clive
4th November 2009, 10:24 PM
Our visit to Sevenstock 2009
As some of you know this year we finally got ourselves out the Sevenstock 12 which had always been an ambition, after all Sevenstock inspired Rotorstock and it’s natural that we wanted to see the stateside version of our own event,
As you will see from the opening picture, on our way to Irvine we got a taste of things to come when around 80 miles out we came upon the first of many Repu’s that we would see at the event,
I went in the night before to help and meet the Bernie and the boys set up for the next day, BTW, Bernie who I had previously met was a great help to me when I was faced with how to organize Rotorstock 1, and didn’t have a clue where to begin, plus the next day I was pleased to finally meet Dan, and for those who don’t know, Dan and Bernie are Rotary news.com .
Sevenstock is held literally in the car park at the Mazda North American HQ and there is a huge car park across the road that acts as a holding pen so the cars can be lined up in Generation order to put the show together as you will see in the pictures, I have tried to put together a before during and after of the event.
First thing we noticed was that apparently, unseasonably it was hot and when I say hot I mean, damn hot, indeed when the boys down from the Las Vegas club tell you its too hot for them, that’s hot.
Shame was this meant that a lot of people had obviously parked up and scurried off where the sun wouldn’t get em, which meant that while I found lots of people to talk to many were missing, however I will thank the Americans that are reading this for making us real real welcome,
Going to Sevenstock once again proved to me what a small community our worldwide Rotary world is, as I found that while talking to one American he had been over for a Cosmo meet in Germany earlier this year and had met Phil Blake who is Ultraman here on MRC and lives in Guildford and later talked with people who had met Kees, who comes over for Rotorstock every year from the Netherlands.
As you can imagine running Rotorstock for the last six years it was inevitable that I would draw comparisons between Americas Premier Rotary event and Europe’s Premier Rotary event, so Sevenstock was interesting in that you will see looking at the pictures, that yes the event had many absolutely “wow” Mazda race cars and “wow” Old school cars, "but" both Lisa and myself actually came away very very proud of the cars that you guys here on MRC have conceived, produced and show each year at Rotorstock because overall as a show of “normal” road cars you guys collectively put on a better show with more variety of modded RX-7/8 models.
That surprised both of us!
Attending Sevenstock also proved just how far between us we have moved our community along and formulated Rotorstock into being a full Show and Go event each year to showcase the Rotary, rather than just a static event,
I was however shocked to hear that Import Drag Racing is now stone dead in America as I looked at Import Drags for our template for Racing Japanese cars here in the U/K for the very first time at Rotorstock 1, something I feel MRC should be very proud of because we, and we alone introduced proper Drag Racing for Japanese cars here in Europe.
Apparently Drift came along a killed import Drags almost overnight!
One big rumor I brought back was that despite the recession that was on the lips of almost everyone I spoke to, many still believe that there will be another RX-7 powered by the 16X
Back at the hotel we met up with fellow Rotary enthusiasts and once again we were over the moon with the warm welcome we received from many and on a personal note it was a great honor to meet Takaharu 'Koby' Kobayakawa who for those who do not know is literally the god father of the 3rd Gen and without him you would not have the RX-7 you have today,
I hope you enjoy the many many pictures below and if any of you get the chance to go and meet our Rotary cousins, go for it, would I go back some day, you bet ya.
See here for pics - all 272 of them!
http://picasaweb.google.com/Clive3010/Sevenstock2009#
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As some of you know this year we finally got ourselves out the Sevenstock 12 which had always been an ambition, after all Sevenstock inspired Rotorstock and it’s natural that we wanted to see the stateside version of our own event,
As you will see from the opening picture, on our way to Irvine we got a taste of things to come when around 80 miles out we came upon the first of many Repu’s that we would see at the event,
I went in the night before to help and meet the Bernie and the boys set up for the next day, BTW, Bernie who I had previously met was a great help to me when I was faced with how to organize Rotorstock 1, and didn’t have a clue where to begin, plus the next day I was pleased to finally meet Dan, and for those who don’t know, Dan and Bernie are Rotary news.com .
Sevenstock is held literally in the car park at the Mazda North American HQ and there is a huge car park across the road that acts as a holding pen so the cars can be lined up in Generation order to put the show together as you will see in the pictures, I have tried to put together a before during and after of the event.
First thing we noticed was that apparently, unseasonably it was hot and when I say hot I mean, damn hot, indeed when the boys down from the Las Vegas club tell you its too hot for them, that’s hot.
Shame was this meant that a lot of people had obviously parked up and scurried off where the sun wouldn’t get em, which meant that while I found lots of people to talk to many were missing, however I will thank the Americans that are reading this for making us real real welcome,
Going to Sevenstock once again proved to me what a small community our worldwide Rotary world is, as I found that while talking to one American he had been over for a Cosmo meet in Germany earlier this year and had met Phil Blake who is Ultraman here on MRC and lives in Guildford and later talked with people who had met Kees, who comes over for Rotorstock every year from the Netherlands.
As you can imagine running Rotorstock for the last six years it was inevitable that I would draw comparisons between Americas Premier Rotary event and Europe’s Premier Rotary event, so Sevenstock was interesting in that you will see looking at the pictures, that yes the event had many absolutely “wow” Mazda race cars and “wow” Old school cars, "but" both Lisa and myself actually came away very very proud of the cars that you guys here on MRC have conceived, produced and show each year at Rotorstock because overall as a show of “normal” road cars you guys collectively put on a better show with more variety of modded RX-7/8 models.
That surprised both of us!
Attending Sevenstock also proved just how far between us we have moved our community along and formulated Rotorstock into being a full Show and Go event each year to showcase the Rotary, rather than just a static event,
I was however shocked to hear that Import Drag Racing is now stone dead in America as I looked at Import Drags for our template for Racing Japanese cars here in the U/K for the very first time at Rotorstock 1, something I feel MRC should be very proud of because we, and we alone introduced proper Drag Racing for Japanese cars here in Europe.
Apparently Drift came along a killed import Drags almost overnight!
One big rumor I brought back was that despite the recession that was on the lips of almost everyone I spoke to, many still believe that there will be another RX-7 powered by the 16X
Back at the hotel we met up with fellow Rotary enthusiasts and once again we were over the moon with the warm welcome we received from many and on a personal note it was a great honor to meet Takaharu 'Koby' Kobayakawa who for those who do not know is literally the god father of the 3rd Gen and without him you would not have the RX-7 you have today,
I hope you enjoy the many many pictures below and if any of you get the chance to go and meet our Rotary cousins, go for it, would I go back some day, you bet ya.
See here for pics - all 272 of them!
http://picasaweb.google.com/Clive3010/Sevenstock2009#
<a href="http://plugin.smileycentral.com/http%253A%252F%252Fwww.smileycentral.com%252F%253F partner%253DZSzeb008%255FZSYYYYYYYYGB%2526i%253D36 %252F36%255F2%255F25%2526feat%253Dprof/page.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://smileys.smileycentral.com/cat/36/36_2_25.gif" alt="SmileyCentral.com" border="0"><img border="0" src="http://plugin.smileycentral.com/http%253A%252F%252Fimgfarm%252Ecom%252Fimages%252F nocache%252Ftr%252Ffw%252Fsmiley%252Fsocial%252Egi f%253Fi%253D36%252F36_2_25%2526uiv%253D3.0/image.gif"></a>