I have attended the annual Golden Gardens meet on and off for the last 5 years. In this time period, I’ve seen the meet get too large for Northwest Nissans to handle which forced them to create a replacement event (NissanFest) in 2012. After NWN stopped organizing the meet, nw-built and StanceWars decided to continue the tradition by holding their own version of the meet. This year was by far the largest Golden Gardens meet I have ever been to.
Text by Matt Haugness. Photos by Brad Guerrero, Nick Poirier/Wicked West, and Matt Haugness.
According to the official coverage on nw-built, an estimated 3,000 people attended the Golden Gardens meet throughout the day. The unusually nice weather helped make the meet even bigger than expected. Many convertible owners took advantage of the nice weather and arrived to the meet with lowered tops. I had a hard time counting how many Miatas and S2000s were present this year.
Things started to get out of hand around 1:00pm when people started parking in the turn lanes of the road leading to the park. It was also about this time when Parking Enforcement showed up and started ticketing cars parked in No Parking Zones. The Seattle PD closed the road leading down the hill to prevent people from coming to the meet. Everything started to break up at about 2:00pm.
I’m hoping that nw-built and StanceWars can find a bigger venue to hold a meet in March next year. I had a great time this year, but just like NWN, they have outgrown Golden Gardens. I look forward to seeing what they come up with next March.
