Nagano MR2 Meeting report (July 2008)

Sunday 27, July 2008


I joined Nagano MR2 Meeting held in Japan.
The meeting place was in Nagano prefecture & gathering point was Kirigamine-Kogen Drive In.


Pre-notice

Unfortunately, no one showed up from seeing the above notice.
Anyway, I briefly update you on Nagano MR2 Meeting.


As for the full detailed Nagano MR2 Meeting report, please access the below links.
Nagano MR2 Meeting report vol.1
Nagano MR2 Meeting report vol.2
Nagano MR2 Meeting report vol.3
(Sorry, these are Japanese only pages.)


What is AW/SW anyway???
AW : AW10/AW11 is MR2 (1984-1989) before major model change.
SW : SW20 is MR2 (1989-1999) after major model change.
Wikipedia on MR2 in English
Wikipedia on MR2 in Japanese




Mr. Kaitoh Shinshi (meaning an Gentleman Phantom Thief), an AW11 owner planned this meeting. I initially heard this MR2 meeting idea when I joined Shirakaba-ko MR2 meeting and got an invitation from him in June.

He is an AW11 owner thus more than half of the gathered cars were AW series.
As for AW series, 2 1st generation AW11 & 8 2nd generation AW11 were there.

Other than MR2, there were 5 SW20, 1 Mazda roadster coupe (second generation in NB) & Subaru Impreza WRX.


On the way

The weather was so good thus I see many bikers and drivers were heading toward the same direction when I was on the way to Kirigamine-Kogen.

In Japan, Harley-Davidson (HD) is booming in the bike category so that the majority of the bike I saw on Sunday was HD. Most of HD drove slowly especially on curves. I assume most of them were so called Sunday-Rider who rides on a bike only on Sunday and not skilled well.

Thus, the most of the winding road way up to Kirigamine-Kogen I drove slowly with the decent frustration.


Meeting with other owners

When I reached the gathering point, I was late for the gathering time (9:00am) about 15 to 20 min and all other owners already started chatting. Some even had already displayed their radio control cars.


Cute!!



As you can see in the picture, some owners had matching radio controlled cars as their cars.

I envy that SW20 body is available but not AW series for radio controlled car chassis. If there is AW body I'm sure I buy AW body and paint it with my AW two-tone color.


After each introduced oneself in front of each own car, we drove off to the next destination, The Utsukushi-ga-hara Open-Air Museum.



When we drove to The Utsukushi-ga-hara Open-Air Museum, again bunch of slow HD were in front of our group. Well, it was shiny bright good weather Sunday so that the scenery was so good thus they may slow down a lot.


(Can you see the car running in front of me is another blue AW?)

The parking lot at The Utsukushi-ga-hara Open-Air Museum was not so packed. Thus, members with radio controlled cars could enjoy their cars.


After having a lunch with other MR2 owners sharing experiences and with deep discussion about cars, we moved to the final destination, Lake Megami Large Parking.

This time, the traffic was rather smooth and I could enjoy the driving. During the lunch, it was raining hard and after the lunch it was on and off. So, fewer bikes were on the road at this time.


At the Lake Megami Large Parking, there were not many cars so we lined up our cars to have a photo shooting session. It was not raining and was a good condition to take photo.




A few minutes after starting the photo session, the heavy rain came back or was it followed us?

Initially some were chatting with their umbrellas however suddenly the strong rain noise came from the woods. Actually, HEAVY HEAVY rain attacked us.

Well, after 10 seconds, it was gone.
OK
Let's start chat again.

After a minute, we heard another heavy strong rain noise from the woods.

Some were crunching to ready for the rain.


The heavy rain did not go away after some time so Nagano MR2 Meeting was adjourned.


With other AW/SW owners, I had a good weekend. Even after this weekend meeting I communicate with other owners through Blog/SNS.



Japanese blog updates
Nagano MR2 Meeting report vol.1
Nagano MR2 Meeting report vol.2
Nagano MR2 Meeting report vol.3



In coming months, I hear more MR2 meetings are planned.
As I get the permission to resubmit the announcement, I'll update the meeting schedule in advance.

Hope I see more AW series MR2 owners at meetings or on Web.

TK



@ Yahoo! Japan
http://blogs.yahoo.co.jp/aw11japan