The Carlisle Elite is a new award from Carlisle Events and Performance & Style was the first show to offer this coveted award. The Carlisle Elite was 10 vehicles selected on Friday by a committee formed by the Event Manager of the show. The group included staff, special guests and car lovers who traversed the showfield to select their favorite vehicle. There was no formal judging; this was a subjective selection of the vehicles that the committee enjoys. The inaugural members into the ‘Elite club’ received a small custom decal for their car, a specially designed award, a T-shirt, a hat and Elite status pictures on our website in our photo gallery. We also put the winners and their rides center stage to give a short interview to talk about the work that has been performed and history of the car. That interview was recorded and is downloadable from our website. Next year make sure you get here early on Friday to have the opportunity to be selected into the 2009 Carlisle Elite Club.

• 2008 Performance & Style Elite Winner Photos

Special guests Jason Ellis and Neil Tjin were at the show throughout the weekend. Ellis, a professional skateboarder, Sirius Satellite Radio show host and now amateur drifter was on hand to show off his driving skills and meet his fans. Tjin, a legendary car builder and Editor of HCI Magazine, was here with the Tjin Edition Tour fleet of cars, girls, posters and other fun give-away goody’s. Tjin was inside ‘Club Carlisle’ all weekend long meeting fans and signing autographs. Look for his show coverage in an upcoming issue of HCI Magazine.

• RCI Racing - Jason Ellis
• RCI Carlisle P & S Press Release
• What is the Tjin Edition Tour?

P&S had three buildings full of amazing rides; the ever popular ICE House was back; VIP Lane was introduced and Club Carlisle was hoppin’ all weekend. The ICE House was once again filled with some of the most remarkable displays of In Car Entertainment. Vehicles with 100’s of TV’s, gaming systems, fog machines, lights and anything else you can imagine were all on display. And for the extra touch, the car shaped ice sculpture had people staring and touching it to see if it was real ice…it was! VIP Lane was a new addition to the 2008 show; we transformed our building into a ‘red carpet’ runway. We had VIP style cars ranging from H2’s to Infiniti’s; and the building was capped off with red velvet ropes to complete the VIP feel. Club Carlisle was a new twist to the NCCA Top Flight display. We installed track lighting to highlight the cars with just enough glow to make the vehicles shine, but just enough darkness to have a nightclub feel. We teamed up with Street Trenz Magazine to bring some excitement to the stage; we hosted a model search and hip-hop battle and a DJ was spinning all weekend long. If you missed the first year for Club Carlisle, make sure you check it out in 2009.

• StreetGlow

The NCCA (National Custom Car Association) Top Flight portion of the show was unreal. With the three above mentioned buildings screaming with beautiful vehicles I’m glad I wasn’t judging. This double point event drew in some of the east coasts heavy hitters with New Image Motorsports taking home awards for best results and most participation with 16 registered vehicles. To make sure you don’t miss the action and to guarantee an indoor spot for 2009 make sure you register early for the NCCA Top Flight.

• NCCA Website

The drift track at Carlisle is challenging to say the least. It’s really set up to be a short SCCA Autocross track and we brought in local legend Mike Swartz last year to see if drifting was possible and he was able to link turns and that lead us into the drifting era. In 2007 it was by invitation only and in 2008 we opened the track to anyone willing to sign their life away on our waiver. This proved to make for some interesting track time, some people were ok and some struggled, but nonetheless, everyone was having a good time either drifting or autocrossing. Jason Ellis was one of those rookie drivers that slid around everywhere, even a little on the track when he wasn’t hitting the fence! We also built a new observation deck at the top of the hill which proved to be the hot viewing spot because we didn’t get to cutting back the bushes in time for the track action (sorry, hopefully the already over-worked maintenance guys get them next year). If you want to get some track time in 2009, visit the NICOclub forum.

This was the first year that we tried a new format to the showfield judging process based on suggestions by some of the participants. We conducted the regular drive-thru judging on Saturday, and on Sunday we had a re-evaluation of the top five scores in each class. This worked well this year and with a few minor tweaks we’re confident this system will be flawless for 2009. After the top five was narrowed to first, second, third, we had an awards parade. The parade is a staple at all Carlisle shows and we think it was very well attended in its first year at P&S. Thanks for everyone who participated.

• 2008 Judging Process (PDF)

The group known as NICO (Nissan Infiniti Car Owners) was once again a huge part of Performance & Style hosting their Spring NICOfest. NICO manages the drift/autocross track in addition to bringing a nice range of vehicles to the showfield. If you have a Nissan, Infiniti or Datsun you will want to check this out next year.

• www.nicoclub.com

dB Drag Racing and Bass Race are two of the premier formats for SPL competitions and P&S had them booth thumping all weekend long. dB Drags pose two vehicles head-to-head to see who has the loudest stereo. Bass Race is a head-to-head stereo competition where competitors play commercially available music for 30 seconds and are given an average SPL score. This score places the competitor in 1 of 6 classes. The class is determined by score - classes are NOT determined by equipment, vehicle, competitor status, installation or manufacturer. Competitors compete against each other with similar scores. Bass Race is fun for first time competitors and street beaters because it doesn't matter if you have 1 or 100 speakers; you are classed by your score making it fun, entertaining, and most of all fair. Either audio option you select at P&S you are guaranteed fun!

• dB Drag Rules

The StarBoyz motorcycle stunt team returned to P&S for the second straight year. This year they had new bikes and even did some tandem stunts, yes- two people on one bike! The grandstand was packed all weekend when people heard those bikes fire up.

No Carlisle show would be complete without the burnout contest. We had 15 competitors trying to smoke’em till they popped to win the $500 cash prize from Mobile Spec Audio. We even had two golf carts throw down in a battle and we’re proud to say that Russ from the Carlisle maintenance staff showed off his motor skills and won the crowd over with his Honda CBR powered cart.

• Mobile Spec Audio

With P&S falling on Mother’s Day we decided to do something special; we gave any mother in attendance a carnation just before we started the awards ceremony. We know how much this day means to moms out there and for the ones who spent the day with us, thank you.

Activities corner was jumping, or I should say bucking and splashing with good times. Just around the corner from the stage you’ll find Guest Services and next to that we had a dunk tank and mechanical bull. With the chilly temperatures the dunk tank, a fundraiser for the Children’s Miracle Network, didn’t get a lot of action, but just down from there the bull was tossing people off left and right. It was great to see everyone get up and try, but their success was short lived. Going along with activities corner theme, we scheduled some club games: tug-o-war, dodge ball and volley ball. We had the courts set up on the showfield and we again think the weather played a big factor in the lack of participation, so we’ll try again next year. If you have a group of friends that is up for a challenge and good wholesome fun, bring it on!