Import Alliance Summer 2012

Sunday 19 August, 2012 | By Ken

The Summer 2012 Import Alliance adventure weekend started much like it did last year for SNTRL’s Norman Midence. The weather was hot and humid and the excitement had been building for weeks prior that when the weekend finally arrived, Norman was ready for all that the Import Alliance weekend was going to throw at him.

Unlike last year though, when Norman flew out to Tennessee, this time around, he rode out with Kevin Iglesias of DNK Auto from New York. With Kevin’s hatch in-tow, they took the 6-hour drive to Virginia where they met up with their good friend Chris Parker before heading out to North Carolina. For the Summer of 2012 the Import Alliance team brought the Nation’s largest Import meet from Nashville, Tennessee to ZMaxx Dragway in Charlotte,  home of the 4-lane dragstrip, which is actually two pairs of drag strips. Do it big for the biggest meet out there.

After Chris had opened the doors to his home, and was kind enough to let Norm, Kevin and their crew stay at his house for the night, they headed out brought and early Friday morning to make their way to Charlotte. Along with Rich, one of the East Coast Honda Meet founders, they started their trek down to North Carolina. Now if things had truly gone smoothly, that would be too easy. First off, they got caught up with the infamous I95 traffic which backed them up off their schedule for an hour, than as their luck would have it, the vehicle Chris was driving in broke a brake line. Yea, definitely a crazy moment. But team worked prevailed, as everyone did what they had to do, and soon enough, they were back on the road. All this while the the hottest summer in history was going down.

Bright and early for events like this doesn’t mean much. Just like waiting for that super-exclusive sneaker release, the lines start well before the doors/gates open. Norm can attest to this many times over. Import Alliance Summer 2012 is no exception. Getting there early while the sun was just rising, only means you will be taking pictures of cars on long lines with some really nice soft lighting. The heat was so intense, it could be felt right through your sneakers. But not even the heat could ruin such an epic event. IA Summer 2012 was all you would expect and them some!

Check out some of the highlights of Norman M. Photography’s coverage, and then be sure to check out the full gallery at the bottom.

Awwww…they look like they are getting along in this pic. Or maybe just lining it up before they launch?

Flossin Hard.

The color tones really make us miss Fall weather. It’s been one hot summer.

Godzilla is always a welcome site.

Honda’s alpha-dog making an impression.

Wow. This Z is just…Wow.

Hybrid Racing’s incredible Civic Type-R. <3

IA is not a car show. It’s much more than that. It’s grassroots at its best. So when you see quality builds like these, it inspire’s generations and provides standards for the average enthusiast.

Rook Industries booth was looking awesome with Kevin and Chris’ rides. Just one of the many amazing booth setups that weekend.

Another amazing vendor booth that day was K-Tuned. Ben Howard of K-Tuned held it down, and their yellow Turbo K-swapped FD RX7 was causing quite a stir.

A familiar face that never gets old. This NSX was killing it all over the show circuit last year, and she is still breaking necks left and right this year.

Shy’s Spoon’d up ITR.

18 x 10 -33

GTR’s look sexy for the simple fact they kick ass all day on the street. Ok, that may or may not make sense, but yea.

That VIP life.

TeamNSU making waves all over the East Coast.

Purp’.

Surrounded by clean builds all weekend, like Jess’ EK hatch. Fresh Meet Events in the building.

We love builds like these. Sometimes, it’s not just about the shoes or the clothes. Sometimes is all about the heart.

There were some incredible S2000 builds on display all weekend.

We never get tired of look at them rears.

About the author

Co-founder, Managing Director, Photographer, and editor for SNTRL. To many in the Tri-State, Kenny aka "MAD JDM" needs no introduction. Always out there, always ready, always down.


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