Wicked Big Meet 2019
Photos: Tj Sanethong Author: Tj Sanethong
Welcome back guys! Its been quite a while since the last post entry went live but we are back. Before we get started i’d like to thank everyone that purchased a sticker from us at the recent shows we attended. The support is always appreciated! For those that missed out, I do have a few left that i will be posting up for sale as well as a pre-order form for our first run in T-shirts. More details on the T-shirts will be released within a couple of days so be on the look out for that. Now lets move on to the main event!
Being Punctual:
If you are not aware Wicked Big Meet ( WBM for short) is hands down the largest Subaru show in north east probably in the nation really. I’m not sure how many people attended this year, but I do know its well over 4000+ it still continues to grow. I attended my first WBM two years ago and have made it a point to attend year after year. Contrary to popular belief, the Subaru community is more than vapes, and stage bros. Although there are many of them there, there is almost zero negative energy in existence. The best thing I can compare it to is a music festival. Everyone’s there to have a great time!
The night before ended up extremely late for us. We were covering the Broke East Night Meet, ( If you haven’t already, check it out on the facebook page). As a group we probably only had a few hours of sleep, with that being said you’d assume I’d be the one late as I usually am. Not this time! No one was late actually, we were just held up due to Nikki. He was removing a clamp that kept vibrating against his heat shield. What should’ve taken 10 minutes took 45 minutes. Tyler came down from londonderry New Hampshire to drive up with us, his buddy Jose also showed up with the only modded cool grey khaki sti i’ve ever seen. After Nikki got his car situated we hit a local gas station for fuel and snacks (duh) we were off. Now before we go on I have to mention its 7am and the gates close for show cars at 8am, not a huge deal if we weren’t an hour and a half away from the venue. We may or may not have bent the speed limits a bit.
As we were getting closer to the venue, we started to see the town get populated with more and more Subarus. One of our friends Lucky who was waiting for us for quite sometime, found us along the way and was able to roll in with us. We were able to make the cut off time but we got placed all the way in the back which at the time was a bit disappointing but it turned out to be great, you’ll see why later.
It was looking to be a beautiful day, although not seeing many clouds meant the sun is going to beat everyone up all day.
Showtime!:
As they geared up to open the doors to the public the heat started to move in with not a single cloud in sight. Two things came to mind when that happend, 1. Not having any type of shade is really gonna suck 2. Shooting in harsh lighting sucks. We came half way prepared with sandwich supplies and a canopy. The guy below took canopies to a whole new level. I’m seeing a lot more of these kinds of builds, the more I see them i become more tempted to do it to the daily.
Im sure there isn’t a tent in that storage box but it does look sick on this sti. Color matching it was a nice touch.
50 Shades of purple, all really dope in their own way. Which one is your favorite?
While checking out the rest of the show, we made a few furry four legged friends along the way. Subaru has always been a big supporter of pets, so of course the pups were encouraged to tag along
We had to stop by the IAG booth to say hi to Sally and JJ. She’s done so much lately and its awesome watching her driving career take off. For those that don’t know, Sally Mcnulty is a Time attack driver for Snail Performance/ IAG performance and she also competes in the TC america series driving the Borla performance/ Skip barber racing HPD civic SI. Needless to say she does a lot of driving and she does it well too. Unfortunately we weren’t able to take our annual WBM photo with JJ because the IAG booth was going crazy with their sales and the golden ticket giveaway. Thanks again for the poncho and hopefully next year you guys get to drag Markos out here. We didn’t forget about you dude!
Sally’s Project Not So Daily made an appearance at WBM this year. I was absolutely in love with her GD and was sad to see the end of that era, I totally understand why she switched chassis’s and made it better. VA is definitely the way!
Speaking of gangster GD’s IAG also brought out Dans 07 time attack STI. The very reason I know about IAG was because of this car. WBM 2016, a photo of this car flexing the air jacks at the IAG booth surfaced on the internet. I wanted to find out more about the car so I started snooping around and found out how crazy this build is. Not a single bolt was left untouched, and every single thing done to the car was done properly.
We decided to take a stroll outside of the event area to check out some of the spectator cars. Sometimes the spectator lot has better cars than the show itself, with a few thousand cars to choose from we were sure we’d find something.
Umbrellas Vs Ponchos:
As we were walking back we noticed clouds were rolling in, and they were rolling in fast. We heard rumors of thunderstorms potentially hitting the event throughout the morning but didn’t think anything of it since it was sunny for most of the morning. When we got in, we walked against what was basically a mini stampede. People were rushing back to their cars to wait out the rain. As you can see JJ and his team quickly covered their display motors before the rain hit.
Walking turned to running within a blink of an eye. The rain wall was closing in and did not look friendly. In between all that I made it a point to take photos on my way back.
Remember when I said that we had were placed in a good spot? Well it happened to be the flattest part of the area, which worked out in our favor. People were getting flooded out of their canopy areas while we hid under ours. Now it didn’t help that the rain was falling sideways but we sort of stayed dry. The rain finally let up after a half hour and it was show time again. Swapped batteries and we were off to do more coverage with perfect lighting this time.
Bag riders came through swinging once again. I had a few favorite booths this year and Bag Riders have always been on that list. Lets take a deeper dive into it.
As you can see they brought out some of the best. Clean, fitted, and super low.
Bag riders weren’t the only ones that brought a non-subaru to WBM. Dans Autobody brought some of the local favorites as well as Ruby.
I think its safe to say RavSpec held it down for the Kings of JDM for the event. Every car in their camp was executed perfectly.
To have Both Voltex and Msport there in the flesh was a real treat. Both kits are the holy grails for me in terms of body kits. I still cant say which is better, they’re both equally so good!
Countdown begins:
As the event winds down and we wait for the traffic to clear out, I sat there staring at each car leaving thinking “ what makes them want to continue to return to this event every year?”. You figured if you heard one subaru you’ve heard them all, if you see one subaru you’ve pretty much seemed them all, so why? Well in short, you’d have to experience it yourself. The subaru community, like all communities have their bad apples but the good out weighs the bad especially at events like this. The love, the appreciation and just being in the positive vibes all day makes you want to comeback each year. Thank you to the staff of WBM for hosting yet again another amazing event. You guys really figured it and it still continues to grow.
The Brand:
I’ve mentioned this a lot but there has been a ton of work happening behind the scenes which has taken me out of updating the website and the social media platforms with content. The next couple of months are going to be jammed packed with updates and opportunities. I’d love to dish out more but you’ll all have to wait until the information officially gets released.
With that being said Monday JULY 15th we will be opening pre-orders for the first ever official Crate Street T-shirts. Pre-orders will stay open up until Wednesday July 31st. On the last day of the pre-order we will be making a special announcement. All the details will be up Monday July 15th so stay tuned and see what we have in store for you guys!
If you’ve made it this far thank you for reading ( or scrolling ) and for supporting us. Something as simple as clicking the link, sharing it with your family and friends really goes a long way for us. Without the culture and the people supporting us we wouldn’t have this platform.
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