"How do I get my car in the magazine?" This is the most common question we hear as magazine editors. Certainly, there are other questions we'd like to hear more of. "Hi, I'm Sung Hi Lee. Will you father my children?" or "I found this $1,000 bill. Is it yours?" come to mind. But as questions go, this one is pretty easy to answer.
Sort of like catching Mark McGwire's 70th, it's mostly a matter of being in the right place at the right time. To prove it, I'll tell you the story on how David Kim got his silver '93 RX-7 in the magazine. The Super Street staff and I were at the Atlanta Motor Speedway for the NOPI Nationals (see coverage elsewhere in this issue). On the final day around 3 p.m., I was about to leave the track to go take pictures of a collection of feature cars. Not five minutes before I was going to leave, this guy came up to me and introduced himself as David Kim. "Hey, do you work for Super Street?"
Because of Matt's mafia ties, I've found this to be a dangerous question to answer truthfully. But I risked my life and said, "Yes. Yes, I do." In reply, I got "Cool. Hey, do you mind looking at my car?"
This is a question we hear quite frequently, as well. If we have the time, we'll gladly check your car out at a show (just don't be disappointed if we don't have time to look at that exact moment). Since David's car was close by, I agreed. Here's what I saw: Visually, his car was pretty impressive. The body was modified with RE Amemiya side skirts, a Pettit chin spoiler, a Mazdaspeed rear wing, and a beautiful coat of PPG Platinum Silver paint. A nice touch was the addition of Japanese RX-7 and Mazda emblems. For wheels and tires, David's RX-7 had Racing Seneca Typhoons (18x8 1/2 inches in front and 18x9 1/2 inches for the rear) and Yokohama Nexuses (235/40ZR18 front, 275/40ZR18 rear).
The wheels and tires seemed to tuck nicely up into the wheelwells. When I inquired about the suspension components, David informed me he had installed Neuspeed springs (about 2 inches of lowering) with Ground Control coilover sleeves, GAB eight-way adjustable shocks, and Grex front and rear strut tower braces. I also learned he had used Power Stop cross-drilled rotors and stainless steel braided brake lines.
Next up for inspection was the engine bay. At first, I didn't think David had done much of anything to the Wankel. Everything looked pretty much stock. But then he told me how he had blown up his engine previously, and during the rebuild process, Pettit Racing had made many internal performance upgrades.
The motor had been ported and given 3mm apex seals. The blueprinted turbos now had larger compressor wheels and had been converted to parallel operation rather than the stock sequential setup. Pettit had also added a cold-air intake system with three K&N air filters, underdrive pulleys, a Centerforce clutch, and a Crane Cams Hi-6 ignition system.
Routing the exhaust gases was a GReddy 3-inch exhaust. David was also proud to tell me that his RX-7 had a new prototype PMS computer from EFI Systems that improved low-end response and allowed higher boost pressures (hence the laptop riding shotgun).
At this point, it was obvious David had a pretty cool RX-7. I knew Super Street had one extra slot for a feature car that afternoon. I asked him if he was ready to have his car shot right then. He said yes, and the deal was done. Not 20 minutes after introducing himself, David was having photos taken of his car. How do you get your car in the magazine? Something like this Cinderella story would be good.