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