Hot Import Nights - Texas

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HOT IMPORT NIGHTS 2001
Dallas Texas
By Rocky Jr.

Thursday May 3rd at 3:30pm
May 3rd came up real fast after the NHRA race just the weekend before in Ennis. Seeing how the Hot Import Nights show could be an important venue as there were figures of 30-50 thousand spectators projected for the event. We needed to make a Steve's Car presence. So I called Jim at Hot Import nights to see if there were any spots left for a car. "For RX7.COM, hmmm, Ok, we got one"
Easy enough. Next problem, what car do we put into the show? Since "Big Red" had the motor out and wasn't even close to being ready for display, we wouldn't be able to take it. So I called our fellow racer and friend Steve Kan.
"Steve, do you want to put your car in the Hot Import nights show?"
"Why? My car isn't a show car."
I keep telling him, "Man your car looks good and runs mid 10's to boot." After some more begging and telling him he can borrow a set of wheels, he went for it.

Friday May 4th at 6:30pm
Steve and I met at the Convention center to get his car set-up and situated, after waiting outside for 2 hours, we finally get in. (Just a quick note, If you ever do an indoor car show, make sure you only have a ¼ a tank of gas or less in your tank and take duct tape to tape up your gas cap)
Looking at the setup Map, I found where Mazda's booth was going to be. We wanted to set his car up next to the Mazda booth so we wouldn't look out of place. Since the Mazda booth wasn't set up yet, we parked the car next to where it would be sitting and started the tedious job of detailing it.
As I was cleaning the tires and wheels, a guy walked up and introduced himself as Steve the Gulf region rep. for Mazda North America. We talked to him for a while and he offered some of his space in the booth to display Steve's RX-7. Of course we said yes. He asked me if I would help him pull a couple of the new Mazda's around to display in the booth. "Heck Yeah!!". I got to be one of the few lucky people to drive the only Mazda Protege MP3 currently in the US. I only got to drive it for one mile, but it was still cool enough for me to say, "This is a pretty cool car."

The New Mazda MP3
-2.0 4 cylinder
-Custom suspension and exhaust tuning by Racing Beat
-Racing Hart 17inch wheels
-Kenwood MP3 Player stereo system w/sub
-Special edition Steering wheel and shift knob
-blue and grey interior w/ carbon fibre look trim
-Blue Mica paint
-Only $18,200.00

Saturday May 5th, 2001 at 11am

We had agreed the night before to give the Mazda Rep,also named Steve, a tour of Rotary Performance/RX7.com in the morning. Chris Ott and I showed him around the shop and explained the many functions that be here at Rotary Performance. He seemed very impressed with our shop and liked the idea of having an in ground dyno to test and tune products and cars. After lunch, we headed back to the Convention Center to finish setting up the Mazda Booth.

Arriving back at the Convention center, we met up with another one of the Mazda Reps whom just flew in for the show. Chris Ott, Steve Kan, Steve(Mazda Rep), Dean(Mazda Rep) and myself finished setting up the Mazda booth. It was really cool to work with the Mazda guys as a team to achieve a common goal.
Protoge MP3

At around 5pm, Chris and I left to go get some food. When we returned at about 7:30, there was a line about a ¼ mile long that went out the parking garage, over a small bridge and across a street. So we snuck around to the loading docks and found to our surprise, that the place was packed.

Chris and I made our way back to the Mazda booth and found the booth packed with onlookers staring and gazing. Mazda had hired a radio station for the booth as they were promoting to give away the Protégé MP3. We signed up.

We walked the whole show and found people dancing everywhere, a couple of fights and more stereo's going than Best Buy at Christmas. The place was shaking, lights were flashing, cars were hopping, smoke was coming Croud

from all around, people were running everywhere and everyone was video taping or taking pictures of everything. Except for the beautiful, half naked women walking around, it was like the Persian Gulf War as shown on CNN.

People were posing with Steve's RX-7, having their girlfriends pose with the RX-7, and having their girlfriends pose with Steve and the RX-7. Steve and his RX-7 were celebrities for the night.

At the end of the night, it was awards time. As they started passing out awards, we were very happy to find that they had manufacturers class and Steve Kan took home the trophy for Hottest Mazda. Congratulations to Steve in another car show success.

A special thanks to:

Steve @ Mazda North America

Dean @ Mazda North America

Johnny Nguyen for letting us use his Enkei's

Jim @ Hot Import nights for getting us in at the last minute

And everyone that showed up to make it worth while.

Rotary Performance
(972) 530-3335
311 E. Buckingham Rd.
Garland, TX 75040