HanFest! some of you might wonder what is HanFest? HanFest is a new car show exclusively to all Hyundai and Kia cars. We felt the KDM community has grown so big that now it is time to have its own car show.
I’m sure some of you still wondering but what does the word HanFest means? Well, This is a name my HanFest partner, Henry Lee from VlogmyRide, came up with. Han is an abbreviation from the word Hanguk (한국) which means Korea in Korean, and Fest is short from Festival in English. We thought this was the best appropriate name for this new all Hyundai and Kia car show.
[ads id=”3″ style=”float:left;padding:9px;”]This year we had the opportunity to partner up with Hyundai America Testing Center, Inc (HATCI) in their open house event, held every year in California city, CA. HATCI is a 4,300-acre facility constructed to recreate the roads and highways across North America. At this location they have various testing tracks for all Hyundai and Kia models that are sold in the USA but also cars sold in other markets. One of the biggest track has to be the 6.4 miles oval track with 3 highspeed lanes that allows speeds up to 155mph. The facility also includes a 2 million square foot Vehicle Dynamics Area (VDA); 2.75-mile winding track; 3.3-mile hill road; and various special surface roads.
For 2014 HanFest – California car show we were very modest and aimed for 40 to 50 cars for attendance, we understood this was a new car show plus the month in advanced notice could be too short for some people but California proved us wrong, our entries increased up to 80+ way more than we expected and we were very pleased with everyone support.
Thanks to guys at HATCI everyone enjoyed some delicious BBQ brisket, had their kids jumping at the bouncy house and win some prizes. Also attendees had the opportunity to look and take pictures with many of the SEMA cars shown at Las Vegas. Some of these cars were the Bisimoto Genesis Coupe and the Elantra GT, plus the Hyundai Velocity made by Hyundai’s America Technical Center. We also had Kias, like the Youtube Soul made by Lux Motorwerks and the apparence of the Kia Ray ( Car sold overseas only).
Also another main attraction for the attendees was driving at all Hyundai’s testing tracks but what made it even more exclusive was been able to drive your own car! That is correct, attendees did an small tour to all the tracks but I’m sure the majority of you guys will agree the oval track had to be one of the most exciting tracks of all. Thanks to Mario Perez we capture this video of his Genesis coupe openning up at the oval track.
https://youtu.be/qBXJlZzr3G8
We also did some great contest with social media, we asked all the attendes to post up some creative pictures with different hashtags to win prizes like Visa Gift cards and Gift Certificate from our sponsors. Here is one of my favorite ones.
We also had our loud exhaust contest…this video kinda summarize it lol
https://instagram.com/p/umTY9_BAmM/?tagged=hanfest
And of course people winning their trophies for all the different categories.
Photo courtesy: Ziad Aunallah
Photo courtesy: Ziad Aunallah
Congratulations to all winners, you guys did great job with all your moddifications to your cars making them an unique ride. i would like to mention, the piston trophies were made from Hyundai and Kia cars. Best Kia piston came from the Theta turbo and best Hyundai came from the 5.0L Tau Engine.
Now I would like to name and give a big thank you to all our sponsors and vendors for their support.
And of course to everyone that made it to 2014 HanFest – California Car Show, I hope everyone had fun at the event meeting new people, putting faces to those cars you usually see them online and driving your own cars at the track. We are looking forward for next year event.
For next year we are planning to expand HanFest to strategic cities to bring all Hyundai and Kia enthusiast together at one place. Keep an eye at HanFest facebook page for more details.
