The first show of the season - it’s a great feeling for participants when that time comes around each year! Although each person has their own show that is going to be their first, we all know that when that show comes, a new year has begun. For hundreds of custom compacts, the first show of 2005 was TunerWar, held on February 19th at the Farm Show Complex in Harrisburg PA.

Tuner War was first introduced as a two-day show last year as a part of Motorama. This year, the hardworking promoter revamped the show, made it better than ever, and brought back the first of the three-part show series.

Having a booth during the day-long event, we got a chance to witness all of the exciting activities - the riders of Bastard of Wheels BMX & skate team performing some sick tricks, the bands that played great tunes throughout the day, the break dance & swimsuit competitions, and of course, all of the great vehicles that came out.

The show opened its doors at noon and the public surged in to check out the new & improved event. Our staff was all over the place - shooting pics of the cars, chatting with friends we haven’t seen in the past few months, and seeing what had been changed up over the cars’ winter hibernation.

A few hours into the show, our models, Meghan & René, showed up to help do some promotion. All of the guys seemed to appreciate their attendance in bikini tops and short skirts!

During this time, the bands had started to play, and the sounds of PlaneSide , Negative Space, and Screamapillar led up to the headlining band at the end of the night, The Dead 50’s.

When it came time for awards, NCCA started with presenting the 2004 Champions - awarding individuals with the best vehicles in seventeen different classes, the top six regional vehicles, a few best of vehicles, and the best overall team a total of over $27,000! The rest of the awards presentation brought the expected winners, and with the amount of trucks that were at the show, gave the opportunity for a Hottest Truck category.

Throughout the day, we had a great time, due in part to the fact that we had drank since around 11:00. Pudge’s truck got a ton of attention at the booth, I was able to go up in a cherry-picker to get a birds-eye view of the show, and we had a bunch of unknown models approach us about being future Garage Girls!

The second wave of the TunerWar series hits Hershey on May 15th with ImportWar ‘05 and then finalizes in York PA with a grand prize giveaway of a revamped Scion at TunerWar on August 20th. Since all of the participants at the first TunerWar event took the extra energy to get their vehicles ready for the first event of the year, just imagine what will change by the end of the season! Check out all of the info at www.importwar.com.