Randy’s SEMA Journal – Day 1
November 2nd, 2009
from Randy O’Neal of DieselPlace.com
Up at Oh-Dark-Thirty to make a 6:00 am flight out of Lexington KY to Chicago, then on to Las Vegas. This time zone stuff is a killer… fly across 3 time zones in the morning the day after we fall back an hour as we kiss Daylight Saving Time away… and by noon I’m finally in Las Vegas at the Hilton. My mind is telling me it’s mid afternoon and I haven’t even had lunch yet.
Grabbed some lunch in the hotel and headed over to the convention center. Today the vendors are setting up. Outside there are already countless amazing cars and trucks. I found the Team Purple HazMax truck and many others. Pics are uploaded to PhotoBucket – here’s a link: http://s227.photobucket.com/albums/d…k/SEMA%202009/
Today we met the Optima team and we met the others who have been brought to SEMA by Optima. We heard some prepared comments from the various Optima folks – from General Manager to Marketing team to Engineers who work on their products. Several good discussions about their products… I think I now understand their product at a much more technical level and I see now why someone would choose to pay the premium price for their products. More about this later.
Cam Douglass, VP of Optima Product Development and Research, took us down to the floor where the vendors were setting up for the show. He introduced us to several key people… guys from Magnaflow, K&N, and some others (honestly, I have the business cards back in the room and will have to edit this post with their info later).
We closed out the evening with dinner at PF Changs. The food was terrific, the discussions were lively and entertaining. Afterward, some people went clamoring for roller coasters; I headed back to the hotel. By the time 11:00 came around, I felt like I had been up 24 hours… which was actually pretty close to reality.
This is going to be a great week!