It's all go for VW Portland this weekend. Good field, including two Ascorts and one VW powered Porsche. Oddly enough, the Victorians have been outnumbered by the South Australians, but that will probably change after the 'look-and-see' brigade realise what they'd miss this year.
See you at the track.
Cheers
Craig Hughes
Editor
VWMA
LIFE IN THE LOW LANE ·
Lucky you don't have a full time job eh Craig LOL, great news about another event!!
fullnoise ·
Well done Craig.
I'm sure the hardcore racers will turn up. But it will also be good to see some different cars. If the Melbournians are half as keen as the Brisbanites then it should be a top event.
I'm leaving Sydney tomorrow. I should be there by February!
CYA CT
vw54 ·
Its a bloody l o n g w a y
but hopefully we will be there with the Vintage Car
Menangler ·
I've booked my holidays already!
VWMA Editor ·
Volkswagen Group Australia have come on board to sponsor both Portland and Warwick for 2008. The banner has been updated.
And Dave, you get to see more of this great country. Portland's now on the VW radar.
11CAB ·
Good to see VW getting behind these events
davidoconnor ·
Fantastic News Craig, thanks!!
This gives us another goal without having to wait another year for Warwick.
We'll be there, wouldn't miss it!!
LIFE IN THE LOW LANE ·
Logistics, logistics. Long way from Brisvegas but the gears are grinding on whether we go to Portland or Sport compact round at Heathcote as they are only a few weeks apart.
Anyone interested in hiring a car carrier like some of the southern guys did for Warwick this year??
matt ·
hi, are there many people on the forum near portland? I am in mount gambier s.a, about 90 mins from portland, and i have only met backyard dubbers and buggy lovers. No racers as yet!!!
matt
Turbo54 ·
Only 5-6 hours from Adelaide... see you there!
T54
cjbolt51 ·
I'm in, sounds great, I had a ball at warick for my first time on the strp
rufbug ·
Yaahooo👍
i'll get there if my carbies dont catch a light.
Say nothing Rod 😂 or Dave 😂
fullnoise ·
Here's an idea. For Sydney and Brisbane folks who haven't seen much of Melbourne. How about leaving from Melbourne and going to Portland via the Great Ocean Road. Then when the VW Portland event is over continue on to Adelaide?
I'd be pretty sick of driving my beetle by the time I got to Melbourne let alone Portland. So I'm considering putting the beetle on a car carrier Sydney to Melbourne and then from Adelaide back to Sydney. Hopefully I'd get a couple of cheap flights. The girlfriend may even come I just tell her its a holiday (And we stumble across a VW event by complete coincidence)😂.
I've always wanted to do the Great Ocean Road in my oval.
Perhaps we could take a week off. Leave Melbourne Thursday Morning and arrive in Adelaide on Tuesday. Put the car on a truck bound for Sydney then fly out on the Wednesday.
Not a bad idea for a holiday if I don't say so myself.
CT
VWCOOL ·
where the kcuf is Portland, anyway? Is it a (big) day's drive from Sydney? Or will we be overnighting somewhere?
vw54 ·
No drive through the night
VWMA Editor ·
The website and online entry form will be finished by tomorrow. Rawdyn has been developing the site for me, and it looks great. In fact the whole VWMA site has been redone. The street parade has been approved by the Portland Police and the Council will be setting aside a foreshore parking lot for the static display. All looks good.
matt ·
Whoo!! the site is up and we have booked our accommodation now all i have to do is finish the beetle so we can drive that accross. I have even talk friends into coming 2!!! Should be good!
Matt
VWMA Editor ·
Website Now Open. Check the first post in this thread for an update.
VWMA Editor ·
After the Victorian show, I drove out to Portland to meet with Scott Cleary from South Coast Raceway. Portland is a great little town, and the council has set aside a fantastic little foreshore area for the car display after the street parade.
South Coast Raceway has done a brilliant job on their 1/8th mile track, largely off their own bat with the support of local businesses.
As a bonus to the weekend activities, the track plays host to their usual Friday night street drags, and street registered VWs are invited to participate if they would like to get onto the track a little earlier than Saturday. It will also provide some great entertainment for the evening for those who set up on Friday.
A map of the track will be provided with your weekend passes to indicate facilities, camping, pits, etc.
Dak-A-Tak ·
Bring it on !!! Dak-A-Tak is coming down to race my mate's . SA vw guys came up to Warwick to race , so us Qld racers need to help and pull together to get there .
My plan is to bring yellow car down for some laps . At moment I'm rebuilding car trailer for trip down .
Craig ! the Friday night street meet !! can non rego ,drag cars race that night ? be good test & tune.
LIFE IN THE LOW LANE ·
Can anyone tell me how far Portland is from Tullamarine airport. I dont like my chance of getting time off work to drive down so I may fly down and either hire a car or if someone wants to pick me up who is going I'll chip in for fuel.
VWMA Editor ·
4 and a half hours from the airport to Portland - I did the trip on Monday.
Hey Pete, I'll check with Scott on the unregistered test & tune cars for the Friday night.
vwfastback ·
Good to see you coming down Pete.
Madness won't be there this year,but maybe next.
Hoping to have fastback ready intime.
James C.
VWMA Editor ·
Update as per edited first post.
davidoconnor ·
Craig any chance we can see the current entrants list?
Just curious who's entered officially from SA?
It just might give us some time to egg on the others!!
Cheers
DOC
VWMA Editor ·
Hi Dave,
I'll get a list up for everyone soon. I have an approaching deadline - one week - for the next issue of VWMA (#17), so once I get that tucked away I can turn my attention to the details for VW Portland. Of course, two names that come straight to mind are Adam Debiasi and Barry Lord from your home state, and Dave Becker from NSW reminded me tonight that he is a definite - he'd already booked his holidays last November.
Cheers
Craig
dangerous ·
SO!
Who is bringing what?
And what sort of times would you like to run?
LIFE IN THE LOW LANE ·
Pete Page and Rod Richardson are going. Pete is taking the yellow car and not sure if Rod is taking either the chop top or the 61.
I more than likely wont be going as i cannot get time off work due to staff shortages so no RDO's..😠
Golde60 ·
well i m coming all the way from Dubai, so you guys have no excuse.
nahh, really, we have a wedding that weekend, so I am gonna sneak out for the sunday drive from ballarat.
VWMA Editor ·
Update as per top post.
fullnoise ·
I'm driving my oval from Sydney to Melbourne in one day. Then picking up a friend in Melbourne and taking 2 days to do the great ocean road and its pubs. Then 2 days racing in Portland hoping like hell nothing breaks and then driving back to Sydney. Am I nuts?
I changed the oil and checked the lash caps after driving to Warwick and back and thankfully all is fine. I didn't have the lashcap wear I had after the Dutton rally. Maybe because I broke in the new set the same way you run in a cam.
The car has its bling wheels on now. The overall diameter on the rear is larger so it will be even harder to get the car off the line due to the 3.0 first gear. The rubber is also street rubber rather than race rubber so its unlikely to be as sticky. But who cares. I'm only running 9s for the 8th.
The only threat to the event for my dac dac is a short track day at Eastern Creek Raceway 2 weeks before hand.
I had plans to try a bit more valve lift and compression. But cruising around and going to the beach in the oval was more appealing over Christmas. Except for the parking fine. But I sent a letter off today arguing that parking vouchers say they are "only valid if left face up on the dash"; and you can't do that in a beetle which has no horizontal surface on the dash.
New shocks, a brake check, brake fluid renewal and a tramp bar could be on the cards in the next few weeks so its not all feet up and waiting for the calendar to tick over.
Who is having a stress to get their car ready?
Will noise cancelling headphones reduce the noise of webers? Or are they just made to cancel out airplane noise?
CYA CT
VWFREAK ·
Looks like I'll be missing out on this this one as well, bloody doctors still won't give me medical clearance to race.
Liability and insurance is a great thing.
Have a blast guys, hopefully I can still make the trip as a spectator.
dangerous ·
fullnoise wrote:The car has its bling wheels on now. The overall diameter on the rear is larger so it will be even harder to get the car off the line due to the 3.0 first gear. The rubber is also street rubber rather than race rubber so its unlikely to be as sticky. But who cares. I'm only running 9s for the 8th.
CYA CT
Being that Portland s o much closer to sea level, I think performace will be better!
Portland is 45m above as opposed to Warwick being 480m!
ian.mezz ·
Your Mad , I hope you take some V drinks or red bull 😉 🤪😂
fullnoise ·
The '56 model won the RedX Round Australia trial back in their day. All my car has to do is drive from Sydney to Portland, down the strip a dozen or so times and drive back. It shouldn't be a big deal.
If you're not packing too much power they're not that fragile.
Are you coming down Ian? Bring the red injected bug and for god sake race it!
Regards CT
Dak-A-Tak ·
That sounds good ,Dave ( good air ) . Working hard on everything ( trailer ,race car ,tow car ).
We are just bring one car down to race ,for this one .Rod's cars are getting some work done ( 48ida - gearbox ,hellbug- body work )
Just over 2000klm's for us to come down ,then another big tow home ,so I need Rod as co-driver.
We will be down there on the thursday and at track on Friday for some testing .
Looking very forward to this one !!!!
VWMA Editor ·
5 weeks to the event and 4 weeks to pre-entry deadline.
westi ·
i will bring out the shitter,it should be fun.
HGFS ·
dangerous wrote:SO!
Who is bringing what?
And what sort of times would you like to run?
I'm bringing my wife & kids in the work car....
Hoping to run a 6 hour time on the way there from Adelaide if the kids don't ask for too many stops....
Sorry just had to 😂. Looking forward to going there just as a spectator, haven't been to a dedicated VW drag event before. Won't be able to participate for a few years yet.
ian.mezz ·
nope we unable to go CT , to hard to work out the logistics for a four day weekend from Newcastle NSW 🤪
we will be going back to Warwick this year again😂.
cu ian
fullnoise ·
Hey Ian, Split the driving. You drive down to Melbourne and pick Rose up from the airport. Then you can fly back and Rose can drive back.
The trouble is you'd have to argue over which car to take. The red oval has my vote.
I'd driving Sydney to Melbourne on Thursday 😎 then to Portland on Friday 🙅 And then back to Melbourne on Sunday 🤓 and then finally back to Sydney on Monday 🤪: if anyone cares to join me.
Hey Dangerous, are you coming? With the altitude difference you could almost roll from Warwick!
CYA CT
ian.mezz ·
do you want to pick up rose from air port 😂
dangerous ·
I'd like to come CT, but not this year.
...although if we are picking up Rose from the airport....
(sorry Ian, could not resist...that is some fine woman)
mactaylor ·
come on dave you are the flag flyer get your arse down to where the mexicans live!
fullnoise ·
Gee, these Melbourne people aren't very excitable. I’ve hardly heard a peep out of any of them. Are any of them coming to Portland?
I’m sure the Adelaide boys will be there with their super fast and impeccably presented old-school cars.
There will also be some quick Queenslanders and some serious Sydney drag racers.
I guess if none of the Melbournians have been to Warwick they don’t know what all the fuss is about. They don’t know what they’ve been missing for the past 2 years.
All I can say is C’MON GUYS Warwick is a blast. It’s a Veedub hit that takes a good 6 months to come down from. Portland will rock.
Does anyone know what the camping facilities are like? Do you need more than two fold-up chairs to go camping?
I’m not much of a camper and I don’t want to sleep in my car. Roll bars aren’t that ergonomic.
CYA CT
VWMA Editor ·
Update as per first post. Entries close this Friday 15th February.
Dasdubber ·
I'm really bummed I can't make it this year due to finances - tried to work the numbers but with a bub coming along soon and the impending drop down to one income, this was an unfortunate sacrifice - D'OH!
Nonetheless I'll be at warwick later in the year and will be down to Portland next year ready to race, hopefully all you guys have a blast - I know I am 'high' after warwick for quite some time, so I'm sure you'll get a similar experience!
Best of luck for everyone's preparations.
Al
debiasi4 ·
my car is already to roll got a couple of extra horse power out of it so hopefully should be a bit quicker plenty of adelaide guys have been working hard to get cars ready we are all really looking forward to it
adam
dangerous ·
debiasi4 wrote:got a couple of extra horse power out of it
Spill the beans dude!
I don't think "a couple".....🙅
VWMA Editor ·
New sponsor. See banner and updated post at the beginning of this thread.
hypo-vw ·
thought I might just throw in another pic showing some of our preparations for Portland 2008 .
Not only did both my turbo oval and sports sedan need full transmission rebuilds and clutches , but also the tow car ( my 77 dualcab ute ) needs new heads finally after years of high temperature abuse through towing .
will post further pics soon .
fullnoise ·
It's only 1,315 kilometers to Portland!
I'll probably see you on the road somewhere; unless of course you sell everything ebay!
Good luck with the late night spannering.
CT
Dak-A-Tak ·
Late nights and rain up here in Brisbane , then it's 2,025 kilometers to Portland ( looks cold on week-end ).
Wednesday morning leave for us (Rod , I ) .Hope to have a little play at Fridays night test & tune at track (Portland )
fullnoise ·
Hi Peter,
If it rains I'll just come over and drool on that lovely fresh-looking car of yours. Especially if its under a dry tent.
I'm sure a bright yellow oval against a bright orange oval will be a sight to see in Portland!
I'm looking forward to the road trip and the clock is ticking so slowly!
CT
VWMA Editor ·
Who's crazy idea was this anyway.....?
I leave Wednesday morning early and meet up with the Sydney convoy sometime Thursday morning. We're hoping to be at the track Friday lunch.
Car and trailer were finished yesterday. Trailer decided to play up and blow fuses and pretend it was a Christmas tree. The joy!