My formal introduction

I’m post this here for those who I haven’t had the chance to meet yet and to shed a little more light on the club’s early history. This was written for IWSTi, but I thought it would be interesting to post it over here as well simply for giggles.





Greetings…This has been quite over do I suppose. Hmm, where to start?

My name is Alex; I've been involved with the Subaru community since late 01, earlier 02. It began first by just browsing NASIOC way back when, reading information, and awaiting the arrival of the 02's to the country. I was tempted to buy a 02 but by that time, the STis were rumored to come. I was not entirely sure if it would ever become a reality or not but I thought I would wait it out and see. Eventually, Subaru broke down and sent them over I had been reading on and off the original IWSTi boards in early 03 and finally ended up getting mine when they finally hit dealerships (officially signed up on ITSTi then). In May of ’04 my car was backed into by a suburban, did some serious front end damage unfortunately. In my search for parts to replace the OEM ones, I had my first encounter with King of Imports. He helped me sift through a lot of the JDM parts that were hard to come by and figure out what we could work with based on the damages to the car. From then on, Kevin and I became acquaintances, constantly talking Subaru and working on the future of KOI, from new designs to new inventory. I was pleased when he told me about the idea of purchasing IWSTi. I had no idea how serious he was about it. I was glad to see such a great wealth of knowledge go into his and Ben’s hands. I will be the first to admit that I usually do not post. The other week I made it a point to change this, and now, that is why I am writing this finally…long overdue eh?

So what is this WRXatlanta? I realized that there was a growing community for Subaru owners here in my very city, Atlanta, and that the south east representation on the big name forums was, well...just lacking. I do not really remember what truly made me put things into motion, but at some point in 03 I decided I wanted to change the SE situation. I thought I'd try this out and see how it went, to get the Georgia guys together on a single board that allowed all of us to more effectively organize ourselves, arrange events, talk shop and just have fun. I wanted to bring all the knowledge, all the help and all the talk from the bigger forums without all the negative aspects that tend to develop in online communities. Now, many people do not know Fez nor even his contributions to the club. None of this would be possible without him. I felt it important that this be known. He’s one hell of a guy, but a few months after we established everything in 03, life unfortunately took all his time and he had no choice but to drop out of the spotlight. This left me to build the dream I had seen so many months before.

To my surprise, after a year of non-stop PM's, IM's, posts, and talking with owners on the street, the site finally picked up. Around this time, I ran into Milo and Jason (Genya) and we began to use the site as our personal messaging service (because of its inactivity). The three of us worked diligently to get the ball rolling. We finally had the pleasure of meeting each other at the very first WRXatlanta get-to-gether (that anyone showed up at) at Houlihan’s in Dunwoody. It was like a triple blind date! :rofl: I pulled up into the parking lot and sat waiting, not sure who to expect. A black WRX with black wheels and tint rolled up beside me and rolled down the window. Who would it be other than our lovable Milo We waited around for anyone else to show and finally decided to head inside for lunch. About 20 minutes after we sat down, a man walks over to our table and asks, “Excuse me, is one of you Alex?” Soon enough, Jason was sitting down making us all laugh to no end. Anyways, I cannot thank Milo enough for all the help he's giving me. Its been a pleasure to have him as a friend, and even more so to have him as a part of this community. I owe so much of the success of WRXatlanta to him. There’s so much more to the story of our wonderful community, but I feel like this thread is already growing too long.

Fast-forward again about one and a half years later, and the site is running strong with almost 400 members, most of which came from the larger sites. It is one of the friendliest environments I've involved myself in. Not to mention, one of the most active as well--monthly install days & dyno days, weekly dinner and or trivia and or drinkin', and so much more.

I want to thank everyone here for always being friendly, enjoyable, talkative, informative, helpful, and respectful. It has been my pleasure for to be able to call this a hobby, a second home and all of you family. I would like to thank those that have made this community all that it has been and all that it will be in the future. Here’s to the 400 member party (when it comes :hs: ), and to another 600.

Cheers,

 

There are none. I never had the slightest idea the club would grow to be this large