Hello this is Goshu from MOON GARAGE!

This week we are sending you part2 of US Trip Report!
The trip continues from setting up shop in The Grand National Roadster Show and having great kick off Party at NHRA Museum for 60th Anniversary of MOONEYES! On Friday and Saturday we are half way into our trip.

The Morning cruise is best for busy people who wants to take early hours for your favorite things.
About 200 high dollar fast cars gather in Mazda Parking area in Irvine. These are gorgeous fast cars that you can tell it’s fast by just looking at them. Great mix of Ferrari, Lamborghini, Porsche, Nissan GTR, Jaguar, F40 and American muscle cars, like Corvette and more can be seen. Just How much would that be? A lot!
Anyway it’s great to have opportunity to appreciate these gorgeous cars. Just think that any of us don’t know each other and will not see them in any other places. Wouldn’t it be nice to do it back home in Japan too! Is your car sleeping in a garage? Take your car out for a cruise! Let’s go out !

Dragging ourselves on our heels we arrived in Pomona. Alright, today we can't miss anything and must look at everything we can!! Outside of the event area is already packed with more nice cars. This only means one thing. We really have to pick up the pace to cover it all! Let's go Steve!

Building 5
On this day we started with a building filled with Kustoms, Customs and Low Riders. There were twice as many people today than yesterday. The crowds of people, from what I noticed were both young and old. There were many older couples too. They didn't come to take photographs. They stopped at each car, enjoying the moment and possibly reflecting on years past together. That is so different compared to Japan. Wow! American is so awesome that way. The history connected to these cars, that is so amazing!

There was a shop booth I was passing and there was an older lady, literally my mothers age, with this serious look on her face. She was observing the full carbon fiber fender on an old Chevy Camaro. I stood there for a moment, watching in awe. I mean, I could imagine if it were my mother, turning around towards me with a serious look in her eyes saying, "Sumi, you have to see this. This Camaro fender panel is completely made of carbon-fiber. The quality is suberb don't you think?" I would fall over and pass out.

I really feel that coming to this event in the US has opened my eyes to seeing just how deep and wide the age and people that support this lifestyle really are. I never noticed it before now. Young to old, car culture runs deep.

Building 8
This building was also Kustoms and Customs but it also had Hot Rods, Rolls Royce, VWs and others. Now, my English is extremely limited but in this building, a gentleman approached me and from what I could make out, he was saying, "You took Bonneville ---- my Roadster." OK, I admit, that's all I could make out from what he was saying but still. I guessed he was saying I took a picture of his Roadster at Bonneville. I was more impressed that he spotted me and the fact that he remembered me! Wow, thank you very much. Turns out, I certainly did take a picture of him driving his Roadster at Bonneville.

Building 7
Again, this next building had Kustoms & Customs but also had Lowriders and Street Rods.
Viewing all the cars you might thing it gets boring but the excitement never stopped. We pushed through, viewing everything we could.

Building 9
This building had the most impact for some reason. Possibly because it was full of Deuces! Celebrating its 80th Anniversary this year was the 1932 Ford and this building was packed with amazing Deuces. Everywhere you turned was another Duece. You almost started seeing double. Unreal. Even Steve was blown away.

Outdoor
Hurrying along we went outside. The sun had now started to descend.

Grand Daddy Drive In is an additional feature of the show. Tons of cars can pay for parking around the perimeter of the buildings on Saturday and Sunday. There are hundreds of cars outside and each one was unique. Saturday is the main "Drive In" day and it was packed! Down towards one are of the show is were they had a Cackle Fest twice a day. It was a nitro burning cackle car and all of your senses were in full overload if you were close enough. We heard it start up so Steve and I ran towards the sound. Making my way up the the front of the crowd, my eardrums maxed out, the sound was deafening. I could feel the pulsating idle and rap of the engine. The smell was tangy and my eyes ever felt watery. Woh!
Next thing we knew, the sun was going down.

Saturday evening we left early. We headed for a party that night. It was a party at Bean Bandits member Fabian's new shop. He was having an open house party!

His new shop was big. When we arrived, there were already a lot of people there and more were coming. They had a grille going when we arrived! Three types of meet, pork, chicken and beef on tortillas! Tacos! Yum! Fabian's shop is full of customer cars, trophies, vintage parts and tools for the trade. Very awesome setup.
Next thing I knew, Steve and Sumi are being called over... time to eat!
Over on one wall, hey! Ive seen that before somewhere... it was the backdrop from the Hot Rod Custom Show last year. Wow, it actually looks small inside the shop but fits in very nicely. Fabian asked Shige to sign it too!

We had to leave early although we wanted to stay. From Fabian's shop, we headed to Gabe Griffin's new bar! When we arrived, Mark Drews was there! We had a few drinks and talked about the show, the next show, when they are currently building etc. It was a good time!

Sunday morning we headed for Long Beach swap meet!
We arrived at Long Beach Veterans Stadium at 07:30 and the place was already packed with people lined up to get into the Long Beach Hi-Performance Swap Meet. This is a swap meet that focuses only are automotive related items. They have a schedule of events for the entire year. You pay a entry fee but you can leave and come back as long as you get a stamp/ticket on your way out. There was another line too. Cars waiting to go into a special area of the swap meet. Most of the cars are for sale. I never seen so many cool cars all for sale before. Once we entered the swap meet, we made a direct line towards the cars for sale. It's like a car show! After we walked through a couple rows of cars, we realized we didn't have enough time to see the entire swap meet so we had to skip the rest of the cars and moved on.

If you had a solid 5 hours of time, I think it would be possible to view the entire lot. However, we only had about two hours. Some of the vendors even had cars for sale. I wonder what happens if you bought the car they came in? How would they get all their items home...? There was a lot to see and we crammed it in with the limited amount of time we had. We'll be back again someday with more time! For now, we had to get back to Pomona for the last day of the GNRS.

"MOONEYES EXHIBIT" at NHRA Museum
"MOONEYES EXHIBIT" at NHRA Museum
The last day of the show! The day at GNRS was actually started at the NHRA Museum. We wanted to make sure we literally crawled our way around, stopping at each of the MOONEYES exhibit cars. We stayed inside this building until well past noon. Steve had mentioned in Part 1 of this report that we would have complete coverage of the museum features in Part 2. However, we can only show just a little because we are going to showcase the MOONEYES EXHIBIT in the upcoming MOON ILLUSTRATED Magazine Vol. 9 which is coming on in April. For the time being, here are several choice shots we took of the exhibit. Of course, if you are anywhere near Pomona, from now until January 2013, definitely stop by for a visit and see this place in person. The photographs to not do it any justice.

Building 13
A lot of buzz was going around about Building 13, aka "2012 Race Car Showcase" building. It's a smaller building closer to the Museum. However, inside were some of the coolest gassers and dragsters around! There was a "LIONS DRAG STRIP" setup with legendary dragsters and vintage machines, gassers, dry lakes racers, an Indy car and more. Although some might not consider these show cars, they were truly all that!

Awards
Towards the end of the event is the awards ceremony.
Unlike the YOKOHAMA HOT ROD Custom Show (HCS) awards, the GNRS awards ceremony takes several hours to complete even though it seems to go by really fast. Each category has a number of class winners and 2nd and 1st place. As soon as each winner is announced, them move on to the next category.

This years, the winner of America's Most Beautiful Roadster (AMBR) went to SO-CAL Speed Shop's Indy Speedster. Steve mentioned earlier how Pete Chapouris showed him the car at their shop in 2009 talking about taking it to GNRS in a few years. That's amazing! Congratulations to SO-CAL Speed Shop and all the hard working team that put together an amazing car!

Also, thank you to all the MOONEYES USA Staff for putting up with us and taking care of the amazing booth at the show. It was a lot of hard work and you all did a superb job. Thank you very much!

On January 30 (Monday), we heading for LAX in the morning to head back to Japan. This was an amazing experience and I think it has a lot to do with actually being at the Grand National Roadster Show. If you are living abroad and have never been to a show in the USA, this is the one to come to. I am really grateful that we had the chance to go and this will surely not be the last time.

Thank you all for reading. We hope you enjoyed the photos.
As mentioned, please be sure to pick up your copy of MOON ILLUSTRATED Magazine Vol. 9 which will be on sale this April for complete coverage and photos of the MOONEYES EXHIBIT at the NHRA Motorsports Museum.

Lastly, we leave you with our favorite pastime... food! :)

MOON Garage Goshu, MOON Space Agency Pan & Steve