Posted by Josh Mackey
COMMENTS
So many memorable events have happened in 2012 so far; SOPA, MegaUpload is shut down, Eli Manning somehow wins another Superbowl, Wendy’s overtakes Burger King as #2 on the burger list, the President supports same sex marriage, and of course, Forum Fest. Many more like that, and we’re only half way through 2012! Better hold on.
Text by Mackey // Photos by Media Contributors (Header Photo by Guy Fealey, Kevin O’Rourke, Gaelen Norman & Kyle Robertson)
No matter how good of a streak you think you’re on, everything will always come to a crashing halt at some point or another. The best sports teams, gamblers, investors and car show producers have all seen a never ending road of good luck, until one day, by an act of god, it all stops. Forum Fest 2012 had the makings of quite possibly the biggest and best event in the Northwest, ever. By the numbers, it was still the biggest import car show to date, with 378 total pre-registered cars, 35 pre-registered drift cars and the fastest drag racers in the area ready to battle.
Photo by Gaelen Norman // NorthwestNissans.com
The risk of bad weather in the State of Washington or most parts of the Northwest is a threat we live by 24/7/365. Even the great and powerful wizard, aka Steve Pool has bad days and just like last Saturday, even with the prediction of rain, still couldn’t have guessed what was going to happen. The week leading up to Forum Fest was your typical Seattle weather, fair, overcast, spotty rain, easy enough to deal with. The morning of Forum Fest dried up, some partly sunny skies with rain holding to the south, things looked great. Our crew was setup by 6:30am and ready to roll in cars and by 7, the front entrance to Pacific Raceways was filled.
It took our staff only 3 hours to check in and place a total of 350 cars. If you’ve never done a car show before, this was truly amazing. Plans were set in place, roll-in was cut off promptly at 10:15am, and we were ready to rock. We allowed the staff to get settled in and learn the lay of the land; we checked our vendors and had our judges meeting around 11, and then the skies turned to black. Drifting had begun on the back stretch of the track and several runs (and crashes) happened, before it was called for rain. Drifting in the rain is fine, drifting in the river, is not. Drag racing also started, but even with light rain it was held off and then cancelled.
Photo by Kevin O'Rourke
Rain of epic proportions came down so fast, many spectators and participants bolted to cover. Our staff waited to see if would let up, but it was clear that it was only getting worse. Insisting on continuing our process, our judges went out into the downpour, tablets/phones in hand to use our online judging tool only to be sent right back with devices that just couldn’t operate. A few judges took clipboards, paper and pen and tried our old method, only to have the rain soak the paper and smear the ink. By this time, we knew our options were limited. A third judges meeting was called to discuss our options and it was determined that our 7 trained judges would walk the layout and start picking cars that had a high chance for winning their class. Any car chosen was then put under the microscope, comparing each car, talking with owners on a real level. All the winners (listed below) deserve their award. We understand the issues at hand, which have been addressed, but we’re confident on the winners selected best represent the award that was given.
Photos by Kyle Robertson
The event could have gone much better, but you can’t say it wasn’t memorable. Only in the Northwest can we have a record breaking car show, in the rain. It also didn’t help that in Seattle proper, the rain had made way to sunny and blue skies since noon that day. We hear your concerns and have already been formulating better back up plans and better processes in a situation as dire as this and our events can only improve in time. We thank you for your support and understanding as we begin to process of how to mend the situation and continue to bring you the best events in the Northwest.
Mother Nature, you owe us one.
| Award | Name | Car |
| Best of Show | Kenneth Edwards | 2004 Nissan 350z |
| NWMotiv Judges Choice | Michael Heasley | 1991 Nissan 240sx |
| NOS Energy Drinks Choice | Chris Kenning | 2008 Volkswagen GTI |
| Best Other | Marcus Estill | 2004 Hyundai Tiburon |
| Best Paint | Cici Calderon | 2007 Scion tC |
| Best Interior | Kenneth Edwards | 2004 Nissan 350z |
| Best Stance | Tony Dau | 2002 Honda S2000 |
| Best Team Overall | Team Menace | |
| Best Motorcycle | Ian Shoel | 2006 Suzuki GSX-R1000 |
| Best Team/Club/Forum Represent | MazdasNW.com | |
| Best Toyota / Scion | Vance Sakado | 1987 Toyota Corolla GT-S |
| 2nd Place Toyota / Scion | Amanda Plummer | 2006 Scion tC |
| Best Engine | Terru Suvonnarith | 2001 Acura Integra |
| Best Female Build | Katie Smith | 2004 Subaru Impreza |
| Best Race Build | Patrick Widner | 2010 Mitsubishi Lancer Evo |
| Best Overall Theme | Kirk Garretson | 2005 Subaru Impreza |
| Craziest Fitment | Sam Schuur | 1999 Subaru Impreza |
| Best Old School | Haila Ignacio | 1982 Toyota Starlet |
| Best Subaru | Katie Smith | 2004 Subaru Impreza |
| 2nd Place Subaru | Jennier Wintrode | 2004 Subaru Forester |
| Best Honda/Acura Hatch/Coupe | Dom Costello | 1995 Honda Civic HB |
| 2nd Place Honda/Acura Hatch/Coupe | Randy Olivarez | 2007 Honda S2000 |
| Best Honda/Acura 4/5 Door | Andrew Louangphakdy | 1996 Honda Civic Sedan |
| 2nd Place Honda/Acura 4/5 Door | Austin Hironaka | 1999 Honda CR-V |
| Best Mazda Sedan / Coupe | CJ Ramos | 2008 Mazdaspeed 3 |
| 2nd Place Mazda Sedan / Coupe | Brendan Hughes | 2012 Mazda 2 |
| Best Mazda W5 | Branden Edwards | 2004 Mazda RX-8 |
| 2nd Place Mazda W5 | Brian Verdecchia | 2009 Mazda RX-8 |
| Best Nissan | Kenneth Edwards | 2004 Nissan 350z |
| 2nd Place Nissan | Morris Malone | 2008 Nissan 350z |
| Best Japanese Luxury | Kenji Nishimura | 1999 Lexus GS300 |
| 2nd Place Japanese Luxury | Shonn Kidoguchi | 1999 Infiniti QX45 |
| Best European | Chris Kenning | 2008 Volkswagen GTI |
| 2nd Place European | Jaron Bell | 2010 BMW M3 |
| Best Domestic 2dr | Andrew Le | 1963 Chevy Impala |
| 2nd Place Domestic 2dr | Greg Turnage | 2005 Chrysler PT Cruiser |
| Best Domestic 4/5dr | Lindsay High | 2005 Dodge SRT-4 |
| 2nd Place Domestic 4/5dr | Day of Registration | Red Dodge SRT-4 |
| Best Mitsubishi | Alan Whitright | 2005 Mitsubishi Lancer Evo |
| 2nd Place Mitsubishi | Anson Lo | 2003 Mitsubishi Evo |
Follow our Facebook page as we’ll be posting photos of the winners over the next week! Facebook.com/NWMotiv
Related Posts :
Saturday, September 29th proved to be an epic day for a car show and drift event. We saw a lot o …
We had some promotional hats made thanks to our friends over at SNPDesigns.com. Check them out, …
Running more than five years strong, Project One has become one of the most stand-out and of …
Photos by Mike Bowen& Cameron Jurgenson – Text by Josh Mackey Can a car be flashy and u …
Welcome to our inaugural mini feature. These mini features will be where we take a closer lo …
I survived Forum Fest 2012!
Where is the pics?
Can’t wait till next year. Hoping to have my car ready by then.
This show was awesome!
It’s no surprise Team Menace swept practically every category. If you and entering a NWMotiv event you had better hope you’re on Team Menace or a category they don’t qualify for.
@doug wilson, I challenge you to find a more complete car in their classes. They win because they simply have the best, pretty cut and dry until someone better comes along.
LOL. Haters will always hate. I’ve been to multiple car shows that Team Menace has entered that have nothing to do with NWMotiv and they dominate. Have you actually looked at the full package each of their cars offer?
I’ve beaten Team Menace before. Numerous times, in fact.
@ Doug Wilson The truth is this as far as show car teams go in the NW especially in Washington, Team Menace is it. My crew ( Team N.W.B ) stop showing because other then Menace what was the point.They rather go 1200 miles to Cali.To blame NW Motiv or to envy the success of Team Menace for showing up with nothing to prove other than to support the NW tuner car show scene is whats wrong in the NW. Everyone has a choice step you game up or let the one’s that do enjoy their success. Plan and Simple
Well, the point to showing isn’t always about winning…it’s showing off what you have an being proud of it. If all you really care about is winning trophies, then I feel that you’ve already lost the spirit of showing your car in the first place. You don’t need a car show judge to tell you that your car is awesome…as long as put everything you’ve got into your car at a show, people will take notice.
Team Menace wins because they have awesome cars, amazing team support, and awesome people. Have an even awesome-er car and you can win too. It’s not that hard.
I would have to say this is the last time I will ever go to an event hosted by NWMotiv. I don’t even know where to begin. Here’s the part that pisses me off the most. I’m not from Washington, it takes me over 3 hours to drive down to Kent, WA. I booked time off work to actually go to this event only to get screwed. After hours of driving to the event and all the time waxing and polishing the dirt off from the long drive they didn’t even come by my car for judging. Once it started pouring rain I sat in my car for hours until the rain passed, waiting for the judges. Once the rain stopped, I cleaned and polished my car again, awaiting the judges. But they didn’t even pass by! So from booking time off work, to waking at 3am to make it in time for roll in and nearly $200 in gas both ways you can understand my frustration and how it seems to be portayed.
So, first it was because Team Menace, now it’s because of the rain. Are you here to just hate and troll on the event? We know the issue, we’ve dealt with the issue and have a compromise in place. You think spending a couple hours waxing and detailing your car, then driving is a lot? Think about the 12 months we spent planning and promoting the show, and the last 4 months of round the clock monitoring to make sure we had it all ready. No one could have predicted the level of rain involved.
@doug I drove 4 hours each way to come down and take pictures at the event, so i’m not really sure why you’re complaining. The event was great fun, for those of you that decided to leave your cars at the show and check out the rest of what was offered you’ll be sure to know that. If all you did was hang around at your car and wait….well that’s you’re own fault. Would I drive 4 hours again to stand in the pissing rain and see an event like this again? damn rights i would!
I don’t care about the fact that it rained. Ya that sucked and obviously I’m not blaming anyone for that. But to go through the trouble mentioned in the previous post and not even get judged is really a load of crap and I wasn’t the only one. I meant tell me I don’t have a legit reason to vent.
Doug, were you a day of registration? or are you using an alias name? The reason I ask, is because we informed all day of registrations to go to the tent to get signed in. Only 1 of the 15-20 day of registrations registered at the tent before it rained.
@GaelenN. Show contestants are supposed to be my their car in case the judges come by to go over the details and open hood, trunk and interior. I was planning to check out the rest of the show and drag and shift competition after I was judged but they just never came around. I guess that’s the way the cookie crumbles.
@Josh I registered online well before the show just like I did for the last 3 or 4 shows you guys hosted. Neways I’ve said what I wanted to say. I’m done arguing, I more or less just wanted to express my personal experience. I hope you can take this more as constructive criticism instead of an attack. I just hope future registrants don’t have to go through this again.
PS: I think Team Menace’s cars cars are dope. My first post was meant as a compliment not a dis but people took it the wrong way. Peace
Im just bummed out I didnt (really) get to race. That first pass on the 22′s was pathetic lol. 15.2@97 w/ a 2.9 60′!! The track was slippery as hell. It was still a cool event.
Only gripe I have it I was told to pre-register even though I was racing, so I paid the $25 for nothing really and then had to pay again to get on the strip. Your welcome!
@kevin, sounds like you were got your information from the wrong source. $25 to pre-register was for the car show only, racing is always pay day of at the gate for $30.