(At the bottom of the page you will find a few photos of the whole group at the Concours. (Las Vegas Motor Speedway, aka LVMS). The close-up of the black car is Kris Osheim, in his 91T (LOKI), on the pregrid, preparing to enter the road course.)

Here are the winners of the various categories:

MK1

1. Kevin Burchmore

2. Ray Guzman

3. Bob Kasicki

MK2

1. Robert Rankin (also best of show)

2. John Jones

3. Danny Taylor (also best exterior)

MK3

1. Jay Cheng (also best interior)

2. Jim Strickland (also 3rd exhaust)

3. Sean Bradshaw

ST185

1. Chris O'Rourke (also Ultimate All Trac and Technical Achievement Award)

2. John So

3. Randy Chase

ST165

1. Nathan Roof (also highest mileage All Trac)

Best Wheels - Eli Gibbons

Highest Mileage MR2 - Randy Morrow

Exhaust

1. Josh Wong

2. John Serrano

Jed Clampett - Norm Hale

Krylon Award - Andy Moore

Best Engine - Ken Blake (also best stereo and best sound quality)

Lowest ET - LB

Ultimate MR2 (I don't have his name...only one car went to the dyno and it had 502HP)

Lowest mileage - Sean Bradshaw

KO Racing attends SW2003 in Vegas

April 24th 2003 we left Portland, headed East on I-84. We drove East to Boise Idaho, where we were joined by Matt Gillispie and his friend Kevin in Matt's Nautical Blue Metallic 91T. The drive from there to Brigham City UT, was almost without event, except for Mike Newell's Red 89SC running out of gas, and Kris going back to rescue him with a can of gas. We met up with a bunch of people from Idaho and Utah at the Howard Johnson Inn, where we swapped stories and got to know each other over some watered down beers. (Don't forget we were in Utah, where beer is regulated to 4% alcohol content)

Friday, April 25th we drove from Brigham City South on I-15 toward Las Vegas. The beginning of the trip saw heavy traffic, and lots of Utah State Troopers, but once we got further South, it cleared up and we were able to make good time, until my 93T started making weird exhaust leak sounds. We checked it at one of the fuel stops, and determined that one of the welds had weakened on the (beta model) T3/T4 kit, where the tube for the external wastegate is attached to the turbo adapter. The leak was small, so we pressed on. A little while later, the leak got a whole lot louder, and I couldn't make any boost. I informed Kris, who decided that we would send the rest of the group ahead, then find a muffler shop to re-weld the pipe for us.

We stopped at a town called Cedar City, which is about 200 miles North of Las Vegas, still in Utah. We located a place called City Muffler and asked them if they would do the welding for us. They agreed, so we pulled the turbo kit off my car in their parking lot, had them re-weld the pipe, then reinstalled the kit on the car. Total elapsed time: 3 hours.

We finished the drive to Las Vegas, arriving there at 8:30PM local time. After checking in, we went and washed our cars, then socialized with some other people from around the country who had traveled there for the meet.

Saturday April 26th we all headed out to Las Vegas Motor Speedway (LVMS) for the Concurs D' Elegance, and the various competitions, like show and shine, stereo, exhaust, etc. High points of the day, in no particular order, were:

Seeing IMOC friends from other parts of the country, like Jim and June Griffin, Donald Chalfant, David Hawkins, Bill Strong, Steve Neese, Glenn Glassford, Aaron Bunch, Todd and Scott Clarendon, Lino Verna, and I'm probably forgetting someone.

Meeting Brad Bedell and seeing his excellent yellow 91 MKII powered by a V6 Solara engine. (which is for sale, by the way)

Winning a set of H4 HID conversions at the door prize raffle.

Garrick Heuer walking up to me with dyno plots of his (bone stock) 95T, before and after installing our KO Racing TKO exhaust, showing a 25RWHP gain.

After all of the competitions and festivities came to an end, we all headed back to the hotel, to get ready for the awards banquet. After a delicious buffet style dinner, David Hawkins and Bill Strong thanked everyone who made the meet possible, and were thanked in turn by everyone in attendance.

Then they started handing out the awards. I don't remember every award handed out, but there were many. I personally received awards for:

"Best Stereo"

"Best Sound Quality"

"Best Engine"

After the awards banquet, there was more socializing, and apparently there were some parking lot antics by Brian "NoShoes" Moore, among others. I'll leave THAT story for someone else to tell.