Hot Import Night at Englishtown NJ
Words and Photos by Eduardo Suarez

Why New Jersey? After a last minute change of venue from Shea Stadium parking lot in NY to a fully equipped drag racing venue in New Jersey I wondered, "Is anyone even going to bother checking the website or drive 40 minutes south of New York City?" Well the day came and I started driving down to the event in a cloudy dark day, after many toll booths, plenty of skinny back roads and lost twice I finally made it.

Upon arriving and easily parking I proceeded to cutting the long ticket lines with my pass (LOL...) as soon as I entered the event the sky started to clear and that sweet smell of the burn-outs and burned fuel started flowing as I walked in. This HIN was kicking! The hundreds of cars lined up paying tribute to the JDM mentality were sharing space with a few modest modified domestics that welcomed me to the event lets not forget the weird US NAVY Camaro/airplane hybrid (WTF?). Anyway while looking for some friends walking towards the main stage I realized that now the demographics of HIN is getting way wider what ones was packed of 18-25 year old boys, now seemed like those boys got older and started building families which they are now bringing to HIN making it also a family event.

This event was the best I seen in the last couple years hands down even including those that have a big yellow-headed mascot (LOL). This event had a nice mix of trends starting by a few classic wide-body 350Zs and a long formation of JDM RSX and Intregras without forgetting ...The girls! There were more of them than I remember seeing at any HIN before, all dancing to the beat of some booth always friendly and approachable, you gotta love that!

The drifting show pulled the biggest crowd mostly thanks to the NOS energy-drink team and the local drifting enthusiasts that burned rubber like there is no tomorrow and most importantly showing the crowd a fun, fast and smoky great time of course animated by the lovely Alicia Whitten and Corissa Furr who made it the biggest high light of the night. As the night was ending the event ended with a flashy go-go dancing competition and finally the awards. Well worth the long drive sorry for the ones who decided to stay home washing the car.

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