Rookie of the Year
Bad news can’t get in the way of 573 hp
By Joey Lee, Photos by Chris Reno

There are two undeniable truths in life: failure and success. Unfortunately, everyone experiences failures before achieving any amount of success. Life is ultimately a giant trial and error test. It’s sort of like talking to that girl you like and then somehow getting stuck in the friend zone—you never really get what you want without putting up with the things that you don’t. The same holds true in our community. Familiarizing oneself with Hondas without first learning what not to do is a rarity. It’s a given that error-free builds are few and far between. Mistakes are often what make things great, or at least unique. Such are the things that make for great stories and give a car its voice. These stories are what drive Internet forums and keep the community alive. This is where Eric Dixon’s story begins.
The Houston native was formally introduced to his ’92 Integra as a graduation gift. “I never had any plans to modify the car,” Eric says, “but with the persistence of my friends, I couldn’t resist.” A virgin to the game, Eric decided to arouse himself with knowledge by doing research on his new partner. “I picked up a magazine at a bookstore and saw a few DAs in them and got hooked on wanting to mod mine. Tony Fuch’s DA was a huge inspiration, I fell in love and that pushed my need for speed,” he says. With zero races under his belt and barely any seat time, Eric deemed his car “Da Rooki3” and went off on a stoplight-to-stoplight barrage against every car in the Lone Star state. Nobody’s condoning such behavior, including Eric, but that might just be because he was typically on the losing end. The losses began to add up so Eric began to look into local speed shops for assistance. An intake and header were installed in hopes of adding some extra kick but it still wasn’t enough power to win. Disappointed, he finally decided to hook up with a local shop to do something major: the ever-popular LS-VTEC conversion… Pick up a copy of the September, 2008 issue of Honda Tuning for more.