to all that did not attend,you missed out.and to all that attended i hope you all got home safely.
it was a very long and slow drive for us,about 17 hrs.
we had only had about 3 hrs sleep from wed to friday night,we had some mayjor problems with the tow vehicle.
so saturday was all about making sure the car was ok.
the first few runs were all pretty average 2.1 to 2.6 60ft's
buzzing tyres bad.8.6 to 8.7 et's at around 77 to 79 mph.we also had some shifter issues.
the car was pinging after about 5 runs so we brought her back to the pits for a once over.
the manifold had a pretty bad air leak fixed it and last run off the day was looking good,
60ft 2.074 (still rubbish ) but what do you expect for shitty nangkang's.but she got up for 8.3 at 84mph.
we were pretty happy considering.
sunday however not so good,i thought if i fried the tyres alittle more to get some temp into them we might get a better 60ft.the gearbox didn't agree.
box full of neutrals.
all in all great fun ,i can't wait for warwick.
i should have some vid's and pic's for uploading tommorrow
.
I'm logging under Rod's name, as I am staying overnight at Rod's place before heading back to Brissie land tomorrow (Tuesday).
The weekend was sensational, and the weather a minor irritation, which did not stop the racing and only gave competitors a mild case of windburn. In fact, the icy winds gave all an excuse to stay closer to the bar in the nice warm clubrooms.
Thank you to all who travelled to compete, crew or spectate. The facilities are excellent, and Tony Thornton, from ANDRA, supports this by also being there to witness an excellent VW event.
Portland is definitely on again in 2009, and a date will be announced once I have spoken to the SouthCoast Raceway. These weekends are more than just about the racing - it's getting together with people who share a common love of VWs, and VW Portland provides an excellent opportunity to do both. Many of those who broke cars on Saturday stayed on to support the event to the end, and the Sunday competition was very entertaining under clear skies.
I'll post pics, results, etc when I get back, and of course there will be a full report in the next issue of VWMA.
Cheers
Craig
More boost + More fuel = More power
1968 Beetle fastest run 8.96 sec @ 161 mph 4th Nov. 2001
2010 New Beetle 8.12 sec on 8th march 2014 http://www.rodpenroseracing.com.au
LIFE IN THE LOW LANE wrote:Bloody Victorian sooks scared of a bit of wet weather!!!! I'm on a Toyota forum and they have a national meet in june every year. The least represented state each time is Victoria!!! they have the biggest mouths and the fastest and best cars but they never show up. So they say anyway...
Put your money where your mouth is i say!!!!!
I thought there would have been heaps of VW's from Vic seeing as it is their event but I guess latte's at the local coffee shop are more important😀
That's a bit harsh!
The fact is that there aren't many drag vw's in Vic. So don't bag us for that. There is prob. more in S.A at the moment, But I know of a couple of cars that are being built in Vic that have been inspired by events like Warrick and Portland, so this event will get bigger and better!
matberry wrote:Shame Wayne broke something, maybe that is why not to fussed on the event?
Yeh Wayne broke something .
First a brand new inlet valve in my dualcab breaks on the freeway just past Marulan . Then I sit on the side of the highway for 4 hours waiting for the useless towing company to arrive . they drop off dads toyota lexcen and take my dualcab back to Wollongong .Then have towing issues with the toyota lexcen and have to stop at Gundegia to get a tyre shop to change my trailer tyres to get the trailer sitting at the correct height for the car . Then find that it doesn't tow much better and stop at tarcutta to release the front shock straps on the oval to stop the trailer from bouncing . Purchase a shifting spanner from the servo ( as my crew took all of my tools when I had broken down ) . All the quality chinese made shifting spanner did was round off the nuts at the bottom of the shocks . Continued on to Portland and my passenger and crew-member ( Sandra ) became ill on several occassions due to the bouncing trailer moving the car around excessively . Let the front tyres down on the oval and it was much better though . Got to portland to find strong winds and rain . Put tents up and racing cancelled friday night due to weather . Went to bed and had a cold nights sleep . Went in the street parade saturday morning and purchased an electic blanket whilst in town to try and keep Sandra warm on sunday night . After the street parade returned to the track to find my brand new 6 man tent laying flat on the ground with broken poles . My mate Chris had spare poles with him so we resurected the tent in the wind . The sports sedan bent an inlet valve ( which we could have repaired at the track ) , the formula vee damaged an axle tube ( which we did repair ) , but the final straw that broke the camels back for me was the very high winds broke the poles of our marque and the whole thing came crashing down on top of my oval ( broken poles , lights , cups etc ) . We packed up camp and had decided to leave before I ran the oval . The oval did run well but did develop an engine noise ( possibly a big-end bearing )
SO WE LOADED UP AND LEFT !! We left at 5pm Saturday and I drove till 4-30am Sunday morning where I pulled over and had a sleep in the car just outside Goulburn .
I hope you now understand why I have no intensions of returning to portland . not pleasant memories after spending day and night for a full month prior to the event preparing .
Great event. I wasn't ready to race this year and am disapointed that I didn't get it together. However, I am dead keen to race against all the others I saw. I am planning for the trip to QLD now. If it can be that much fun with the weather that poor, I can't wait to see a decent day. Looking forward to Portland 2009.
I wouldn't have considered traveling that ditance prior to this event.
Great weekend, I was only spectating so no personal disappointment via breaking things, I bet it would piss me off too, going all that way and having the weekend cut short. It was my first VW race meet and had a blast, as did my kids. Now they want me to take them to Warwick!!
Congrats to the SA boys for taking 2 of the 3 categories
Jon in his 57 Oval Cal Looker
Renee in his Porsche Spyder (sorry if I spelt your name wrong!!)
Anyway here's some photos
Did someone say windy???
Adam's Burnout
Dave O'Connor's burnout
1954 Oval long term project going nowhere
1958 Beetle drag car project
1959 Beetle project I need to sell one day
1969 Squareback
Great pics....I guess as people start arriving home and unpacking/unwinding more pics and hopefully some vids will surface.
It's a shame you had a bad experience Wayne I know that first impressions count but hopefully by the time 2009 comes around the bad memmories might have faded and you can think about returning.
I certainly looks like a nice little track. it's funny to see everyone rugged up while we were experiencing 40deg heat.
I look forward to the issue of VMA that will have the wrap up. I hope we can see a list of cars and times and even some tech info on the cars. This would be my only criticism of the Warwick wrap up.
Congrats Craig on what from all reports was a good meet. Unfortunately some things like the weather are out of everyones control. Who would have thought warwick was almost a no go by the horse flu.
james i went through the traps at 101 mph but with the throttle stuck down by the time i turned it off i probably put on another 10mph i got on the brakes hard the tyre locked and blew instantly, it was pulling hard right so i was lucky not to end up in the dirt on my roof- this was my best et 7.3- prety crap times but i could not get off the line best 60" of 1.9 on the last run the car had no boost so we put it on the tralier
adam
It was credit to your skills in that you kept the car straight, and didn't roll it. I was away from the track and didn't get the photo of the run, but could see you running out of track rapidly. Was impressed with the VEC crew who got you another tyre, helped you get it changed, cleaned up the car and had you back on the track in about an hour.
It difficult to get the launch right when you no longer have a track to practice on.
Bring David and come to Heathcote before Warrick for a weekend.
Maybe with all this 1/8th mile action we need to make a dedicated 1/8th mile times sticky
Similar to or added to the aussieveedubbers top aircooled drag times but 1/8th.
It’s a good thing I like driving. Well, I used to.
The trip from Sydney to Melbourne took 12 hours door to door sitting on a conservative 100 km/h which is about 3600rpm in the oval.
For the trip from Melbourne to Portland I had a co-driver who decided to co-drive from a completely different vehicle, a brand spanking Ford FPV Force 8. This turned out to be a blessing. I was going to fit the turbo-tops to the 44idfs in order to have conversation rather than wearing ear plugs or an ipod with ear plug headphones. But with the 55mm shorter manifolds I now run I can’t fit the turbo tops on without them pressing hard up against the engine bay; no thanks!
The car was getting about 10 litres per 100km and leaving a little bit of soot on the rear bumper above the exhaust. So I decided to try 50 idle jets. After about 15 minutes on the freeway as the oil temps reached 90 degrees the engine started surging and having “cat-sneezes” so we pulled into suburbia so I could lie in the dirt and change the idles back to 55s.
Not long after that we were driving through Geelong and suddenly I saw a brick in the middle of the road. With no time to swerve I drove over it at about 80kms. I think I hit the brakes which perhaps wasn’t a good idea because that caused the nose of the car to dip and become lower. The brick crashed into the frontend with an almighty bang and was then being pushed by the car for about 10meters before it must’ve went under the car. I heard it go all the way down the floor pan. I put the car into neutral and watched the oil pressure gauge. No change. The brick missed the oil cooler lines up front and the Stan Pobjoy sump. Phew!
After another hour or so I jumped in the Force 8 to listen to a Boss 290 rather than the 1915cc weber symphony. I chased my own car through about 30 kms of tight corners until we arrived at Lorne on the Great Ocean Road. We stopped and had a coffee and I jumped back in the Oval.
The Great Ocean Road is wonderful. The colour of the water is fantastic even on such a moody day. The corners are tight and have camber to assist turning. Great for drivers but I imagine passengers prone to motion sickness would hate it. The first half of the drive was dry and the second half through the Ottway (I think) Rangers was wet. On dusk we stopped for the night in Port Campbell because the road conditions were getting dodgy. Melbourne roads seem to be very rutted and big puddle sit in these ruts which is right wear your tyres track. So to stay out of the ruts you either go close to the centreline or close to the shoulder and the car moves in and out of the ruts (Tram-lining) and it gets quite tiring; especially is heavy rain.
On Saturday we left early and made it to Portland by about 10:30am.
I won’t talk about the show. I’ll leave that up to VWMA.
I had 2 practice runs down the 1/8th on Saturday and did a casual 9.7 and then handed the car to my mate who had never drag-raced before. He did 2 nervous runs before he was doing high 9s as well. Then we put up the tent which was promptly destroyed by the wind. So we had to drive around town looking for accommodation. We found a large 2 bedroom cabin in Henty Bay for just $90 a night. You could sleep 4 people there no worries. In hindsight the cabin was a good choice. The wind an weather were horrible that night.
On Sunday I achieved my worst drag racing effort ever; unless of course there is a trophy for consistently beating your dial-in by 0.1 of a second.
My first practice run was a 9.4 which was quicker than I expected. But I dialled in on a 9.7 thinking that I’d back-off when I got in front of the 14 second super bug. But I did a 9.6 on a 9.7 dial-in. On the next run I did a 9.4 on a 9.5 dial-in. Then I did a 9.3 on a 9.4! So I gave everyone I competed against a win! At least I was consistent on that front. Not to worry the 9.3 @ 72.8 MPH was my second quickest 1/8th ever.
We bailed straight after the finals. Congrats to the finalists of the aircooled bracket, both of whom were running mid-8s and put on a great final race.
My little Oval covered a dubious 1900 miles according to its speedometer, but I suspect its more like a 2,800 km round trip. I should’ve bought shares in Caltex before I left because I must’ve poured about 280 litres into the thing at between 1.40 and 1.50 per litre. But it was worth it.
The Adelaide boys put on a huge display with beautiful cars (Excluding a certain Ascot) and some very tough and entertaining runs (Including a certain Ascot). Well done to the QLD and NSW guys who brought their mighty drag cars all the way to Portland.
Somehow the time flew and I didn’t get to half the people I intended to catch up with.
Well done Craig for putting together a great event. It’s a pity about the Rat bug’s demise on Sunday morning but we benefited from your insightful commentary.
LIFE IN THE LOW LANE wrote:Bloody Victorian sooks scared of a bit of wet weather!!!! I'm on a Toyota forum and they have a national meet in june every year. The least represented state each time is Victoria!!! they have the biggest mouths and the fastest and best cars but they never show up. So they say anyway...
Put your money where your mouth is i say!!!!!
I thought there would have been heaps of VW's from Vic seeing as it is their event but I guess latte's at the local coffee shop are more important😀
That's a bit harsh!
The fact is that there aren't many drag vw's in Vic. So don't bag us for that. There is prob. more in S.A at the moment, But I know of a couple of cars that are being built in Vic that have been inspired by events like Warrick and Portland, so this event will get bigger and better!
Mate you don't need a drag car to compete. It's a VW event not just a drag meet. I't's all about catching up with people of a like mind and similiar passion. Plus there is a show and shine as well. It fathoms me that with the VW scene being as big as it is in Victoria that there weren't more cars and people there. Most wouldn't travel the distance to Warwick so Craig was good enough to hold a meet down in Vic for those down there(As well as those from WA and SA) and it's too far?
I know this event will be bigger and better each year it is run but surely after seeing and hearing about Warwick and how good it is you would turn up for something like this in your own backyard?
Some drive a lot further to attend Valla each time it is on...
ACCEPT THAT SOME DAYS YOU ARE THE PIDGEON AND SOME DAYS YOU ARE THE STATUE
Stanley wrote:I look forward to the issue of VMA that will have the wrap up.
I hope we can see a list of cars and times and even some tech info on the cars. This would be my only criticism of the Warwick wrap up.
Congrats Craig on what from all reports was a good meet. Unfortunately some things like the weather are out of everyones control. Who would have thought warwick was almost a no go by the horse flu.
Yes a nice addition to the Portland (and Warwick..its never too late!),
would be a list of BEST TIMEs for each entrant and perhaps their engine size and car description.
EG
Peter Page: Yellow Oval Drag car 7.68@91mph
Perhaps a "family tree" style graphic of eliminations results.
I will catch up with Craig soon to explain this better.
Even when you are at the track as a spectator there is so much on,
afterwards, you ask your self, "how fast did (name here) go today?"
I remember back in the late 80's-early-90's the results from the VW Nats results listed all the best ETs
AND separately, the best mph's.
The MPH of some cars was very interesting because it was the real indicator of who was "where" in HP.
fullnoise wrote:It’s a good thing I like driving. Well, I used to.
The trip from Sydney to Melbourne took 12 hours door to door sitting on a conservative 100 km/h which is about 3600rpm in the oval.
For the trip from Melbourne to Portland I had a co-driver who decided to co-drive from a completely different vehicle, a brand spanking Ford FPV Force 8. This turned out to be a blessing. I was going to fit the turbo-tops to the 44idfs in order to have conversation rather than wearing ear plugs or an ipod with ear plug headphones. But with the 55mm shorter manifolds I now run I can’t fit the turbo tops on without them pressing hard up against the engine bay; no thanks!
The car was getting about 10 litres per 100km and leaving a little bit of soot on the rear bumper above the exhaust. So I decided to try 50 idle jets. After about 15 minutes on the freeway as the oil temps reached 90 degrees the engine started surging and having “cat-sneezes” so we pulled into suburbia so I could lie in the dirt and change the idles back to 55s.
Not long after that we were driving through Geelong and suddenly I saw a brick in the middle of the road. With no time to swerve I drove over it at about 80kms. I think I hit the brakes which perhaps wasn’t a good idea because that caused the nose of the car to dip and become lower. The brick crashed into the frontend with an almighty bang and was then being pushed by the car for about 10meters before it must’ve went under the car. I heard it go all the way down the floor pan. I put the car into neutral and watched the oil pressure gauge. No change. The brick missed the oil cooler lines up front and the Stan Pobjoy sump. Phew!
After another hour or so I jumped in the Force 8 to listen to a Boss 290 rather than the 1915cc weber symphony. I chased my own car through about 30 kms of tight corners until we arrived at Lorne on the Great Ocean Road. We stopped and had a coffee and I jumped back in the Oval.
The Great Ocean Road is wonderful. The colour of the water is fantastic even on such a moody day. The corners are tight and have camber to assist turning. Great for drivers but I imagine passengers prone to motion sickness would hate it. The first half of the drive was dry and the second half through the Ottway (I think) Rangers was wet. On dusk we stopped for the night in Port Campbell because the road conditions were getting dodgy. Melbourne roads seem to be very rutted and big puddle sit in these ruts which is right wear your tyres track. So to stay out of the ruts you either go close to the centreline or close to the shoulder and the car moves in and out of the ruts (Tram-lining) and it gets quite tiring; especially is heavy rain.
On Saturday we left early and made it to Portland by about 10:30am.
I won’t talk about the show. I’ll leave that up to VWMA.
I had 2 practice runs down the 1/8th on Saturday and did a casual 9.7 and then handed the car to my mate who had never drag-raced before. He did 2 nervous runs before he was doing high 9s as well. Then we put up the tent which was promptly destroyed by the wind. So we had to drive around town looking for accommodation. We found a large 2 bedroom cabin in Henty Bay for just $90 a night. You could sleep 4 people there no worries. In hindsight the cabin was a good choice. The wind an weather were horrible that night.
On Sunday I achieved my worst drag racing effort ever; unless of course there is a trophy for consistently beating your dial-in by 0.1 of a second.
My first practice run was a 9.4 which was quicker than I expected. But I dialled in on a 9.7 thinking that I’d back-off when I got in front of the 14 second super bug. But I did a 9.6 on a 9.7 dial-in. On the next run I did a 9.4 on a 9.5 dial-in. Then I did a 9.3 on a 9.4! So I gave everyone I competed against a win! At least I was consistent on that front. Not to worry the 9.3 @ 72.8 MPH was my second quickest 1/8th ever.
We bailed straight after the finals. Congrats to the finalists of the aircooled bracket, both of whom were running mid-8s and put on a great final race.
My little Oval covered a dubious 1900 miles according to its speedometer, but I suspect its more like a 2,800 km round trip. I should’ve bought shares in Caltex before I left because I must’ve poured about 280 litres into the thing at between 1.40 and 1.50 per litre. But it was worth it.
The Adelaide boys put on a huge display with beautiful cars (Excluding a certain Ascot) and some very tough and entertaining runs (Including a certain Ascot). Well done to the QLD and NSW guys who brought their mighty drag cars all the way to Portland.
Somehow the time flew and I didn’t get to half the people I intended to catch up with.
Well done Craig for putting together a great event. It’s a pity about the Rat bug’s demise on Sunday morning but we benefited from your insightful commentary.
Cheers CT
saw you driving through yarraville bottom of the westgate bridge sun night ,i have been a fan of your car for ages and it looks more awesome in the flesh i was the guy with his tounge hanging out cheers chris
A candy coloured clown they called the sandman tip toes through my room every night just to sprinkle stardust on my pillow go to sleep everything will be allright
1967 Type 3 square
1956 double door panel
1968 single cab kombi
