PART 1

2013 has been our best year to date in every way possible. We’ve grown so much. Not just in sales but in our presence in the community, as a team, in our products quality…just about every way a company can grow throughout.

I apologize in advance…but let me brag real quick. Right now I have the best team I could ask for. We’ve all got our flaws just like anyone else but we work extremely well together. Communication is not a problem like it has been in the past. We’ve gone from good to great at our jobs. Another crazy factor is that there are 3 less people on the team than there was in 2012…but we get more done than we ever did before. We’ve made mistakes and angered some customers in the past…and I really hate that. But we had to make those mistakes to get better. Every company makes more mistakes in the beginning years, it’s called growing pains. And every company continues to make mistakes no matter what but it’s in lesser quantities. As long as you learn from each mistake, find a solution quickly, and find ways to avoid those mistakes in the future then you’ll be just fine. That’s where we are right now. We’re done with those initial growing pains, we’ve got a clear view of our future, we’ve got our processes down…this is what it’s all about. I feel so confident in the products and services we can provide you with.

At Chase Bays we do everything. We meaning the full time staff. From design, procurement, most of the manufacturing (yes some products are outsourced to better hands, for now), marketing, photo/video, sales, order processing, shipping, tech support, customer service…everything is done here. It’s all under one roof. We don’t pay another company to do our marketing, our tech support, our R&D, or anything! I think that’s what makes us a great company today and an even better company in the future. Every task is done by someone that’s in the company and around the product every work day. This allows us to provide you with the best experience start to finish. This isn’t just throwing some products on a site and drop shipping them. We innovated new products in our industry that did not exist before we came along. We are creating manufacturing processes. We are using our own first hand experience and creativity as enthusiasts to create new and/or revise current products, market those products, and sell those products. This is what we believe and I want you to know it.

So lets start with our 2013 Scion FR-S build…

Here’s a link to the build thread that you can read through after you’re done reading this http://www.ft86club.com/forums/showthread.php?t=22680

Once I saw the final release photos of the FR-S/BRZ/GT86 I knew we HAD to have it. Maybe it was more personal than anything, but the more I read the more I wanted. It’s just the perfect car at the perfect price. It’s the best canvas I could have asked for. It was new and it was affordable. Love at first sight! I also knew we could make a plethora of products for the chassis, it was a win win. So in November 2012 we got a white Scion FR-S. I almost look back and wish I kept it mildly modded, but it’s too late for that! Long story short, we rounded up our friends and their companies in the industry as our sponsors and tore this thing down for paint and a mega list of modifications.

We re-assembled it in 4 days just in time for Formula Drift New Jersey. That week is a crazy story on its own…so I will cliff notes it (while writing this I wondered who Cliff is and why he shortens everything. Google it. Thanks Cliff! He is dead.) I went days and days with no sleep while reassembling the car then Matt and I immediately hopped into a truck and trailer to drive 15 hrs north. We got to Jersey 2 hrs before the gates opened so we took a quick 2 hour nap in Kmart parking lot. So if you saw us at the event Friday or Saturday, just know Matt and I hadn’t slept since Tuesday!

Once we returned the next month was spent smoothing out all the bugs on the car (when I had time) and finally I was able to thrash it in the parking lot and then the track

Shameless plug here. Thank you to our amazing sponsors for helping us with this build:

And the highest point of the build…it was featured in SpeedHunters! Click the photo for a link to the article.

Car feels amazing, go buy an FR-S or BRZ blah blah blah. Let’s talk about drifting.

My first car was a 1993 Nissan 240sx hatch. Burgundy in color. That was in 2004, which happens to be the year the first Formula Drift event was held. When I purchased the car I knew nothing about it being the one of the best drift cars around, or what drifting was for that matter. I just wanted a popularly modified car that I thought looked good. So thanks to a “quick” Lycos search on my Gateway with AOL 5.0 56k regarding the 240sx…I learned about drifting. I went to a lot and pulled the e-brake, then tried to clutch kick while the e-brake was up…etc etc drift fail. I got a couple circles down and then a cop pulled up and gave me a reckless driving ticket in a private parking lot. If only I knew the law back then! Anyways I wrecked that and got a Honda CRX then messed with Hondas for many many years. So really I come from a Honda background and I still truly love them.

But Drifting. If you’re reading this and you haven’t seen drifting in person, find a way to make that happen. Once you do that, find a way to ride in a good drift car with a good driver. If you do all that and you don’t want to get involved in drifting…then try again until you do. But I doubt that will happen. I love drifting. So much. It is the ultimate money pit. Skateboarding was my life from age 12-16, I cared about nothing but skateboarding. I injured my knee when I was 16 and could never get things back after that. With drifting I have found my new skateboarding, it’s so similar in so many ways. It’s just a bit more expensive but who cares right!?

It’s hard to get good seat time and always have money for broken parts and tires…which is everyones challenge. But my free time is sparse, Chase Bays is my priority no matter what. So what to do? Oh I’ve got it, use my resources to live vicariously through everyone else! That works for now at least. Chase Bays was an associate sponsor of Formula Drift in 2013. It’s been such a great experience and we really accomplished what we wanted to. It has sparked some seriously great business and personal relationships for everyone at Chase Bays.

For the 2014 Formula Drift season we’ve sponsored some GREAT drivers that we already love working with. Not only are they talented but they are passionate about what they do and their entire team is full of good people. I will keep this short and just link to their social networks. I advise you follow them, always something interesting from these guys. In the 2014 we will be profiling each driver via YouTube throughout the season so I’ll wait for that to talk about them more.

Brandon Wicknick
https://www.facebook.com/dspare.parts
http://instagram.com/bwicknick

Chris Mills

https://www.facebook.com/chris.mills.9081
http://instagram.com/chrismills111

Erich Hagen

https://www.facebook.com/erich.hagen.9
http://instagram.com/erich_hagen

Forrest Wang

https://www.facebook.com/forrestwang808
http://instagram.com/forrestwangfd

Jeff Wolfson

https://www.facebook.com/JeffWolfson
http://instagram.com/jeffwolfson47

Josh Steele

https://www.facebook.com/nevrslo
http://instagram.com/nevrslo_72_steele

Ryan Litteral

https://www.facebook.com/ryan.litteral.9
http://instagram.com/ryanlitteral

While we are on the subject, let me introduce the D1SL driver in Japan and the 3 ProAm drivers we’re sponsoring

Donald Jackson (D1SL in Japan)
https://www.facebook.com/PinkRangerDrift
http://instagram.com/pink_ranger_drift

Rolando Alfaro (Midwest Drift Union)

https://www.facebook.com/rolando.alfaro3
http://instagram.com/rolandoalfaro

Stephen Bayles aka On3L3g (Lone Star Drift)

http://handicapmafia.wordpress.com/
http://instagram.com/_on3l3g

Dio Ortiz (Evergreen Drift)

https://www.facebook.com/SR20DIO
http://instagram.com/vq35dio

We have so many exciting things planned for 2014. We will continue to better our products and services and we will continue to grow as a whole. As for the drift season, we will be going to most of the Formula Drift events with our video equipment to film 2 or 3 part webisodes per event. These webisodes will have driver interviews, Chase Bays product spotlights using the beast FD cars as the models, and of course sick drifting footage. This concludes part 1 of the 2013 Chase Bays Year in Review. In part 2 we will be discussing the new products we released, the product revisions we’ve done, TV appearances, and a lot about what to expect from Chase Bays in 2014.

Thanks for the support everyone! Happy New Year.

– Chase McMaster, President