Irvine- If you own an LX body vehicle, the place to be on March 20^th, 2010 was the Spring Festival of LX’s in Irvine, Ca. Over six hundred 300’s, Magnums, Chargers, and Challengers filled the parking lot caddy-corner to the Chrysler building. Dodge unveiled new vehicle editions and plans for the future to the passionate crowd of Dodge/Chrysler owners. A furious fuchsia Challenger and a new 300s were on display for all to see and enjoy. Vendors such as Stack Performance, Brembo, and Corsa  all had impressive displays around the venue. Owners spent the day visiting vendor booths and checking out what other owners had done to their vehicles.

This is a great show for SoCal Challengers as we play the role of “unofficial” host for the visiting Challenger owners. My fellow Co-President, Dave, stayed at the Doubletree Hotel which was the primary hotel for out-of-towners who came in for the whole weekend. He was able to meet most of the attendees the Friday before the show and make them feel at home. It also served to help us make the next morning go smoother as we were responsible for getting them into the show. The Irvine Police department however had other ideas. Last year we had lined up all of the Challengers on Gateway Ave. along the shoulder and then proceeded to take them into the LX Festival. It’s a full shoulder along that road, the cars are completely out of any traffic lanes when stopped there. Irvine PD this year decided that we couldn’t line up there and told us to leave or face citation. Wonderful. Since the LX Festival gate wasn’t open yet, Dave, who was leading the group had to take everyone for a drive in circles until the LX Festival opened their gates. It was interesting to see Challengers going around in circles for no apparent reason. I’m sure most of the Challenger owners in that line were scratching their heads why they were driving around the block over and over. I was on the shoulder and when I found out what happened I ran over to the gate to find someone in charge. I told a gentleman there,” Look man, we have about 50 Challengers going around the block in circles until you let us in. You need to open this up for us. Irvine PD won’t let us stop anywhere.” He told me to call Dave and have them come back and that they would let us in. Rick called Dave from his car and the circle driving exercise was over. Eventually, we were all parked and into the show. Once parked we all shined up our vehicles, picked up our welcome bags and lunch tickets and walked around the venue.

Dodge had a new 300s on display as well as a furious fuchsia Challenger R/T.  The fuchsia doesn’t do it for me at all. It looked like a nail polish color. I think as far as a purple goes, the Plum Crazy paint job wins hands down. But, to each their own. You buy what you yourself like, not what someone else likes.  The 300’s headlights and seats looked great. New tweaks from Dodge that were impressive in my opinion. My car was at the Stack Performance booth along with Dan’s black Challenger SRT-8. I’m glad we could help Ryan promote his business and are indebted to him for all he’s done for SCC and our vehicles. Billet Technologies had a booth at the show as well. A lot of Challenger owners have their bling on their car. It was good to finally meet them in person. I also enjoyed talking to Corsa, whose exhaust I have on my Challenger. Nice guys those Corsa guys.

Dodge made announcements about halfway through the day that by this time next year we would see a whole new lineup of vehicles. This was a nice teaser as none of them were there at the show to see. It was announced too that Dodge was teaming up with Rich Evans, a custom builder, to build a Challenger together. That will be interesting as every car I’ve seen Rich do has been covered with spikes; real metal spikes! Rich does fantastic ghost painting and airbrushing. I’m interested to see what they come up with together.

All in all I think we pulled in 48 Challengers to the show as a group which was a damn impressive site. The LX Festival is THE only place you will see that many Challengers in one place, period. Everyone we met was super cool and a pleasure to hang out with. Thank you Dodge for putting on the event for us LX owners. Thanks also to (FatChance) Jon, for organizing the event with them and your passion for Dodge/Chrysler vehicles. And to my fellow Co-President Dave, thanks for your hard work promoting this show and making the Challenger owners there feel like family. That you can’t put a price on…