What a weekend it was for Kyoei USA and friends along with many other automotive enthusiasts from the Phoenix area. The weekend started with very questionable weather and being that Import Face Off was cancelled last year due to rain, a lot of people were skeptical about what would happen this year. Many of us were frequently checking weather updates Friday night and all day Saturday trying to figure out when would be a good time to get the cars waxed and ready to go. Phoenix saw rain most of the morning Saturday but as soon as the rain stopped and the forecast looked ok, I was outside washing my car so I could get it prepped for my 4 stage wax process I had planned. Many of us spent all day/night Saturday getting our cars ready and for me and I’m sure many others the beers didn’t speed anything up!!
Saturday morning I wake up at 4:30am after going to sleep around 1am. Our plan was to meet up with our Lexus buddies at 5:30am and cruise together to Tucson. After someone’s alarm clock malfunction James and I didn’t end up leaving our house till around 6:45am. As soon as we were maybe 5-6 miles from our house it just straight downpours on us. Good thing we loaded up both cars with enough detailing stuff to do 10 cars!!! As soon as we got outside Maricopa it was clear skies all the way to Tucson. We made good time and got to Tucson around 8:15am where we met up with the rest of our Lexus friends that didn’t end up leaving till around 6:15 due to some technical problems with the truck hauling a trailor. After getting breakfast at McDonald’s we headed over to Southwestern International Raceway which is on the far southeast outskirts of Tucson.
We ended up being some of the first Phoenix people there and the line to get in wasn’t long at all. We ended up getting all our cars lined up in one line for the show. We ended up having 7 Lexus including 2 LS400, 2 IS250, 1 GS430, 2 GS300 and then my oddball of the group 350z. Another IS300 showed up a little later so the Kyoei group had 9 total cars. The show was a blast and the weather ended up being awesome all day long with tons of epic cloud cover which made for some great pics. Jin, owner of Kyoei USA and his black UCF20 LS400 ended up taking the trophy for Best Luxury. We did not go to the show with the intentions of winning anything so the trophy was just a bonus, it was mostly to just show people the VIP Luxury style cars and to just have a good time with friends. All in all the show was great, we didn’t have any mechanical car problems and we all made it home safely. I’m sure we will end up attending this show again next year and hopefully more VIP style cars will be there. Next show on our list is DUB Show coming up on March 13th at Phoenix Convention Center. Stay tuned!!!!!
-Chris
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