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We Came, We Saw, We Conquered... Once again! In true NICOclub style, we once again rocked the house at Atlanta Motor Speedway. With over seven thousand cars registered for the NOPI event and categories for just about everyone, there was plenty to see and do over the two day event.
Friday night brought out the best of the best, showing the Roadhouse Grille that NICO once again rolls deep. Seeing many old faces as well as many new was one of the best experiences for the entire weekend. People came from as near as a few minutes away, to as far as New York, Pennsylvania, Kansas and Wisconsin. Drinking, good food, and many laughs filled the night before everyone found their way outside to the parking lot for more chatting, laughs and viewing of the cars. The crowd thinned out as the night went on, in preparation for the early wake up the next morning would bring. Saturday morning, many woke up and got in line at the track before dawn, getting in line to enter the speedway. If you've been before, you know how long the line gets and it can be hours before you finally get into the track.
Sunday afternoon was time for the NICO staff to judge the Nissans, Infiniti’s and Datsun’s for the NICO club awards. This is surely a difficult task as there are so many SICK cars from which to choose. We started the judging with the Best Truck/SUV category. We found our winner in Ryan Coker's 2005 Nissan Frontier that had been modified with very tasteful gunmetal twenty inch wheels and tires, bed extender, bike rack and various other mods. In Best Sedan/Economy Car the hands-down winner was Mark Mathis with his 1968 Datsun 510 fully dressed as a BRE Datsun race car. This Dime is powered by a stroked 2.2 litre, naturally-aspirated inline four with a 13:1 compression ratio pushing 260-270 horsepower. Congratulations to Mark and Josh with their impressive entry which spent the entire weekend under the NICO tent. The Best Z-Car/G-Coupe was quite a bit more difficult to judge. With the proliferation of both the 350Z and the Infiniti G35 Coupe the NICO judges had their hands full. An understated philosophy of NICO is function while maintaining proper form and that car manifested itself in Joe Aenetic's yellow, twin-turbo Z33. This car had it all and we were happy to have it prominently displayed. Honorable mention in this category goes to Jon Thomas in his 2004 G35 Coupe. The most challenging category by far was Best S-Chassis. There were many solid entries and it was the source of a heated debate for our highly critical NICOclub judges. There were S13's, S14's, convertibles, coupes, hatchbacks and the debate raged on as tempers flared and opinions expressed. The emerging winner was Rick Bedasse in his 1998 240SX that had an S15 engine/transmission swap as well as a full S15 interior. This 240 was incredibly clean and all mods were well-chosen and executed. Congratulations to Rick! Honorable mention for Best S-Chassis goes to Nick Krcelich for his 1998 240SX with S14 SR swap and TJ Lopata for his RHD 240SX coupe. Our final award went to the recipient of the Paul Souder Spirit and Enthusiasm Award. This award goes to the NICO member who goes far above the call of duty in contributing to the club, helping out other NICO members and generally giving one hundred and ten percent to the greater good of NICO and its members. This year's recipient was Joe "Dieselman" Lowry for his extensive support of members and NICOclub itself during this event and others throughout the year. Congratulations to Joe! NICOclub Winners:
With all that there was to see and do, and all that's bound to take place next year, you definitely want to start planning now to make it out, we'll be there. Congratulations to all the winners, see you in Atlanta in 2008! |
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