There's nothing we can think of that can quite compare to our yearly visit to SEMA (Specialty Equipment Market Association) in the City of Sin. Each hall of the Las Vegas Convention Center is completely filled with products that range from sick turbo kits to weird lowrider-style bling-blang hydros. Suddenly, four days of partying, eating, gambling, walking, dropping money at OG, and not sleeping will strangely morph into one continuous memory. But no matter how much fun the big SEMA show provides, it's always nice to be so close to home at the International Auto Salon. Actually, last year's IAS at the Long Beach Convention Center was a lot closer to my house, but apparently SEMA didn't plan its event around me. Yeah, I don't know what's up with that, either. But after two years at the same location, moving on to a bigger and better place like the Los Angeles Convention Center didn't seem like such a bad idea. And you can't really find a venue superior to this one, next-door neighbor to the three-time world-champion Los Angeles Lakers and the "maybe they'll make it to the playoffs next year if Donald Sterling would get his head out of his ass" Los Angeles Clippers. Face it, regardless of how many times Nads and I got routinely strip-searched, the presence of greatness could be felt each time you walked through the door, because L.A. is the place to be.
For the thousands of you who attended (IAS is open to the public), you know exactly why we were so energized. To all the others who weren't as fortunate to make it because you were too busy working away those he-breasts, too bad, and better luck next year. Just kidding. Follow along with us as we recap the show and illustrate how to maximize your IAS experience so you can plan ahead for next year's show.
A good starting and ending point was, and always will be, the darkened corner of the building where you can find our Super Street booth standing proudly with badass cars like the Signal Auto Chop Top 3 and Top Fuel USA EP Civic. Since nobody can ever get bored there, people stayed a lot longer than planned (even editors from other magazines who were trying to swoop our feature-car sloppy seconds). But the spectators managed to pry themselves away just long enough to check out the hundreds of other cars provided by vendors and Vision Entertainment. Scattered throughout the show were Evo VIIIs from Yokohama, HKS USA, Mackin Industries, K&N, BFGoodrich, and TEIN suspension. Those kept the Mitsubishi lovers occupied for a good couple of hours.
To replenish spent energy, a quick breakfast consisting of a $15 bagel and $9 OJ was offered in the lobby. By late morning, there was still plenty of time to scope out the other Nissans on display, like Kim Johnson's R34 Skyline in the Enkei booth. People who wanted something crazier might have gone to the Dunlop booth, where the Blitz North America 213mph R348 Skyline was housed, or to the NX booth to drool over its S15 Silvia, or wandered to the corner where Kazuya "Drifter XL" Bai and Fumiaki "Drifter X" Komatsu's twin Signal Auto Sil Eighties were magnificently displayed. And there's always the other GTRs and Silvias that VIS Racing Sport had on display, and the GReddy twin turbo 350Z. If those were too crazy for some people's taste, then they're weak and should have just stayed home to watch the season finale of Gilmore Girls. (It's okay, I TiVo'd it.-JN)
By Ricky Chu
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