Travis Pastrana's 08 Rally Car

SEMA 2008!!


November 13, 2008

Every year SEMA takes place down in Las Vegas Nevada, at the Las Vegas Convention Center. It is a time that "I" in particular look forward to. Even though when I return I have a BUNCH of work to catch up on... it's worth it. It's not every day that you get to go to the biggest car convention in the US and see the some of the sweetest cars you have ever seen. Chances are you'll even get to see some of the cars you read about in magazines.

This year, SEMA took place November 4-7. We went down Wed. night to spend Thursday and Friday hiking around the convention center to meet with our vendors and to check out all the beautiful cars. We got in late Wednesday night, got a bite to eat and got settled in for the night early (about 2 a.m.) We got up early the next day to hit the convention. After partaking in one of Vegas' wonderful breakfast buffet's, it was off to the convention center. After we picked up our badges, we checked out some of the cars parked out side. We stopped to admire a complete carbon fiber S2000 that looked like it would be a pretty sweet track contender.

After checking out some of the other cars parked in that same area, we headed inside.

As ironic as it seemed, the doors we entered, just happen to put us right at the Subaru booth! Right as we walked in, thes pretty decent lookin 08 STi caught my eye.

As I gave it a closer look and saw the DVD preview they were playing right next to it, I found out that it was the actual car they used in the new "Fast and Furious" movie that is due to be released sometime soon. One of the Subaru guys at the booth told me, they had started out with 8 STi's, and this one was 1 of 2 that were left! you could see that it had had a rough life! We ended up spending about a half hr. just in the Subaru booth checking out all the cars they had there including a concept 2009 Forester "XTi". It's a Forester STi that comes complete with STi interior, 6 spd tranny, "STi" Brembo brakes, DCCD. I will admit that if Subaru does bring this into production, I will be handing over the keys to my 04 STi for a Forester "XTi".

We continued on stopping at alot of the booth's we passed by to ask questions and actually meet in person some of the guys we talk to everyday but before that time, had never actuall seen them in the flesh. Chevrolet had quite a few of the new Camaro's down there that I have to say, looks pretty sweet! The Camaro was the official car of SEMA 2008. We spen the remainder of the day checking out as many cars as we could and talking to alot of the guys we do business with on a daily basis. The show closed for the day at 5 p.m. so it was off to dinner and then to play for the remainder of the evening.

The next morning we again woke up early as it was Friday, the last day of the convention, we had breakfast and took the monerail over to the show. This time we went to the "Wheel and Tire" section of the show. All I can say is... "WOW!!" I could have spent all day there but due to our busy schedule, we

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