On the top of the Japanese hit parade at IAS was the Signal Auto Silvia S15. We have the full scoop on this orange crusher and you can find it in this issue. Another Signal car that was dropping the jaws of the crowd (not to mention the pants of the Super Streeters) was its Sil/Eighty drifter. You can see a full feature on this car in our December '01 issue. And yet another heavy hitter at the show was the HKS Track Attack Altezza housed in the Super Street booth. Again we've been there and done her (er, the car that is) as you could find this beast on our April '01 cover. Zigzag Asia, the company responsible for the Best Motoring videos, brought a Tommy Kaira WRX and the Spoon Sports N1 S2000.
But wait, there's more. There was the RE Works VeilSide MR2 Spyder, which not only graced last month's cover but also the Super Street booth. And Craig Lieberman's burly Skyline was in the NOPI compound. Over at HKS we found not only a silver WRX, but a silver Lancer Evo as well. Wings West's Mazda MP3 flossed a new supercharger to go with the wide-body we first saw at the SEMA show. Other tasty treats included a couple of nice takes on the new Tiburon-hey, we heard that. Say what you will about Hyundai's reputation in this market as all of that could change with this new car. And the Tiburons presented by Brembo and Modern Image will no doubt help that change come even more quickly. APC's new Civic Si featured a unique chalkboard finish. On which we made Ricky write 500 times, "I will not ask Sharon Sotto to call me."
Many of the top racers brought their cars to Long Beach. And which cars were there, you might ask? How about Steph Papadakis' AEM Drag Civic, Shaun Carlson's Meguiar's Focus, the Venom Civic, and GM's new Ecotec Cavaliers for starters. Paisley rolled out his Tundra and his Supra, HKS brought Tetsuya Kawasaki's record-breaking 180SX, and Abel Ibarra's RX-7 was in the Toyo booth. Turbonetics displayed its 200-mph RWD Celica and the AEBS Focus was in attendance sporting new graphics and a new title sponsor in APC.
There were some interesting things going on within the all-motor ranks at IAS. At the R&D Dyno Performance Center booth we saw L'Natural's latest weapon-a 2001 Civic Coupe-which is scheduled to replace the team's original L'Natural CRX. Just down the hall was Erick Aguilar's 1995 Civic Coupe. Erick's Racing Civic had just snatched the title of the quickest all-motor Honda title with a 10.64 while L'Natural still held onto the "fastest" title with a 129-mph trap speed (Erick later lowered the time to a 10.60 at 127.9 mph). Things got interesting when you took into account the gigantic cover photo from another magazine that featured both L'Natural cars and proclaimed, "Exclusive! World's Quickest & Fastest All-Motor Front Wheel Drive." Can we cue up that Homer sound bite? D'oh! Thank you. We're not saying a word given the fact that L'Natural or a handful of other top racers can snatch this one away from Erick at any given moment.
If you missed this year's IAS, what can we say? You're a loser. May we suggest a public de-pantsing to inflict the appropriate amount of shame upon you? Don't miss next year's show or we'll have to send Jonny over to pull your trousers down. On second thought, Jonny will probably try to come to your house to do that anyway, so you might want to lock your doors.
Warriors, Come Out And Plaayay
The Import Drag Racing Forum took place at IAS and we were hoping to find something like Bartertown's Thunderdome arena. Four groups enter. One group leaves. But instead of Tina Turner, we found AEM's Kirk Miller moderating and in place of Max and the Blaster, it was the leaders of the IDRC, NHRA, NDRA, and the IDRA. All of these acronyms add up to four different sanctioning bodies.