Early morning gathering at the
Larz Anderson Auto Museum on a Saturday? Sure! I suppose I could manage that after pulling an "all nighter" installing my old rollbar for an RX-8 road racer from Pennsylvania, Francesco. Once there, I got to catch up with some friends for awhile, such as Josh (
Altspace),
Scott of
Kaizen Tuning,
Mike Lee and his
beautiful M3, and others. What's always nice about the Coffee & Cars meets is that it's very casual.
Unlike many other gatherings I've attended, these gatherings are low-key, with some beautiful cars, tons of photography, cool enthusiasts, and
ZERO tolerance for show-offs. That being said, there is never any fear in having the Police come to an event to start giving everyone a hard time because of someone ruining it for everyone. Much respect going out to Scott for letting me park next to him for some pictures by the castle. I know people have a lot more interest in his GT-R than my RX-8, but the two cars side by side came out beautiful in the shots, especially how well the vinyl work on my car popped out. Be sure to check out the
pictures thread on YuppieRacing for more pictures of everyone that attended.
After hanging out for awhile, we all parted ways and I took a trip over to
Kaizen Tuning to drop off
Serenity for some work. After seeing the wear marks on the Hoosiers and discussing it with a few other racers last event, she is desperately in need of an alignment, having my Hoosiers flipped, and my street tires as well. Once I got to the shop, I got to speak with
Malcolm, who is one of the coolest cats of the crew there at Kaizen. He is a very down-to-Earth kind of guy who you can talk to about anything. When it comes time to get down to business however, you are treated not just with respect, but professionally as a racer. If anything, he probably takes whatever motorsport you compete in just as seriously as you do; and I like that because it's hard to find that mentality these days.
I'm looking forward to see the result of his work, especially to see how well she will perform on Sunday's race. Thanks again to Scott for helping me out when being in a time-crunch, and massive respect to Malcolm for taking on the task of dealing with my car and my overly particular needs. Once I get her back, I'll be filling the motor mounts with polyurethane, so look forward to updates on that, along with a nice DIY. Until then, stay tuned.
Photo by Josh Hanley - Josh Hanley Photography
Photo by Michael Lee - mike-lee.org
Photo by Michael Lee - mike-lee.org
Photo by Josh Hanley - Josh Hanley Photography
Photo by Josh Hanley - Josh Hanley Photography
The early afternoon was spent hiking up Camelback Mountain (which is a landmark in the Phoenix area), enjoying the view of Arizona and all it had to offer once I hit the summit. For my first ever real hiking experience, it was really fun and quite peaceful once you got close to the top. After that, we went down to the 5&Diner for some dinner, followed by the Scottsdale Car Show; the longest running car show in America. It takes place every Saturday and is hosted by a McDonald's restaurant in that parking lot. It was nice to see a variety of different cars, all sorted out in different sections by types of cars, years, and car clubs. I didn't take too many pictures as I was already burnt out by then.
My trip was coming to an end and it was really unfortunate. I did have an excellent time though, and I learned a lot more than I expected from Ray, and I can't thank him enough. The morning was the last of my informational sessions with him, learning whatever else I could from him that could help me with my future endeavors, as well as an overall direction to other aspects of my life. The feeling was unexplainable, to have someone understand your side and where you're coming from and what you want to accomplish in this world of cars and aftermarket performance. I am confident in myself and my abilities though, and I will just have to fight to stay that way.
It's that time of year again for the gigantic Cars and Copters meet over at the Plymouth Municipal Airport. Last year was a great event, with over 500 cars having had shown up throughout the day. This year had over 800 cars show up throughout the day, with a lot of variety this year. From really nice American Muscle, to new age Japanese Muscle, they variety was there.
Posted are some pictures I took of the NEPOC members meeting up before going in together. Then there is some shots of her on display with Domo-Kun in the driver seat, along with some other rotary goodies and some of my favorite cars at the show.
Below are the non rotary pictures. This M3 in the beginning here has caught my eye ever since I saw it driving down the road right by my office in Cambridge. I think it's beautifully done, with simple exterior mods that only enhance the look of the stock body; a style that is right up my alley.
It's been a while since I've had my car in a car show, let alone go to one. Today was the return of the infamous "Cars and Coffee" meet, only this time with helicopters instead! I'll let the pictures do the talking, but it was a nice event in Plymouth Airport. Thanks to Mike for the awesome pics of the car, awesome movie Josh, and great to see everyone!
Great meet that couldn't have gone any better! Plenty of great cars, some Dunkin Donuts coffee, and more great cars. It doesn't get any better than this. Luckly, people were actually normal during the event and not doing burnouts or anything stupid..But that could have been also due to the cop on detail. Photo Galleries from Altspace and Rachel are linked below.