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Our History
When
Team Exile was first formed, it wasn't named Team Exile, it was
first known as The AZN Angelz Crew back in mid 2000 in Salinas, CA. The
original members were Eric Burl (Filipino), Steven Burl (Filipino), and
Joshua Christian (Korean). The name was picked because all of the
members were asian and we went by the quote, "Never Drive Faster Than
Your Angels Can Fly." After almost a year of running under the AAC name, we
met up with Kevin Ersoy of Marina, CA.
After a while of debating,
we came under the name of Team Si-R. Si-R was an acronym for "Street
Import Racing" and was also the trim of one of the most powerful Honda
Civic models ever produced. After a while of flying under the Team Si-R
flag, Kevin moved away to pursue college, Joshua Christian went to
expand Team Si-R, and also a couple new members including DJ Madronio,
Frank DeAgustinio, and James Tingco hopped on board with Steven
and Eric. At this point we were known as Team Dragon.
 Around
this time, a good friend named Brenden Tsukimura had passed away, being
a victim of a botched robbery attempt and because of this, The K-Spec
Dragon was established. The K-Spec Dragon brought together the friends
of Brenden into one racing crew. But as time passed, friends grew apart
and The K-Spec Dragon was disbanded.
Now, Team Dragon would be
known as The Got Rice Crew, or simply known as The GRC. The GRC members
were all asian
again and known for having a "GOT RICE?" decal on their rear windows.
The GRC flourished and expanded. It was when non-asian members would
join that we would decide to do another name change.
In mid 2006 The GRC would
hold a team meeting to discuss a new name. The members were Steven Burl,
Eric Burl, DJ Madronio, Tiffanie Hutchison, Joe Bresciani, Robin
Patterson, and Bill Kauffman. That night we decided on the name Team
Exodus. It was a majority vote but Eric thought that the name was too
biblical and religious.
After a night of
brainstorming (and reading through a dictionary), Steven came up with
Team Exile. It had a dark and methodical connotation. The meaning struck
a certain string with him: One who is expelled either voluntarily or by
force of circumstance from a social body or native land. And that's what
we were, we didn't fit in the mold of All Honda Teams or All Subie Teams
or All Drag Teams or All Drift Teams. We consisted of many types of
cars, from Hondas to Jeeps; from drifters to drag racers. This was the
appeal of the crew, we were different.
 In
late 2006, Team Exile would come into contact with members of The Banana
Crew and Team 100 Octane. Steven Burl was working at NIA Performance at
the time and was a sales rep and install tech when he came across two
members of the Banana Crew. First was Francis Nieves. Francis would
bring in his Honda CRX and hang out. After a while, Steven and Francis
would become very good friends. Next was Lupe Munoz of Team 100 Octane.
Lupe would come in every now and again to hang out and to buy parts. At
the time, he was working on a Ford Focus. Last, he would meet Jon
Domingo of The Banana Crew. After about two weeks of being acquainted
with Jon, they decided to form the Team M1L. The Original Founders of
Team M1L were Jon Domingo, Steven Burl, Francis Nieves, DJ Madronio,
James Tingco, Lupe Munoz, and Brandon Cobbs. This was in late August.
Under the watchful eye of Jon, Steven, and Francis, and the cooperation
of the other founders, Team M1L would be strong and together. On
December 24, Christmas Eve of 2006, Jonathan Domingo passed away in a
car accident, forever leaving Team M1L crippled.
M1L fell into a flurry of power struggles, where members tried to gain
power by recruiting new members by themselves to gain votes. In the end,
Team M1L was in shambles and unprofessional with over 40 members
and less than 18 cars. It was time to call it quits.
Team M1L disbanded for the most part. Some claim that the
M1L Family still exists, but the 2 remaining original Team M1L members
have disband it. Some members joined other teams, others went solo. For
Steven Burl, Eric Burl, Dustin Delameter, Sam Madruga, and Tim Clark, it
was a wake up call to re-open Exile.
In Mid 2007, Team Exile was reborn under the
same guidelines as before. It expanded  from
the 831 (Monterey Bay, CA) to the 510 (Hayward, CA) and then out to the
704 (Mooresville, NC). Team Exile: The Blacklisted Drivers represents
the breaking away from the mainstream. It means being
unique in an otherwise uniform world... That, and we're all crazy as
shit...
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"The
Empire of Exile started here... in this garage...
full of shit..."
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