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VWMA - Portland Drags 19 - 21 Feb 2010
Presented by VolksWagen Magazine Australia and
Southcoast Raceway
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Portland Drag Meet
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19th to 21st February 2010
After some initial doubts about being able
to continue to hold drag racing at the track, the South Coast Raceway
came good with yet another stunning event - the 2010 VWMA Drag Meet.
Craig Hughes of VMWA has to be congratulated for once again pulling off
a terrific weekend. The programme kicked off with an open day in the
dunes hosted by the local buggy club. This was followed by an open
street event on Friday evening, a street parade and car display on the
foreshore, a Chicago Shootout on Sat (which included VW qualifying),
then a full day of racing on the Sunday.
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For the first time in the 3 year history
of the event, jackets and beanies were not needed. The wind, which has
consistently blown ice cold from the south west, had turned around into
a warm north westerly, bringing warm conditions to the track. It was
evident early in the piece that the crowd would be bigger again than
2009: support for this event just continues to grow and it needs to be
marked boldly on the calendar of all VW enthusiasts, whether or not
they fall in to the category of "petrol heads": its just a damn good
excuse to sit back, enjoy a chat and watch the VWs in action. Highly
recommended.
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For those who could head off on Thursday
or early Friday, the reward was high: a day of fun in the sand, hosted
by the Portland Dune Buggy Club. The origins of dune buggy racing with
stripped out VW's ensures there is still plenty of empathy between the
dune buggy crowd and VW owners. The club still runs quite a few VW
engined buggies. The success of Friday's event meant that the offer was
extended to the Saturday and many attendees took advantage of the
chance to get sand in their pants. Even long time VW owners were
astounded by just how fast a 25 year old 1600cc engined buggy could
move on the sand - let alone the new machine with modern 4 cyl water
cooled power plant! The biggest challenge for passengers after their
heads stopped spinning, was finding somewhere to have a good shower to
wash away all the sand.
Friday night's Street meet was well attended, however many of the VW
set chose to spend the evening in town rather than watching the
arguments over whether rice burners were superior to Fords or whether
Valiants were better than Holdens. This is not a question which
interests many VW owners - who take quiet comfort in knowing which make
is really the best.
The Saturday morning crowed grew quickly as participants readied
themselves for the street parade. Once again a convoy of VWs snaked its
way from the track, down to the main street, then back down the
foreshore road and down to the parking area alongside the maritime
centre. After plenty of time to walk around the cars, chat to new
friends and enjoy the ambiance, it was back to the track to get ready
for the day's qualifying session.
The Chicago shootout was pretty much dominated by the V8 crowd. With a
brilliant selection of cars - ranging from 30 year old Chevs to 5 year
old Commodores. There are only two approaches to take here: Approach 1
is to take the biggest car you can, fill it full of the biggest engine
you can build, add nitrous and a few other gadgets - lots of kilos and
masses of horsepower. Approach 2 is to take the smallest car you can
find - typically an old Gemini - and shoehorn in a moderately sized V8
- minimal kilos and cheap horsepower. The former certainly looks and
sound the gods, but it is the latter - the small rocket ship - that
really gets the blood pumping.
The same parallel can actually be seen in the VWs which raced. Racers
such as Rod Penrose & Mike Kersten go the whole hog, taking a full
sized VW, adding heaps of engine (and a big parachute). Getting these
cars to run fast is technically complex and expensive. On the other
hand you have the specials, such as the Gamma Gogomobile and the little
tube framed buggies. These make very respectable times, with small
(1600cc) motors. Not only are they relatively cheap, they are pretty
easy to keep mobile and look absolutely brilliant on the track. Neither
approach is right or wrong - just different. And I am heartened (and
delighted) that owners can choose the approach that fits their style of
racing - and budget.
Rod Penrose certainly found out how close to the edge he is running. On
a fast run on Sunday morning, his car skewed to the right and clipped
the guard rail. trying to pull it straight, it veered left and almost
nailed the left side wall. With consumnate skill, he managed to pull
the car to a halt and have it towed to the pits. The cause of the
problem - not a broken drive shaft or blow-out, just a 10 kPa
difference in tyre pressure between the right and left wheels. A few
minutes on the compressor, a very careful check with the tyre gage and
he was back on the track again. Certainly gets the courage under fire
award!
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2010 would have to go down as the year
the girls came out to race. This year there were more women driver out
in their cars than ever before - driving standard and highly modified
T1s as well as beautiful water cooled Golfs. With the low-pressure,
non-threatening way that the Portland event is run, I am sure that word
will continue to spread that this is really a female friendly event and
the number of female drivers joining the pack will continue to grow.
Each year we have also been gifted with a number of new drivers. In
2008 it was Andrew C in his street beetle, then in 2009, Leanne in
Herbie and Ian P in his Marlin. In 2010 it was Ian K in his buggy. Paul
is a regular competitor in off road racing and has been achieving some
great results against much newer and more powerful cars. He decided to
tow "Cactus", to the track and give it a go. The smile on Paul's face
each time he came back from a run told it all. He had the buggy singing
- just the right amount of wheel spin off the line and consistent,
clean runs. Then there was Phil, who towed his stock Superbug down on
Thursday, and enjoyed a huge amount of track time.
Saturday night's dinner is getting bigger each year. One contributor to
this is the tappet cover racing, which pits competitors young and old
in a heated battle to get their tappet covers safely from one end of
the track to another. The track stretches from one side of the
clubrooms to the other. Competition this year was fierce, with the VEC
contingent being ousted in the finals by the Mexicans. The technology
in these tappet cover racers has to be on par with the technology found
in their larger counterparts.
Thanks must go to the "regular" racers, who never seem to be short of a
kind word of advice to our novice drivers, giving them plenty of tips
on how to approach the start line, how to work with the Christmas Tree
lights and how to get a good time down the strip. The beauty of dial-in
racing is that a novice with steady nerves can find themselves in the
finals, pitched against an experienced driver in a full out race car.
And those afore-mentioned tips may just give the novice enough of a
start to win the competition!
A combination of better track conditions and an extra year to sort out
their cars, meant that th breakage rate was much lower than previous
years. Of the 40 starters, 38 survived day 1 - a much lower attrition
rate than in 2009 where almost half the field bowed out on day 1.
Sunday's racing was brilliant, with plenty of close duels being fought
by new and old rivals.
Once again special thanks must be passed to Craig Hughes and his team
at VWMA. The challenge for us spectators and competitors should be to
force Craig to set up a race sub-committee to help organise the 2011
event - and hence take some of the load away from his shoulders (oh yes
and to allow him to spend more time in the seat of the rat Racer).
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The above is
a sample of the videos taken on the day.
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