This past September 14 marked another successful eurotuner/Super Street Tour to the NOPI extravaganza in Atlanta. Over the years the Tour has grown from a simple group of cars to a mass convoy that's comparable to the Macy's Day Parade.
If you didn't already know, we organize three legs, all converging on NOPI the day before the show starts. These begin in Texas, Maryland and Florida. Each leg kicked off with a car show thrown by Enkei. Live entertainment, food and drinks made it worth the trip, even if you weren't heading down to the show! There was also a car show and on the North leg we had a challenge for the best time on the new EA game Need For Speed: Most Wanted, with the winner getting a tank of gas to help him on his way to Atlanta.
On the road, our numbers were too great to cruise together in single file, despite our best efforts. There were slow drivers who'd get in the way, and then others who would cut in the middle of our magnificent parade without even realizing what we were trying to achieve. Yet we persevered and most managed to stick together, although there are always those participants that like to use the open roads to stretch their legs a little...
Participation in the tour is completely free and you can join us at any one of our morning, lunch or evening stops. Many choose to do this and the procession gets longer every time we hit the road again. By registering online before the event you were entitled to have a few quick laps behind a pace car on the Atlanta oval speedway track when we reached our final destination.
I was in the black Passat on the North Leg I'm sure the guys in the white Mustang (Pace Car) will remember us. Anyway, This picture was taken at about 90MPH on the highway. I call this, the southern convertible. It's one of the best most classic moments I captured on the tour.
During every stop we had Tour T-shirts to sell with free bags, as well as prizes to giveaway. The bags were filled with products from our sponsors, which included Toyo Tires, Meguiar's car care, Electronic Arts' Need for Speed: Most Wanted XBOX demo disks, a Gumball 3000 DVD, a chance to win a set of rims from Wheels Next and much more. And thanks to our sponsors we also had new NOS energy drinks, MB Quart speaker systems and another set of wheels from HD Wheels to giveaway.
We'd like to thank all the above sponsors, and acknowledge the support of Carbon Fiber 1, Champion, Versus and Underground Graphics, because the Tour 2005 wouldn't have been possible with out them. We should also recognize that NOS energy drinks kept us buzzing all night and we'd like to take this opportunity to anybody who got dragged into the strip club on the first night of the North leg Tour. What happens in Charlotte, stays in Charlotte!
We should also give a nod to the brave souls who braved the West leg and endured last minute changes to avoid the worst devastation of Hurricane Katrina. We had to make a detour to Memphis, TN and on to Atlanta but it it didn't seem to dampen your spirits. You endured the high gas prices and police harassments just to hang with us, so thanks for keeping us company on the road.
Keep your eyes peeled for an in-depth Tour article in the January '06 issue of eurotuner and start planning for Tour '06. You really don't know what you missed.