Words by Matt Willis
As Honda owners ourselves, one of the events Tim and I have been attending for the last several years is the annual Eibach Springs All-Honda Meet, colloquially known as just Eibach within the community. Much like MFest to BMW enthusiasts, or the recent Toyotafest for the Toyota crowd, Eibach is – in a sense – the yearly “Mecca” for most Honda and Acura owners in southern California and beyond.
It was only a couple of years ago when the meet was held in it’s native venue, the Eibach Springs production facility in Corona, CA. At that time, even Tim and I were able to tell the lot at Eibach HQ was too small for the rapidly growing amount of attendees, and it was causing cars to back up into the main streets for several blocks at a time. Aside from all the unwanted attention from Corona P.D., most people that arrived later on would find themselves frustrated with parking or simply trying to get anywhere near the lot itself. We always got in the habit of arriving at first light just to get a spot nearby. So, last year, the event heads moved Eibach to Irwindale Speedway, which was a much bigger lot with easier access and better traffic flow. Unfortunately, our experience last year was not much better. I think that was mostly the fault of other attendees and us following their lead, since we arrived later and the entrance had already turned into a school of sardines. We spent most of the morning zig-zagging through other parking lots and trying to follow the wide array of different instructions from the event organizers. There were a number of people that simply turned around and headed home due to the chaos. But, with the thousands of Honda’s and their owners in southern California gaining awareness of the event, it was a good problem to have when all was said and done.
I’m happy to report that things seemed to have improved this year. We arrived quite early, as did a few others. The directions on where to go were fairly clear; and the spectator parking line was separated from registered line. The parking process could only happen so fast; so yes, there was backup and congestion. The one flaw was that once the VIP lot filled up, everyone was forced to park in the GA lot…which was a bit treacherous for some of the really lowered cars. So people were taking their time getting feeding into the lot.
There was a substantial amount of cars and attendees, and it was great to see. I honestly would have thought the main venue lot would have been at maximum capacity very early on, but there was still quite a bit of room left by the afternoon hours.
As I said, we arrived early but just a few moments after sunrise the parking line was already beginning to build up.
The event staff, pictured in orange shirts, were clearly visible to everyone and did a great job of directing traffic.
In the VIP parking lot, there seemed to be another Eibach going on throughout the day. People were all parking in show formation and tailgating and shit. The only thing was, most of the cars in this lot were pretty rough…
There was this slightly troubling cartoon made from the Honda logo found in the same lot. Among other cartoons drawn from inanimate objects was the obnoxious MS Office “Clippy” from about a decade ago. Creepy…
As I mentioned, once the VIP lot was full, the only parking available was on the dirt, which some of lower cars had difficulty with.
If you look out on the horizon, the line continues on well down the highway…
As roll-in began, we headed over to main lot and took advantage of the sunrise to capture the beauty of some of the cars…
This Phoenix Yellow ITR was one of my favorites from the entire event…more on it later…
Beautiful tire, wheel and brake combo on this ITR. I’ve seen this car running hard at the track several times…
There were several DC2 Integras in attendance. The Mugen kit on the first one is a bit out of the ordinary, but it adds an interesting look to the chassis.
More DCs…
The Fast Autoworks NSX…
Bulletproof S2000…
This little Insight is one of the fastest ever built. It’s run land speed trials at El Mirage and Bonneville Speed Week and is built to acheive speeds of 160+ MPH. It is powered by a naturally-aspirated K20 engine.
Nice and simple black on silver NA1 NSX.
Another beautiful Phoenix ITR at the AEM booth.
Factory B18C5…
Wonderfully done K-swap. Love the simplicity here.
Gil, the owner of Circuit Hero, brought out his iconic ITR. This car has always been an inspiration to me…
Beautiful pearl blue DC with JDM front end…
…had a very well kept B in the bay to match…
Nicely done K-swapped EG on SW-388s…
I think every threaded nut or bolt on this car was replaced with a Downstar spike…
…including the shift knob…
We’ve been seeing this pair of EG’s for years, and they haven’t really changed much. They are both very timeless builds…
Tim and I both enjoyed this [what appears to be] Formula Red EM1 on Desmonds.
Macks Xayavong’s RSX build…
Tim shooting cars on roll-in…
Big Mike cruising around…
Perhaps my two favorite cars at Eibach this year were these, from Circuit Monsters. The Prelude build is absolutely insane…
There is virtually nothing stock left on this car. This is definitely at the top of racing breed scale. In addition the the custom console, pedals and hydro reservoir relocation, it also features a full oil sump and remote shock reservoirs.
By mid-morning, the lot was beginning to fill up.
Tim rocking our new hoodie.
We’ll wrap up this portion of the coverage with Michael Mao’s iconic NSX build that has been winning awards on the show circuit for the past year or so…
Thanks for reading! Stay tuned for the remainder of our Eibach coverage!
– Matt
timscribbles.com 
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