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Overwhelming. And pretty damn cool. Those are accurate words to describe the 2004 NOPI Nationals, held on September 18–19 at the Atlanta Motor Speedway in sunny Georgia. With over 400 car classes, plus the requisite bikini contests, burnout match ups, hip-hop concerts, hydraulic contests, Jell-O® wrestling and drift
exhibitions, the crowd could hardly fit it all into a weekend.
“It’s awesome. There’s way too much to see,” said Brantley Lockhart, who attended the show in his 2003 Dodge Ram. “They need to have it all week long. There’s no way you can see everything in two days.”
The NOPI Nationals crowd is made up of mostly younger car lovers, tuners and sport compact enthusiasts, skewing more toward the 18–25 demographic. NOPI, which stands for Number One Parts Inc., is a leading parts distributor for the sport compact automotive segment that is red-hot popular with today’s youth. The
annual NOPI Nationals truly reflect what’s really hot with the youth market in any given year. But one theme remains constant: lots of wild cars, scantily clad women and rockin’ good times.
“This is where it’s at. This is SEMA for kids, basically,” said Roberto Trinidad, founder and president of the Tenth Element Neon car club. “When you’re trying to sell to consumers, NOPI is just one of the shows that you have to hit. There’s a lot more Mopar vehicles coming here. Kids are taking it to the next level. The cars here have a look that is unique.”
“The show is great. There are so many beautiful cars,” said William Gill, a member of the Avenger/Sebring Enthusiasts Club (ASEC). “In the last two years since Dodge has released the SRT4 and the Stratus R/T, I’ve started to see more and more Chrysler vehicles here.”
“The amount of people that show up is just phenomenal,” said Dunnie Morgan, who plans to run his solar yellow 2003 SRT4 in the 2005 One Lap of America race. “Mopar is popping up more and more.” |
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