Holiday Gifts and Car Shows Galore
Including mine.
HAPPY RACE DAY! especially to Chaya Milchtein, a trained mechanic who advocates for greater automotive education on social media. Milchtein wrote a book called Mechanic Shop Femme’s Guide to Car Ownership: Uncomplicating Cars for All of Us.
I’m excited for a few reasons. First, the more car books and automotive knowledge out there, the better. Second, Milchtein makes a clear effort to equip women, specifically, with better info to make wise decisions. That’s reason enough to support.
Congrats Chaya! Check out her IG to learn more. I hope to chat with her about the book and her career in general in the near future.
Come Find Me at Santa’s Speed Shop
I’m still deep into book rollout mode. And after setting up shop at Radwood a few weeks ago, I’m super excited about my next appearance coming up.
I’ll be at Santa’s Speed Shop holiday car show and toy drive, hosted by Cars in the Wild, in downtown Los Angeles on Saturday, December 9th from 12-4 PM.
We’ll have books for sale, including the newly-released Cult of GT-R and this year’s earlier release Postcards From the End of the World. Plus a couple of very special surprises too. Stop by and grab some presents for a good cause!
News from the Car World
I took a break from the newsletter last week. So we have some things to discuss. Like, for instance, the Las Vegas F1 race.
It didn’t go perfect. At one point fans were forced to leave a practice session they’d paid to see because a manhole cover improperly sealed by F1 damaged a car. The incident sparked a massive lawsuit. You can’t make this stuff up.
But the race actually went off without a hitch. And the action was pretty good, too! I didn’t expect that. Vegas started out as a huge, expensive blunder for F1. But if the on-track fireworks are always that good they’ll be forgiven.
This past weekend the F1 season came to a close in Abu Dhabi. Here’s a highlights montage to recap the full year.
The end of the 2023 season means that, sadly, one of our favorite Substacks also comes to an end. That would be Grand Prix Gastronomy, of course, by author and journalist Elizabeth Blackstock. Read her year-end recap of all the dishes she cooked this year.
And finally, the BBC announced that Top Gear, the globally-beloved show about opinionated blokes testing cars, will not return “for the foreseeable future.” This after a 2022 crash badly injured one of the hosts. The show had lost steam following its mid-2010s height, but its departure will still be mourned throughout car culture.
Book News & Event Round-up
You may have noticed an extra newsletter in your inbox each week. Lately, I’ve added Fridays to my writing rotation to tell you guys about cars that I get to drive from time to time. The first one was the Toyota GR86, and most recently the Faraday FF 91.
(Shoutout to Damian Penny, a fellow Substacker, who mentioned my Faraday article in his own column about would-be Tesla competitors.)
Coming this Friday: my drive in a controversial and murky R32 Skyline GT-R once owned by the most notorious importer in the U.S. You won’t want to miss it.
Shoutout to everyone who has left a review for Cult of GT-R on our Amazon page. This is the single best thing you can do to help us grow and succeed right now. (Well, except for buying a book of course.) Thank you everyone for the kind words!
Some recent quotes from Cult of GT-R readers:
“what a fantastic piece of story telling”
“does a great job of tying many parts of the Nissan Skyline GT-R story”
“ZumMallen peels back the layers of the onion and delivers in this great book”
“his story of going to a spot with someone special was worth reading twice”
Also, HUGE thanks to our friends at the RHD Guys podcast. They listed Cult of GT-R on their holiday gift guide this year! Thanks so much boys. It’s the first gift idea recommended in this video right here:
If you’re intrigued by the book but want to read a sample first, check out the excerpt published recently by Motor1.com right here. It includes most of Chapter 1 from the book plus a gallery of my photos from Japan!
Couple of quick-hitting points I’m keeping an eye on:
My friends at Purist Group hosted their annual holiday toy drive over the weekend — I couldn’t make it but this video takes you inside the action.
The aftermarket performance company GReddy is hosting a toy drive and holiday sale of its own on December 10th in Irvine, CA.
The grassroots motorsports organization SoCal Driver’s Club released its 2024 schedule last week. Great way to learn racing technique and hone your skills!
There’s a new JDM importing outfit called Project D Auto Imports. I think we’ll continue to see newcomers like this attempt to enter the game. JDM fever isn’t going anywhere.
Should I Go On a Book Tour?
I’m seriously contemplating it. Think it’d be a fun way to continue sharing the story, having great conversations and meeting Skyline and GT-R enthusiasts all over.
If you want me to come to your town sound off in the comments!
You can also grab a copy now for the holidays. Snag one for the JDM enthusiast in your life — there are still plenty of standard versions remaining at CarraraBooks.com and about 40-ish Wangan Editions as well, numbered and signed just for you.
And Finally…
Owners of the Nissan GT-R and Skyline GT-R hosted their annual R’s Day event at Willow Springs Raceway over the Thanksgiving weekend. If it isn’t the largest gathering of GT-Rs in the U.S., it’s damn close.
I couldn’t make it this year, but felt great to see lots of new friends getting together and hitting the track. These cars like their legs stretched and it looks like everyone had a blast. I really enjoyed this video from Kana Racing to catch me up on all the action, and hope you like it, too.
Drive hard and be safe. Black Lives Matter.
Race Day has subscribers in 33 states and 17 countries! Want your event included? Shoot me a note with subject line “Race Day” at ryan@carrarabooks.com.
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