Nearly 2000 enthusiasts gathered amongst over 1000 Subarus at Wachusett Mountain Ski area for the 5th annual Wicked Big Meet, the largest gathering of Subarus in the make’s history on US soil. Subaru of New England presented the event and enthusiasts drove from as far as Oklahoma to view each other’s cars despite the fog and rain. Says Robert Champion, the director of Wicked Big Meet, “The day was so incredibly foggy that you truly couldn’t see more than a few rows of cars at a time. You could think that you’d reached the edge of the show over and over - with more cars to see each time.”

Champion took over the event last year and under his management, the event has grown over 25% in size - remaining the largest Subaru gathering in the country. “We wanted to keep the event true to it’s roots,” says Champion, “We focused largely on restructuring the WBM team to be more efficient and focused, allowing us to bring in twice as many vendors from previous years and pre-sell over 800 tickets.”

Photo: Kyle Burnell

Among enthusiast vehicles, vendors under tents sold parts and upgrades while providing thousands of dollars of giveaways and prizes to attendees. “We get a lot out of the meet - the turnout was impressive to say the least. It’s always good to touch base with the enthusiast community, and it’s a unique opportunity when you put a product in front of consumers and hear their opinions,” said Chris Candido of Turn 14 and Whiteline. The exposure from Wicked Big Meet impacts sales down the road said Rich of Daddy’s SCP, “It’s a great event to highlight new products, meet many of my old customers, and get some new ones. In the long term we’re making sales up to four months later from folks we met the day of the show.”

Subaru of New England displayed the 2010 Subaru product line and tuners pimped their own modified versions of the cars. One of the most popular was without a doubt rally driver and freestyle motocross star Travis Pastrana’s “Red Bull: New Year. No Limits.” Subaru jump car - the car in which Pastrana jumped 300 feet over water at the Port of Long Beach this past New Year’s Eve. Pastrana is one of the most decorated athletes in action sports, practically defining the genre as a perennial ESPN X Games competitor and medalist. Pastrana also stars in his own popular MTV show, Nitro Circus.

Photo: Kyle Burnell

Momentum generated from Wicked Big Meet didn’t stop Sunday afternoon as vendors packed up, but continues through social networking on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/wickedbigmeet) and MySubie.com (http://www.mysubie.com), a popular website that provides Subaru enthusiast-specific social networking, event invitations, and classifieds.

Wicked Big Meet has its stage set for 2011, and will continue to provide the best enthusiast experience possible to Subaru devotees and thanks the sponsors and vendors, as well as the enthusiasts for their passion and dedication to Subaru.

Photo: Andrew Pascarella

ABOUT WICKED BIG MEET

Wicked Big Meet (http://www.wickedbigmeet.com) is a Subaru enthusiast event in its 5th year of operation. The event’s continued growth due to Subaru’s commitment to its owners is paramount to its success. In the Fall of 2009, Wicked Big Meet gained Robert Champion as director ushering the event into a new decade - providing Subaru owners the best event to meet and engage other owners and vendors, and getting the most out of their Subarus.