The DC Skidz JZX90

Darren’s cars have plastered the walls of this website and social media pages for years. Some of the most popular photos I’ve ever taken have been of his JZX81 and AE86 but when I first met Darren about 5 years ago he had just purchased this JZX90 in fairly standard guise.

If you’ve ever met Darren then you’d know hes an extravagant type of individual and his possessions tend to reflect that extravagant nature in leaps and bounds, so it wasn’t long before the BN Sports bodykit that was purchased alongside the car was painted and fitted to the car.

I remember getting a message off him to say the car didnt make it out of the premises of the bodyshop before he cracked the front bumper due to the uneven surface. Damaging genuine BN Sports worth thousands would have a lot of people in tears, I distinctly remember a shrug of the shoulders and a look on his face that said he didn’t really give a shit.

With the potential destruction of all this exploding fibreglass, I thought it best that myself and Mick go hang out with Darren & Co. whilst the car was in one piece. As with how all of our excursions develop over the years, the evening had great intentions before we slowly but surely ditched all of them in favour of hanging out in this 24-hour petrol station endlessly chatting nonsense about things that really didn’t matter (My love of AE100 Corollas and Honda’s most likely).

As I reminisce on the vivid memories of this particular evening, it struck me how weird it is that its been a year since we’ve even been allowed to do anything like this. Lockdown due to Covid-19 has been quiet harsh here in Ireland with much of the last 12 months spent within our own counties albeit for a brief number of months in the late Summer where we could travel the country and have slightly larger gatherings.

To think back now, these minute moments and late evenings were just part of our day to day and they weren’t even a second thought, nevermind taken for granted. These off the cuff evenings are definitely my favourite part of being involved in this community, to be around likeminded people just having fun and shooting the breeze on dark evenings or sunny days.

Initially, I wasn’t too worried about being temporarily deprived of these moments however, as the months roll on, those endless dark evenings continue and my backlog of photos grows smaller, those great evenings spent with friends get further and further away.