Readers' Comments

Send all makeshift media to: Import Tuner 2400 East Katella Ave., 11th floor Anaheim, CA 92806 or drop an email to:postal@importtuner.com

Uhh...what's going on guys? We've received one piece of jail mail in the past, like, four months. Kelly is starting to feel a little left out, without her monthly love-letters. Send your regards to: 2NR, 2400 East Katella Ave., Anaheim, CA, 92806. Or if you just want to whine about Minis or Eric, hit-up postal@ImportTuner.com

Dear Import Tuner,
I am 100% impressed with your magazine. You feature fantastic cars that a new tuner shop [like mine] can not only afford, but can use as a platform for their own projects. You offer insightful technical help and product information, and your new "Fact or Fiction" section is a money-saver for the naive amongst us, who believe everything they read. But mainly, I like your magazine because you stress safety and the importance of "race on the track, not the street." I am a prime example of the dangers in street racing. I am doing forty-two months for killing a gentleman when I lost control, and hit his motorcycle head-on. One bad decision has changed my life. Thank you for reminding your readers to take it to your local track. Hopefully, my story will help.
I look forward to a continuous long relationship with import tuner, If I could, I'd subscribe to all your publications, but $5.00 a month as a tierman barely keeps this one active.

$5 a month?! Dayum holmes-we'd offer you a job, but that's better than anything we have at the moment; our latest trick is to farm out slave-labor to local university students under the guise of "internships"...unpaid, of course. But, in all seriousness, it's unfortunate how often we hear stories like yours. Feeling in control behind the wheel of a car comes so naturally that it's easy to take for granted the thousands of things that could go wrong at any given moment, but usually (thankfully) don't. We're all about our readers enjoying their rides at all times, but we agree; the streets are no place for carelessness. Anything can happen, and if you're caught actin' a fool when something does go wrong, you could end up facing life-altering consequences. Keep your head up and keep reading, Mark; we'll be around when your time is up.

Rally Kuwait
My name is Joel, and I'm currently living in Kuwait, and have a RHD '86 Corolla waiting for me back in the States. I also put up a site called ectoyotas.com (East Coast Toyota's) in hopes of bringing together more Toyota owners who reside outside the SoCal hub of automotive culture. Back home, I used to drive my car everyday and race whenever possible, but after living in Kuwait for a few months, I began to miss my Corolla and searched for a temporary fix for my racing addiction. There are no streets here, let alone drag strips, so building a typical car was out of the question. But, after I thought for a second, I remembered there is a killer racetrack surrounding my entire living quarters, for miles in all directions-the Kuwaiti desert! So, I purchased an '06 STI and am out in it constantly, trying to learn the tricks of rallying. I even ran over a huge lizard by accident. The Internet here is horribly slow, and most of the magazines talk about track cars and daily drivers, and so on, but I would love to see an article for the newbie rally enthusiast, such as myself: A run down on safety parts, basic upgrades, and suspension for off-road, maybe an interview with a rally driver, so on and so forth. Can you help?
--Joel Platek, Kuwait

Oh boo-hoo, Joel! Poor you with a JDM Hatchi and '06 STI... Woe is you for having to shell out the equivalent of $0.86-per-gallon for gas to fill your new rally car everyday... Sucks to be you, with the killer job overseas, making more in a month than we'll see in two years of Import Tuner salaries. Our collective heart goes out to you! To ease your pain, we're actually going to grant your request. Well, part of it anyway. Turn to page 42.