Hot Import Nights (HIN) is an auto show mainly of tuner import cars. The show originated in California, but now tours various cities in the United States. Sponsors include Boost Mobile, The Army National Guard, Bridgestone Tires, and NOS Energy Drinks.
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The Company
In the early 90′s an underground automotive movement was developing in Southern California. It was brought to life by the urban youth culture that were customizing and tuning used import cars. This style of customizing and tuning was following in the footsteps of the youth automotive culture in Japan and it was spreading at a very rapid pace in America. These new breed of car customizers became known as tuners and on the streets of Southern California these tuners would gather at makeshift locations to show off their car or participate in illegal street racing.
In the mid 90′s events geared toward this movement were developed such as Battle of the Imports and Goodtimes Motorsports to satisfy the demand for legal import racing events. Car shows such as Import Showoff were also developed to satisfy the car customizer. These events drew significant crowds and are known to be the first events of their kind.
It was at this time that Richard Goodwin noticed the trend in these events. Goodwin was a custom Mini Truck and Volkswagen builder / enthusiast in Southern California. He worked however as the Director of Operations for Southern California’s largest music event, Beach-Fest (Long Beach California) at the time. Goodwin was urged by his brother (Eric Goodwin owner of Garage Graphics & founder of the Mini Truck and Import car club, No Sympathy) to attend an Import Showoff event to see this new emerging trend. Goodwin agreed and attended an Import Showoff in Pomona California. What he saw was dancing in the aisles, DJ’s, Models and within 5 minutes of walking the show he turned to his brother and friends and said, “This would be cool if it were held at night”.
Now sold on the concept of a nighttime import show the question for Goodwin was how he would organize the event. It would require money and it would require a team of people so he turned to industry colleagues Todd Wallin and Peter Melton who owned a small series of snowboarding events called the Fresh Tracks Snow & Skate Expo’s to help out. They partnered and formed Vision Entertainment and they were based out of a 650 sq. ft. office above a taco stand in Laguna Beach California.
Goodwin then utilized his contacts within the City of Long Beach to secure the Downtown Long Beach Promenade. His track record for successful events and his connections in the City promoted the City to provide the location free of charge promote the event and provide the upstart company with $10,000 to produce the event. The group then used their contacts to secure Toyo Tires as the Title Sponsor and Super Street Magazine as the events promotional partner. The name Saturday Night Import Fever was given as the working title for the event which was later changed at the request of Toyo Tires. Goodwin named the event Hot Import Nights after the long running hot rod car show held in Reno Nevada annually, Hot August Nights.
The stage was set. Hot Import Nights was to be produced on the Long Beach Promenade in Downtown Long Beach on July 11, 1998, but there was still a lot of work to be done in order for this event to become a reality. It would require selling the industry on an event that nobody had ever really done before (nighttime car show), convince a predominantly “hot rod” industry that this new emerging scene was for real and it would take a lot of effort in promoting and producing a show of this magnitude.
John Russell a former employee of Wallin and Melton’s was brought in to handle sales and Michael Munar of Center Stage (an industry promotional company) was brought in by the owners to work on the event. The show expected a turnout of 5,000 but a crowd of more than 13,000 showed up. The fire marshal declared the event sold out 2 hours into the event having only got 4,000 of the 13,000 person crowd in the gate. The crowd was so electrified by what was taking place they ripped down the fences to get into the event prompting the Long Beach Police Department to go on tactical alert and to shut down all entrance points to downtown Long Beach as thousands more people were trying to get to the event. The crowd was peaceful and the show went on without interruption. This was the night the entire world learned what Hot Import Nights was and the night when the automotive industry figured out that the tuning culture was for real.
Immediately following the event the company planned an encore presentation in Irvine California and that event had similar success. After the event Co-Founder Peter Melton sold his interest in the company to Goodwin and Wallin and left to pursue other interests. John Russell bought those shares and became a partner at this time.
The company then took on more employees and in 1999 they produced 4 events throughout the State of California. In 1999, Goodwin was named 1 of the 9 Most Important People of 1999 by Super Street Magazine. In 2000 the event still had its 4 California events but was also taken to New Jersey and Chicago with staggering results. In 2001 Hot Import Nights was in every major City in America and grew year after year in all categories including attendance, exhibit space, car show competitors, sponsors and production. Simultaneously Vision produced the Snow & Skate Expo Series, Beach-Fest and other event properties making it one of the largest event companies in the nation.
Over the next few years the team developed other event properties such as NightShift, VIP Auto Fashion, Import Revolution and other non endemic events. Employee’s Ryan Sage and Jim Liaw eventually developed Formula D which was briefly owned by Vision and Ryan and Jim’s company Slipstream Global.
In 2003, Goodwin was named the SEMA SCC Person of the Year for his efforts in developing high level events in the tuning scene that directly led to the multibillion dollar tuning aftermarket. In 2004 Michael Munar and Paul Wallin (brother of Todd Wallin) were such integral parts of the organization that they were made partners. The company was sold to venture capital group, Great Hill partners out of Boston in August of that year. Goodwin immediately left the company resigning his post as Director of Motorsports later citing he left due to creative differences and difference in direction of the company. The company was now known as Action Media Operating, LLC.
In 2005, the company was re-sold to Action Pursuit Group for a whopping 17.5 million dollars. Wallin almost immediately left the company shortly thereafter, Munar left in 2007 as well as Russell. Munar and Russell were jointly named by Super Street Magazine as One of the Top 10 Industry Icons of all time that year. The company has now been sold several times over and after the original team started to separate in 2004 the shows have dwindled in popularity having recently cancelled a number of events. The company is owned by Digital Age Motorsports currently (as of Dec. 25th 2010).
Goodwin has since moved on to form RPM www.rpmeventseries.com & the Volkswagen Jamboree www.vwjamboree.com while Munar has gone on to develop Xtreme Drift Circuit, World of Dance, Club District and LUX5. Wallin has gone on to become a successful entrepreneur with several projects and Russell has gone on to form WebConnex (ticketing agency).
