HondafestNW 2019

Words: Vinnie Nguyen Images: Herod Sadr

Dating back to the days of the Honda Tech meets, the Honda community has always been about the people and their stories. There is a certain passion with Hondas that is often misunderstood by other members of the car community. For many of us, a Honda was our first car. While for others, it was their first build. As we grew older, our love for Hondas grew as well. Many of us returned to Hondas, more established than our younger selves, to build the car that we wanted since we were young. HondafestNW allows owners from all different backgrounds to proudly show off their builds.

Our team met at the track at 6am to prepare for the day and it wasn’t even 7am when we saw car show participants rolling in, waiting to be checked in. We’ll have to admit, it’s always nice to still be setting up and see eager car show participants showing up, even if we aren’t ready yet. We can’t thank you all enough for the support and dedication. Once we had everything set up, we proceeded with checking in car show participants and those who purchased the pre-sale VIP passes.

During the whole check in process, we kept looking to the sky, anxious of the dark clouds that loomed above. The weather reports weren’t looking good leading up to the day, but luckily for us, we were going to be hit with only a light sprinkling. The day looked to be promising as it seemed that the weather was going to be on our side. Generally, we do our best to stay on schedule, but we had to extend the roll in time to close at 9:30am due to the traffic that was backing up and causing some delay for our car show participants to roll in.

After wrapping up check in, we allowed some time for the car show participants to prep their cars before making an announcement that judging was going to start soon. Many people ask us why we don’t screen cars so that more “quality” are in the car show, but HondafestNW is all about being proud of your car, no matter what stage it’s at. The Honda Tech meets brought people together to share experiences and knowledge in a loose setting. You’d show up, talk about your cars and leave. HondafestNW provides a different platform. There is a completely different mentality that separates car shows from car meets. The show aspect allows for the spirit of friendly competition. The mentality of building a show car is different than the mentality of building a street car. The same goes for building a track car versus a show car. You’ll see owners with show purpose cars give pointers to those who daily drive their cars. You’ll see owners of track purpose cars giving pointers to the show car owners about adding an extra dimension to their show car. HondafestNW is all about sharing a common passion, no matter what background and what age.

We had originally planned for lead/follow and drag racing as track activities for the day, but since the track was still wet, we were forced to cancel drag racing. With lead/follow going on for the whole day, many of you took advantage of this. We had several people come up to us to express the amount of fun they had on the track. We were told that it was a great opportunity to really get a feel for their cars. Drag racing being cancelled wasn’t too bad as SpeedFactory brought their huge trailer and the crowd got a chance to see them unloading the cars and setting them up for display. We don’t know about you guys, but seeing racecars being lowered and rolled out of transport trailers is such a sight to see.

As the day went on, our judges did their due diligence to ensure that all car show participants got their cars judged. Many of them even went back to find and speak to the owners so that they received as many points as possible. During the judging process, we encourage our judges and all owners to talk to one another. It’s one thing for our judges to walk around a car and judge it, but it’s another thing when our judges get the opportunity to talk to owners and learn about their builds. It’s exciting for both judge and owner to share knowledge with one another, and it doesn’t hurt that the owners are able to get more points when they’re able to tell our judges about the things they don’t see.

The vibes at HondafestNW were great thanks to the weather, cars, music and food. The day ended with the awards ceremony for the car show. With everything said and done, this year’s HondaFestNW was a success and we look forward to the next event. A special thank you goes out to Pacific Raceways, our exhibitors, and of course the attendees.

Complete Winners List

Best of Show Tomas Burns

Judges Choice Mikey Andrada

Pacific Raceways Favorite Ron

Best Vendor Car SpeedFactory Racing

Best Show Austin Hironaka

Best Daily Mike Legaspi

Best Race/Track Devin Hosking

Best VIP/Stance Robert Buen

Best Honda/Acura Other Ferdinand Obando

Runner Up Honda/Acura Other Christopher Fry

Best Bike Travis Wilson

Best Acura Integra (93 and older) Brian Miller

Runner Up Acura Integra (93 and older) Stephany Mayer

Best Acura Integra (94 -01) Steven Sok

Best Acura NSX Brian Miller

Best Acura RSX Noah Bush

Runner Up Acura RSX Douglas Foster

Best Acura TSX Ajay Berry

Runner Up Acura TSX Alex Soukkay

Best Honda Accord (07 and older) Andre Hunter

Runner Up Honda Accord (07 and older) Roberto Barajas

Best Honda Accord (08 and newer) Jerry Casipi

Runner Up Honda Accord (08 and newer) Cyrus Seigafo

Best Honda Civic (16 and newer) Tiffanie Nelson

Runner Up Honda Civic (16 and newer) Quentin Luthi

Best Honda Civic (12 – 15) Stetson Allen

2nd Place Honda Civic (12-15) Mikey Reed

3rd Place Honda Civic (12-15) Chris Nava

Best Honda Honda Civic (01 – 11) Nicholaus Simmons

Runner Up Honda Civic (01 – 11) Webster Cheong

Best Honda Civic (96 – 00) Ricardo Perades

2nd Place Honda Civic (96 – 00) Adrian Gonzalez

3rd Place Honda Civic (96 – 00) Owen Feity

Best Honda Civic (92 – 95) Jerimiah Whipple

2nd Place Honda Civic (92 – 95) Devin Champagne

3rd Place Honda Civic (92 – 95) Phillip Nelson

Best Honda Civic (91 and older) Sheridan Empey

Runner Up Honda Civic (91 and older) Topher Beritich

Best Honda CRX Justin Fritz

Best Honda Del Sol Austin Hironaka

Best Honda Prelude Justin March

Runner Up Honda Prelude Nancy Cardenas

Best Honda S2000 Randy Olivarez

Runner Up Honda S2000 Chris Rafanan