Well, I have returned from the world finals and a figure this is as good a place any for comments.
I have never been to a car audio centered show before. I am mainly writing this to give folks who never been an idea of what to expect. I have been to many hydraulics centered shows and I will try to make comparisons.
1. It is more about competing than culture. Some of the competitors were really friendly. Pipo Sanchez was pretty cool about letting folks sit in his truck. Many of those who were bass racing were cool about letting folks ask questions and explaining their systems, why they chose what they chose and good general information. Those who competed on the dBdrag side where very skittish. They think everyone is a spy or something. You would try to look at their systems or try to watch them work on last minute installs and they would try to block you out the way or something. None would let you sit inside and many had devices blocking people from looking in.
In nearly every hydraulic show I’ve been folks have been really nice about answering questions about reinforcement, materials chosen, how to do it, where to get stuff done, if they do something new that hasn’t been done, mostly they’ll still tell you how. I would say the culture is quite a bit more open to strangers. At the world finals, if they didn’t know you, you weren’t particularly liked. I would say it the culture is very close-knit, but not very open to spectators.
2. It must be nice to be sponsored. I don’t think many if/any built cars without any sponsorship. They come in hand as I saw kicker and pioneer have amps/subs on hand to ensure their competitors so well. Like I mentioned, that’s great if you are well established within their community. No one cares if you just a regular joe. I was wondering what would happen if I had a car that won finals and the fellow said “thank your team and sponsors”, I would say I thank Lowe’s and Department of Defense as they financed the project. I am not butt-hurt or sore, because I don’t intend to compete. But from a spectator’s point of view, it would seem hard to break in.
3. Unoriginality. In the street classes, there were 4 makes out of 3 classes. 98% at least were CRXs with an WV, and a hatchback mustang. From what I could see, the cars were built about exactly the same. I understand why, because they are the best. As a spectator, I would like to see more variety. I have seen hydraulics on a wide variety of vehicles and there is usually a wide variety of cars.
4. BassRace is the shit. I think it is the most ‘open’ form of competition and may even try it out. It seems like something anyone can do to some degree. It appears lot easier to break in than the other side. I hope it is the future of SPL.
I know the post is longer than most read, but I will add comments as others post. It was well worth the $15 for two days, but watching the two competitors scared to see who goes first is kind of gay if you ask me.
