West Coast Meet 2001

Well this year’s West Coast Mazda MX-3 Meet has come and gone. There was a total of 21 MX-3s at this years meet from all over the Lower Mainland, Victoria, Washington State and Portland, Oregon. We had the regular die-hard MX-3 owners back again as well as some new faces with their nice rides.

Friday was an all-prep day getting the car ready for the meet. Taras came a day early to help me put the final touches to the meet. We made a run up to North Shore Audio Video in the afternoon to pick up the prizes that they donated to our meet. Luckily I had most of the cleaning done in the morning while waiting for Taras. After dinner we continued cleaning our cars till around 1:30 AM.

Saturday morning I checked my e-mail and I get this urgent message from Edison saying that he doesn’t have a car. Now we’ve come to a stumbling block, hoping that something like this wouldn’t happen. Boy, do you have bad timing Edison. We didn’t have time to drive out to Port Coquitlam to pick him up, so I decided that he should just get a cab and get down to Ricky’s Restaurant in Surrey by 8:45 AM for breakfast. Then he can catch a ride to the meet with one of us. There were 5 MX-3s at Ricky’s for Breakfast including myself, Taras, Sean, Jon and Charles & Nicole (proud new owners).

After breakfast we cruised through Surrey, Delta, and Richmond into Vancouver at Langara College. We had some fun on Hwy 91 East/West connector driving through Richmond when Taras along with Edison missed the Knight St. turn off that we took.

We arrived at Langara College around 10:45 AM and started to set up. Dave Drake from Puyallup, WA was already there waiting for us. During the course of the day MX-3 owners started to file into the parking lot at Langara College. We had a Mazda Protégé, P5 and a turbo MX-6 owner come by to check out the meet. There were a few looky-loos as usual, especially this one guy with a white Toyota Supra that coasted around us. We had quite a few stock MX-3s, and a lot of modified MX-3s. The weather held out nicely for us, there was a little minor sprinkle while driving into Vancouver but it held off. It was mainly sun and clouds throughout the day with a bit of wind at times. Our webmaster also got into a bit of a scuffle with an MX-3 when the trunk lid didn't agree with his forehead. Thankfully most MX-3 owners are trained in the art of "First Aid for non-MX-3 Owners".

The Q&A t-shirt give away went really well. Taras stumped all the owners with some good questions. Our top-secret contest was a parallel parking contest with elimination rounds. Art Kong and Garry Chapman managed to squeeze their MX-3 between the pylons with about 6 inches of space between both bumpers. Some of you guys need to go brush up on your parallel parking skills =)

The MX-3 Car Competition didn’t go as smoothly as I had planned. We had some technical difficulties with late MX-3s rolling in and miss-numbering the cars - nothing like re-judging to cure the minor problem. Last years winners were exempt from this year’s competition. This year’s winners are:

Here are the MX-3 Car Competition results:

Stock Class
	Garry Chapman Garry received a Mazdaspeed Key Chain & Cork Sport decal courtesy of Cork Sport, and Mazdaspeed Shoulder pads and a Ractive Pedals set courtesy of MX-West Car Club.

Stage 1 Modified
	Gary Mui Gary received a Mazdaspeed Key Chain & Cork Sport decal courtesy of Cork Sport, a pair of Toucan EuroLite Fusion headlamp bulbs courtesy of SHC Motorsports, and a $25 Automotive Detailing Gift Certificate at Soft Touch Detailing courtesy of MX-West Car Club.

Stage 2 Modified
	Sean McGuigan Sean received a Mazdaspeed Key Chain & Cork Sport decal courtesy of Cork Sport, and a 10” Crankinstein Subwoofer in a custom-built Bandpass Box courtesy of North Shore Audio Video.

Cork Sport “MX-3 of the Year”
	Kenneth Loi Kenneth received a Mazdaspeed Key Chain, Cork Sport decal, and a Strut Tower Bar courtesy of Cork Sport.

Congratulations to the Winners and all the participants.

It’s 4:30 PM, and has been a long day for most of us. After the awards were given out, I made my usual final speech and announced that a few of us were going for dinner after the meet and everyone was welcome to join us at Earls Restaurant at Lansdowne Mall in Richmond, BC. Leaving Langara College with a 6 MX-3 entourage, we were on our way to dinner. As I pulled into the parking lot at Lansdowne Mall, I spotted another MX-3 that must have belonged to someone that worked at the mall. I decided to pull up and park next to it. At Earls, we met up with 2 other owners who were at the meet. After dinner a few of us stayed and talked for an hour and bit by our cars out in the parking lot. It was getting late and we said our good-byes till the next event.

I would like to thank everyone who took time out of his or her busy schedules to come out and attend this year’s meet. To the MX-3 owners from out of town, thank you for making the drive up to Vancouver and we at MX-West Car Club hope you had a safe drive home. Special thanks to our Sponsors: Cork Sport, North Shore Audio Video and SHC Motorsports for donating wonderful prizes to our meet again. Good bye for now, and we’ll see you at our next event or until next years meet.