The weekend of April 16th & 17th saw Santa Pod hosting this years Drag Day, and from start to finish the Rennwagens were hard at work, either in the pits working on the cars, on the track looking for the pb, or in the evening enjoying some beers and excellent company.
Representing the Rennwagens at the event was John Parton in his 54 Bug, Richie Moss in his 65, Jamie Palmer in his first outing with his new 1960 Bug, Steve Milward in his Pampus Green 61, and finally Mark Palmer in his recently completed 1960 turbocharged ragtop. By recently completed, we mean that everyone was still spannering on his car in the pits to get it ready to race!
Race it did though! This was Mark's first ever outing to the strip and he settled right into it, running the car successively quicker, culminating in a best et of the weekend for him of 13.0 @ 102mph. Unfortunately it seemed there were still some issues to iron out as Mark wasn't building a great deal of boost - but the times achieved on these shakedown runs would indicate that there is a beast lurking within! We'd all like to congratulate Mark, and welcome him into the club now he has completed his qualifying time. It is also worth mentioning the near superhuman effort Mark has put into getting this car track worthy for this event, aided and abetted in no small part by a number of fellow members of the club - notably Richie Moss, Steve Milward, Chris Lovatt, 'Peach' Cornes, and brothers Jamie and Lee Palmer. WELL DONE MARK.
John Parton ('JP') had experienced some last minute problems with his car in the run up to Drag Day, but Lee and Eddie at Kraftwerk VW pulled out all the stops to help him out, tracing the problem to an errant fulcrum plate in the gearbox. This fixed, JP gave his bug the driving of its life, culminating in a fantastic new pb for him, knocking three tenths off his previous time with a 14.1 @ 98 ET. All this and JP also drove the car the 240 mile round trip to Santa Pod and back from his home in Staffordshire!
Jamie Palmer was out trying to get to grips with his recently completed 1960 Bug, bought as a roller and fitted up with his 2276 turbo powerplant retained following the sale of his 54 racer. A rash of small but time consuming and irritating problems prevents the car from getting a clean pass in, with a constant lean condition spoiling the fun. He managed a 13.6 @ 102 mph and also managed to scare off most wildlife in the area with his car performing a surprisingly accurate impression of an AK47 machine gun, popping and banging its way along the quarter mile.
Richie Moss was out again with his 'ol faithful 65 Bug and ran hard all weekend. Unfortunately for Richie, on this occasion pb's were not the order of the day,but he still managed to run a 12.8 on street tyres in his naturally aspirated street warrior.
One of the real surprises of the weekend was Steve Milward who has been working hard in the off season developing his car in his efforts to get down from his previous pb of 14.2 into the 13's - there have been no substantial changes, but plenty of detail work on the car. The motor has been fully apart and rebuilt by John Walklett, who also ported his cylinder heads and match ported the manifolds to suit, along with going through all components and the typically meticulous John Walklett assembly process. Work has also been done to the trans and suspension of the car, with a set of race axles installed, AVO coil overs to the rear end and the tying in of the rear frame horns to the newly installed Safety Devices rollcage. The result of all this hard work? A FULL SECOND SHAVED FROM HIS PB. Congratulations on the 13.2 Steve, its been a while coming. This was run on street radial tyres, so Steve will surely be looking to get his car closer and closer to 12's, and with the addition of some slicks that is surely a reality.
Also of special note was the number of club members and prospects who attended the event to show their support and help out in the pits. Chris Lovatt was on hand to work the BBQ, in addition to being our very own version of Dyno Don! Peach was around all weekend and was as always a source of endless amusement, Gaz Priest was behind a video camera, and Steve Plant and Poe Beardmore helping out - in particular Poe's help on Jamies car was invaluable with his experience of his own turbocharged drag bug put to good use.
It was great to see so many cars out from other hardcore VW clubs, with significant attendance from the DKR, Outlaw Flat Four and JG54 Greenhearts all adding to an excellent weekend. there were some amazing cars there - a true display of real VW horsepwoer. The most amazing sight of the weekend had to be seeing Matt Keene running his Oval 'All Torque' to a new personal best of 9.45 seconds - absolutely incredible!
THANKS TO EVERYONE WHO TOOK PART IN THE WEEKEND, IT WAS A BLAST!
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