Much of the time, when I take my camera and go to shoot something for the site, before I begin I more or less know what I’ll end up with. If it’s a meet or a show, I know that I’ll wind up with a set of photos of the vehicles present and maybe a few candids too. If it’s an install, then I know I’ll have the steps documented. If it’s a new car, then I’ll have the various areas of it all recorded to my memory card.

There’s nothing wrong with this at all, but it’s also a lot of fun to bring the camera to an impromptu car-related hangout and see what catches my eye. During winter these are few and far between though, so now that summer is supposedly here (I think mother nature missed the memo however) we will hopefully have more of these taking place. Documenting and showing the ‘formal’ gatherings is always a lot of fun of course, but it’s also nice to be able to have unscripted, made-up-as-we-go lazy days to share too – what we do between the meets, shows, and garage days. Sometimes it’s nice to not have a plan and days like this are just another part of the fun of the car season.

Last month I shared a visit to Balance Auto, when I made a detour to check out Alex’s new ITR and see the latest progress on Jackie’s, but even then I knew that I’d be shooting their cars for updates on the site. This time around I made a visit to Mario’s work to hang out with both him and Alan as he’d be switching his wheels and beyond that, there were no real plans besides tinkering a bit on the cars.

Since Sriracha was in the shop, when I arrived I parked beside Alan’s Fiesta. It has been a while since one of Alan’s cars was last seen on the site, so surely there will be a lot of readers who don’t recognize his name. This little Fiesta hatch is his daily/runaround car, with a Tangerine Scream Focus ST being the summer toy. And yes, the Fiesta is indeed the same colour as my Focus – Yellow Blaze!

I wandered inside to find the guys, and Sriracha sitting on its mis-matched summer wheels once again. You’ll note that Mario removed the door protectors and side decals; whoever applied them originally hadn’t just derped on the rear pieces – which prompted their removal and the application of the replacement decals in the first place – but the fronts as well as they too started coming off. Instead of fixing them again Mario decided to strip the sides of the car instead to make way for a new livery for this year.

It had been a while since I’d shown the interior of Sriracha so even though it was nearly unchanged I grabbed a shot anyway. The only update of note the new shifter extender, to bring the shift knob closer to the steering wheel; with Recaros, Sync 3, and an already upgraded sound system there’s not much else it really needed!

Lug nuts all torqued, the Sriracha packet was rolled out into the sun. Speaking of the sun, it’s almost making me sad to look back at the photos as since these were taken we’ve had more snow fall. Why? Because Calgary.

It had been a little while since Mustard and Sriracha were together so it was nice to see, especially with both on 1552s again. You may notice that Alan’s Fiesta had moved by this point, and that was because it was now in the shop.

Even though it’s not the main toy, Alan has a few plans for the mini hatch. Here, he and Mario were looking over some suspension pieces he had just picked up and brought with him.

I kept playing around with the camera, shooting whatever caught my eye – Alan had fitted some LEDs in the tail lights for improved lighting, and as an added bonus they looked way cooler than the stock bulbs.

I then wandered back outside to grab a few more photos of Mustard and Sriracha together.

Not only had the summer wheels returned, but Mario had recently also reinstalled the wing risers to kick the rear spoiler up a bit. Risers make a big difference on Focus STs, but it’s nothing compared to the effect they have on the Fiesta STs!

By this point it was noted just how dirty Sriracha was, and the wheels/tires had some leftover lube from the mounting anyway (the FiST received some new tires for this year), so Mario decided to give it a bath before we headed out.

The benefits of working at a dealer – free car washes!

While Mario was making sure the 52s were all squeaky-clean I noticed this mirror mounted above and played around some more with the camera.

One more of Mustard too, now accompanied by the Fiesta once again.

During Sriracha’s bath the sun shining through one of the windows just happened to fall right on the ST emblem, making for a neat photo opportunity. Also, I’m still not used to how insanely sparkly this paint is!

All clean – and another chance to plug 1552. Haha

Sriracha still wears the drilled grille, originally done during one of the first install days following its purchase. I guess we’ll have to fully sand that open soon? Also in case you’re wondering about the faint line that you see here, it’s just a seam in the PPF.

With nothing else to do at the shop, we said goodbye to Allan as he headed out and then the camera went away as Mario and I headed over to Rona to get some supplies for his place, followed by Indigo to quickly browse magazines and grab a Starbucks, and finally back to my house where we hung out for a bit before he headed home. It was a nice, relaxed afternoon with just enough productivity mixed in so that we could say we at least got some things done. When the snow decides to finally stop coming back (cue the laughter from fellow Calgarians) there will hopefully be many more of these random afternoons. It’s of course fun to head out to scheduled meets and shows, and organize garage days to tackle big installs – such as we are for Brian’s car at the moment – but it’s also nice to just say “let’s meet up” with minimal plans in place and figure out the rest from there.

-Bill