Lui's Birthday Meet At Wankel Works

Photo by Kristyn Brophy

A lot of rotaries were revolving their way to Wankel Works this past weekend for Lui's birthday party. It was a great turn-out, as the entire RE-Zelse team was able to show up, along with some of my friends from NEPOC, the Mass RX-8 Club, and some personal rotary friends of Lui. Be prepared for a lot of pictures as various cars came by, such as a fully restored Mazda REPU and some first generation RX-7s!

Photo by Kristyn Brophy

Cape Cod Run 2010

It's that time again for the Cape Cod Run! This time we had up to 35 cars for the cruise and man what a great time it was! Started off meeting right before the bridge in one of those scenic parking/rest areas. After that, we all cruised up route 6 to the Cape Cod Mazda dealership for pictures, raffle of prizes, and snacks. Then we went to Kream 'n' Kone for lunch, followed by the beach for some pictures. Me and a few others went mini golfing after before heading back home, may as well make the most of the Cape while you're there, right? Plenty of pictures to go around. Be sure to check out Josh's gallery of pictures too.

All Mazda Meet At Orange County Choppers

The day finally came for the annual Mazda Meet at OCC! I unfortunately did not have the time to go last year, so I decided to go this year to check out what it's all about! It was great to see some old faces from people in NY, and get together with the usual NEPOC crew.

I had gone to also support my good friend with his business, SleeperModZ, and setup the booth with him and get my car on display, along with Josh. After all the setup, making sure our cars were clean and getting things in gear, we were ready to go! The booth consisted of a large white tent, with the black SleeperModz banner infront. Inside the tent at the back wall was a SleeperModz banner, with all information needed. At the center table, there were items on display, with a large monitor, keyboard and mouse that was connected wirelessly to the Internet. Firefox was set to Kiosk mode so that people could surf only the SleeperModz website and check out what product they have for their car.The day went on with some music, over 150+ different cars, raffles, and mostly hanging out and talking. At the end of the day, we packed up, went to the hotel for a nap to make up for the lost hours of sleep, before hitting up TGI Friday's for celebration dinner!

Day 2 mostly consisted of a few people getting together, saying goodbyes, getting the grand shop tour of OCC, and then heading back out to MA. Was a great time, and was great to see everyone there. Below is a list of all the picture galleries of various people that had gone.
Josh's Gallery
Josh's Car's Infront of OCC Gallery
Josh's Shop Tour Gallery
Anna's Gallery 1
Anna's Gallery 2
Chris's Gallery
Lonecorp's Gallery
Ashley's Gallery
Zach's Gallery
Craig's Gallery
SpeedAddiction's Gallery

Spring Cleaning 2009

NEPOC held is 4th year Spring Cleaning meet this sunday! This meets turn out was great, with right around 30 cars this time. All the usual suspects were there, along with plenty of car detailing. Not much to say, other then a big thanks to Mark for allowing us all to come together at his place, and big thanks to everyone for the great time. Below are a few links to the many pictures that people have taken.

Josh's Pictures
Joel's Pictures
Ashley's Pictures
Kim's Pictures
Mark's Pictures

Quick Detail

Had a small get together at Bob's house to educate him on proper detailing, while also washing ours cars. Really small, just me, Oleg and James to help out. Bob had gotten the full treatment first, starting with a wash. We then lightly dried the car to get it ready for the clay bar.
For those who are unfamiliar with "claying your car", it is a process in which it removes built up surface dirt that normal washing of the car cannot remove. Sometimes you may need to clay off cone rash or tarmac, but after claying, you will need to reapply wax, as it also removes that.

After claying his car, we had then applied 3 coats of this special wax that Oleg has, that you actually need to mix before using. After waxing and buffing on and off 3 times, we pulled Bob's car out for the final touch, some wheel wax. All in all, the end result was great and his paint (White pearl) really shimmered. Products used were:
Poorboy's World Super Slick & Suds Concentrated Car Wash
Zaino Z-18 Claybar with diluted Zaino Z-7 car wash
Jeff's Werkstatt Prime Strong
Zaino Z-5 Pro Wax (Synthetic Sealant)
Zaino Z-8 Grand Finale Sealant

Pictures, including pictures of Oleg's new 2006 Mazda Miata are all here!

Detail Bonanza

The annual NEPOC "Fall Clean Meet" was held today over at Mark's house in West Bridgewater! Not only do These meets seem to get bigger and bigger, but the fun just never ends. Mark (as usual) was working on his car instead of cleaning it, installing a transmission cooler that he has had lying around for awhile now. James was trying to install his new REALLY stiff Progress Tech sway bars (same sway bars used by the SpeedSource RX-8 in the Rolex GT series) but had no luck as he unfortunately snapped the bolt off in his rear somewhere. Poor guy had to drive home with a sway bar half on at the end of the meet!
Josh did some talking with Poorboy's World and they sent us a ton of great detailing supplies for the meet! Things ranging from wax, to detail and polish. Unfortunately I did not get to use the "Black Hole" product but from what I saw, it was an impressive product.

With the good times, seeing new faces and hanging out with the usual buddies, it was a hell of a meet. Pictures taken by Josh can be viewed here few while pictures from Chris can be viewed here! Thanks a ton guys!

NEPOC Audio Install Meet

NEPOC held an awesome meet at Mark's (Bazooka Joe) place today. It was labeled as an "Audio Install Meet", but the only person installing any audio components was Mark (go figure). Some helped out, while others took it easy and just hung out. Josh decided to help me clean out my engine bay a bit since it had sand pretty much everywhere. We dusted it out with a brush and green spray. To top it off, we polished the plastic covers for the engine bay.

I asked Mark for some advice regarding how to cover the space where my back seats used to be. Low and behold, he had a huge roll of black carpet sitting in his basement! Josh made the measurements and cuts, after which we teamed up and put it together (the picture below is the end result). It's not the greatest thing in the world, but it's decent enough and makes the rear presentable. For the rest of the pictures from the meet, click here.

Mazda Corral At Lime Rock Park!

The big Mazda Corral was today at Lime Rock Park! It is actually a 3 or 4 day event, but I only had the time (and money) to attend the Saturday event with my girlfriend, Stephanie. From Waltham, it was a 2 hour drive that seemed almost endless. Thankfully I had Greenblurr (James) to follow so I wouldn't be that bored on the drive.

When we arrived, it was heaven. It was my first time ever going to a track, or even seeing one in person. Everywhere for parking, was some sort of sports car or decent car. It was like a car show in the parking lot! Other parts had tons of tents and caravans parked out for the weekend I was guessing. Since the Mazda Corral was a planned event, we had our own special parking right next to the track in a circular area. After walking around the area for a bit to get familiar with everything, we checked out all the small booths along the side that sold everything, from helmets, to shirts, and little car toys.

Then we got to go down to the paddocks and see the cars actually racing for that day, which was almost the best feature. There were many RX-8 teams for the different classes that were racing and/or qualifying, and I really tried to learn the teams that were there but there was so much to keep up with, the only ones I could really focus on were Speed Source and Roar. The Speed Source RX-8s both were equipped with 20B 3 Rotor engines, with 400 HP. Hearing them fly down the track was an experience all in itself. If I lived closer to the track, I really would visit often just to hear the sounds and see the racing, as it was just really a good time. I see why people go and just hang out all day.

To top everything off, the Mazda Corral participants got to do a parade lap around the track! We got 3 or 4 times (Don't remember, was all so great!) around, following a BMW 5 series wagon as a pace car. Fastest we went was 80, but nothing too much. We all just got to ride around and strut our Mazdas. We probably would've gone faster, but this youngin thought he would be funny by constantly rushing at the pace car, almost crashing into him a few times. It happens I suppose, always one in the crowd.

To end the day, got some more food, watched the Miata cup, and got to raffle some goodies. It was all so much I had to take a nap before driving home for the day!

You can view all the pictures here and also here. Altspace's blog has tons of neat videos too.

Cape Cod Run 2008

(Thanks to Altspace for putting this awesome event together!)

Cape Cod Spring Run - and what a blast it was. Everyone met up in the morning around 10am to line up at a side parking lot, just before the bridge over to the Cape. We had about 50-60 cars it seemed like, mostly people from the Mazda 247 forums. We started off by cruising along the cape highway (not sure) to some big ice cream restaurant with seafood and burgers. After lunch, we went to a mini golf place called Pirates Cove. Even though it was a bit cold out, it was still sunny and still a great time. After that, we hit up the beach for a nice photo shoot before heading back home.

Something I'd say I really enjoy about NEPOC meets is that, it's not about the bigger engine or most money; it's about making friends and catching up with one another. Seeing whats going on and talking about the thing we all have in common; a love for sports cars.

All pictures can be seen here.

NEPOC Spring Cleaning

NEPOC (New England Protege Owners Club - Though it's become more of just a New England Mazda Club) held a great car wash meet over at Bazooka Joe's (Mark) place over in West Bridgewater. All detailing, cleaning, and an install or two. Got to finally meet the great Altspace! He was getting his brand new Mazdaspeed shocks installed when I arrived. For lunch, grabbed some BBQ, curtesy of Mark, and stuffed our faces.

All pictures, thanks to Josh, are here.

Install Meet With BBQ

First big meet I've been to! Today we had a huge event over in Watertown, MA at Sean's (WarCrunk) Mobil garage. It was a BBQ/spring meet with installations of just about anything. We got to meet a lot of people from the Mazda 6 crew, as well as local RX-8 Club members. Not too much else to say except that we got a special guest star, the grand Charles Ray Hill!

One of the popular forum vendors from RX-8 Club, who is also the owner of Black Halo Racing! Got to chat with him for a long while and be informed of his awesome upcoming products. I even got to take a ride in his street ported RX-8, which sounded a lot more aggressive then just some 8 with an exhaust.

Really not too much else other then it was great meeting the people, hanging out with Ray, and a lot of installs. Pictures are here, but unfortunately, they were taken with not so great quality.