SOHO at Z Nationals Show, Dyno & Track Day!

The 9th Annual Z Nationals was held this past weekend on October 3-5th at Z1 Motorsports in Carrolton, Georgia for the car show and dyno competition and at Barber Motorsports Park in Birmingham, Alabama for the track day. Every year there are two Z/G event's that we always mark our calendar for; ZDayz in the spring and Z Nationals in the fall. Not only do we get to see some of the nicest Nissan and Infiniti's in the country but we also get to see all of our great friends in this tight knit community and make plenty of new ones. The Nissan Z/G community is a unique one and always entertaining no matter what event it is and Z Nationals just might be the epitome of them all with its car show, dyno day and track day all in the same 48 hour period. This year for Z Nationals we at SOHO Motorsports were approaching it slightly different than previous years, we didnt set up a sponsor booth this year but we brought twice as many cars as we did the year before including the #44 Time Attack G35, the Mule 350Z, Steve's track 350z and David's boosted and stroked G35. We decided to even use the weekend as more proof of what our turbo kits are capable of and how safe they are for any VQ by driving the Mule 350Z from Charlotte, NC all the way to Carrolton, GA to sit pretty in a car show, run a few dyno pulls, then drive to Birmingham, Alabama and track all day and then drive all the way back to Charlotte in one weekend. Thats over 1,000 miles full blast all weekend long and she handled herself perfectly! Starting bright and early Saturday morning we pulled into the Z1 Motorsports parking lot and got all of the SOHO vehicles cleaned up and ready for the car. The cars all looked great hard parking and got tons of attention through out the day. It was awesome to put faces to names and answer any questions about our products and services. The weather was perfect and there were a ton of cars, people and horsepower. We love us a good car show but we were mainly focused on the dyno competition. With the #44 G35 running perfectly (last year at Z Nat's the G wasnt quite finished) we were excited to strap it to the dyno for the Z Nationals Dyno Competition and show off our turbo kit and short block setup on our race car and also our shop Mule 350Z that would be running our turbo kit on its stock block. The G made 550rwhp on the Z1 dyno and the 350Z was down on power a bit with a bad plug that we fixed in the parking lot right after. Everyone seemed to be very impressed with the power of the G and how loud it was in the confines of the dyno room. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nMCGggJHFE4 After a long day in the sun we all left the show and went to the banquet held by the folks at Z1 for dinner with friends and to see who won the awards for the car show, dyno competition and myriad of raffle prizes. The food was great and the staff from Z1 did an amazing job as always. We didn't expect to win any car show awards but we were excited to see if we had won the dyno comp with the #44 G35. After a long wait of car show award announcement they finally announced the winner of the 350Z/g35 Highest Horsepower and sure enough they called the SOHO name for the #44 car and her winning pull of 550 rwhp. It was our race tune for the car on 12 psi but it was good enough to win the competition and we couldn't have been happier about it!  We won the Best Exhaust at ZDayz and now the Dyno Comp at Z Nationals so we were very happy for the year at Z/G events. With the banquet a wrap and every one's stomach's full and arms with trophies or raffle winnings we hit the hay early for the track day 1.5 hours away the next morning at Barber Motorsports Park in Birmingham, Alabama. Waking up and driving west quicker than the sun could catch us we arrived in the dark morning at Barber Motorsports Park around 6:30 CST (thats right central time zone) and got the #44 G35 and Turbo 350Z unloaded and prepped for track duty. Kevin would not only be doing his normal duty of driving his G35 in one of the four sessions but would also be instructing fellow drivers for the other three sessions. One of those drivers just so happened to be Nik in his first time tracking the SOHO Mule Turbo 350Z! Normally Kevin had tracked the Z at  the many previous events and r&d sessions but Nik wanted to give it a go for the first time as it is actually his personal car in the first place, plus it was his birthday! Kevin was up first in the instructor group and had relatively no traffic on the 2.38 miles and 15 turns that is Barber Motorsports Park in any of his sessions and the claimed the G was "absolutely amazing. It handles like its on rails and the throttle response is absolutely absurd on the current setup. The Hankook Ventus TD tire's feel like they are glued to the pavement and the G absolutely loves the elevation changes and changing radius turns that seem to be all over Barber. This track is a blast in this car, it feels like a go kart". https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZIbeF5zGrA Nik also had a blast in the SOHO Turbo 350Z with its new setup. The Z went under the knife just before the event and got hip surgery in the way of the rear fenders being cut out and replaced with much wider new custom fenders that allow for huge tires and proper alignment thanks to always amazing work by Bingz Customz. With the new setup the Z was now able to achieve an alignment that would work much better for on track duty without having to sacrifice the large wheels or low ride height that makes it look so damn good, all while allowing it to tear up the turns better than it ever has before. After a few laps with Nik driving and Kevin in the passenger seat the Z began to put down some awesome laps and really show off how blistering fast the SOHO Turbo Kit is on a daily driven setup at low boost! Even Nik was impressed with his own creation and loved how responsive the car and turbo kit was on track and how "there is no lag what so ever. You hit the throttle and it just goes faster and faster with no delay. Its awesome to drive around this track." With a great weekend in the books, completely exhausted with sweet lanyard sun tan / burn lines, over 1,000 miles of travel distance, tons of cars and friends, a dyno comp award, hundreds of laps around a world class race track and more smiles and laughs than we can count we can honestly say that the 2013 Z Nationals might just have been the best one yet and we look forward to the next one! For more info on the event check out www.ZNationals.com and until then see you all at the next Z/G event in the mountains at ZDayz 2014!