Jarek Bruner

I’m 24 born and raised in Michigan. From a young age, I’ve always liked cars and even worked on cars because of my dad. He’s always liked and owned multiple Toyota vehicles. When I was looking for a new car while in high school I wanted something cool like my friend’s e46 but from Toyota, My dad suggested we look at the IS300. It was a perfect fit for what I wanted in a daily driver at the time.

After high school I joined the US Air Force and shortly after was assigned to a base in Guam. I had my car shipped there courtesy of the military, and shortly after I started visiting the local track that had drifting and drag racing(who knew such a small island would have a track). I made some friends and started modifying my car starting with wheels, tires, coilovers, and shortly after a bolt-on angle kit and rear adjustable arms. Even though my IS300 was automatic at the time, I was having fun and was even starting to get pretty good and linking an entire course.

Over the next 3 years, I wanted to drift more and more but was limited due to finances and the IS300 being my only car. I ended up driving less than a dozen events over those 3 years. This year in 2023 marked my 4th year in the military and my contract was finished, I came back home with newly learned skills, the ambition of getting a new daily driver and finally getting to drift more. I was able to save up enough to get myself an LS430 as a daily and even piece together a manual swap for the IS300 so I could properly drift it. Thanks to the help of my dad we were able to complete the CD009 swap in 3 weeks, after having to pull and reinstall the transmission 3 times.

During my 3rd event this season I made some rookie moves and ended up looping my car on a bank crashing causing the rear end of the car to receive pretty heavy damage. I was more annoyed that it happened than mad. I wasn’t going to let that stop me from driving that day or the rest of the year so I fixed what I could at the track to continue driving. A week later I ended up finding a killer deal on a running driving car someone had bought for parts. It was missing some body panels, bumpers, and lights. I ended up buying the car to slowly build up a nice new chassis that has no rust while I continue to make new friends and develop my skills in the upcoming 2024 season. Ive very excited to see where this passion for cars takes me, or what it has to offer in the future.