The IsuzuWeb at Atco; ID Drag Wars, November 1997

I've been dying to do a page like this for several years. I have always been impressed by the Japanese Isuzu enthusiast event pages and the photographs of the many beautiful Isuzus all gathered in one place.
The IsuzuWeb gathered several members at the ID Drag Wars events in Atco New Jersey on November 9, 1997. Isuzu enthusiasts came from New York, Virginia, Deleware, Pensylvania, and as far as Canada, and Missouri.

November 9, 1997

The Friday before the event looked promising. The weather forcast was a toss up, between marginal and nice, with most of the truely nasty weather expected to pass to the north.
Saturday morning was drizzly, but by noon the weather cleared though it was still quite chilly. A little after noon, while driving my 1986 Isuzu Impulse over the Taconi Bridge from Philladelphia to New Jersey, on my way to finding a motel to spend the afternoon resting and polishing the car, a gentleman in a 1996 Pontiac Grand Am hit me from behind, bending the rear bumper, the bumper brackets, and the rear frame of my Impulse.
This was not a good omen.

Sunday morning it was spitting rain again. As the participants showed up at the show, most attempted to keep their cars dry long enough to polish and clean them.
The Isuzu crowd marked off their territory on the North East edge of the show area. Among the IsuzuWeb crowd were: Steve Lockett with his yellow, SCCA race prepped, 1990 Storm GSi; Victor Dumeng with his red 1989 Impulse Turbo; Robert Rego, and two Canadian friends, with Robert's black 1988 I-Mark Turbo; Jeffrey Robinson, and his girlfriend, with Jeffrey's black 1991 Isuzu Impulse RS; and myself, Bill Luton, with my maroon 1986 Isuzu Impulse. A surprise was Andre Dula, and his father, with Andre's black 1990 Impulse XS who was not part of the group when he arrived, but we made him welcome to the group and he had joined the club by the end of the day.

Jeffrey Robinson had to leave early, unfortunately before I broke the camera out, so I didn't get any photos of his beautiful Impulse.
Nick Kourasis and his wife and son and Nick's white 1989 I-Mark RS were late arrivals to the show.
The weather cleared up slightly after a while, and the Isuzu crowd scattered to look at the competition.
Mitch McCullough of Sport Compact Car Magazine spoke to a few of us, but the weather turned so lousey that they really didn't shoot many photos of anything.



Staging Area

This is about as close as anyone got to drag racing at the event. Steve Lockett and Robert Rego came to race. Steve's Storm is on the left and Robert's I-Mark is on the right. Only a handful of cars were able to run down the track before a good drizzle kicked up and delayed things until they finally rescheduled the event to November 23, 1997.



Mitsubishi Owners Speak Out

To almost the last Mitsubishi car at the event, they sported a nice looking graphic on the rear window. I'm thinking that the Isuzu enthusiasts might want to look into an item just such as this.



Meanwhile, Back At The Isuzu Area

In the fore ground, Nick's I-Mark next to Victor's Impulse Turbo and my (Bill's) Impulse. Victor had quite a bit of trouble explaining to several Eclipse/Talon enthusiasts that his Impulse Turbo was not a Mitsubishi Starion, but was an Isuzu, a quicker car.



From The Other End Of The Isuzu Area

Reverse order of the above image. After the Eclipse/Talon Enthusiasts finished with Victor, they asked me what the injector cooling fan housing was on my Impulse, and commented that they wish their cars came with just such an item to keep air bubbles from forming in the fuel lines after the engine is shut off.



Photo Shoot

After the races were rescheduled, we Isuzu enthusiasts gathered near our cars and talked for quite a while as the wound-up Honda, Mitsubishi, and even Volkswagen owners, upset that they would be unable to race that day, attempted to show their bravado by peeling out, doing donuts, and generally attempting to run into each other and cause accidents.
After most of them left, we Isuzu enthusiasts posed our automobiles for photos.



Group Photo

The group photo we all wanted to do and part of the attraction for so many of us to drive so far to be here.
From left to right: Bill Luton, Victor Dumeng, Nick's wife in front of Nick's son, Nick Kourasis, Steve Lockette, Andre's father, Andre Dula, and Robert Rego. Robert's Canadian friends were nice enough to opperate the camera for this picture, between jumping out of the way of Hondas, Mitsubishis, and Volkswagens which were careening toward them out of control.



Another Pose

We really liked this arrangement. It really shows off the variety in the Isuzu line.



Postscript

At both events, a good time was had by all the Isuzu enthusiasts who attended. Meeting with fellow Isuzu owners and talking about Isuzus is always fun, and even more so at an event with such a wide variety of import cars, exciting racing action, and lots of parts vendors.
If you didn't attend this event, you really missed out on something special, and you should definitely plan on attending the next gathering of Isuzu enthusiasts.




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