EMMA At The Nationals
The Modified Nationals show has been going for years and years and for most of those I have been lucky enough to be the stage M/C presenter of the live arena and presenter of the Club Trophies on the main stage, too. I’ve been treated like family by the promoters and love ‘˜em to bits.
This year, the structure was a bit different and the main stage was not sponsored by Kiss FM and yet they still managed to get some cool acts to come and perform and entertain the massed hordes of car enthusiasts. Danielle Christie, who was the lass from The Garage about that nutter Scotsman and his garage in Spain and is an avowed true petrol head and a damn fine if slightly salacious stage presenter, was in charge of the main stage. Hell, they even shipped her all the way Down Under to work an Australian show as the local talent was not nearly as good as she!
But for me, I have been having a lovely season getting back to my roots as a compere at sound offs, just as I started out many years ago. Andrew Ackerley of EMMA has been having me pop along to his events and report afterwards, so this time instead of cars and girlsit’s Sounds and Girls!
For of course, every Modified Nationals show simply has to have hot and cold totty hanging off it at every point. Wannabe ‘˜moddles’, real models, glamour ones and even one or two who will get you sacked if you Google them at work on your company PCunless you work for my mates at Pumpkin films, of course
This was the third round of the EMMA sound off series in the UK (European Mobile Multimedia Association) and was as good a sound off as has happened in the UK in ruddy years, with real crowds of entrants, lots of passers-by showing interest and a good slew of new entrants. The new guys are your lifeblood and it’s really cool to see how the friendly EMMA format welcomes new people, with easy to understand rules and a Rookie class, as well as having some classes divided up by cost, so you don’t go up against a super pro who has spent limitless cash on their car.
There were three generations of Ackerleys in attendance and they all work! Three gazebos, two generators and a Battle Wagon with a huge Earthquake install in it made for a real Territory Of The EMMA-ness for us all. My little PA system was utterly slapped into submission by all the madly powerful car systems around but it was just enough to be able to hear who had won what when it came to prize giving time.
Vicky organised the trophies and my mate Sabrina Cole did the Grid Girl prize presentation pretty-lass bit (she’s a sweetie!) and I still managed to cock it up but we sorted it out and all the prize winners were chuffed rotten.
I even dragged Dom Colbeck who is ‘One Half Of Dodo Juice’ to come and explain why his prized prizes were so damn good. We had three sets of sixty-quid’s-worth of stuff to give to folks who were lucky in the competitors’-only draw and also a wicked bit of electronics to give away (that Andrew swagged himself in Germany at AMICOM) in the form of an Audio 2010 Bluetooth system by Funkwerk as imported and sold in the UK by Autosound.
One sad thing was for poor Matt ‘˜thejoose’ Sprigg. We all know I helped him swag the Ground Zero kit in his matt black Project Big Black Shogun and so when his name came out of the hat for some of the finest car polish and wax in existence, and he was not there having gone off to play with the dB Drag guys, I am afraid I did the Benign Despotic Git bit and discarded his entry slip to give it to someone who had a competing car with actual shiny paint. Thejoose does of course own a shiny company car to get about with and was quietly gutted not to win his just prize, (although he was really good about it) but I knew the assembled folks who hadn’t yet won, were in agreement with me.
There are three more sets for each of the three more rounds, so he could still get lucky and if his name does come out of the hat again, it is of course, his next time and just for the record only one of the Dodo prizes for each entrant as they are an easy year’s supply of each product!
A brilliant time was had by all, especially when the glamour babes were rubbing their bottoms on a vibrating car and a crowd gathered to take pictures of them! But the reality was a really brilliant day and even a visit from the boss of the new Rockford Fosgate UK distributors who are in fact the original Rockford-Fosgate distributors all set up anew. Joe Carri is a top bloke who has been involved in the car audio scene for ever and has even worked in the USA after going to work there for six years and what he doesn’t know about the business ain’t worth knowing. It’s clear that Rockford UK will be supporting EMMA in some way we’ll wait to see just how. The excellent thing is that he made the effort to come to the show to see how the scene is shaping up these days and that shows commitment.
As well as big old gallery of thirty-one photographs here:
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(Complete with rather a lot of shots the blokes will REALLY like)
I also hosed the place down with video. Here. we see a girl get persuaded to do a hair trick but she does NOT dig it.
It was because her booby implants were vibrating frighteningly upon her chest!
Next, I checked out the simply bloody fabulous sound of Mark Turner’s Euro-winning-class BMW.
All the speakers are in the front on that car, even the subwoofer, not that you can see them.
Below, from inside the hall, we see the Fusion stand and are they ever back in the game! Check this lot out!
And it wouldn’t be the Modified Nationals without me getting matey with some more girlshere’s Holly Dolly who you can also go find on ModifiedNationalsTV on YouTube
And while we are on a girly tipthese lasses, or at least one of them is also all over the MNTV channel. Here, she washes a car with a ‘Special Friend’
And here’s what they aughta have been using in that bucket
But even the lovely girls doing the Babewash thing couldn’t create a roadblock like Shadaey Caramella and Dolly Delight.
Even though the guys from Kream really, really tried to!
One other really cool thing was to see how seriously the big companies take the Modified Nationals show and even TomTom themselves were in attendance with a wicked offer see all about it below and forgive me for getting the concept skewed in the commentary, as the deal is about trade-in and I blither something quite else- but my excuse is that it was a noisy hall and I have to film AND make certain you can hear the guy speak, so there’s a lot going on in my tiny mind:
But for me, to see Rockford back and to get an interview with Joe Carri was the best ‘˜ICE Businessy’ part of the day. If you are here for the puddi, then this vid will bore you, so just go check out the galleryit’s cookin’!
All in all, it was an enormously successful event and here is the litany of glory of the winners of Round Three of the UK EMMA sound off season:
ROUND 3 MODIFIED NATIONALS 2011 RESULTS
SQ Entry-Level
1st James Elmore Team Bloomz; Sound 39 Install 39 Total 78
2nd Shafeek Team Bloomz; Sound 38 Install 40 Total 78
3rd Amrit Rahal Team Bloomz; Sound 31 Install 40 Total 71
Experienced 2000 Euro
1st Iain Taylor Team Turners; Sound 201 Install 80 Total 281
2nd Mick Thomas; Sound 178 Install 77 Total 255
3rd Christian Martin Team Bloomz; Sound 151 Install 76 Total 227
Experienced 5 Channel
1st David Higgins Team Turners; Sound 222 Install 80 Total 302
2nd Nick Bergeson; Sound 201 Install 80 Total 281
3rd Steven Taylor; Sound 192 Install 79 Total 271
4th Jon Clements Team Bloomz; Sound 160 Install 65 Total 225
Experienced Unlimited
1st Phil Drouet Sound; 193 Install 80 Total 273
2nd David Rodgers Team Source; Sound 181 Install 80 Total 261
3rd Stuart Walters Team Bloomz; Sound 185 Install 74 Total 259
Mark Fillingham Team Hybrid; N/A
Advanced 4000 Euro
1st James Jarrett Team Highdown; Sound 212 Install 134 Total 346
2nd Stuart Occleshaw Team Bloomz; Sound 187 Install 134 Total 321
3rd Paul Sleigh L&J/Vibe; Sound 175 Install 131 Total 306
Advanced Five Channel
1st Jeremy Owen Team Highdown; Sound 232 Install 133 Total 365
Paul Barrows Team Bloomz; N/A
Advanced Seven Channel
1st Mark Turner Team Turners; Sound 270 Install N/A Total 270
Elliot Whitby N/A
Advanced Unlimited
1st Ian Edgar Sound; 251 Install 134 Total 385
2nd Chris Wood; Sound 232 Install 134 Total 366
3rd James Patterson Team Bloomz; Sound 241 Install 105 Total 346
4th Dillip Hirani Team Hybrid; Sound 209 Install 125 Total 334
EMMA RACING
1st James Jarrett Team Highdown; SQ 38 SPL 33 Install 34 Design 33 Total 138
2nd Adam Skippins Team Highdown; SQ 29 SPL 31 Install 35 Design 31 Total 126
3rd Christian Martin Team Bloomz; SQ 31 SPL 22 Install 38 Design 27 Total 118
4th Iain Taylor Team Turners; SQ 35 SPL 0 Install 40 Design 37 Total 112
ESPL Experienced 4 Woofer
1st Ashley Booth; SPL closed 138.4dB SPL open 135.0 dB Install 65 Total 338.4
2nd Horst Starke Starke Industries; SPL closed 136.3 dB SPL open 132.0 dB Install 61 Total 329.3
3rd Nigel Hill Team Source; SPL closed 133.8 dB SPL open 130.7 dB Install 64 Total 328.5
4th Mick Thomas; SPL closed 132.5 dB SPL open 127.5 dB Install 54 Total 314.0
5th Paul Robertson; SPL closed 133.9 dB SPL open 130.7 dB Install 43 Total 301.6
ESPL Experienced Unlimited
1st Rachel Wagner; SPL closed 135.6 dB SPL open 133.1 dB Install 43 Total 311.7
ESPL Advanced Unlimited
1st James Renshaw; SPL closed 131.3 dB SPL open 127.1 dB Install 60 Total 318.4
2nd Matty Alexander Team Ice; SPL closed 134.0 dB SPL open 132.7 dB Install 48 Total 314,7
ESPL Master Unlimited
1st Matt Sprigg PBB; SPL closed 150.5 dB SPL open 148.1 dB Install 65 Total 363.6
2nd Liam Bradley; SPL closed 144.5 dB SPL open 140.6 dB Install 64 Total 349.1
3rd Edd Elson Team Ice; SPL closed 137.0 dB SPL open 135.2 dB Install 65 Total 337.2
4th Paul Whitlam; SPL closed 132.2 dB SPL open 137.0 dB Install 60 Total 329.2
5th Alrino Moses; SPL closed 143.2 dB SPL open 140.8 dB Install 38 Total 322.0
And here’s to Round Four at Brand’s Hatch. If you are keen to learn more or even to enter, then go check out the EMMA board on the forum… it has all the links you need.
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