Tomorrow morning—early, tomorrow morning, I might add—I'll be hopping on a plane and heading for the Bay Area for the first North American Hyundai Driving experience. The day of track activities at Sonoma Raceway will put new owners of Hyundai N cars through the paces with their cars to familiarize them with their capabilities. The experience all leads up to continuous laps in drivers' chosen N cars. I'm excited to be there to see so many people get their first taste of what the new toy they bought can really do.
If things go according to plan, there should only be two journos on site—myself and one other—and we blend fairly well. It should be a good opp for some honest conversations with owners as to why they're here and not driving a Honda or BMW or Toyota.
I'll start taking pictures as soon as I see people in Hyundai themed gear trying to hand out tote bags.
I don't think the reps at Hyundai will like the second verse about not being sure when you'll be back again.
Here's to not being a cheesy event like the Nissan Altima Commercial of a few years ago.
Was this written by Real JG or by AI JG?
Woody (Forum Supportum) said:
Was this written by Real JG or by AI JG?
Real JG, late at night, no editor. Fixed. Also, JG, if they have those tiny sunscreens, bring me one?
Marjorie Suddard said:
Woody (Forum Supportum) said:
Was this written by Real JG or by AI JG?
Real JG, late at night, no editor. Fixed.
Now I'm bummed that I didn't quote the original post in its entirety.
Lesson learned.
In reply to Woody (Forum Supportum) :
Early bird gets to see behind the curtain.
Edit: Also gets to see some weird canoe E36 M3.
Sorry I was writing this while I was on hold with the hotel company where we're staying while we're NOT under Hyundai's care and finding out that my account had been hacked and someone stole all my points and canceled my reservation. Luckily i was able to find an AirBnB in a lovely neighborhood called "Little Murderville." Sounds quaint.
Anyway, I had recently been wondering which of my passwords I needed to update and I guess I found out which one the hard way. But I'm super glad I thught to confirm my reservation the day before we left. If I had waited until we got to downtown San Fran to find out we had no place to stay that would have been awkward.
JG Pasterjak said:
If things go according to plan, there should only be two journos on site—myself and one other—and we blend fairly well. It should be a good opp for some honest conversations with owners as to why they're here and not driving a Honda or BMW or Toyota.
Ask them which was most grounded to the ground.
I keep waiting for my sponsorship from them after all these years of positive promotion. JG see what you can do about that will you?
In reply to JG Pasterjak :
Little Murderville is actually nice–or at least nicer than West Murderville.
Let us know if they have the revised '24 Elantra N on-hand at this event. And update us with pictures of it!
Powar
UltraDork
11/27/23 11:23 a.m.
How did a non-journalist secure entry to this event? I bought one of these cars new and didn't know this was a thing.
Back when Hyundai brought out the Genesis V6/Turbo 4 Coupe car I received an invitation to test drive one at Joliet's Autobahn racetrack on a Saturday morning.
Grabbed the son and we were pumped to arrive and then be directed to the go kart track.
They had both engines with both transmissions choices and you topped out at 35mph with an instructor in the passenger seat. I had fun but it was a lot of time spent to go slow.
fornetti14 said:
Let us know if they have the revised '24 Elantra N on-hand at this event. And update us with pictures of it!
I'm reasonably certain that's what I'll be driving for the "experience" portion of the event. I'm excited to see it as well. I could definitely see one of those things getting me to crack my wallet at some point.
Tom1200
PowerDork
11/27/23 12:21 p.m.
Reading JG's statement about staying in Murderville reaffirms my decision to write contracts for a living.
Datsun240ZGuy said:
Back when Hyundai brought out the Genesis V6/Turbo 4 Coupe car I received an invitation to test drive one at Joliet's Autobahn racetrack on a Saturday morning.
Grabbed the son and we were pumped to arrive and then be directed to the go kart track.
They had both engines with both transmissions choices and you topped out at 35mph with an instructor in the passenger seat. I had fun but it was a lot of time spent to go slow.
Yeah I'm curious what the scope of the event actually is. I think this is owners, not prospects, and the pre-event promo teases some sort of HPDE type situation.
At any rate, it'll be interesting to see how people actually had the event promoted to them and how they ended up here. I really don't know if this all started at a dealer level or corporate or what.
I do know this is the first event of its type in the US, and is serving as a bit of a pilot for a wider rollout. I know Toyota is still giving out NASA memberships and track days with 86s, so maybe this is Hyundai's way of doing something similar and cutting out the middleman.
And here's Andrew Kim from Wreck Racing (S-10 era). He bought a bunch of N merch on Hyundai's website, then later randomly got an email inviting him to this event.
In reply to JG Pasterjak :
That so rules on like every level.
Also, JG, how was breakfast?
In reply to JG Pasterjak :
Any word on Hyundai's sponsorship for me? I know they've heard my name before....
The new 24 looks perfect. Can you maybe convince them we need the i20N here?
JG is it truly an N event if they don't bring out this bad boy?
Also sounds like an interesting experience. Does Honda do stuff like this? I know I got invited to do the Raptor thing in Moab after buying mine but getting out there isn't exactly easy compared to Sonoma.
