Words: Patrick Sayaphoum
Pics: Vic Lee, Zandro Zafra & Patrick Sayaphoum
We have several guest bloggers and photographers who hit up the Black 2 VIP meet in NJ. We’ll start out first with Pat’s experience and some pics by Zandro/Pat/Vic. Be on the look out for more pics in the upcoming days!
East Coast here we come!
Flash back to Mid-July, 2010, surfing the web while having dinner and stop eating which left my dinner to get cold, I got distracted from seeing the few videos and images being posted up from the very first Liberty VIP Black event out in New Jersey, Everyone I knew were like, “who are these guys,” “where they came from, ” “DAYAM the east coast is doing it large,” Flash to mid August 2011, as I was walking through the door at Fizz AutoSports, was approached from a sleepy buddy asking if we knew about the Liberty VIP event that is coming up, Said we should go, and represent Chicago like how the Jersey guys that came in for Wek-Fest Chicago, In my mind I need a road trip, and agreed as long the funds were available, This also gives us about 6 weeks to prepare for the trip, Initial started with about 5-6 cars interested to rolling out there, but week after week we find out people have to drop out due to work and lack of funds, Cannot blame them, stuff happens, all we can do is move on and keep going, So by 2 weekends before the event, we were left with 4 people, 1 car for support and the other planning to show, Oh well right, we got to play with the cards we are dealt.
No road trip is complete without an Equilibrium bag
Turns out the final 2 weeks were a mad scramble. I needed new tires, replace the control arm along with the bushing and redo my hood graphics. All while working hard with 25 extra hours one week and double time for 2 days and regular hours the rest before we had to leave at my normal job. Needless to say I barely saw my bed or couch. By late Wednesday night everything was done that had to be completed with the car, few things were left off the list but those items were on the “if I had time list.” On Thursday night we all plan to flock to Mitsuwa to get some food and prep each car with our gears. Later to find out that one of the guys had to drop off his car elsewhere so we met him there and went on our way. At least we thought, on our way we decided to head over to China Town to get some food from Chi Café in the New China Square of Chicago. Now after the good eats we started on our way, about 2 hours later but we were in no rush, reason why we left on Thursday, not Friday before the event. Estimate arrival time to the motel, 930 am.
Nothing like some good healthy eats on the road
On our way we were hit with Mother Nature’s wrath of rain, wind and chilly weather. But we left in a good hurry till we saw the Indiana state cops with the flashing LED under glow that already pulled over a speeding driver. As expected the gas prices drop once we got out of our state of Illinois, which made our gas cost projection a lot lower than we thought. Indiana and Ohio was a breeze to go through, but once we hit Pennsylvania, we all got hungry, rather than getting something from the service station we decided to hit up something famous that was open around 5-6 am. Thanks to Man vs. Food, and the internet on our phones we found that Primanti Bros. Restaurant and Bar was a 24 hour spot in Pittsburgh. So we headed a bit south, to one of the best sandwiches we ever had. Of course, we took advantage of our surroundings and setup a mini photo shoot along with rolling shots with my car still blue taped. With that detour our arrival time got pushed to 1230 pm and roughly 150 miles more to drive.
Car could use a bath after an 800+ mile drive!
The State of Pennsylvania was the rough one for all of us. The combination of little sleep, and going up and down the terrain that the highway was following really beat us up. Also hitting random rubber pellets, a scared possum, which later killed by the support vehicle and flung in front of us did not help much at all. Several stops at the service stations, we got out of the madness and arrived in New Jersey to our motel around 3pm. We decided to spot a local car wash to see if it was lower car friendly and a place to eat that we don’t see in Chicago, which turns out to be Pollo Tropical, a chicken restaurant. Time for rest, and relaxation.
The following morning, I got out of the bathroom and hear some sort of rumbling outside, so I decided to check it out since my car is outside. What I saw rolling up was few of the Liberty VIP crew rolling in to the Ihop, which was located in the same lot that the motel is on. Talk about picking the right spot to sleep and eat. After all of us got ready and packed we headed out to Ihop for breakfast with few of my local friends. We actually started to take a few pictures of the cars there, I later realizing that the first few were on the Black2 flyers. There is something really jaw dropping about seeing these cars in the “real world” where there are normal cars around.
Ridiculous widebody SC.
After the hearty breakfast we headed over to the local car wash, keeping eye on the clouds and hoping the VIP cars roll pass us. At least we thought they would since that was the most direct route out there. 20 minutes later, we send out a scout to see if they were still there, and to our surprise, the lot was empty. We packed up and started out our way to the venue. Rolling into the staging area, I felt really out class till I turn my head to the right and saw a Previa. After that moment I felt excited seeing it, which ease myself of being out class.
Liberty doing it big- Ty's super clean GS
Overall the event was really down to earth; we met few guys like Ty, Will, Philly Chris and Roy. I think I hung around my car for a few hours because of Ty’s GS with the JP Scaras, Will’s wide body SC430 and Roy’s Previa just in pure amazement. After I clean up my drool from where I was standing I started to walk around and seen some top notch cars. The Luxury Abstract booth was a show stopper. The wheels they are selling are redefining what a face on the wheels can look like and how they are packaged.
The awards ceremony was fun to watch, you can tell these guys have known each other for a while. The awards themselves are not our traditional plagues or stands. The King of VIP, People’s Choice looks like they were from a professional tennis competition. The special awards like “Best Interior”, “Best Paint” were a great custom touch that came with prize money. It was truly an award ceremony for the VIP and VIP-Style cars.
What a lineup!
I love the reaction when they announce the “longest miles driven, ” few were pronouncing “Chicago” in their own way, many was like “no way, ” “now that is dedication, ” “Crazy.” The shocker was getting an award for 2nd place Luxury Other. Honestly it’s an honor that they had that I won an award but 2 was a shocker since I wasn’t expecting anything. The fact that we made it, able to check out the event in person and met some really down to earth people was the best prize out there, something we will never forget. On that note we will be going back, hopefully with more cars to show, the best team was 4 cars deep, we had 5-6 in the beginning.
Heading back we drove through the storm that lingers over Chicago for a week. Heavy rain with going up the mountain made the drive a challenge again. But once ¾ through Pennsylvania we made it out of the rain and into the dryer colder weather. Once the sun started to rise we somehow manage and got some energy to do some rolling shots. Check out Zandro’s “Look Ma’ No Hand” routine taken by Vic Lee. We got home safe, tired and hungry, so we decided to end where we started, China Town but this time to Ming Hing Cuisine for some DimSum.
Thanks again to the fellas, Vic Lee, Zandro and Raymond for coming with me, without you guys I would have canceled the trip if I was on my own. Thanks to Allen and Eddy for helping out to get the car ready for long distance and keeping the fire lit for going, next year guys, we will plan it better. I really want to go back again, so it looks like I’m back to VIP-Style.
Part 2 coming tomorrow with TONS of pics!
Here is the first set:
Leave a Reply