Nothing unites people like a love for cars. It doesn’t matter how different two car enthusiasts are in their looks or beliefs, they’ll find a way to talk to each other and maybe even become friends. Sure, our culture has its own ‘groups’ that give each other a hard time, but we all know that deep down inside we all love the same thing and we’ll go to the same lengths to show it. It’s been thriving for decades because of that and it’s absolutely not being killed by millennials no matter how many people try to convince you of that.
There’s a lot to love about our car culture, but few things are more deserving of your love than Gridlife. They organize track days and time attack competitions throughout the year, but they are most known for their fantastic music and motorsports festivals that happen twice a year.
This year’s Gridlife South festival at Road Atlanta was a genuine pleasure to attend for a number of reasons. A typical Gridlife festival weekend features dozens of HPDE sessions plus drifting, time attack, and car shows to keep you thoroughly occupied during the day as well as camping and music when the track goes cold. And the featured car show of the weekend was Radwood (which is also deserving of all your love) put on by that guy who used to write for us.
What made this event so special was that for three days at Road Atlanta, car enthusiasts ran their own society. There were cool and unique cars everywhere you looked and owners were begging for a reason to talk about them. And the action on track in both time attack and drifting was thrilling; the quality of driving was exceptional. There was something cool going on at every moment whether it be in the parking lot or out on the fearsome Road Atlanta circuit.
More than anything though, what made it so great to attend were the people. It didn’t matter if you ran into a spectator, competitor, or a celebrity; everyone was friendly and passionate about that one thing that unites us. Questions were answered, hoods were popped, and everyone just had a great time for three days. And I revved my Mustang for Matt Farah and was tasked with grabbing shots of him on track, so that was my life made.
I rave about a lot of great things on this site, but trust me when I say that a Gridlife Festival is a must for any car enthusiast. It doesn’t matter what your age is or what kind of cars you’re into, you’ll find a lot of things to love. And you’ll find that our beautiful car culture is anything but dead.
So thank you, Gridlife. Thank you for reminding us why car culture is the greatest and for proving that millennials don’t ruin everything.
Click past the jump for a photo recap if you want to see what it’s all about.
[Images © 2018 Hooniverse/Greg Kachadurian – These images and more are available in full resolution on Flickr]

This E46 made a peculiar sound… the kind of sound you’d normally hear out of an Audi R8 or Lamborghini Huracan.

As you drove out  from the paddock into the pits, there was a sign that read “DO NOT ‘SEND IT’”. This guy sent it. Every. Lap.

The cleanest RX-7 I’ve ever seen and it was being driven at 10/10. It still had the rotary too.

Your two fastest drivers in Time Attack. Two records were set between them.

That’s not vape smoke.

[Images © 2018 Hooniverse/Greg Kachadurian – These images and more are available in full resolution on Flickr]