Pacific Northwest Meet 2024 – Honda Del Sol Highlights
I recently had a golden opportunity to travel to the Pacific Northwest region of the United States; specifically Oregon and Washington to hold the first ever OldSols Meet & Cruise in the region. With the help of Britt and Scott our PNW ambassadors we had planned a 2 day journey through the forests, canyons and mountains!
First thing on my agenda was to head over to VIP Performance https://vipperformance.net/ in Portland with Scott to get a new tune on this Del Sol. What is a car weekend without a lil R&D in a parking lot before hand to get ready for the tune! Here in Nebraska is mopar country and actual import tuner shops are hard to come by so it was very fun to visit one.
After a few hours of messing around the the VIP tuner shop we were free to kill some time. We headed over to Q40 Motorsports https://www.q40motorsports.com/ a Veteran owned and operated shop to check out the race del sol they have! They race their Del Sol and BMW at Portland international speedway as well as Leguna Seca among a few others. Personally, again, here in Nebraska there are no “race’ Del Sol’s so it was really fun to see everything that goes into a full race team. Tomorrow Q40 was the starting point for our Oregon leg of the OldSols meet and cruise. Afterwards, Scott and I met Britt and Matt for dinner at Saburo’s Sushi House and surprise surprise Danielle from Discord showed up with them. It was great to see her again, she had also previously made the journey with her Del Sol to our SEC meet at the back of the dragon in Virginia!
Bright and early the next morning we headed back over to the Q40 shop to start the friday day! It was a great turn out. We had 16 Del Sols show up! The guys from NorCalDelSols https://www.facebook.com/groups/337581056626283/ made the long drive as well! It was so great to finally meet some of them after chatting online for many years!
We all stood around for the better part of close to 2 hours just eyeballing everyones builds and shooting the shit! It was fantastic, just a buncha Del Sol dorks geeking out over our cars! Truly some of the best times. Q40 had instructed that it was time to head out onto the open road for some curves, twists and zooms through the outskirts of Portland to our scenic destination for the noon hour! I was able to ride along in their Camero Z28 track edition which was probably the fastest car ive ever been it! It handled the back rounds like a champ and roared through the hillside with all those american ponies screaming through the turns!
As we enjoyed the views, del sols and eachother’s company we set out on a course for Tillamook, Oregon and the Tillamook Cheese Factory for lunch, drinks, and ice cream! It was a beautiful 2 hour drive through national forests. On the Portland side of the mountains it was hot, sunny and no wind. Once we arrived in Tillamook, what a difference it was being by the ocean. 60’s, brisk, windy, and smelled like cheese and salt (no joke). I sat co-pilot with Skedd (discord username) in her Del Sol for this leg; she has a 1993 Automatic Si which she tracks now. Ive only had S Model automatic Del Sols and this Si was more than fast enough to carve through the national forest! It was very fun to ride shot gun. Very impressed with her Del Sol. Late into the afternoon many of the oregon attendees went home, the cali guys went back to their Air B&B and we headed to our destination for the evening. Auburn, Washington was quite the drive – about 4.5 hours but we choose to hug the ocean. Driving through fishing towns, ports, across the Astoria Bridge; it was beautiful to see this part of the country for a plainsmen.
Scott had been driving the entire trip and it was my turn to hop in the drivers seat! His 1997 Del Sol was an Si D Series but he swapped a bare bones B20 from a CRV into it. What caught me off guard was just how much I enjoyed no power steering on his Del Sol. I could really get a better sense of the road I feel. I will not be adding power steering back into my Del Sol when it comes re-assembled.
Early the next morning on Sunday, we ate a quick breakfast at iHop and waited in the parking lot for the Washington leg of the meet to start! Boy were we surprised! We had 26 Del Sol’s show up and even an older gentlemen from Canada. Dude was a champ for making the journey!
As the Del Sols continued to pile in we were nearing the time to head to our final leg of the weekends cruise and meet. Mt Rainier national forest and summit! Another 1 hour drive up until the mountains of Washington. Upon arrival we were greeted by cold temps, wet roads and ALOT of snow. From what I was told – pretty unusual for late in June. Some of the drifts on the roads were still about 8 ft tall and it was maybe 50 degrees. Everyone had to bundle up.
At the “summit” we found a great parking lot to all pull over and eat lunch. Again, we spent the better part of 3 hours just bullshitting about Del Sol’s, throwing snowballs and looking at the great views.
My reflection upon this amazing weekend is that getting Del Sol owners together for no other reason than to simply connect is the top priority of mine. Way back in 2016 I did not see a Del Sol community that was thriving. OldSols is simply not about sales, car parts, clout, or social media. It is about bringing people together and growing the community in all regions of the world. If we do not do this, this niche of a community struggles to keep it legs. Specifically in the Pacific Northwest I feel I have 2 two wonderful humans in Blaze and Skedd who it is my hopes to continue to carry the OldSols torch for years to come in this area. They are truly dedicated to you all and your cars. It is my hopes to only see the PNW continue to come together year after year. Thank you all for showing up and supporting us the past weekend. It was great to meet you all and talk Del Sol’s with you for two days!
Lastly thank you Q40 Motorsports, Scott (Blaze), Brit (Skedd), Matt (Darth), Danielle (Silver) and NorCalDelSol’s!