Laguna Seca Race
Track. Cool. Very cool. |
Chuck Bennett (CT)
from Zymol gave a demonstration on detailing cars and answered people's questions. Bill
arranged for his car to be the Zymol demo car over some old single malt scotch... Smart
man!
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| He then spent all
afternoon working on Bill Muirhead's black NSX that was in need of some TLC after clocking
over 130,000 miles on the odometer. The results were dramatic.
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| Kent Shepley (CA)
from American Honda gave a great lecture covering some of the technical highlights of the
NSX, then answered many questions from the audience. He also brought lots of cool parts
for people to play with such as pistons, suspension parts, oil pumps and gears, driveline
components, steering mechanisms, and VTEC camshaft and rocker arms. Thanks Kent!
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|  This connecting rod is a
little bit out of spec...
It's really easy to understand how VTEC works when you have the parts in
your hands. |
| I had to get up
pretty high in order to fit all the cars entered in the concours event into one picture.
There were many other NSXs parked elsewhere. A pretty impressive sight!
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| Closeup of some
cars plus the Zymol demo (group of people near the van) and the two RM Racing cars (back
to back in the middle of the other cars). Notice the motorcycle flying through turn 3 in
the foreground...
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| Another birds eye view of the
concours. This photo is by Tom Croly and I scanned it as a pretty high resolution.
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| This guy went flying a little
too fast through turn 3... and his bike went right off the track into the grass!
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| Vipers from the
Skip Barber school. Vroom.
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| Nice white car near
the pond with a little dent on the front quarter panel..
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Alex Vizcarra (CA)
has gone way off the deep end! He installed a Gruppe M supercharger. They flew a guy over
from Japan to help with the installation. His car is now officially Really Fast.
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| Alex's supercharger
installation includes a cool boost gauge that looks totally stock. Can you pick it out on
the dash? He also has a nice Momo steering wheel.
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Bill Montgomery's
(CA) car. Extensive front-compartment work here...
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| Bill's car again.
Wild gas cap, carbon fiber tape on the wheels.
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| Bill's engine
looks similar to the front compartment.
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| Wild stereo system
too. I believe Bill competes in stereo competitions with this car.
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Even a VCR in the
glove compartment!
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| Another heavily
modified car. It won "Most Outrageous" at the concours.
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| George Peniche's
heavily modified turbocharged car. It's not so easy to tell from this angle, but...
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| ...see, I told you
it was modified!
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| Even the inteior
is heavily modified. It won "most unique" at the concours.
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| A couple of cars
hanging out by themselves.
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| Karting was very,
very fun!
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| Since there wasn't
any timing, I decided the key was to have as much fun as possible and not worry about
being fast. This resulted in LOTS of sliding!
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| Seminar on high
performance driving from a Skip Barber instructor followed by lots of Q&A.
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| Black car posing
near the Firestone bridge
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| Yes yes yes!
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| Red car on the hill
leading towards the back section of the track.
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| After heading
around back to Turn 8, I was struck by just how large the elevation change is. Pictures
and TV do not convey it well. It's very intimidating in person.
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| Another nice shot
of some bikes coming through turn 8. I'm sure there will be tons of photos of NSXs coming
through this turn after the track event this weekend!
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| Everyone headed up to Ford
Ord for dinner. Some cars in the parking lot at Ford Ord are shown here.
After dinner a bunch of awards were given out for various categories in the concours
event, lots of Zymol products were raffled off, and the results of the club elections were
announced: Alex Vizcarra (CA) is the new national club president, Jacqueline
Berthiaume (CA) is the new Northwest region head, and Chris Anders
(TX) is the new South Central region head.
The Concours winners were as follows:
- Most factory original: David Steel
- Best paint: Al Terpak (CA)
- Best interior: Dan O'Haver (MI)
- Best aftermarket wheels: Randy Marchetti (AZ) with powdercoated WORK
wheels.
- Best engine: Alex Vizcarra (CA)
- Best maintained: Vytas Banionis (CA)
- Most unique: George Peniche (CA)
- Highest mileage: CA plate number 3RUY065 (143,000 miles) NOTE: After
the announcement, Todd Brown showed up with 161,500 miles. He received
some Zymol stuff but he was not registered in the event.
- Best modified (aftermarket vendor-supplied): John Foster (AZ)
- Best modified (home-engineered): Steve Winter (Canada)
- Longest distance driven, not trailered: SHARED by the Florida contingent at 3,100 miles:
Wei-Shen Chen,
TJ Wright and Brian Ledvora
- Hard luck award (flat tires, citations en route to NSXPO, damage just before show,
etc.): John Bradley (PA) because he would have won category 11 above (he
drove 3,800 miles from PA) but he showed up at the event after the judging.
- Most outragous: CA plate number: MY NSX T
- Best representation of the NSX marque (its appearance): Harry Somerfield
(CA)
- Car best used as it was intended by Honda engineers (its use as a unique, high
performance, rare, reliable, exotic, not its appearance): Doug Hayashi
(CA)
- Most desirable overall / best of show / judges choice: Steve Werre (WA)
- People's choice (by separate ballot): John Foster (AZ)
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