Weekend Wrap-up…
For any of you who ever wondered what “NWP4LIFE” stood for, it started out as a small internet message board for a small group of Honda enthusiasts that hung out at a pizza place in Irvine, CA. That pizza spot was known as “Northwood Pizza”. When that group of individuals decided to come up with a name for their forum, they decided to name it after the spot that hung out at regularly, thus the name “NWP” aka NorthWood Pizza. It seemed like ages ago but now the forum is one of the most notable Honda enthusiasts forums in the entire world and has more than enough members to consider it the “small group” that it once was. Awhile back, I want to say maybe a two years ago or so, Northwood Pizza was bought out by the owners of the Yogurtland next door and while it remained a pizza place, numerous changes were made. The entire restaurant was re-modeled but what always stayed the same was the pizza…up until last year that is. For whatever reason, the new owners decided to shut down Northwood Pizza and turn it into a seafood/crawfish spot and NWP would be no more. The forum still stuck around of course, but the pizza was GONE. When we found out that it was closing down, we headed down there for one last slice before Northwood Pizza was no more. It was always an important spot to us because the food was great and the location was a landmark for a lot of great times that we had. We even took one last photo outside to commemorate the occasion…
This was back in May of 2011…
Everyone thought that Northwood was done for good until a couple months ago when we heard that the people that worked at Northwood so long would be bringing it back. They got the rights to re-use the name and would re-open Northwood Pizza in the same shopping center, just in another building. This location would be much smaller than in the past, but much easier to manage. It would serve more as a take-out pizza spot, but there was still enough room to accommodate a small gathering. What was best about bringing Northwood Pizza back was well, the great pizza…When we all caught wind that it was returning, we all decided to plan a get-together and have a small meet there like the old days…
Everyone seemed to have very different schedules, but it was finally decided that last weekend would be the weekend that we all went out there to eat Northwood Pizza. It was a bit of an impromptu gathering and wasn’t heavily advertised, so we expected it to be a small and poorly planned. It didn’t matter though and people didn’t even have to bring their cars. It was just more about getting together again and catching up with old friends…
The original sign and all, just in a different location…
Even though it was late notice, the turn-out was still pretty good…
One big difference since the original Northwood closed down is that we have a new addition to our stable of friends…Everybody seems to be getting a little older and progressing on in the journey through life…
Pie eating some yogurt from the Yogurtland next door…
Mike from PlanB Motorsports rolling through in his Evo X…
Larry Le’s pearl white Integra LS with ITR front conversion…
Andy Hope, who is an amazing driver and also previously the head editor of Sport Compact Car magazine, got a chance to enjoy some Northwood Pizza for the first time and brought out his clean EF Civic on Precedeo CST wheels…
Our old pal Jared from DPK, also enjoying some self-serve yogurt after devouring some pizza…
Many of us ordered a pile of meat with a side of pizza…
People made the trek out from all parts of Socal…
…including Bryant Nguyen from San Diego. His TSX on air was a little dirty but nobody cared…we were just happy to see him there…
Collin brought out his BB6 Prelude with a very rare Wisesports/Wisesquare front bumper…
Overall, it was just a nice chill day…no drama, no worries about people doing stupid ricer fly-bys and burn-outs. Just old friends, nice cars, and great food. A lot of guys also donned their NWP4LIFE gear to represent….
That pretty much summed up the weekend. On that Sunday, I woke up bright and early (actually it was still dark) to meet up with Mark Sutakajana and his 4-door DB Integra. As you know, he was the #5 spot on The Chronicles Top Ten Hondas of 2011 so it was just a matter of time until he got his chance to be featured in print on the pages of Honda Tuning magazine. We’ve had our eye on his Integra for quite some time now so it was good to finally be able to get the shoot done for HT. He injured his leg a couple weeks ago so he was unable to drive his car, but luckily for us, he’s got good friends and his buddy was willing to wake up early to drive his car out there with him…
I love being able to capture a moment when an owner stands by his creation, soaking in the moment and realizing that he’s built something great…Congrats to Mark and make sure to keep an eye out for his feature in an upcoming issue of Honda Tuning magazine….
I also had a chance to meet up with another favorite Honda of mine a couple days before that. Sam’s FA5 is coming along nicely and he wanted me to get some quick shots of it before he adds the final touches on his build. He’s got some big surprises in store so keep an eye out for his car. He is also Honda Tuning-bound as well but we all want Sam to be 100% content with his build before we put it in print…
That’s all for today, thanks for looking guys…
Just Because…
…You ain’t got shit to do on a Saturday anyhow, so why not just come out to Northwood Pizza and grab a slice with some of your fellow car enthusiasts. We’d be hanging out and eating regardless of whether or not you came, but it would be cool to chill with good people and great pizza…
BIRTHDAYxNWPxQ45…
Hontune coverage should be going up soon but I thought I’d take this time to throw up some pictures from the birthday celebration last week for Big Mike and I. We have birthdays that are a couple days apart and since everyone was busy catching up on things after coming back from Wekfest, we just decided to celebrate both birthdays all at once at Northwood Pizza (NWP). It wasn’t really like a huge planned thing and was pretty last minute but I was surprised by how many people came out and I was happy to see everyone that came out. It was pouring rain that night which made it even harder for some to make it, but we made a great night of it and just hung out to eat pizza and chill…
May went ahead and reserved the private room that they had at Northwood and it was a good idea because we were pretty loud and obnoxious…
The pizza is always really good there but I had eaten so much throughout the week that I just ended up ordering a sandwich and some wings…
A couple of the homies (ItsJDMYo Tony, Keychain, DPK David, and Ejay) checking out the latest issue of Honda Tuning that recently dropped….
May used her usual baking prowess to whip up a topless titty cake. The angle of the nipples made it kind of sketchy when we shoved the candle in one of the boobs and lit the candle…
About to blow out the candles…
Honestly, it was a little creepy when we removed the rice crispy treat-titties because it was a red velvet cake but the cake was delicous nonetheless. May actually went and did research to mix the proper ingredients to make the top layer like a flesh color. May is really into details so she went all out…
Titty-balls…
David and Tony sharing some boob…
Happy birthday to Big Mike…
May cutting up cake for everyone…
Overall, it was a great night. Thanks to everyone for coming out and celebrating and thanks to May for making a delicious headless, armless, torso red velvet cake with huge double D rice crispy treat titties…
On a side note, Ross from Midnight Garage recently finished painting and mounting my JDM Nissan Cima window visors so I decided to get some updated pictures of it. The car had just been washed a couple days before but I drove it to the M&M Donuts Sunday meets as well as to other random places so it got pretty dirty by the time I had a chance to take pics. It also rained like 5 minutes later so the shots aren’t the best. I’m usually all over the place covering Honda stuff so it was refreshing to finally get an opportunity to take pictures of my own car…
Thanks for looking…
California love…
Damn, decided to bring some of the PG+K guys out to the real NWP (Northwood Pizza) so that they can experience it for themselves and say that they really ate at NWP and it became a full on intercontinental summit. It was pretty crazy the amount of people that showed up. We ended up having dinner with guys from Chicago, Louisiana, Tennessee, Atlanta, Texas, and Norcal. Shit was crazy. A bunch of Socal heads came out too including DPK David, Big Mike, even Rodrez stopped by. I was busy having dinner so I didn’t want to take too many pics but thanks for everyone for coming out. Sometimes the best things are the ones that are never planned and this dinner tonight proved exactly that. Eibach 2010 is gonna be serious!…
Pizza heaven…
DPK in the house…
Great night, thanks again….
Super…uhh..Autotoyz/WiredonHonda.com Meet…
So I headed over to Super “AutoToyz” today for the Wiredonhonda.com meet and I must say, it was definitely a little weird rolling up to that place knowing that the original Autobacs is gone now and what sits in its place is Super Autotoyz. On top of that Red Robin is gone also which makes it even stranger to be there. I’m so used to eating there and then heading over to Autobacs and not buying anything. The last time I was there I was scrounging up cheap stuff when they had their going-out-of-business sale. And before that was the JTuned meet. The turn-out for yesterday’s event was actually pretty decent but I had a bit of a Twilight Zone moment when I saw the new sign….
I got there and didn’t even try to roll to the front to park my daily so I just shot to the back of the lot and found parking there. Don’t really have much interesting stuff to say. The turnout was good but the majority of the cars were so-so. Typical Auto-bacs/toyz type of turnout for their meets. I got pics of the cars that stood out to me but there were definitely some that I missed. If I did’t get a pic, sorry, it was a kinda hot and I got whatever I could….
First car I saw when I got there. You can see my 4Runner in the background. Always liked these wheels and they look good on this TSX…
Rare color combo on a 8th gen. Civic. I like it, definitely different from the white and black 8th gens. that are around…
Always enjoy this coupe whenever I see it and I always see it at this location. Wish I had one in this color, maybe someday if I ever decide to own a Honda again….
Ojay followed me to the meet and was looking for parking before he ended up with the Fast Autoworks guys…
Definitely one of my favorite EFs at the moment…
Sick Spoon tandem…
Arnel at the Fast Autoworks booth…
The rest of the guys…
More Element stuff…
Bisi…
Bisi discussing business with the Phaze2 homies…
We walked into Autotoyz to see what was different and it definitely is not the same store it was before. Some things were rearranged and the employees looked the same but alot of stuff they used to carry is no longer there and they seem to carry alot of Password: JDM stuff now. You’re not allowed to take pics in there or whatever but the camera was tripping and I “found” these on my memorycard…
Whoops.
Los’ Crx…
So after a couple hours, we were hungry and HBK Gabe (Google it.) mentioned that he wanted to hit up Northwood Pizza because he and alot of the other guys have never had it. Nothing else was really going on so we all decided to head down to Irvine for some Pizza. One of these days every Honda enthusiast has to hit up NWP…it makes bullshitting on the NWP4Life forums mean so much more…haha…
The infamous…
Waiting for the pizza…
Imaginary kissing of the pizza…
Sid and Arnel’s pizza with anchovies…
Gotta get that meat lovers…shit was derrrricious…
After the pizza was devoured, these fatties decided they wanted to coat the pizza with some yogurt from Yogurtland next door…
Cholos need yogurt too…
That’s a wrap….Cars, Autotoyz, pizza, yogurt, not a bad Sunday at all…Peace.
NWP4Life Meet and Greet 2008…
What can I say? I love these kind of meets. Nothing like sleeping in on a Sunday, waking up, getting in the car, and taking a nice cruise down to a laid-back spot. No worries about parking situations or anything of the sort. The meet was set-up specifically to give the new users over at NWP4LIFE.com a chance to meet some of the more seasoned members. With the recent growth of the forum and the fact that we hadn’t made the trek down to Northwood in awhile, it was the perfect time to get together. Being Turkey day weekend didn’t hurt either because it gave people a chance to come out who would have otherwise had to work normally…
…Got there around 11:30 or so and ran into the OG’s. It was a meet and greet for new and old members but only the oldies showed up. Of course Big Mike was there, here he is in mid-tickle fight with Jeremy…
…Some shots of NWP regulars as well as Honda Tuning Magazine feature cars. Big Mike’s Prelude and Ojay Bayang’s Honda Element…
…The pizza there is good. Really good. I’ve never had pizza with so much topping on it. We ordered a pepperoni/sausage/extra cheese pizza and that shit was so good that we totally forgot to even take a picture of it. I also saw nwp member EF9status eating a meatball sub too and that looked really good too. So good that I watched him eat it in a totally creepy way…yeah I said it, wanna fight about it?…
…By the time we finished eating people finally began to show up. Probably better off cuz we didn’t really have to wait for the food to come. The first guys we ran into were the homies Arnel and Sid from Phaze2…
I know I know…”What the fuck is up with the hood”, you ask. Rat rod style hoods are starting to make it’s way over to the Honda community and they are really hit and miss. Some people love them, some people absolutely hate them. Either way, to each their own and people do what they want to their own cars. My personal opinion? I really don’t mind it so much. Arnel is the nicest guy in the world and I’ve got his back no matter what he chooses to do. I honestly loved the car the way it was before because it was so clean all around….
Decided to go check out EF9status’s (status’?) EF. This thing is really underrated. It’s a very well put together build and everything flows. I loved it when it was on the Work RSZ-R’s. And of course Big Mitch has to be in the picture. The guy loves the camera, like a stalker. He’s like in every picture….seriously…keep track…
…Of course, greasy-ass (but delicious) pizza wasn’t enough so we all headed over to Yogurtland next door and got some soft serve. Socal Honda celebrities eating yogurt together…how precious…..This Yogurtland was huge by the way. I don’t really know why you need such a huge location for yogurt, but some people like their cucumbers pickled, wait what?
…It got pretty crowded by the time we were finished. There was a steady flow of people showing up by 1pm or so….
…Even this cool guy decided to show up. Big Mitch was so excited to see Mike G that he wanted to show us how he was gonna remove Mike’s wedding ring with his mouth. What a sick bastard.
Donut and Chase from Chasebays rolled up together. There’s a pic of Chase holding a pizza and an engine wiring harness below. Why? I have no idea.
…Caught a glimpse of Chad from Team Ziggy’s Mugen-equipped NSX. It’s an immaculate condition. How often do you get to see NSX-spec Mugen M7′s? Shit is badass….
David and his girl with his Accord and her EM1. Work Rozest’s wheels are nice. So nice in fact, that Ojay decided to take the most terribly angled picture ever. EVER.
…Quick snap of “dc5 jared’s” S2000. Looking real good with the Mugen hardtop and Amuse front bumper…
Insert “I don’t like ____ normall but I like your’s” comment here. Don’t you hate reading that shit? Oh I don’t like Accords normally but I like your’s….Hey, fuck you. I hate it when people always post that shit in forums. Anyways, I like this Accord. I really don’t like Accords but I like this one. Haha. I used to own an Accord and I liked it. I don’t like other Accords but I liked mine….Thumbs up for Cali Love.
Overall it was a good meet. Sorry if your car wasn’t pictured. We didn’t bring the SLR that we usually use and all we had was a handheld from Wal-Mart or something. Considering the fact, the pics came out pretty good. I was actually just gonna draw the cars that I saw from memory….
…If I didn’t even say anything, you probably wouldn’t have even noticed….
More pics over on NWP4LIFE…
