Vancouver has two different types of weather: The times when people are waiting for it to start raining or waiting for it to stop raining. The wild card is when, once a year, it snows and the whole city shuts down. Sunday, Sept. 9 was one of those days where everyone was waiting for it to stop raining. (Spoiler alert: The rain only got progressively worse throughout the day.)
The tricky thing about picking a clever date for a car meet when you’re SerialNine is that it often revolves around the around the number nine – and that usually lands you in the month of September. So realistically, you’re taking a big gamble on the weather and you don’t always come out on the winning end.
Now that we’ve covered the pleasantries of talking about the weather, we can get down to the nitty-gritty. Aside from any relevant drifting events, the SerialNine Block Party is one of the events I get the most excited for. Don’t believe me? Well, it’s true. I like this event so much that I went so far as to put a permit on my Aristo so I could drive it out to Coquitlam for the day. (This may not sound like much, but I haven’t driven the car in a year because parental responsibilities have taken precedence.)
So what makes this event so good? I’m about to let you know in my typical long-winded essay-style of writing.
Canada is a country that sits just north of the United States of America. It’s big, it’s beautiful, it’s got free health care (well, we pay small monthly premiums in BC, but they’re stopping that by 2020) and a law that allows us to import cars from Japan after 15 years. Why is that last point so important? It’s sort of our car scene’s saving grace.
The Canadian car scene isn’t as vast or involved as the scenes you often find south of the border. However, our ability to acquire cars from the Japanese domestic market after 15 years – instead of 25 years like it is in the U.S. of A – helps level the playing field when comparing us to our southern friends.
Sure, Skylines are neat, and who doesn’t love a good S15? They’re the low-hanging fruit of cool things from Japan. But I love cars that require a real explanation to the uninitiated. You know, cars that you don’t need to say: “Oh yeah, it was in The Fast and the Furious, Gran Turismo or Need for Speed.”
You haven’t really lived until you’ve tried to explain why a JZX is cool to someone who doesn’t like cars. The thrill of watching someone become uninterested as you explain to them that, “Sure, Lamborghinis are neat, but I prefer this Toyota Camry-looking thing because it’s got an inline six and it’s RWD.”
This is why I love SerialNine: They pretty much dedicated a whole business to something that not everyone gets, but they get it better than most people. When I meet new car people in Lower Mainland, I always use SerialNine as a measuring stick; if you haven’t heard of them, we’re probably not into the same things.
When they hold events, I know it’s going to be genuinely great – regardless of the weather. It’s going to bring together a bunch of people who don’t need to waste their time explaining why Japanese sedans are cool.
Bonus points: Once you’ve mastered explaining why JZXs are cool, try owning a five-speed-swapped Aristo and explaining that to people…
