2002 convention recap (long)

[mav1178]

Friday:

I'll skip the parts about getting all of the equipment and such ready...
those are the boring parts.

Arrived at Speedzone at around 3:30, got everything set up in the conference
rooms, got all of the registration info set up, and at around 4PM cars
started to slowly trickle in...  one by one cars started to trickle in.  by
about 4:30PM we had over 50 cars, and the number of cars kept increasing
throughout the entire afternoon and into the evening.  I was so busy running
around finishing up little things, by the time I went into the parking lot
at 6PM to check up on a few people I was shocked by the sheer number of cars
in the lot!  I'd say there was easily 110+ cars in the parking lot, all
parked together, with their owners hanging out and having fun at Speedzone.

We started things out a bit late, around 5:20-5:30 or so.  I waited till
most people showed up, then gave a small welcoming speech.  Then came the
pizza, the racing, and the nonstop jokes and stories with each other.
Definitely great to meet a lot of new people, and be reunited with many of
the old-timers like Dave, Don, Pat Hall, Frankie, etc.  I personally was a
bit busy taking care of things, so I didn't get to sit down and talk with
any one for an extended period of time, and if I seemed "rushed" this
weekend I apologize...

After dinner, we started to go out on the kart tracks to have some fun.  I
only ran a few laps on the dragster and the grand prix tracks, but it was
quite worth it... It was, literally, the first time I've been drag racing...

A few more hours of fun, and I took off early around 9:30PM because I needed
to get home to sleep.  But, we took a detour instead and headed over to
JSpec.com Sam's shop to help him wire up his S14.5 project car... it ended
up being a mini-meet at his shop, with T.Y., Asad, Sam, Richard Tang, Van,
Ryan McDonnell, and a few other guys coming over to hang out and have fun...
But we almost had a serious accident, when Ryan got a face full of fuel when
the fuel line he took off shot gasoline straight up from a pressurized line.
Ouch...

Finally, at 12:30AM I decided to go home... but after getting home, it was
EMAIL, PHONE CALLS, and MORE EMAIL until 3AM...

(To be continued...)

-alex

[mav1178]

Saturday:

I was late to Nissan NA!!!!!  I actually woke up late, and got to Nissan at
7:45 instead of being there at 7AM... Yikes.

The entire parking lot at Nissan was cleared, except for a few random cars
here and there.  Can't really help it, though.. that's what happens when you
have a large corporation with thousands of employees.  Started to set up,
and slowly after 8AM cars started to trickle in.  The overall process of
moving in 150+ cars was pretty easy, and nothing major happened...

But, the cars kept coming... I was expecting 150-170 cars, but I think close
to 180+ cars showed up, with 300+ cars that came in/left throughout the
entire day.  I'm sure the pictures that will pop up will eventually speak
for themselves, but the sheer number of participants was amazing.  The
vendors were great also, with many of them donating large sums of goodies to
the raffle and displaying new products and parts.

This convention not only became a place to put cars/faces to those that we
often read about on the net, it also became a place for the original
old-school list members to be reunited.  When I say "old school", I mean
guys that have been on the list since 1995 and 1996... people like Don Nimi,
Dave Alexander, Patrick Hall, Asad Aboobaker, T.Y. Yap, Mike Lee, Willie and
Angie, Mike Mamos, Derek Greaser, Frankie Overbey, Simon Kim, Bryan Holzhey,
etc.  It was certainly great to finally meet Dave, as he started the 240SX
list more than 7 years ago and has kept it running ever since then.  No
matter what list/forum you are a part of now, it all started with the
Amarok.org list, and it started with Dave.

An unexpected highlight of the day was in the afternoon, when an old man was
pushed around on a wheelchair with his eyes wide open... Mr. K (the father
of the Z car and pretty much GOD to all Nissan enthusiasts) was in town, and
(according to Dean Case, PR of the Nissan division) he was driven straight
from his hotel to Nissan NA without anyone telling him what was going on at
the event.  At first no one really recognized him, but as soon as people
realized who was at the event the stream of car owners that wanted a picture
from Mr. K or an autograph wouldn't stop... he signed EVERYTHING, from
t-shirts to dashboards, from fenders to pieces of paper.  Afterwards, he
remarked that he was surprised by the devotion that 240SX owners have
towards their car, and he commented on how much courtesy and friendliness
they showed him and each other... =)

We had raffles every hour, and the people who did the raffle tried to be as
fair and honest about it as possible, but to many of the attendees it seemed
like the raffle was "rigged".  But it wasn't.  There were people who dropped
$50, $100, $150, or even more on raffle tickets.  Two people dropped almost
$200 each on raffle tickets, and they ended up being the "big" winners of
the raffle...  all in all, over $10k in raffle prizes were given away, in
part due to the generous donations of all of the sponsors.

Cleanup was fast too!  The parking lot was surprisingly trash-free, and we
were all out of the parking lot by 6PM or so.  I couldn't stick around for
very long, as I had to get home, clean up, pack up my tools and my tires,
and head on over to the hotel in Lancaster to do tech inspections on many of
the cars running the track event.  Many thanks to Don and T.Y. and Diego for
helping out, as it made things a lot faster.  Teched 20 cars in 30 minutes!

Afterwards, we went to have some good ol' burgers at In-N-Out with Asad and
Luigi... then crashed.  Two down, one to go!

(To be continued)

-alex

[mav1178]

Sunday:

Woke up late, yet again...

Got to the track around 7:30AM, only to find many of the SpeedTrialUSA
people missing.  I found out later that Tommy had a bit of a car problem and
had his exhaust come undone from the car on the freeway, and he was late
getting to the track.  After the driver's meeting and checking everyone in,
we started with our first run group at 9:30AM...

Because there were so many beginner drivers, a decision was made in the
morning to run the track sans the "bowl", or the banked turn at the back end
of the track.  Worked out pretty well, as there were really no incidents
throughout the morning sessions.  Obviously, there were the occasional
slow/monkey drivers in different groups, but it was relatively incident-free
in the morning.

This was my first track event where I am running the newer Kumho V700
Victoracer tires, and the extra grip felt absolutely wonderful.  I was able
to dive into corners deeper and brake later, and carry more speed out of
them.  (More on this later).

Having the instructors was definitely a good idea, as many of them with more
race/track experience was able to give the beginners pointers...  even T.Y.
got a healthy dosage of tips from Don regarding his new suspension setup.
It was real nice to see so many 240SX's on the track... I think over 70 of
them ran in the 3 run groups.  Also quite a sight to see even more of them
on the track during the parade laps.

Throughout the entire day, I was battling one demon on my car:  my
suspension.  This was the first track event I've been at since I installed
my new suspension (Zeal Function B6 with 6k/5k springs), and it was also the
first event where I am using the Kumho race tires, and a totally unexpected
problem showed up:  on corners at speed, my front tires were rubbing up
against the fender linings BAD.  So bad, on the skidpad and on tight turns I
would lock up my steering making sharp right hand turns.  At first I figured
it was just temporary, but after the first session it was bothering me when
I couldn't go all-out on exiting corners.  I tried to cut out some of the
fender lining, but that didn't solve the problem.  Later on, I had a theory:
it was caused by 1) soft spring rates, 2) anti-roll bars being set on soft
(front) and medium (rear), or 3) car being too low.  Don suggested that it
was the suspension being too low, so I took off the wheels and raised the
front end up by 1/2" and went out on the track again.  Same problem.  After
sitting in the pits and thinking about it, I realized that it may be caused
by the fact that I have too much grip in the tires, and not enough roll
stiffness to counter the extra weight.  I wasn't able to set my front
anti-roll bars on full stiff, but I will fix that problem by the next
SpeedTrial track event in 4 weeks.

On one of the last sessions of the day, I tuned the suspension as best as I
could given my rubbing problems, and went out in the advanced run group.  On
the track, Don was driving Steve Khoo's car, T.Y. had Asad as his passenger,
and Chano had Luigi in his car... I went out on the track, with all of the
other guys already running their sessions, and drove real slow for 2 laps
waiting for Don to catch up.  By the 3rd lap, when Don came up behind me,
that's when the real fun started... I let Ko-san (of Enonvativ Force) go by
with his turbo S14 KA, and led Don in Steve's car for a lap (with T.Y.
another 15 seconds back).  On the next lap, I decided to let Don by and have
fun with T.Y..  One thing I've noticed that with all of my mods, I have a
pretty wide powerband on my KA, and it pulls nice in almost any gear, but I
was not expecting to stand much of a chance against T.Y. and Chano's turbo
KAs that were coming up on me fast... boy was I surprised.  What started out
next was a long game of cat and mouse, with my superior speed through
corners balancing out against their better straight-line acceleration.  To
my amazement, I was able to hold off T.Y. for quite some time!  Don was a
bit ahead of us, but after 2 laps he had to slow down because Steve's car
was overheating, so he waved all of us pass on the front straight.  I hauled
ass as much as I could, but I was starting to have some cooling issues
myself, so I short-shifted at 5500RPM and tried to keep the temperatures
down.  As the "KA24DET" and KA turbo went around the track, Chano was right
behind us, with some great in-car footage that you have to see to believe!
We had a lot of room ahead of us, with no traffic, but after a couple of
laps we were given the checkered flag (doh!<img src="http://www.zilvia.net/f/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif" border="0" valign="absmiddle" alt=';)'> and had to end out session.
Afterwards, I spoke with T.Y. and Asad, and both of them commented that I
was not holding T.Y.'s car up. &nbsp;I have my doubts about that, as his 320+RWHP
car should have easily passed me on the front straight, but I think he was
just being modest... =) &nbsp;Don was a bit dissappointed at not being able to
play with the rest of us, but it was great fun for the lap or so that we
were able to run together! &nbsp;=D &nbsp;I really have to thank my tires... &nbsp;Andy
Phan of the SE-R list hit it dead-on when he commented that race tires make
drivers look really good on the track (and covers up driving mistakes real
well), as I would have done a lot worse if I had been running my street 17"
Toyo FZ4s or even my 16" Bridgestone RE730s!

In the afternoon sessions we ran the back "bowl" area, with a chicane
inserted on the back straight to reduce speeds coming out of the banked
turn, and ran the infield section minus the skidpad. &nbsp;The skidpad, well, it
was open for "car control", but it was basically a call to go out and go
crazy on it. &nbsp;A few people here and there ran some funky runs on the
skidpad, but the showstopper was when Alex Pfeiffer from Battle Version got
into Richard Tang's "JDM RICE" machine and went ballistic. &nbsp;Seeing 50MPH
drifts on the skidpad was great, as were the 3 minute left turn (and right
turn) continious drifts... &nbsp;I remember Frankie kept asking me (in his
uniquely Southern accent) "Hey Alex, when's the burnout contest???", and
that was it! &nbsp;I'm sure someone got some great footage of the sideways action
Battle Version Alex busted out, because everyone's jaws were wide open with
amazement.

We packed up fast, and everyone was gone by about 5:30PM or 6. &nbsp;It was,
however, not a day without incidents, as Richard called on the way home and
relayed the bad news: &nbsp;his engine blew. &nbsp;What bad luck, to blow a 2nd engine
this year. &nbsp;Hopefully it will be fixed in time, or else we would not have
any "JDM RICE" machines to chase after! &nbsp;We did our customary downtown
LA/Little Tokyo dinner run, had a blast, and after dinner I dropped Asad off
at the airport.

All in all, it was quite possibly the best 3 car days of my life. &nbsp;All of
the hard work was well worth it, to see all of the happy faces on Friday,
and to see the same happy faces on Saturday and Sunday. &nbsp;I loved every
minute of it, and hopefully there are many more years of happy conventions
to come! &nbsp;w00t I'm gonna win the "Frankie Overbey" award next year and I'll
see you all in HoTlanta!

With a big smile on my face,

-alex

P.S. Anyone have any more interesting stories? &nbsp;PLEASE DO SHARE!!!

P.P.S. SHARE PICTURES!!! I took NONE!

[adey]

Let me be the first (here, at least) to extend a big THANK YOU to you, Alex, for organizing the event! I've been here in Shang Hai just DREAMING of what the convention was/could have been like... It's really a disappointment for me to not be able to join in the festivities.

Sounds like it was a really great 3 days! <img src="http://www.zilvia.net/f/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/thumbs-up.gif" border="0" valign="absmiddle" alt=':thumbsup:'>

[mav1178]

http://www.speedoptions.com/events_coverage_display.asp?eID=1128

Pics of event.

-alex

[240meowth]

i showed up for the nissan headquater meet, didn't register, had to park next to the fence &nbsp;<img src="http://www.zilvia.net/f/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/sad.gif" border="0" valign="absmiddle" alt=':('> w/ domestic/altima/sentra and the like... &nbsp;boy that was a bad experience, needless to say, i took a quick look and got out &nbsp;<img src="http://www.zilvia.net/f/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif" border="0" valign="absmiddle" alt=':D'>

[GotDriftS14]

first off, thanks to alex for the convention, i had the best time of my life im pretty sure. saw alot of nice cars and met alot of fellow 240 people. the track day was fun, but my car was understeering terribly and my tires were crap! and it was really hot, good thing i brought lots of water. track days are my inspiration to get more horsepower and better suspension setup, but i spend so much money getting stuff together for these events that it sets me back on my parts fund, but its worth it anyways! by the way, i have video footage of Battle Version Alex drifting in the JDM RICE car, but its not digital or anything so hopefully someone else has a video they can upload. OH and on day 2, on the freeway heading toward Lancaster, we saw an Infiniti G35 Coupe, it was a bright blue color, i snapped a couple pics of it with my camera from inside my car, hopefully they will come out and ill scan em. well i had a great time, and MAYBE ill be able to make it to next years convention in Atlanta, but i probably wont be able to go due to financial concerns. unless someone wants to fly me over there.... <img src="http://www.zilvia.net/f/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/lookaround.gif" border="0" valign="absmiddle" alt=':look:'>

-mike

PS: i used about 7 rolls of film taking pics throughout the convention, damn that was fun.

[Grant]

it was an awesome event, every well put together. Thanks for everything! A big round of applause for Alex!.

Saturday was a great event, many many people showed up, and it was an exciting day from the minute I got there to the minute I left. I got to meet a lot of people I have never seen (only talked with online).

I got a chance to know T.Y. (and watch him bleed his brakes) until alex returned from IN and OUT at around midnight(so i could get my keys back <img src="http://www.zilvia.net/f/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/lookaround.gif" border="0" valign="absmiddle" alt=':look:'> ).

It was a fun day at the track, esp when I was having some fun with Daniel (danio) and Bill (badmojo) on the track. It was fun to see Daniel go crazy on the skidpad doing some donuts <img src="http://www.zilvia.net/f/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif" border="0" valign="absmiddle" alt=':D'>, althought my car plowed its way thru with onyl one diff (no LSD, no fun). The day concluded with dinner at Lil Tokyo (I ate with Sam at a different table) and a long drive home.


What a rush what a great event. A great way to get to know other 240sx owners better and my car's limits better.

[BadMoJo]

Yeah, I second what Grant said. This weekend was the most fun I have had in a long time. Thank you Alex!!! You da' Man!

The track was Great. I think we should setup another meet/track day in Cali sometime soon. Buttonwillow anyone....?! <img src="http://www.zilvia.net/f/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif" border="0" valign="absmiddle" alt=':)'>

[KiDyNomiTe]

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">After dinner, we started to go out on the kart tracks to have some fun. I
only ran a few laps on the dragster and the grand prix tracks, but it was
quite worth it... It was, literally, the first time I've been drag racing...</td></tr></table><span id='postcolor'>

I don't know how many of you watch taildaters, but I remember seeing an ep where they went to Speedzone, and went on these drag cars, is that what you are talking about? I just wanted to know if those things are just step on the gas and go down. or is there more to it besides reaction time?

The place looks like fun, i'll have to go to cali one of these years.

EDIT: BTW did Project D bring thier 180SX, and did anyone take pics, cuz I couldn't find any pics on speed options. I only have seen 3 pics of the car and they are all shity pics.

[Danio]

Hey Alex, thanks for that convention! That's gotta be the best 3-day vacation I've EVER had. The three days went by so quickly. And I am so glad that I went on the track! Originally I was just going to watch but luckily (and unfortunately) one of the NorCal members couldn't make it, so I took his spot. =D Man it was so fun driving with other 240SXs on the track. One of the best parts was riding with Pat while he was driving. damn that thing can turn fast. Blah blah blah it was hella fun. :P