I think I was more exhausted on Sunday morning than I was on Saturday morning. I woke up at 5:30 AM once again and headed down to meet Kyle and Jason in the lobby. Alicia enjoyed the event on Saturday and had a good time, but was feeling a little tired and a little sick of car discussion 24/7 so she elected to sleep in at the hotel and chill by the pool for the afternoon.

We cruised out to the track and arrived around 6:30. There was a lot less traffic out there on day 2, but there was still a line waiting to get into the gates. When we pulled in and eventually made our way through the long line to the infield, we were corralled into some really close together parking spots along the gravel edge of the parking lot we were in during day one. For whatever reason, the parking director-people decided to be super strict about parking cars on Sunday. They wouldn’t let us space out at all to put up the tent and made us all park about 8″ from each other. Obviously, with the reaction our cars got the first day, we were pretty bummed out about it.

We tried to negotiate with a different parking attendant, but with little success. I told Kyle and Jason that we should walk over to the VIP/Vendor area for the hell of it to see if we could bump into someone that called the shots over there in hopes of getting a better spot. As we walked into that area, a bald-headed gentleman with a goatee stopped us and politely told us that the vendor area was not quite open yet and we could stop back in a bit to check it out. He asked if we were looking for anyone or if he could help us.

I explained to this fine fellow that we were wondering who decided which cars got to go in this section and were hoping to run our cars past that person…

“That’s me- I’m that dude. I’m Don.”

Kyle quickly made Jason and I aware that this was THE Don, Don Napier- the founder of Import Alliance. Needless to say, we were pretty stoked to bump into this guy. I gave Don the rundown and explained to him that we were hoping to maybe score some better parking spots for day 2. It was pretty embarrassing telling him that we had an FD RX7 and two 240s without actually having the cars with us, since I knew he assumed the 240s were totally pieces of garbage, as they usually are.

“Tell you what I will do- you guys talk about it, decide who has the coolest car, and I will park it over here in this section. Sound good?” Don said.

It did sound pretty awesome, but I told him that we were trying not to split up our group of three cars. We ride together, we die together- Bad Boys for life. But no, I didn’t say that. At this point, as embarrassed as I was, I had to drop the, “My car was on the cover of Modified back in January” bomb. I told Don I felt like a jerk for saying that and I hated to be that guy, but he said those were the things he needed to know. At that point, he told us to go grab our cars and bring them over so he could check them out. If he liked what he saw, he would let us park there.

So ANYWAY, when we came back with the cars Don shook his head and said, “No you’re right, you’re right man! They belong over here.” Our minds were blown yet again. I told him we wouldn’t mind parking way in the back along the fence (or anywhere in that section for that matter) and he said, “Why would you park out there when I will put you right here in front?”

So anyway, I can’t thank Don Napier enough for not only putting on such an awesome event, but for talking with us and giving us such a great place to park on Sunday. I don’t think any of us expected anything remotely that cool to happen- pretty sweet! Here are some shots of the cars throughout the day:

There was a lot more foot traffic in this spot- tons of people around later in the day as more cars filed in. I think most people must have partied Saturday night and that is why the cars rolled in a lot later on Sunday. We hung out with the dude from Chicago with the silver S2000 next to my car a bit as well- super cool guy. I wish I could remember his name, haha- I suck at names.

It seemed like we got even more attention in this spot. Shortly after parking, I ended up meeting a cool guy named Simon from Colorado. Simon runs Ninja Status Apparel and is a freelance photographer for S3 Magazine. Simon was a really chill guy and cool to talk to- he shot some pretty cool photos of the car that I will post up later- he even introduced me to Johnatan and Yousef, the guys that run S3. Always awesome to meet people in the industry- very cool guys all around!

Later, we were approached by Dave from Canibeat. Dave was with another gentleman from the site, but again- terrible with names. It was super cool chatting with those guys as well- they seemed to be digging our cars, especially Jason’s. They offered for us to park in their booth for the day since a couple of their cars were not there on Sunday, but we felt bad bailing on the spots right up front that Don was gracious enough to give us. Hopefully we can park in their booth next year or something- super nice guys over at Canibeat.com!

We decided to pack up shop and roll out around 1:30 if I remember right. We kind of wanted to stay a bit later since we had such a nice spot, but Kyle and Jason wanted to get on the road to make it home at a decent time, and I had to be back at the hotel to pick up Alicia and drive 3.5 hours East into the Smokies to our cabin for the second leg of our journey. We said our goodbyes and rolled out- I couldn’t believe how fast the event went by. By far the best car event I have ever been to- I will be back next year for sure!

I’ll post up the pics that other people/sites/blogs took of the car and then continue with some pics from our vacation on the east side of the state in my next couple posts. Appreciate everyone reading through this!

Damon