GMG Open House 2015

Global Motorsports Group (GMG) hosted their annual Open House on February 28th, and after following their R8 LMS and Audi Customer Racing program over the years, I was super excited to attend and see their facilities and cars firsthand. It was a rainy day but that didn’t keep a lot of very, very impressive cars from showing up, and was well worth the 1.5 hour drive from San Diego to their shop in Northern Orange County.

One of the first cars I saw was actually a European B5 RS4 Avant that was legally imported to the US – talk about rare. As I continued to walk around, rare became a more and more of a relative term, seeing cars that most can only dream of – especially for the Audiphiles like myself, where a fully carbon bodied R8 LMS just seemed “average” compared to the pristine Audi Sport Quattro they had on hand…

GMG is a staple in the Southern California car scene, always generously sponsoring and attending local car shows like Big SoCal Euro and often bringing a semi-truck (or two) full of fully raced prep cars to show off, as well as some of their very rare personal cars such as an Audi Sport Quattro or their B5 RS4 nicknamed “Sophie.” This level of commitment to the car culture in Southern California appeared to be reciprocated, as typically a rainy day would mean a bust for a car show here in SoCal, but not while GMG was hosting.

GMG is across from the Porsche Motorsport North America and has a strong following in the Porsche scene as well, as was evident from many Porsches in attendance, including an amazing Carrera GT in their shop. While I struggled to get many “usable” photos in the indoor lighting, this was one car that luckily photographed well no matter how bad the photographer (myself) was.

Also on-hand was many local car clubs and vendors, such as the Audi Club of Los Angeles (ACLA), ABT Sportline, Race Technologies, Mothers, BBS USA, Pirelli, and many more. There were also multiple food trucks, free Monster energy drinks, a live DJ (whom you may know as @discocide on Instagram, and owns Q5 pictured below) as well as a ton of other perks outside of the cars themselves, making this event a day in paradise for gearheads such as myself.

Besides Porsches and Audis, the event attracted all sorts of cars (and owners) from BMW to Lamborghini, and even an R34 Skyline and a few Supras that were amazing to see – it’s always great to see a diverse group of cars and see that despite all that is different, a lot remains the same.

The hour drive home also provided for some great photo opportunities, so I captured one of my car while I was at it, and am pretty happy with how that came out.

Thanks again to GMG for hosting such an amazing event and always supporting the SoCal car scene, as well as your dominant role in the Audi Customer racing programs and showing the US what the Audi brand is really all about. Your racing program and your commitment to your customers is truly top notch, and events like these are just the cherry on top. Below are a few more pics that I thought came out well, then at the very bottom is a slideshow of all 80 pics I took from the event.

Check out the rest of my pics on Flickr by clicking the link or using the slideshow below: