Mazda Trek 2 Texas recap
03-11-2002
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Mazda Trek 2 Texas recap
Man, I'm not even sure where to start. What a jam-packed weekend! I was so tired on Sunday night, I crashed at 8 pm and didn't wake up until 8 am this morning.
Mazda Trek 2 Texas:
This was definitely one of the coolest things I have done in my entire life. I got to meet all of the editors and photographers from Sport Compact Car, Import Tuner, Turbo Magazine, etc. and went partying with them on Friday night at Hyperia in downtown Houston. We had around 17-20 cars when we departed Dallas on Friday morning, with another 4 cars joining us en route while we were already on the trip.
SP Engineering (City of Industry, CA) sent 2 of their crew on the Trek 2 Texas to pilot their yellow RX-7 that puts out around 850 hp to the wheels. That monster was running TWO BARS (30 PSI!) of boost and had the weirdest sounding idle you have ever heard in your life. VROOM... (1/4 second pause)... VROOM... (1/4 second pause)... VROOM (over and over again) When we were in the parking lot hotel on Friday morning preparing to depart for Houston I kept wondering, "Why do those guys in the RX-7 keep revving their engine all the time??" Later when I talked to them, I found out that was just the sound of the engine idling. The SP Engineering guys were both really cool, down-to-earth guys. During the Trek, they would purposely fall to the back of the pack to round up some of our cars that would got separated from us a mile or so back, and they did a pretty good job of blocking/controlling the traffic to keep all 20 of us together. The yellow RX-7 got around 7 miles per gallon, so every 150 miles or so the caravan had to stop to let those guys fill up on gas. SP Engineering was intending to run the car during the WIC, but they were lacking some of the required safety equipment, so WIC forced them to dial in with an ET of 11 (even though the car could have easily ran in the 9's).
Some of the other cars that were running with us were 4 other 7th gen Civics (Scott, Steve, Jason, and Chris - all of these guys are also on this forum but I can't remember their user id's sorry), 2 Mazda Protege 5's (magazine cars), a blue Mazda MP3 (magazine car) which looked a lot like a Lancer EVO rally car, Sport Compact Car's Project Toyota Matrix, a turbocharged Miata (magazine car), and a blue Mazda MPV minivan with 17" rims (the lead car piloted by SCC's Larry Svedraa... alright I know I'm misspelling his last name). One of the Protege 5's was hooked up with a DVD player, the guy riding shotgun was watching porno DVD's the entire 6 hr trip from Dallas to Houston
.
I was the only guy on the trip that came from Houston, so about 20 miles north of Houston, Larry let me get to the very front of the caravan and lead the Trek 2 Texas the remainder of the way to Houston Raceway Park. All of the Trek 2 Texas participants also got a free 3-day pass to WIC, VIP passes to the preparty at Hyperia on Friday, and we got to park our cars inside the WIC fairgrounds (as opposed to the regular Raceway Park parking lot). All of us had our pictures taken for the magazine, and we're looking forward to seeing them either in print or on the website really soon.
Well I was going to also give a recap of WIC and Import Revolution, but I'll have to get to that later because I have to go run some errands right now. Import Revolution was kind of lame - too crowded, not enough vendor models, and overall I just wasn't that impressed with it. Once you've seen one slammed Civic with 19" rims and a non-functional second exhaust, you've seen them all. WIC was sooo much better - I got to see the Houston Hooligans (Houston motorcycle crew) do some CRAZY motorcycle stunts, lots of cool racing, and talk to some true car enthusiasts. Not to say that there weren't any real car enthusiasts at Import Revolution, but shows like IR tend to attract all the casual fans who just go to see lots of shiny cars, big *** wings, lots of stickers and the same dozen Asian models you see at every car show. As you can tell, I'm more of a fan of action (stunts, racing, and performance) than show cars. But to each his own...
Steph Papadakis (fastest FWD car in the world, AEM 2001 Civic that has run 8's before) CHOKED big time during Sunday's WIC finals, getting beat by Carboy's red Civic turbocharged hatch! The Carboy hatch was driven by Henry (one of the guys that did the RSX swap research for me a month ago). Steph blew Henry off the line, but then Henry made a furious comeback once his turbo kicked in to beat Steph by more than a full second! Carboy ran a 10.08 to Steph's 11-something. BIG upset.
More on this past weekend's events when I get back later tonight or early tomorrow...
Mazda Trek 2 Texas:
This was definitely one of the coolest things I have done in my entire life. I got to meet all of the editors and photographers from Sport Compact Car, Import Tuner, Turbo Magazine, etc. and went partying with them on Friday night at Hyperia in downtown Houston. We had around 17-20 cars when we departed Dallas on Friday morning, with another 4 cars joining us en route while we were already on the trip.
SP Engineering (City of Industry, CA) sent 2 of their crew on the Trek 2 Texas to pilot their yellow RX-7 that puts out around 850 hp to the wheels. That monster was running TWO BARS (30 PSI!) of boost and had the weirdest sounding idle you have ever heard in your life. VROOM... (1/4 second pause)... VROOM... (1/4 second pause)... VROOM (over and over again) When we were in the parking lot hotel on Friday morning preparing to depart for Houston I kept wondering, "Why do those guys in the RX-7 keep revving their engine all the time??" Later when I talked to them, I found out that was just the sound of the engine idling. The SP Engineering guys were both really cool, down-to-earth guys. During the Trek, they would purposely fall to the back of the pack to round up some of our cars that would got separated from us a mile or so back, and they did a pretty good job of blocking/controlling the traffic to keep all 20 of us together. The yellow RX-7 got around 7 miles per gallon, so every 150 miles or so the caravan had to stop to let those guys fill up on gas. SP Engineering was intending to run the car during the WIC, but they were lacking some of the required safety equipment, so WIC forced them to dial in with an ET of 11 (even though the car could have easily ran in the 9's).
Some of the other cars that were running with us were 4 other 7th gen Civics (Scott, Steve, Jason, and Chris - all of these guys are also on this forum but I can't remember their user id's sorry), 2 Mazda Protege 5's (magazine cars), a blue Mazda MP3 (magazine car) which looked a lot like a Lancer EVO rally car, Sport Compact Car's Project Toyota Matrix, a turbocharged Miata (magazine car), and a blue Mazda MPV minivan with 17" rims (the lead car piloted by SCC's Larry Svedraa... alright I know I'm misspelling his last name). One of the Protege 5's was hooked up with a DVD player, the guy riding shotgun was watching porno DVD's the entire 6 hr trip from Dallas to Houston
.I was the only guy on the trip that came from Houston, so about 20 miles north of Houston, Larry let me get to the very front of the caravan and lead the Trek 2 Texas the remainder of the way to Houston Raceway Park. All of the Trek 2 Texas participants also got a free 3-day pass to WIC, VIP passes to the preparty at Hyperia on Friday, and we got to park our cars inside the WIC fairgrounds (as opposed to the regular Raceway Park parking lot). All of us had our pictures taken for the magazine, and we're looking forward to seeing them either in print or on the website really soon.
Well I was going to also give a recap of WIC and Import Revolution, but I'll have to get to that later because I have to go run some errands right now. Import Revolution was kind of lame - too crowded, not enough vendor models, and overall I just wasn't that impressed with it. Once you've seen one slammed Civic with 19" rims and a non-functional second exhaust, you've seen them all. WIC was sooo much better - I got to see the Houston Hooligans (Houston motorcycle crew) do some CRAZY motorcycle stunts, lots of cool racing, and talk to some true car enthusiasts. Not to say that there weren't any real car enthusiasts at Import Revolution, but shows like IR tend to attract all the casual fans who just go to see lots of shiny cars, big *** wings, lots of stickers and the same dozen Asian models you see at every car show. As you can tell, I'm more of a fan of action (stunts, racing, and performance) than show cars. But to each his own...
Steph Papadakis (fastest FWD car in the world, AEM 2001 Civic that has run 8's before) CHOKED big time during Sunday's WIC finals, getting beat by Carboy's red Civic turbocharged hatch! The Carboy hatch was driven by Henry (one of the guys that did the RSX swap research for me a month ago). Steph blew Henry off the line, but then Henry made a furious comeback once his turbo kicked in to beat Steph by more than a full second! Carboy ran a 10.08 to Steph's 11-something. BIG upset.
More on this past weekend's events when I get back later tonight or early tomorrow...
03-11-2002
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Rep Power: 0 Wouldn't you sat the actual event blew though....me and my GF went, paid 50 dollars to get in, said hi to some friends, took some pictures and bailed.....i thought it could have been more eventful.....
03-11-2002
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Rep Power: 0 Oh man...now I so wish I went to WIC instead...Import Revolution sucked ***. All it was Rice Fest 2002. It was sad...if people think this is what the Houston car scene was about...they were sadly mistaken. Only good part was taking pictures with the only white model there [IMG]i/expressions/face-icon-small-smile.gif[/IMG]
03-11-2002
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How long did you guys wait in line to get tickets? My friends and I waited in the windy cold for 1.5 hrs, then we said fug that and we walked to the ticket window and paid some guy to buy us some tickets. Only reason I stayed at the show as long as I did was because I had already invested money and time to wait to get tickets. There really wasn't anything worth seeing at the show, except maybe that Venom Viper that Prashant Patel was showing off. Plus, most of the good show cars from IR were at WIC on Sunday (including Prashant's Viper), so I could have skipped IR and still caught the good looking show cars.
The Import Expo last fall was 10x better. Tons of good-looking vendor models everywhere, plus there weren't any crazy 2 hr lines to get tickets.
How long did you guys wait in line to get tickets? My friends and I waited in the windy cold for 1.5 hrs, then we said fug that and we walked to the ticket window and paid some guy to buy us some tickets. Only reason I stayed at the show as long as I did was because I had already invested money and time to wait to get tickets. There really wasn't anything worth seeing at the show, except maybe that Venom Viper that Prashant Patel was showing off. Plus, most of the good show cars from IR were at WIC on Sunday (including Prashant's Viper), so I could have skipped IR and still caught the good looking show cars.
The Import Expo last fall was 10x better. Tons of good-looking vendor models everywhere, plus there weren't any crazy 2 hr lines to get tickets.
03-11-2002
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Well it all depends on what your expectations were, I suppose. WIC had its share of show cars, but it wasn't really a car show per se. It featured lots of action (world championship-level drag racing, unbelievable motorcycle stunts) with quite a few vendor booths. The guys at the Venom, Toyo, ACT, AEM, and TTEN (Toyota Training Education Network) booths were all really cool to talk to and I learned a lot about their new and recent products. And of course how could I forget to mention the MacMillan-Argus Publication booth (Import Tuner, Sport Compact Car, Turbo). Again, if you're not interested in drag racing that much, I can understand how you can feel ripped off by paying $40 for a 3 day pass.
To no one in particular:
Import Revolution didn't really any product booths, just a few local shops selling the usual stuff (altezza lights, pedals, etc.) The reason for this is probably because the companies know that all the hardcore guys who are interested in performance products and the drag race scene will be at WIC, and that IR is for all of the casual fans who like to see glitzy cars (who are all probably slow as shiznit with all that extra plastic and non-functional crap attached to their car), models, and break dancing (I am not kidding you - I saw at least 2 break dance contests occur while I was at IR).
I must say I was pretty disappointed with IR. Being produced by the same guys who put on Hot Import Nights, I was expecting a lot more. If you aren't going to have any cool feature companies or booths, that's fine. But at least get some halfway decent looking models out there. And I'm not talking about those Asian model queens who charge you $5 just to take a picture with them.
Well it all depends on what your expectations were, I suppose. WIC had its share of show cars, but it wasn't really a car show per se. It featured lots of action (world championship-level drag racing, unbelievable motorcycle stunts) with quite a few vendor booths. The guys at the Venom, Toyo, ACT, AEM, and TTEN (Toyota Training Education Network) booths were all really cool to talk to and I learned a lot about their new and recent products. And of course how could I forget to mention the MacMillan-Argus Publication booth (Import Tuner, Sport Compact Car, Turbo). Again, if you're not interested in drag racing that much, I can understand how you can feel ripped off by paying $40 for a 3 day pass.
To no one in particular:
Import Revolution didn't really any product booths, just a few local shops selling the usual stuff (altezza lights, pedals, etc.) The reason for this is probably because the companies know that all the hardcore guys who are interested in performance products and the drag race scene will be at WIC, and that IR is for all of the casual fans who like to see glitzy cars (who are all probably slow as shiznit with all that extra plastic and non-functional crap attached to their car), models, and break dancing (I am not kidding you - I saw at least 2 break dance contests occur while I was at IR).
I must say I was pretty disappointed with IR. Being produced by the same guys who put on Hot Import Nights, I was expecting a lot more. If you aren't going to have any cool feature companies or booths, that's fine. But at least get some halfway decent looking models out there. And I'm not talking about those Asian model queens who charge you $5 just to take a picture with them.
03-11-2002
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I've got lots of pix, but unfortunately I couldn't get any pictures in transit while I was driving my car during the Trek 2 Texas (for obvious reasons). For the Trek, I did get some before and after shots (before we took off from Dallas and after we arrived at WIC). I'll post pix sometime tomorrow after I finish uploading them to my machine.
Haha one thing I wish I had a pic of was Larry (editorial director for SCC) dancing on top of the bar with 2 models/dancers during the pre party Friday night at Hyperia. To put this into perspective - Larry is a 40-45 year old guy with glasses who just happens to be the coolest middle-aged man you will ever meet. He's not dorky cool like Jason Biggs' Dad in American Pie, but cool as in any 18-25 year old kid would like to hang out with him. Anyways, Friday was Larry's first time ever in a rave/dance club, and he was partying it up as well as anybody. Unfortunately I don't have any pictures, so you'll just have to take my word for it. Good times...
I've got lots of pix, but unfortunately I couldn't get any pictures in transit while I was driving my car during the Trek 2 Texas (for obvious reasons). For the Trek, I did get some before and after shots (before we took off from Dallas and after we arrived at WIC). I'll post pix sometime tomorrow after I finish uploading them to my machine.
Haha one thing I wish I had a pic of was Larry (editorial director for SCC) dancing on top of the bar with 2 models/dancers during the pre party Friday night at Hyperia. To put this into perspective - Larry is a 40-45 year old guy with glasses who just happens to be the coolest middle-aged man you will ever meet. He's not dorky cool like Jason Biggs' Dad in American Pie, but cool as in any 18-25 year old kid would like to hang out with him. Anyways, Friday was Larry's first time ever in a rave/dance club, and he was partying it up as well as anybody. Unfortunately I don't have any pictures, so you'll just have to take my word for it. Good times...
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