Hot’N Sticky In Rotterdam

The ultimate highlight of the season, the 9th edition of the EMMA Eurofinals, the European Carmedia Championships 2009, took place at the Ahoy Centre in Rotterdam. The frame for the competition was the 100% tuning show, Holland’s biggest exhibition around modified cars with more then 60 000 Visitors during the weekend. The six Halls were filled with the hottest vehicles and 242 EMMA competitors from 25 Nations. In cooperation with EMMA Netherlands a spectacular show was organised in the two halls for competition and teams. The EMMA Halls also hosted the so called “Audio Village”, where the Dutch car media distributors had prepared an area where all aspects of mobile entertainment had been presented ready to get a glimpse of what’s possible. Here was the place where the marriage of Sound and Tuning had a perfect landscape.
 

The competition itself started on Thursday after all the judging teams had been briefed and checked by the Head Judges for Sound; Henrik Johannson from Sweden and Mika Taipalus from Finland. The judges had been nominated by the national affiliates of EMMA and came from 17 different nations. Event Director Roger Edvinsson, also from Sweden, had a big job to do to manage the huge amount of cars during the days of competition. Four categories had more than 15 participants so there was a pre-round necessary to find out the best six; in Advanced 5ch even the best 9 because of being so close in the SQ. These categories were judged on Thursday and Friday by one team each and the final was rejudged by a second team on Saturday. Saturday had to be the day of reckoning because ESPL was also judged and measured to find out the best two finalists for the showdown on Sunday. All that happened in front of Pioneer’s Show truck which was surrounded by the Team Pioneer cars. Furthermore the event was sponsored by Clarion, Ground Zero, Hifonics, Rockford Fosgate, Bewith and DLS.
But going back to Friday and especially to the EMMA Party which was arranged to be on the second floor in a Gala Room of the Expo centre. Almost 500 guests came to have typical Dutch food like French fries and hot dogs. The Party started at nine but it became hot when DJ Panch was spinning the turntables to move the people to the dance floor with 80´s and 90´hits. At one o’clock the party ended but not for everybody because some of the guests discovered Rotterdam’s legendary nightlife!
The weekend in Rotterdam’s 100% tuning show is traditionally crowded with visitors so a moderator was needed for the ESPL measurements and the EMMA Racing Slalom. Fabian from EMMA Holland explained the different formats and introduced the competitors. This went on until Sunday when the awards ceremony started. Emotional as always, the participants were asked to come on stage to see their results and this time there were some surprises. A couple of last year’s heroes were not able to uphold their mastery and new competitors took their places. Most remarkable of all was that for the first time after five years, the Russian team was the winner of the National Ranking, congratulations.
A fantastic event and a great time at Europe’s biggest harbour city will stay in the minds of all those who attended the EMMA Finals 2009.