed away in the early 1970’s, but what he says really makes a lot of sense to me.

I’ve created a job where I truly do what I love. I live Zen. I see myself as a curator of the world’s various fascinating sub cultures and I’m free to discover and promote whatever it is that I’m into in this very moment, without feeling any sort of pressure or guilt to promote any one thing nor pigeonhole myself.

I hope this little video inspires you to find your Zen.

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Bathurst 12 Hour

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Is this real life? Brock’s Skyline with a view all the way down Conrod Straight. 

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Faith and Ved at work.

simmyHey Simmy! :)

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Duffy and Anton. 

Popped my Bathurst Cherry yesterday. I’ve seen Bathurst on TV every year for so many years, and raced in on so many racing games too, but to see it in real life… it was emotional!

PS: Falling asleep on top of the mountain under the shade of the Zen Stand, with the sounds of screaming exhausts and mates chatting and laughing in the background, pure bliss.

Posted in Cars, Zen Garage | 1 Comment

RÜFÜS Photo Shoot at Zen Garage

A little note on Karma; Late last year I got a message from a guy (Angelo Kehagias) on facebook who let me know that a shared mate of ours suggested that he contact me to borrow my MX-5 for a photo shoot.

Angelo wanted the car for a few days. I tried to explain to Angelo that I’m a car guy, and that was a pretty big ask and that if they damaged the car, they’d have to pay for it. He was like, “sure man no worries!”. I then further explained, dude even if you scratch a rim you’d have to fix it. Again, he said no worries!

I then had to ask what he was trying to achieve with the shot. He sent me through a screen grab from the epic late 80′s film “Less Than Zero”. Memories of that film came flooding back (it’s rad, look it up, go watch it), and I convinced Angelo he’d be able to shoot it at Zen to get the same effect. Shooting a night scene at Zen meant that I would have to stay back after work till 9pm or so, which is always a hard thing for me as I’m buggered by 5pm, but I agreed to it anyways (because that’s the way I am!) and then Angelo tells me “by the way, it’s for RÜFÜS…

!!!

I fell off my chair at that point. The Broners (a tight group of male friends that have formed through Zen) listen to RÜFÜS ALL THE TIME. We listen to RÜFÜS at Zen Garage, in our cars, at our houses and man caves, the album ATLAS has just become (a great) part of our daily lives, so to hear it was for RÜFÜS. Yeah, just fucking awesome Karma!

The shoot was LONG but we kept the boys entertained between breaks. Photographer Angelo Kehagias works harder than any photographer I’ve ever met. We’ve had to wait this long to post these images due to non-disclosure agreements. You can find more shots from the shoot on Angelo’s site in the links below.

Enjoy many more behind the scenes shots on Zen Garage: http://bit.ly/1bldvhf

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88,888

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88,888 such an auspicious number! Wealth, fortune and joy. It’s going to be an amazing year for Zen. BRING IT ON!

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Ash White Photoshoot for Zen Garage

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Another day another shoot! This time at mums place :) Behind the scenes shots on Zen: http://zengarage.com.au/2014/01/behind-the-scenes-drifters-z1000-shoot

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Catalina Raceway Katoomba

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Adventure Time! Earlier this week we hit the road to discover Catalina Park, a disused motor racing venue located at Katoomba, in the Blue Mountains.

So special, so emotional. Check out the entire feature here: http://zengarage.com.au/2014/01/catalinaraceway

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Banned from Facebook

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Midnight Zen.

A while back Serg started posting a babe at midnight every night on the Zen Garage facebook page. I posted up the Sasha Larina photo above and it was taken down by facebook and I’ve been banned for 24hrs.

It’s apparently against their community standards. I read their document and in regards to nudity it states:

Facebook has a strict policy against the sharing of pornographic content and any explicitly sexual content where a minor is involved. We also impose limitations on the display of nudity. We aspire to respect people’s right to share content of personal importance, whether those are photos of a sculpture like Michelangelo’s David or family photos of a child breastfeeding.

I consider the image I posted to be sexy, but it’s classy as well and nowhere near as cheeky as some of the stuff we’ve been posting on a daily basis. I’m not so upset about being banned, more upset about not knowing exactly why the image I posted breaks the rules, and more concerned about the threat from facebook to delete the Zen Garage page for good if I keep breaking the rules… that would be fucked up!

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PS: Check the stats on this midnight zen post, nuts right? Over 7 million views!

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