Some pictures from dB Drag finals in Indy.

[jag09 10+ year member]

wheres meca finals going to be held? whats thier website?

 

[tommyk90 5,000+ posts]

wheres meca finals going to be held? whats thier website?

Tennessee state fairgrounds in nashville.

Website is http://www.mecacaraudio.com

 

[CaliforniabOY5 10+ year member]

wow, I would never walk around in that homeless outfit

//content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/laugh.gif.48439b2acf2cfca21620f01e7f77d1e4.gif

indeed.

 

[jag09 10+ year member]

o ok thanks!

 

[AudioAnonymous 10+ year member]

OHHHH, it's sarcasm. //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/rolleyes.gif.c1fef805e9d1464d377451cd5bc18bfb.gif
rofl, I was like "how is this guy seriously going to dog out tha Astrolade.. *click on stats* .... *smacks self in forehead*"

lmao

caraudio.com = dry sense of humor and sarcasm central. //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif

 

[audiolife 5,000+ posts]

hey AA what cars do you run on carpet?

 

[AudioAnonymous 10+ year member]

Robitronic Avid for touring car (used to have Xray T2'007s), Hyperdrive for oval, CRC Gen-X for 12th scale

 

[jag09 10+ year member]

etheir one of you guys want to buy a jato so ya can play in the dirt?

 

[DBfan187 5,000+ posts]

http://audioforum.termpro.com/topic/35/1054.html

He's the best at bringing the noiseAnd lovers of quiet may hate Tommy McKinnie for it, but he's proud to be loud.

By BEN MONTGOMERY, Times Staff Writer

Published October 14, 2007

 

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

TAMPA - The elderly - what's the right word here? - dislike Tommy McKinnie. So do the drive-through clerks at the fast food joints in Plant City, where he grew up - Kentucky Fried Chicken, Taco Bell, McDonald's and Burger King, restaurants that, he says, have banned him from their premises.

 

So do all of us, really, if we've ever heard a car coming before we see a car coming, or stopped at a light beside a thumpiddy-thumper that made our teeth rattle and our children cry.

 

But, alas, here at the 10th Annual dB Drag Racing World Finals Car Stereo Competition, inside the Florida State Fairgrounds Expo Hall, Tommy McKinnie is something of a god.

 

"He's got the loudest car in the world," says Tony Economou, a competitor from Deltona.

 

"Nobody can beat Tommy," says Carlos Rodriguez from Tampa. "He's untouchable."

 

McKinnie, 38, has packed into his pickup 24 batteries, 24 woofers, 24 midrange speakers, 24 tweeters and 18 amplifiers, making his 1992 black-and-silver Isuzu louder than a long, continuous, up-close gunshot.

 

"I'm the King of Bass," he says, wearing a crown and showing off a giant WWE-style belt which indicates the man holding it is the 2007 Heavyweight Bass Boxing World Champion.

 

How loud is his stereo?

 

"We broke 30 windshields this year," he says. "They don't let anybody stand in front of the truck anymore for fear they'll get cut."

 

What does that feel like?

 

"You ever dove in water, go down about 30 or 40 feet?" he asks. "You feel this pressure in your ears and your chest, you feel like your skin is ripping off and you can't breathe. That's what it feels like."

 

He says he has wracked up 80 citations for violating noise ordinances. He says a man once blamed him for throwing his wife's equilibrium out of balance, causing her to fall. He says he once drove past a carwash in Plant City and someone accused him of breaking a windshield - with his noise.

 

The King of Bass has come to regret some of these things (he doesn't even listen to music on his way home from work anymore), but the anecdotes add to the legend. And like all good legends, his began humbly.

 

Building the system

 

When McKinnie was a teen, he'd hear bass booming down Lake Street in Plant City and run to the door to see who it was.

 

That's gonna be me someday, he'd tell his folks.

 

"I was a nobody," he says now. "They thought something was wrong with me."

 

His first car was a gift, a sky blue '78 station wagon. He stripped speakers out of old televisions and installed them into cardboard boxes in the back.

 

"Everyone thought I was crazy," he says.

 

In December of 1994, he bought his pickup and went to work building something louder than a rock concert inside. Once his license was suspended, so his mother gave him money to pay the fines in order to get it back. He bought more speakers with the money.

 

He poured thousands into the truck and began to enter competitions that measure the decibels a stereo system produces over 30 seconds. With each win, he earned a few more fans, a little more notoriety. People started recognizing him at the competitions, photographing his truck, asking for autographs.

 

"Everybody just wants to have their hair blown back," he says, "so I open up the doors and play music and I'm the coolest guy in the world."

 

Good to be 'King'

 

At the Expo Hall, he milks his celebrity among the few hundred competitors and spectators, sometimes referring to himself in the third person. The King of Bass wears a crown, and he is always surrounded by people: his sponsors, his fans, one man who keeps trying to show him pictures of the competitors' cars.

 

"I've seen it," he tells the man. "I've seen every loud car out there. Everybody here wants to beat the King."

 

He seems to feed off the attention.

 

"He gets a kick out of it," says his girlfriend Kandi Glover, 22. "Out here he's so extroverted. He's not really like that at home."

 

When it's time to compete, McKinnie steers to the lane. A man puts a decibel reader in the cab.

 

Gathered around the black Isuzu is the crowd of kids we love to hate: the neck tattoos and baggy pants, the Long Island blow-back haircuts, the giant golden scorpion on the end of a chain, the miniskirts, the young ears and the young brains between them that fail to heed the warnings.

 

Kids in the crowd flip open their cells to capture video.

 

The red lights flash SET, then GO, then Tommy McKinnie's truck starts shaking to track 8 on Lil Jon's Kings of Crunk. Outside, you feel it in your pants and your jaw, 156.9 decibels, louder than a power mower, louder than a jet plane at 100 feet, louder than a gunshot.

 

The truck shakes so violently it looks as if an animal is trapped inside. Dust particles dance on the roof and hood and some stuff shakes free from the Expo Hall rafters and falls like confetti on the crowd and on the King of Bass, who is stepping out and slapping hands and smiling.

 

Tommy McKinnie's system is capable of cranking out at least 156.9 decibels. Here are a few other loud sounds for comparison:

 

Power mower at 3 feet 107dB

 

Snowmobile, motorcycle 100dB

 

Power saw at 3 feet 110dB

 

Sandblasting, loud rock concert 115dB

 

Pain begins 125dB

 

Pneumatic riveter at 4 feet 125dB

 

Even short term exposure risks permanent damage: Loudest recommended exposure with protection140dB

 

Jet engine at 100 feet, gun blast 140dB

 

Death of hearing tissue 180dB

 

Loudest sound possible 194dB

 

© 2007 • All Rights Reserved • St. Petersburg Times

490 First Avenue South • St. Petersburg, FL 33701 • 727-893-8111

Contact the Times | Privacy Policy | Standard of Accuracy | Terms, Conditions & Copyright

 

[audioarsonal 10+ year member]

Did anyone else see how those speakers in that audi weren't even all the way down in the inclosure?it sounded like *** with all the air pouring out!!but the setup overall was awesom.I was very disappointed with the amount of vendors, I was hoping this would be a big turnout.And i believe the subs in the eclipse are RF powers.What about the stuff falling off the roof anyone see this first hand?

 

[audiolife 5,000+ posts]

.I was very disappointed with the amount of vendors, I was hoping this would be a big turnout.

how many spectators were there?

 

[jag09 10+ year member]

i say there was probably less than 50

 

[tommyk90 5,000+ posts]

Did anyone else see how those speakers in that audi weren't even all the way down in the inclosure?it sounded like *** with all the air pouring out!!but the setup overall was awesom.I was very disappointed with the amount of vendors, I was hoping this would be a big turnout.And i believe the subs in the eclipse are RF powers.What about the stuff falling off the roof anyone see this first hand?

At the end of the show when all the big hitters were demoing, one of the judges came around and shut everybody down because shit was falling off the ceiling. //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/laugh.gif.48439b2acf2cfca21620f01e7f77d1e4.gif

 

[audiolife 5,000+ posts]

i say there was probably less than 50

my point

 

[J31Rob 5,000+ posts]

At the end of the show when all the big hitters were demoing, one of the judges came around and shut everybody down because shit was falling off the ceiling. //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/laugh.gif.48439b2acf2cfca21620f01e7f77d1e4.gif

rofl. i wish i woulda been there for that.. //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/frown.gif.a3531fa0534503350665a1e957861287.gif

lmao
caraudio.com = dry sense of humor and sarcasm central. //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/smile.gif.1ebc41e1811405b213edfc4622c41e27.gif

true dat.

i like your van. //content.invisioncic.com/y282845/emoticons/fyi.gif.9f1f679348da7204ce960cfc74bca8e0.gif

i saw tha build log a whiiiile back & it was tha first thing i said when i got in tha doors.. "dude, there is that astrolade.."