Trek To Texas

We go on a long road trip

By Rodney Wills

Photography by Rodney Wills

As most of you may or may not know we belong to the major publishing company, Primedia. There are several car magazines here that get together on a driving trip from Irvine, California's Mazda dealership to the Mobile One Import Challenge held at the Houston Texas International Motor Speedway on March 8th and 9th. Yes, we are talking about drag racing and car shows and maybe even a few cool audio systems in a some really hot cars.

Our marketing staff lured Casey and me into making this trip by telling us we would get to drive some nice cars. I got a 2001 Mazda Protege MP3 edition and Casey got the HKS turbo equipped Mazda Miata. Yea, he got the faster car, but I am totally into the MP3's handling capabilities and rally looks. The MP3 version of the Protege is one of the coolest programs an automotive manufacturer has delivered to the dealership floor under $20k. With the MP3 name you get aftermarket, name brand audio and performance products from the factory. The joint venture is with Kenwood who supplies an aftermarket head unit with a four-speaker system and is enhanced nicely with a 100-watt 12" subwoofer. The motor is stock with only a Racing Beat cat back exhaust added for a few more horsepower, but the magic is the Racing Beat springs and sway bar combination mated with the Tokico struts for a solid yet comfortable ride.

Konig supplied some 17" lightweight rims mounted to Falken 205/40/17 tires. I know we were going to be on the road continuous for nine days so I added a Cellport Systems voice activated hands-free system that allows me to plug in my cell phone and still play desk jockey behind the wheel. This system is easy to use and works great when my Cingular National cell service plan actually worked. It worked like normal mostly around the larger cities but it was those in-between areas on the open road that had the most problems. However, our Audiovox 2-way radio systems eliminated the problem of inter-car communication.

The other area of pre-trek attention was changing the oil. When I got the car at 11,000 miles, the oil and filter had yet to be changed. So it was off to my buddy's shop (twinsturbo.com) for a late night service session before we added another mile to the odometer. I tend to take care of cars even under abusive conditions and oil service is the number one area of preventative maintenance. I have been studying synthetic oils for a few years now and have been using these types of oils in various vehicles. A few years ago I was introduced to Neo Oils. This is the number one choice for F1 teams so it's plenty good for me!

The following pages are a photo essay of our trip. While we were on this trip we stopped by two other Mazda dealerships, one in Arizona and the other in Texas. We went go-kart racing with the Direct Hits guys in Albuquerque, New Mexico and stopped by Cadillac Ranch (www.libertysoftware.be/cml/cadillacranch/ crmain.htm) to pay our respects to automotive art. We visited the new facility of Nitrous Express in Texas as well.

While in Texas at the WIC race event, on Saturday night we attended the Import Revolution car show and met up with several audio manufacturers such as MTX, Alphasonic, Audiobahn as well as shops such as Car Toys and Tweeter etc. where Ainslie Fukuda (Mark Fukuda's younger brother) was showing off his Passat with an awesome installation. With a family name like that, what do you expect?

There were a couple of other hot audio systems we missed at the show, but not to worry, Houston's cruzing scene is the best I've seen! Yes, better than anything we have ever had in California, except for Palm Springs back in the mini-truck days. Joel Pickell of Spyder Racing Development (877.454.RACE) is the man in the know on the street scene, "MC of the streets"; that is, Master of Connections. He was a great tour guide for the night, if you will.

Vipers, Supra's NSX's, Audi's were all there and Joel is spouting names and e.t.'s. If they were not there, Joel was on the cell and they were there in twenty minutes or less! He was even telling us of full tube chassis V8's running nines and a Honda Civic with full interior running nines, and only for the streets! A pair of Audi's showed up per Joel's request that were very nice with very cool stereo systems; so that helped us with features for the magazine! So all in all, the Houston scene was absolutely great and was a major highlight of the trip. The personal highlight of the trip for me was one of the cars that came along on the Trek all the way from Canada. I have a burning passion for Ford Festiva's and Cam (cwstuning.com) had beat me to the punch by dropping in a Mazda 323 GTX Turbo motor in his Festiva last year. I got to drive this lightweight rocket and it was absolutely FUN to drive at 172hp and a total weight of 1700lbs. It smoked our HKS Mazda Miata and was a match race for the Sport Compact Car project Turbo Matrix. So you can guess what is on my Car Audio Magazine project plate!

TREK SPONSORS:

Mazda
Konig
V-Racing
SpeedPeople
AutomotiveWoodDash.com
Fleetwood RV
NitrousExpress
AEM
Meguiar's
Wilwood
Injen Technology
CATZ
AssociatedElectric
Mantaray Motorsports Racing
Vortech
Audiovox Corp
DirectHits
Falken Tire
RADD
AC Autotechnic

MY SPONSORS:
I would like to thank these guys for helping make my trip more fun!
Cellport Systems
Hands Free Cell Kit
Piloti Driving Shoes
SpySunglasses
Nixion Watches
Clive Backpacks
Duffs SkateShoes
Moonshine Music
Neo Racing Oils

Cellport Systems
Seventy percent of all cell phone calls today are made from cars, according to General Motors. New York was the first state to ban motorists from using hand held cell phones while driving. Practically every state has some type of legislation proposed on banning or restricting cell phone use while operating a vehicle. Of course, as a country we are a bit behind the 20 other countries that already have such laws in place. And we wonder why we have such bad drivers out on the road.

So we all know that at some point soon, everyone is going to be forced to have a hands-free system for cell phones in our cars. A lot of you already have those little earpieces. It has become fashionable to have the "hands-free look." Some people walk or cruise in their cars like they're CIA agents. At CES back in January I was intrigued by the Jabra gel blue earpiece that was actually a listening device and microphone in one (it uses the ear bone to transmit your voice). Cool, but I am a car guy and my biggest issue has to do with talking on the phone while driving. For instance, while shifting gears!

Attending the Rally of Great Britain back in October last year, I noticed that all the racecars had a stationary on-board cell phone cradle. These cars are the most extreme vehicles on earth as far as I am concerned, so I knew then that this is what I wanted. Hey, I am just like you, I want what the pros are using! Richard Burns, Colin McRae and Tommi Makinnen all have this cell phone mounted in the racecar. It's functional fashion! Yes, I've seen some business geeks with it in there car, but I'm on a different level with it now, so hey!

Cellport Systems Inc. was established in 1993 and is addressing the need for both handset-based and embedded automotive telematics solutions by providing an open-architecture platform standard for the automotive industry with multiple devices and applications. Cellport Systems is also going for the aftermarket industry. The company's premier product, the Cellport 3000 with Voice Command, is the first voice-activated universal hands-free system on the market. My first experience with the system was with Ronald Cocks, a western regional sales manager that was in the area one day to give me a demo of their system. The cell phone was sitting in its cradle and Ronald casually commanded "Cellport, wake-up", and a female voice answered back. That is, after the system automatically muted the music playing over the radio.

Ease of use is one attractive aspect of the Cellport product. Another is convenience. For example, the various pocket adapters allows you to change wireless phones easily and inexpensively without removing and then re-installing a conventional car kit. So for all you up to the minute tech-fashion geeks that switch cell phones every six months, this system is for you! Just snap a new pocket adapter for your cell phone into the universal docking station, and you are ready to talk hands-free.

The Trek to Texas was the perfect opportunity to put the Cellport 3000 with Voice Command through it paces. I contacted Cellport to see if we could get the system installed before we made the trip. The install took just 45 minutes. The docking station was mounted just right of the center console with an antenna mounted inside the vehicle just off the top right of the windshield and a voice microphone mounted just above the rearview mirror. I was using the 5190 Nokia cell phone and was provided with the proper cradle that locks into the docking station. With the cradle locked into the docking station it is very easy to insert and remove the cell phone. With the ignition on and the cell phone inserted to the station it automatically charges the cell phone battery. I stuck the Introduction CD into the head unit and listened to the simple instructions.

Then I programmed in a few important numbers for the trip and we were off. The 3000 can store 23 numbers in its memory. You have to load this information in the system and assign a number to each name/number combination. So when you want to call someone who is, say, third on your list, you have to say the number three then the system answers back, "Did you want to call [person's name]" and you simply answer yes. I would prefer to just say the person's name than the assigned number, but at this time this is how the system works. Also, another minor reservation I have is this: I have a ton of numbers loaded into my cell phone and I call people randomly just to keep in touch, so deciding who makes the 23 list is tough. I would like to be able to command the system to scroll and start at the top of my list and stop once I decided to call that person. But greater capacity is one of the first things that the company will of perforce address. After all, most people who use the cell phone enough to justify installing a system such as this are very likely to have more than twenty-some numbers they'll want to dial.

As for the performance aspect of the 3000 -- you may have read in my Trek to Texas story that the system worked great. I tried everything out and must say my experience with this product was very positive. Receiving a call is easy. Making calls once you have the numbers programmed in is quite simple and your eyes never have to leave the road. The reception is remarkable. thanks to the antenna that is provided. And everyone on the Trek knows we tested the durability of the station connection and clamping force while out driving the car. We will do further testing of this once we remove the system and install it in the CA&E rally car soon. For the people on the go this system is the way to go, hands-free behind the wheel. A good solution for a growing problem.