Thanks to everyone who came out to the Treasure Island meet last weekend.  I was so happy to see the twenty-ish cars at the shop to make the drive together.  Also thanks to everyone who helped set up and organize the event and to Rob who was nice enough to provide doughnuts and coffee for everyone in the morning as well as the raffle prizes (dyno pulls and shop gift certificates.)

It was a real blast to see all of these Zs on the road.  I ended up not driving so that I could ride with Rob and take pictures.  He had taken the T-tops out of his 300zx twin turbo which made for some great photo opportunities and an even better sun burn for me, haha.  Treasure island was a bit chilly but the good conversations about Zs kept my mind off of it.

I will be posting some information on another get-together real soon, so I hope to see you all then.  Enjoy all the pictures after the read-more!!

…[read more]

This is from the event organizers themselves.  Thanks a ton to Jesse and Vincent for all the work they’ve done to set this up for all of us!!

->Map of Entire Drive<-

Point A
We will be meeting at Z Car Garage @ 9am. This is the Official start of our drive.

Z Car Garage
140 Archer Street
San Jose, CA 95112

->Google Map To Z Car Garge<-

We will start staging @ approximately 9:45am to depart to Red Robin.

Point B
Plans are to reach Red Robin @ 10:30am. If you are not planning on Caravanning with the Z Car Garage crew this is the place you will want to meet up with us to have Brunch.

Doors open @ 11am

Red Robin
2204 Bridgepointe Pkwy
Foster City, CA 94404

->Google Map To Red Robin<-

Point C
After we Eat we will stage and head out to T.I. We will only be doing a pit stop here to hang out and take some pix. Due to lack of permits we will only stop for 1.5-2 hours and then move on.

ETA @ T.I. is 1pm

Point D
After we depart T.I. we will regroup @ 3050 main st. Alameda, CA 94501
There is a long parking lot accross from the docs. When you enter Alameda Via the Webster tunel continue stright down the middle.

We will wait for everybody to catch up and then drive as a group to our final destination.

Point E
Final destination will be 1956 Monarch, Alameda, where we will be able to hangout with no restrictions. At this point we hang out until whenever.

ETA Will be approximently 3:30pm

Copys of the Maps will be available the day of the meet. All Caravans other than the official Z Car Garage one need to be coordinated amongst yourselves.

I am nailing down the final details for the entire day right now with the organizers of the event.   I will hopefully be up to date by the morning.  As of right now we are meeting at Z Car Garage on Saturday morning at 9AM.

Z Car Garage
140 Archer St
San Jose, CA 95112

There is a group of people getting together earlier at the Starbucks down the street from the shop.

Starbucks
1759 Technology Drive #10, San Jose
(corner of N.1st and Brokaw, just beneath 101 bridge)

We will then be heading to Red Robin for some food before meeting the main group of around 70 cars at Treasure Island.  That’s right, 70 cars.  Head over to MY350z.com to sign up if you wish.

Link:  MY350Z.com forum thread

Here is what I’m not sure about: There is also a plan to meet at the old Alameda Naval Base after leaving Treasure Island.  This is on the way home for most of us in the East and South Bay so I don’t see any issue with stopping there as well.  I will be attending.  I just want to give all of you a semi-official time line.  There will be an update here as soon as I get the information.

See you all soon.

I want to start off by thanking everyone who showed up for the ZONC Z Car Corral on Saturday.  It was a pleasure to see all of you!!

The weather was perfect early on Saturday and I was pleased to see that we had 8 cars a the shop ready to join us on our caravan down to Laguna Seca to meat up with the rest of the group.   Unfortunately the most of the drive to the track takes place on Highway 101 so there isn’t much room for spirited driving, we still managed to get to the track in under an hour and a half.

Once arriving it seems like the rest of the car clubs enjoy getting up much earlier than ours did because all of the other corrals from Porsche, BMW, Ferrari, and others were already nearly at capacity.  Porsche had the most cars by far, easily understandable because they were the featured marque this year.  When will it be Nissan/Datsun’s time!?!?  Are you gonna show up when it happens?  I sure am.

While the practice sessions were underway in the morning hours we walked the paddock area in search for automotive gold.  There are amazing cars at every turn at this event, and you don’t even need your sense of sight to appreciate them.   I can’t even count the times that our group stopped by a running car just to listen to the engine note and to smell the burning race fuel.

After lunch we settled into our seats just outside of turn four to enjoy the racing.  While we appreciate the older racing cars that were up for the first few races, we were simply patiently waiting for the last two races of the day which were the 1964-1971 FIA Mfg. Championship cars (mainly Porsche 917s) and the 1981 -1990 FIA Mfg. Championship cars and the IMSA GTP cars.

You can imagine that when seriously priceless cars are raced that the track time is little more than glorified pace laps,  NOT TRUE!!!!  The cars were wheel to wheel in every sense and there was certainly rubbin and bumpin going on.  The drivers wanted to win, after all when would all of these cars ever be on track again together?  It was truly a sight to behold.

I have found a video of the winner of the IMSA GTP race and it can be viewed after the “read more”.  The video is taken from inside the pilot’s driver’s helmet.  I want one of these cars.  There is also a gallery of the photos that I took on Saturday (the only day I attended unfortuantely.)  I will try to find photos from Sunday from someone who attended.  Hopefully we can get our group numbers a little bit higher next year to show how much support is out there for Nissan/Datsun products.  See you there.

(the photo below was of a really clean 240z that was just sitting by itself in the vendor’s area, we had to check it out.  haha)

Complete gallery and video after the ‘read more’

…[read more]

Just wanted to share these pictures of a newly transformed 240z.  Panasports have been the obvious wheel choice for the iconic Z car for years for a good reason, THEY LOOK GREAT!!

Before: