There’s something magical about a Friday morning. Not the alarm clock going off before the sun is up part, but that moment when you pull up to a warehouse in Los Angeles, the smell of espresso hits you before you even open the car door, and you realize you’re surrounded by people who value good coffee and even better cars. Welcome to Rise and Shine at Race Service, where “elevated car culture” isn’t just a tagline. It’s a Friday morning ritual that proves the best automotive gatherings don’t need to be massive weekend spectacles to matter.

Here’s the thing about hosting cars and coffee on a weekday morning: it filters out the casual crowd. What shows up instead are diehards, builders, creators, and industry folks who actually care enough to rearrange their schedules. Combine that with Race Service’s small converted garage space that can only showcase a handful of carefully curated vehicles, and you get something fundamentally different. Quality over quantity. Intimacy over scale. Every car earns its spot.

What Is Race Service?

Before we dive into Rise and Shine, let’s rewind and talk about Race Service itself. Founded in 2018 and based in Los Angeles, Race Service is equal parts automotive culture hub and creative agency. Co-founded by James Kirkham, a former racing driver who also co-founded Donut Media and worked with GoPro’s media team, Race Service operates out of a converted automotive garage space that doubles as a hub for drivers, artists, and content creators.

What sets them apart is how they approach the work. Race Service operates through a combination of brand strategy, content production, and experiential activations for some of the biggest names in the automotive world. They’ve partnered with Mercedes-AMG Motorsport on multiple projects, including the incredible AMG GT3 Raw Spec program, where they stripped an AMG GT3 down to bare metal and rebuilt it with a custom graphic language celebrating raw materials. They’ve worked with Michelin, partnered with organizations like the Petersen Automotive Museum, and even hosted activations at the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel, placing an AMG GT3 on the iconic rooftop.

But Race Service isn’t just about high dollar brand partnerships. They’ve also built a reputation for supporting grassroots car culture through events like Rise and Shine, creating content that celebrates cars at every level, and designing limited edition merchandise that connects the worlds of automotive racing and high end fashion. If you follow Daniel Ricciardo’s social media, you’ve probably seen Race Service’s work. They’ve collaborated with the Formula One driver on various projects and helped design his helmets. As he is my favorite driver, I couldn’t help but to get some photos of his helmets on display.

The Race Service space itself is as aesthetically pleasing as it gets. The main shop sits across from a row of garages, all designed with a minimalist approach that lets the cars and projects take center stage. It’s a fully equipped shop if they need it, but more importantly, it’s a creative space where the team produces content and works as a marketing agency. There’s room for a handful of cars, making it the ideal place to showcase builds worth celebrating, if they fit the fully curated vibe.

Rise and Shine: Elevated Car Culture Without Gatekeeping

Here’s what makes Rise and Shine different. Most car meets follow a familiar formula: show up, park your car, grab a mediocre coffee from a food truck (if there is one), walk around, take some photos, leave. It’s fine. It’s enjoyable, and that’s all it needs to be, but it rarely feels special. Rise and Shine flips that script entirely.

First, there’s the coffee. Race Service takes coffee as seriously as they take cars, which makes sense when you learn they’ve partnered with La Marzocco for their coffee program. We’re not talking about a Costco coffee maker and some Folgers. We’re talking about espresso that could hold its own at any specialty coffee shop in Los Angeles. The idea is simple but brilliant: if you’re going to ask people to show up before or even during work on a Friday morning, you better make it worth their while. Great coffee is non-negotiable.

Then there’s the curation. Rise and Shine operates on themed events. One event it might be Shelby week, with a 427 Cobra, an original GT350, and the new supercharged GT500 in attendance. Another event might focus on ’80s Euro cars, JDM legends, or NASCAR-inspired builds. The themes give each event a focal point and create variety that keeps people coming back. You’re not just showing up to see the same cars every time.

But here’s the thing that really sets Rise and Shine apart: it’s “elevated car culture” without the gatekeeping. You don’t need a hypercar to attend. You don’t need a perfectly restored classic. I showed up with my cousin in his Subaru Impreza. You don’t even need to bring a car at all. The doors are open, literally and figuratively. The vibe is inclusive, welcoming, and centered around a shared appreciation for cars that can hang with the quality of the coffee. It’s art without pretension. It’s enthusiasm without ego.

James Kirkham and the Race Service team have created something that feels more like a community gathering than a car show. There’s no judging. No trophies. No pressure to have the most Instagram worthy build. Just good people, good coffee, and good cars. In a world where car culture can sometimes feel like a competition to see who has the most expensive toys, Rise and Shine is a reminder that it’s really about passion, craftsmanship, and connection.

Real Deal Race Cars

Over the years, Rise and Shine has showcased an incredible variety of cars, but let’s talk about a few that highlight what Race Service is all about. This time it was all about American Muscle race cars.

One standout at a recent event was the catfish Camaro from the Big Time YouTube channel. This isn’t your typical YouTube project car. It’s a fully developed race car that’s seen real competition at Gridlife Laguna Seca, the kind of machine most content creators would never dare to own, let alone campaign. The fact that it showed up at Rise and Shine speaks to the caliber of builds the event attracts. This is serious track hardware, not a build designed solely for clicks and thumbnails.

Then there’s James Kirkham’s personal Ferrari 348 Challenge. Not an American race car, but equally as cool. This 348 made its debut at the 2019 SEMA Show and has become a fixture at Race Service events, representing the perfect blend of classic Ferrari styling and modern track performance.

Step inside and you’ll find Kevlar bucket seats, a flocked dashboard, Lexan Nascar-style spoiler, and a proper race wheel. The kicker? That race wheel is from a Mercedes. Combine that with the “You don’t put bumper stickers on a Mercedes” bumper sticker on the back, and only then will you understand the seriously unserious vibe from Race Service. The 348 often gets overlooked in Ferrari’s V8 lineage, but this version proves these cars just need to be loved. It’s detailed down to the trademark look from Race Service with branded and unbranded stickers strewn across the body.

Tucked away in one of the garages was something truly special: Rusty Wallace’s 1991 Miller Genuine Draft Pontiac. For someone who’s never seen a NASCAR up close, let alone one with genuine historic value, it was surreal. This wasn’t a replica or a tribute car. This was the real thing, a piece of stock car racing history sitting in a minimalist modern garage space. The contrast between the raw, purpose-built race car and the clean aesthetic of Race Service made it even more striking. It’s the kind of moment that reminds you why events like Rise and Shine matter. Where else are you going to casually stumble upon a legitimate NASCAR legend while getting your Friday morning coffee?

What’s remarkable about these cars is that they are not garage queens. They’re driven. They’re tracked. They’re used the way cars are meant to be used. That philosophy runs deep at Race Service. These aren’t static displays meant to collect dust. They’re functional pieces of automotive art that prove you can have beauty and performance without compromise. The diversity of this event as well as all of their events is the point. Rise and Shine celebrates all corners of car culture, from vintage American muscle to modern supercars to JDM icons. If it’s built well and has a story, it has a place at Race Service.

The Importance of Events Like This

In an era where car culture is increasingly fragmented and commercialized, events like Rise and Shine remind us what this whole thing is supposed to be about. A Friday morning event from 9 AM to noon is a commitment. Most people are at work. Most people have responsibilities. Most people would find it easier to sleep in or show up to a Saturday morning cars and coffee at 8 AM when they don’t have anywhere else to be. But that’s exactly the point. The Friday morning time slot is a filter, and not in a gatekeeping way. It filters for the people who care enough to rearrange their schedules. It filters for true enthusiasts who would rather start their weekend early with good coffee and better cars than hit the snooze button one more time.

The result is a gathering that feels different. The energy is different. The conversations are different. You’re not dealing with the casual crowd that shows up to every cars and coffee just to kill time. You’re surrounded by people who made a choice to be there, who value the same things you do, who understand that sometimes the best way to start your Friday is with the smell of high octane fuel and fresh espresso.

Rise and Shine also represents a model for how car events should evolve. The traditional cars and coffee format is fine, but it’s also becoming predictable. Rise and Shine proves you can create something more interesting by focusing on quality over quantity, curation over chaos, and community over clout. The themed events, the attention to detail with the coffee program, the welcoming atmosphere, it all adds up to an experience that feels intentional rather than haphazard.

Perhaps most importantly, events like Rise and Shine are preserving car culture in a way that feels authentic. We live in an age where everything is content, where every car is a photo op, where the line between genuine enthusiasm and performative Instagram posts gets blurrier every day. Rise and Shine cuts through that noise. It’s an event designed for enthusiasts by enthusiasts, where the focus is on the cars and the community rather than the clout.

The fact that Race Service has built this around their creative agency work is also significant. They’re not just throwing an event to drive traffic to a business. They’re integrating car culture into everything they do, from their brand partnerships with Mercedes AMG to their merchandise collaborations to their content creation. It’s all connected, and Rise and Shine is the physical manifestation of that ethos. It’s where the community comes together, where ideas are exchanged, where relationships are built.

The Takeaway

Car culture doesn’t need to be complicated. It doesn’t need massive budgets or perfect weather or thousands of attendees to be meaningful. Sometimes the best experiences happen on a Friday morning in a converted garage in Los Angeles, where the coffee is excellent, the cars are exceptional, and the people actually give a damn.

Rise and Shine at Race Service is proof that when you prioritize quality, authenticity, and community, magic happens. It’s a reminder that car culture at its best is about more than the machines themselves. It’s about the people who build them, the stories behind them, and the connections we make along the way.

So here’s the challenge: find your local version of Rise and Shine. If it doesn’t exist yet, create it. Open your garage. Make good coffee. Invite people who care. Keep the gatekeepers out and the doors open. Focus on the cars, the stories, and the community. Because at the end of the day, that’s what this is all about.

And if you happen to be in Los Angeles on a Friday morning, you know where to go. Race Service. 9 AM to noon. Bring yourself, bring your enthusiasm, and bring your appreciation for coffee that’s as good as the cars. The doors are open.