Hi all... this is where I will be posting information, pics, etc. about my experiences at SEMA. I'll be updating this thread once I'm in Las Vegas at the SEMA trade show - the first week of November - so check back often!

Up at Oh-Dark-Thirty to make a 6:00 am flight out of Lexington KY to Chicago, then on to Las Vegas. This time zone stuff is a killer... fly across 3 time zones in the morning the day after we fall back an hour as we kiss Daylight Saving Time away... and by noon I'm finally in Las Vegas at the Hilton. My mind is telling me it's mid afternoon and I haven't even had lunch yet.

Grabbed some lunch in the hotel and headed over to the convention center. Today the vendors are setting up. Outside there are already countless amazing cars and trucks. I found the Team Purple HazMax truck and many others. Pics are uploaded to PhotoBucket - here's a link: http://s227.photobucket.com/albums/dd280/randy_the_hack/SEMA%202009/

Today we met the Optima team and we met the others who have been brought to SEMA by Optima. We heard some prepared comments from the various Optima folks - from General Manager to Marketing team to Engineers who work on their products. Several good discussions about their products... I think I now understand their product at a much more technical level and I see now why someone would choose to pay the premium price for their products. More about this later.

Cam Douglass, VP of Optima Product Development and Research, took us down to the floor where the vendors were setting up for the show. He introduced us to several key people... guys from Magnaflow, K&N, and some others (honestly, I have the business cards back in the room and will have to edit this post with their info later).

We closed out the evening with dinner at PF Changs. The food was terrific, the discussions were lively and entertaining. Afterward, some people went clamoring for roller coasters; I headed back to the hotel. By the time 11:00 came around, I felt like I had been up 24 hours... which was actually pretty close to reality.

This is going to be a great week!

Tuesday began the actual SEMA show. It's nice having Exhibitor badges; we didn't have to wait with the rest of the crowd to get in. Mike Tomac and I walked over to the Offroad and Power Sports section and spent the morning walking through the show. The vehicles in there were simply amazing. You need to take a look at the pics in my Photobucket account; look in the Sema 2009 album.

After about 4 hours of walking, my new knee was telling me I was going to have to come up with a different solution to all of the walking... so I broke down and rented an electric scooter. That made all the difference.

In the back of the Offroad and Power Sports section there was a large display of alternative fuel vehicles... among the more notable were an Aptera, several 3-wheel hybrids that look like they belong on the set of the next Star Wars film, and a CNG-powered '55 Ford F100 pickup. Amazing...

I then went down to the central hall and ran into a number of people I've crossed paths online with from PPE, TTS, and several others. All of a sudden, it was 5:00 and we all got chased out by security. It was another long, taxing day... but a good one. I took a lot of pics and a few videos... all posted on Photobucket. Tomorrow I want to try to hook up with our supporting vendors...

Today began with breakfast with the Optima team. We enjoyed breakfast while we discussed our industry segments... what makes them distinct, how they are organized, what types of demographics they represent, and how the various segments have their own distinct battery power requirements. We also had a good bit of Q&A with the Optima team - they were questioning us - about product perceptions, issues & concerns, etc. Needless to say, there were a lot of lively discussions; hopefully they were helpful to the Optima team.

After breakfast, we dispersed to go through the show. I had a compiled list of our supporting vendors and a fist full of business cards. I was able to talk with nearly all of our supporting vendors who have a booth here at SEMA. Here's a list of the vendors I was able to see:

DiabloSport (yeah, they're not a supporting vendor, but I use their tuner...)
K&N Filters
Hypertech Inc.
Diamond Eye
SoCal Diesel
EFI Support
Banks Power Service
Edge Products
Superchips Inc.
Magnaflow
ISSPro Inc.
S&B Filters
MBRP Inc.
ATS Diesel Performance
Ultimatetruckgear
Cognito MotorsportsIt was nice to see all of the folks out here and finally have some faces to names. Later this afternoon, we're going to try to meet Nor-Cal Nick and a few other site members who are out here. Not sure what we're going to do... but it'll be good to meet some more members.

I sure am glad I rented that scooter - I've run the batteries about half dead twice now - at least I can plug it in; I can't plug my knees in... :D

I have more pics from the show - same link as in the Monday post above. I have a little more video to post too, but I need to leave now so I can meet Nick and some others. I'll post it later...

Thursday was another breakfast meeting with the Optima team... discussing various product ideas, concepts, marketing campaigns, etc. It's nice to see a company so interested in getting it right, both from focused marketing campaigns and their focus on product quality. I find it very interesting to discover the "Internet Myth" syndrome at work with their products - I've seen it with Lexmark products and it never ceased to amaze me how myths about a manufacturers products can become so deeply entrenched that it's nearly impossible to dispel. Everyone seems to have some extended friend or family who knows someone who saw someone have a problem with [fill in the blank]... and that becomes gospel for that manufacturer. How do you dispel that myth? It's nearly impossible.

Anyway, after some lively discussions with the Optima team, I headed out to visit the remaining supporting vendors I didn't see yesterday. I then went to the Optima booth to catch the press announcement about the participants in the Optima Ultimate Street Car Challenge, which will be held at the Spring Mountain race track in Pahrump this weekend. 50 cars will go out and prove that they're more than just trailer/garage queens. This should be really interesting.

After the press announcement, I went through the rest of the power sports section and then hit the Offroad section one more time to make sure I didn't miss anything... then went to the Wheels & Tires section. To say that the myriad rims and tires were unbelievable would be an understatement. I didn't take too many pics in that area - most of the offerings in this area were street car oriented and I just didn't see anything that really caught my eye; wheels and tires just aren't my thing.

It was a long, busy day. It's hard to sum up all of the different parts vendors I spoke with... I am reaching the saturation point. More pics in the link above... I'm gonna have to organize them sometime next week...

Well, though the show is still going on - wrapping up today - we're headed to Pahrump for an amazing experience. The Optima team has booked us some time on the Spring Mountain racing club course - the same location (though different track) where the Ultimate Street Car Challenge is going to be held.

It took us about an hour to get to the race track... where we had some lunch and then met our instructor. This is one of the nation's premier racing country club; imagine a country club where there's plenty of exclusive perks for the members... but rather than getting together to play tennis or golf, you're here to drive race cars! They have 4 different types of cars here - Lotus Esprit's, supercharged Mini Coopers, Corvettes, and something they call a Radical (a Hayabusa powered open cockpit car - looks like the old Can-Am cars, or maybe a big boy's go kart w/body).

After some instruction, we were taken out to claim a car from the Lotus/Mini lot. I tried to squeeze into an Elise but that was a fool's errand... so I got one of the supercharged Minis. Our instructor, Rick, also drove a Mini. All of the cars had CB's in them and Rick was talking us through the course - each one of us taking turns following him around the course. Each lap was a bit faster than the previous one, and after 30 minutes, we were all getting the hang of the cars, the track, and the techniques. What a rush!

After a 30 minute break for something to drink and some debriefing, it was back out on the course for another 30 minute run - this time at much higher speeds. We were hitting 80-95 on the back stretch of the course and dropping as low as 20-30 around some really tight corners on the course. The Elise's were all stick shift, which had some people wrestling with finding the right gear for the track. The Mini I was an automatic with manual override and paddle shifters. Once I figured the thing out, man would that little car fly! I was the last one to drive behind the instructor this time out. Rick said "Randy, let's go!", and he and I blistered the track with those little Minis. I was able to keep up with him all the way around the 1.4 mile track... and when we slowed on the back stretch, he gave me a couple of big thumbs up - man, what a blast!

As we were going around the course for a couple of cool-down laps, all of a sudden there was a cloud of dust over the track - one of our buddies let up off the gas in his Lotus in a place where they had warned us to never let up. He found out why when the rear end of the Elise lightened up and spun on him. He managed to go off track and run through a small ditch... more hurting his pride than the car, though the car did receive some damage.

The next thing on the agenda was a trip over to get suited up in Nomax suits and full face helmets for some hot laps in the Radicals. Fortunate for me, they had a couple of 2-piece suits. Unfortunate for me, these Radicals are a very tight squeeze. As I slid in beside the driver - another instructor there at the track - I found myself more sitting on top of rather than "in" the passenger seat. But the harness strapped me down good and tight and off we went. For the life of me, I would have never guessed that a Hayabusa engine would move us that fast. On the same track, we were doing about 2x the speed we had just been driving ourselves - hitting 120+ on the back stretch and taking the corners at speeds I simply didn't think possible. A couple of hot laps and we returned to the pits... where we found that these were the slowest of 3 Radical models they have there... the fastest of which is powered by a full V8.

After another break, we took a supercharged Mini and an Elise up to the North track where the track officials had already set up an Autocross track for tomorrow's Ultimate Street Car Challenge. We then took turns running the Autocross course... to attain an appreciation of some of the competition that the drivers would be experiencing tomorrow. After a series of twisting turns - ultimately climaxing in a 360 degree roundabout - we had one final acceleration to a stop box. If you don't get stopped within the stop box, your run is disqualified. My best time in the Mini was 50 seconds. The best time among all of us was in an Elise... running 46 seconds and change.

As soon as it began it seemed like it was over... but by now the sun was already setting low in the sky and the desert temps were already starting to drop. We sat around a firepit and reflected on the day - a day I will not soon forget.

Early Saturday morning had us back out at the Spring Mountain race track... this time for the Optima Ultimate Street Car Challenge. Though held on the same location, the competitors this time would be racing on the larger of the two road courses - we ran on the South track; they would be running on the North track.

There were 3 active events and one design competition. The events consisted of the road course, auto cross, and zero to 60 to zero. The road course and the auto cross were both elapsed time events and don't really require much explanation. The zero to 60 to zero was judged by an in-car transponder; from a dead stop, you accelerate to 60 mph at which time the transponder would flash green and you then slam on the brakes. The person with the shortest braking time was the winner.

Everything was looking pretty even until a one-owner-since-brand-new 1966 Shelby Cobra hit the track. In the auto cross... the competitors were running in the low 40 seconds range - 41-44 seconds (in contrast, my best time the previous day was 50 seconds and our cohort's best time was 46 seconds). Then came the Cobra... first a 40 second run, followed by a 39.4 second run. That car was simply amazing, and it was patently obvious that this guy had been on an auto cross course before.

The road course was much longer... and it was nothing short of thrilling to see the cars being put through their paces. Again, everything was running in the 1:48 to 2:00 range for the most part. And then the Cobra came through and set the bar at something like 1:40 flat or thereabouts IIRC (actual event results are available online - I'll try to get 'em right there and edit this post). And finally, the zero to 60 to zero... and most of the field was in the range of 7 to 8 seconds, bu the Cobra was down in the low 6's (again, I'll get this right later, but suffice it to say the Cobra again stomped the competition).

Finally, the design competition was something judged based on a number of criteria, none of which the Cobra met since it was essentially a factory car. The range of vehicles was amazing - everything from a Model A truck to a Chevy station wagon to a roadster to dozens of first, second, and third gen Camaros. There was even a completely custom 63 Vette... along with several other Vettes's too. Best way to experience this is with the pics I've posted and will continue to post over the next several days.

At the end of the day, the Shelby Cobra took all of the awards except for the design award and - surprisingly - the overall competition award, which was based on total event participation consistency. It was nice to see a little diversification in the awards... despite how nice the Cobra was.

After the awards were over, it was back in the van to return to Vegas for the night and then back home on Sunday. This was a long, exhilarating, tiring, exciting week. It's going to take me several days to get all of the pics, videos, and thoughts recorded. All I can say is WOW!!