Here's what you missed from NOPI 2007

[Eikon]

What a great weekend!!! Here's a link to 250+ pictures.. http://picasaweb.google.com/EikonD/NOPI2007

After 1800 miles and 36 hours of travel, the addition of one yellow S14 for my brother and a sweet body kit for my 'vert we finally made it home safe and sound.

Hurricane NOPI:We drove overnight Thursday into Friday in order to get to Atlanta and still have most of a day for sightseeing and the NICO dinner party. A slow drizzle started to fall in Northern Kentucky. That drizzle turned into a solid rainstorm by the time we made it to Tennessee. Little did we know, we were entering the storm of the century. By Knoxville, TN. the sky opened up and cats and dogs started to fall in sheets from the sky. Traffic slowed to 30mph or less and we practiced our non-drifting skills as we hydroplaned across the interstate.

The yellow nightmare:My brother had agreed in terms to the purchase of a 95 240sx with a custom yellow paint job. With the price as low as it was.. I expected the car to have some issues. Umm.. yeah.... issues. Well, it did run! It did make it all the way home to Wisconsin. It will make a very solid platform for a nice project. But wow.. this car is something to see. The clutch pedal doesn't return very well, the shifter isn't in tight, the paint job is absolutely terrible, the exhaust is hanging off the ground by only 1 hanger, the you have to hold the door handle assembly together with both hands to get it to open, the underside of the trunk, hood, fenders, and door jams are all different colors, it's got R32 skyline headlights with BMW HID's and no corner lights.. hmm.. All things considered though.. it was still a very good deal. The previous owner was a really good guy!

We'll catch it on the way home:Given the condition of this car, we decided it would not be good to drive it in the hurricane to the big city. Rather, Joel left a deposit and the promise to pick the car up on the way home. So, back on the road into the teeth of the storm.

Tourists:We made it to Atlanta just after noon on Friday. After a spectacular 6 lane change in about 200 yards in heavy traffic, we managed to find our way into downtown Atl. We gave the mobile GPS system a run for it's money as we negotiated the streets of downtown Atlanta. Those things are fantastic.. but really struggle when matched with construction and closed roads. The Atlanta underground is a pretty neat mall. We spent a couple hours there feeling like quite the social minority. We then went to the Coca Cola Experience (Museum). They moved into a new building across from the Aquarium since last year. It's very cool! They have a new 4D movie experience. To sum it up.. you pay $15 to "experience" a two hour Coca Cola marketing campaign... And somehow you enjoy it! The highlight is the taste testing room.. all the coke you can drink! Not only Coke mind you.. They provide a plethora of flavors from around the world. Some are pretty good.. most are NOT.

NICO Meet and Greet:After downtown tourism (and more rain!), we made it to the hotel in time to check in and head right back out to the Roadhouse grill. There was no missing it as you could see a line of modified Nissans "hard parked" in a nice row up the side of the parking lot. We went inside to find about 40 other NICO members working on finding a seat and drinking beer.. not in that particular order. Despite the poor job by the rest. mgmt. in reserving the section as we requested, we had a great time. After the impromptu photo shoot after dinner... we all headed back to the hotel to get some sleep (or more beer).

It's not morning yet is it?:4:30 came really quickly Sat. morning. Especially after getting only a couple hours of sleep in the car the night before. We dragged ourselves out of bed and got ready for a day of fun. We made it to the Atlanta Motor Speedway just in time to find a 3 mile line of cars waiting to get in. So this is why we try to get there early? Well... we decided to scope out line on the other side of the stadium.. as we passed the entrance gate we found someone sleeping at the wheel and managed to pull a u-turn and sneak into line un-noticed.

You can't park here!:We spent the first few hours finishing the setup under the tent and directing our members to park in the right areas (240's in this line, 350z's in this line, maxima's over there, whoa.. nice Datsun 510 race car... you park under the tent please!). As always, you get a few retards trying to mess up the "feng shui" of the Nissan area. We had one particular minitruck driver who insisted on dragging his truck bed across the pavement into a parking spot at the head of the 240sx line.. We chased him out.. only to find that he went and cried to a NOPI show attendant who allowed him to park right at the corner in front of the whole Nissan lot. BOO!

Nice cars!!!:It's always awesome to see some of the incredible cars that our members and other nissan owner's bring to the show.

Fire up the grill:As the "grillmaster", my major contribution to the NICO family during NOPI is slaving over the grill. It's fun, and a great way to meet everyone as they head over my way to snag some free food. NICO always takes care of it's members! Hunger pains got the best of many of us by about 10:30. So from then til about 2:30, I was grilling burgers and hotdogs.

The Show itself:After grilling for a while, I was free to venture out and see the sights. Now, understand, this isn't my first time to NOPI, so I wasn't quite as awed and shocked by the sites as I was the previous year. What I did observe is that the "tuner" crowd seems to be losing ground to the other genre's of car modification. The number of "dubs", "donks", VIPs, dropped trucks, and other styles of cars, and vendors has grown since last year. Hopefully this trend will not continue to increase.

Friends:The highlight of the show by far is the other NICO members. We have by far the most incredible family of members of any national car club. I really enjoyed hanging out with a few of the 'vert club members... GoinTopless240, Florida240sx, Biggie, Repo Man, Omnikron. Met a couple other 'vert owners as well at the show.

Baby-back baby-back baby-back, Chili's baby-back.. fajitas?:Sat. evening we all spread out a bit. Many ordered pizza's and beer and stuck around the hotel, we had groups go to Jimmy's Crab Shack, Chili's, and other various establishments. Of course the NOPI after-party is the main event, but I don't think many of the NICO group decided to attend that crazyness. My group hit one of the two Chili's locations nearby. Hung out, ate some good food, and enjoyed the company.

Let's do it again:Sunday morning came very early again. I think I got about 5 hours of sleep.. which was decent! We headed out the show, though not quite as early this time. Sunday morning was a bit chilly outside (a strange thing in Atlanta in Sept.) Sunday morning is actually the best time to tour the show.. most people don't roll in til around noon, so if you want to avoid the crowds and enjoy the vender areas, displays, GM ride and drive (complete with new Z06!), etc... that is the time to do it.

More Grill:We fired up the grill again around 11:00 or so. I cooked for a while, though struggled greatly as the wind was in my face and the cover of the grill corralled the smoke just enough to blow it right in my face constantly. So to those who saw me crying.. I wasn't sad..

Gotta go:Unfortunately, in order to get to work on Monday, we had to ditch out just after 12:00 on Sunday and head back up to(ward) Canada. We were fortunate to get out of the show and the city of Atlanta without any traffic delays. We were also fortunate to have the owner of the banana S14 (from near Knoxville) agree to meet us on our route home in Chattanooga. Talk about a nice guy.. he drove an hour and a half to meet us without even being able to arrange a ride home yet. He also turned down the extra money for gas and time that we offered him. He threw in a trunk-full of extra parts as well. His generosity saved us about 2.5 hours of extra driving. Which is always greatly appreciated.

Dumb luck!:Josh (jrb240) is another 'vert club member who lives in Bowling Green, KY. He and I had agreed weeks ago to trade some body part pieces. The trouble we had is that his cell phone was not working.. and since we didn't know when exactly we'd be through the area, we weren't able to set a precise meeting time or point. He was able to call me a few hours before, and we agreed that I'd call him when we got closer. Well, I called... and called again.. and called again.. and arrived at a gas station by Bowling Green, KY. and called again.. and waited for about 10 minutes... and called again. I was starting to worry. Did something happen to him? What's going on? So I walked over to my brother's car and told him and his gf that they could head on toward home without me if they wanted. I told him I'd wait around for an hour or so and keep trying to get in touch. Just as we were talking.. a white silvia converted 240 pulled up. This guy jumped out, walked toward me, and I asked if he was Josh. He said yes, but still had this shocked look on his face. He then told me that his cell phone was broken, and it was just by dumb luck that his buddy needed to stop and get gas. So again, out of luck they happened to stop at this gas station.

NICE Vert!:You guys remember Shift_Oversteer's blue 'vert that he sold? Well, Josh is the lucky new owner. Though maybe not so "lucky". Turns out the car had a lot of issues. But, it's now in very capable hands, and Josh is working on bringing up to his liking. One of his desires is the stock silvia look.. so I now have the vertex body kit, and he now has my old silvia k's front bumper and stock 240 rear bumper.

It's getting tired outside:Due to a weekend of little sleep, and some long delays in our drive home (an hour to pick up the yellow car, an hour and a half to meet Josh and pick up the body kit, and another hour delay for Joel being sick after eating some questionable Arby's) we started to struggle a bit in getting home. I was calculating my ETA to get home and decided I wouldn't make it.. So we got a $35 Motel 6 room in N. Indiana. We rolled in at 2:30 AM, and I got up and rolled out at 6:00 AM. Then proceeded to sit in Chicago rush hour for the next 3 hours. Ugghh! Another 3 hours got me home by noon.

Recovery:I did make it to work.. shortly after lunch on Monday. Lasted about 3 hours in the office and headed home. Slept for a while until my wife and kid showed up.. played with the kid, went for groceries, put the kid to bed, then put myself to bed. Today I'm still tired... but I still have a grin on my face. What a great weekend!!!!

[biggie]

It was an interesting weekend, and good to meet some Vert owners (you, Flordia240, and repo).

I'm still recovering from the sunburn and lack of sleep. And the drive down as well.

[Vb93Vert]

sounds like you had a blast!

get any pictures?

[Eikon]

yep.. i added a link at the top. http://picasaweb.google.com/EikonD/NOPI2007

Didn't get any pictures of the travels.. but tons at the show.

I'll find some time this evening to spice up the write up with a couple of pics in between the text.

[DeXteR]

WOW! long post. great stories... so much to comment on!

well, sounds like if i ever want to make it to nopi with the wifey, i'm going to have to take off a few days of work. i can handle the long hours with little sleep, but she wouldn't survive.

i look forward to looking through the pictures later when i'm not working.

[madcowvert]

wish i could have gone... .. looked like a very nice turnout

[Repo Man]

It was an interesting weekend, and good to meet some Vert owners (you, Flordia240, and repo).

It was good to finally meet you two biggie. We definitely have to have 'vert row next year. I love those seats in your car!

[biggie]

It was good to finally meet you two biggie. We definitely have to have 'vert row next year. I love those seats in your car!

Wished we could have all parked together this year, I was rather late Saturday morning though (beer/up til 3:30am Friday night hurt).

A few people sat in the seats and said they will be hunting them, but I pity them in making them fit, I just happened to get lucky.

Met a guy from TN with Altima SER seats in a hatch, but said he was still working on them, they were sitting at akward angles (auto gangsta lean).

[ishkabibble]

We had one particular minitruck driver who insisted on dragging his truck bed across the pavement into a parking spot at the head of the 240sx line.. We chased him out.. only to find that he went and cried to a NOPI show attendant who allowed him to park right at the corner in front of the whole Nissan lot. BOO!

Casey???

[EZcheese15]

Awesome pics man. It's amazing how much I did not see, and I was there!

[Eikon]

Awesome pics man. It's amazing how much I did not see, and I was there!

I didn't take a single picture.. I gave my brother my camera and told him to go nuts.

I made one lap around the show (or a very small portion) on Sat. afternoon..

[DirftKing102]

Must of been a great trip!!! Good story!!!

[srphoenix]

i absolutely loved the trip, already planning to go again. Hopefully my lady will come next year too and volunteer her modeling skills. Now I get to start work on the S14. There were soooooo many nice cars there, everyone who missed out this year has got to be there next year.