ST MEET 2017 – Ford Performance & Hoonigan

For many of us, notice was short, but once we got the notification on our social media accounts that Ken Block and Vaughn Gittin Jr. were going to be there, I’m sure many of us rearranged our schedules, called out sick, or just canceled our original plans to make it out to this. From as far as the Northern Bay area, ST owners descended on downtown Los Angeles via congested freeways. The entire trip down, I would see a Focus or Fiesta ST heading in the same direction, but for the most part, I went unnoticed in my Transit Connect ST. A few recognized me and waved hi and boosted away.

Once getting through the gridlock and closed street after closed street, we all arrived in the ghetto-ass town of San Pedro, the perfect setting for this type of event. The general admission parking was at first filled with all types of Focus’ and Fiesta’s, but as the morning went on, the only  vehicles left were a couple Focus RS, a mustang or two, a 1,0L Fiesta, and my #unminivan.

It had been such a long time since I had attended a Ford Sport Compact specific event like this that I didn’t recognize the majority of the faces, but like many, I recognized the cars. A few took the opportunity to take a few pictures of their cars in a partially demolished building in the parking lot before heading inside where all of the fun was happening. For the lucky few, this rundown building was the perfect setting for the ever popular urban-dest, type photos.

After the parking lot emptied out, the few remaining holdouts made our way inside. It was almost sensory overload. Ken Block signing autographs and playing ping pong with fifteen52 staff, Vaughn Gitten Jr. Playing Forza, corn hole bags flying through the air, the TrackSTer was in front of two of my favorite food trucks, and a mini-track for HPI Racing drift fiesta hooning. At one point, Vaughn Gitten took one of the cars off the track and proceeded to ram the mini-fiesta into unsuspecting people’s feet. The line for the freshly pressed tee-shirts wrapped half way around the warehouse at one point, and the line of cars going into the photo studio was constantly moving all day.

The weather was SoCal perfect, the staff was friendly, the event was interesting and fun, the cars were outstanding, and the special guests were more than approachable and humble. I still can’t believe that Ford Corporate put something like this together, and at no cost to the attendees (other than the $23K+ that they spent on an ST). Hopefully, this isn’t a one-time deal. Hopefully there’s something for the RS owners, and then for ALL Focus Owners.  Until then, we have many friends that we can share our stories with of that day, and how freaking awesome it was!