Posted: 11/14/11
SEMA SHOW 2011 Las Vegas, Nevada
Words & Photos: Rodney "GCRad1" Wills
SEMA began in 1963 by a small group of manufacturers who made performance equipment for the early American hot rods. In those beginning days the SEMA stood for “Speed Equipment Manufacturers Association.”
Forty plus years later and the small group of speed enthusiast that began to manufacture their passion for speed were joined by thousands of companies, designers, producers and suppliers of specialty products. With growth and diversity, the show became known as the Specialty Equipment Market Association.
For me personally, I’ve always called it the worlds largest “toy” store for a week as I have been attending the show since the early '90s. With Axial’s recent partnerships with the likes of Hankook Tires, Griffin Radiators, TurnKey Engines, Wilwood Brakes and ICON Vehicle Dynamics and more; it was cache-cool to make the world debut of the Axial EXO Terra Buggy with these partners at the globally attended SEMA show. See all the display rigs in our Laser Beam Metal Machine thread.
While there were a few Axial members at SEMA, the photos below are just my shots as hopefully those guys will pop in and post a thread with some commentary on their photos as well. These photos are also pooled into a Flickr SEMA 2011 Collection for your viewing pleasure.
At the Wilwood booth:
SO CLEAN SO COOL!
At the RACELINE Wheels Booth:
Axial's 2.2 Raceline Renegade Wheels - 41mm Wide (Black) AX08135
Axial's 2.2 Raceline Renegade Wheels (Chrome/Black) AX08137
Dana Spicer Drivetain Components Booth:
A cool booth for parts that are usually overlooked by many, for for the off-road/rock-crawl communities, very sought after items!!!
Griffin Radiators Booth:
Check out the silver painted Griffin radiator in the Axial EXO Terra Buggy! Get your silver paint markers ready!
Walker Evans Racing Wheels Booth:
See the SCX10 down there? See the new Walker Evans Wheels on our new SCX10?
Axial SCX10™ Trail Honcho™ 4WD - RTR AX90022
Axial SCX10™ Dingo™ 4WD - KIT AX90021
TJM EQUIPPED!
TURN KEY POWETRAIN!!!
Get on the train! I was trying to stuff this into the EXO and all of a sudden I woke up on the floor! WOW - what a dream that was! TEKIN rhymes with Turn Key...
ICON Vehicle Dynamics booth:
Mike Brown and Russ Jackson of www.justacarguy.blogspot.com checking out the debut of the Axial EXO Terra Buggy at the ICON booth.
SCX10 sitting on the hood of the ICON Dodge, just in case you could not get your eyes past the ProAm wheel.
OK, here's eclectic collection of random images that happened in front of my lens:
Overland Journal in the trenches doing work!
Overland Journal is a great "coffee table" magazine to check out and work in conjunction with a great forum for the 1:1 Overland enthusiast at www.expeditionportal.com
There is a truck in there somewhere!
The olive-drab-green military-theme is still in play:
But black will never go out of fashion:
MOPAR POWER!
I have a passion for these old relics! Toyota Celica If ever you are in California around September there is the cool Japanese Classic Car Show to check out! www.japaneseclassiccarshow.com
Roll cages, proper ones.. are ALWAYS COOL!
Especially in rally cars!
Respectfully to the cages above:
The top cage/car is living the rally dream within the means and the bottom cage/car is full-tilt rally car.
Hand Painted:
This Starwars theme was actually hand painted onto the car!
The old school of numbering:
May as well let us know that it really does go fast in the dry lake beds! Even the dry lake beds can get a little wet sometimes...
This MONSTER:
Breathes through this little hole:
Little is an understatement.
Speaking of "monsters"
Does anyone know who this belongs to? Think Pikes Peak and think Suzuki... if you answer is Travis Pastrana - YOUR FIRED!!!
Jarod DeAnda "official voice" of Formula-D was on hand to announce for the live demo area.
check his blog: www.jaroddeanda.com/blog/
POWER
And more power:
Yes, all that power in this little sedate sedan... WOW!
OK, throw some flex at you:
Im sure it could flex if it had to. If not, no worries - roll cage all around for the roll-over assist...
Need a tow? There is only one with the "green pin" and we like the color GREEN!
The Van Beest Shackle from www.MasterPull.com has a Breaking Strength of 6,000lbs.
While this "tow-hook" shackle is so very pretty..
You never want to use it as it means that your day at the track is done.
Track car or street car?
We met Anthony Carvallo:
He built the "Blue Crush" Jeep Rig:
Sled:
Love the raw metal look!
Another in the raw:
And then..
All CARBON outer wheel - yes, the whole thing - not covered metal or sugar coated - real deal carbon wheel... with aluminum center.
I love stuff like this wide-body DTM style VOLVO!
To this chopped and channeled creepy crawler:
FATLACE SONIC:
Sonic: FF 1.4 cast iron block TURBO powered - from the boys at GM.
Wagon-Wip:
SCX10 chopped channeled - fried dyed and laid to the side...
What is really going on here sir!?
Did I already tell you that mud flaps are cool!? Also, it's the only way to make an ugly car cool! How do I know? Here is a Ford Escort ZX2 with mud flaps to show how a "chick car" can go to cool car by adding mud flaps and a few other items...
This guy forgot his mudflaps!
Must be a dry weather queen. YEP! California license plate!
50-points at the next Recon G6 if you know what this is and what it is for.
First person who puts it into scale use properly will get another cookie at the next Recon G6.
My Land Cruiser is so slow:
I'm dropping in this HKS powered Twins-Turbo™ prepped motor!
Hey look!
A giant parts tree!
Jeff is buying us new furniture!!!
With all the money he saves, he is buying us a company track car!
But all we came home with was this class 10 Buggy:
JK JK JK This is LaPaglia Motorsports Class-10 Buggy that we saw on the road as we where coming back from SEMA - Cajon Pass FWY15.
There is just SO MUCH DESERT between California and Nevada:
It's coming... subscribe please:
www.youtube.com/axialvideos
