Hi.

an observation over the weekend (and the previous 4 years) at the Mattara Hillclimb was the lack of local/Newcastle beetle/VW car club people. There were three cars (two beetles and a kombi) present as spectators. Not sure if there were other members there, and the VW's were confined to the garage - but there certainly wasn't a great presence observed.

C'mon guys, the Newcastle hill climb circuit is a unique event in one of the most picturesque tracks in Australia, if not the world. King Edward Park lends itself to magnificent scenery, relaxing amongst lush grass and gardens and a great atmosphere.

The event usually has a number of beetles present, Glen Torrens, Nathan Abbott, Tom Clemens, Ben Durie as well as other VW powered open wheeled vehicles.

Notwithstanding, the spectacular driving from a whole host of other cars including a whole range of street to race cars . Akin to other events such as Wakefield, Raleigh, it would great to see other dubs such as the Orange Smoothie, Steve Carter's bug, Rose's red beetle etc going through their paces at the circuit.

How about next year?

I was going to run my EVO, but Ralliart Melbourne hadn't finished constructing my full rollcage.

I think he meant he wants to see more Volkswagens, not Mitsubishis.

Was this event promoted in the VW community beforehand? I don't think I saw it in the Coming Events section, and I know it wasn't sent to the Club Veedub magazine.

The other difficulty is that Boris' Picnic Day is on in Sydney this Sunday, and everyone is concentrating on that. Not everyone wants to VW stuff every weekend - even one VW event a month is too much for most people.

I'm also wondering if most VW fans are not really interested in competitive motorsport events and would rather just go to cruises and show n shines where there is no chance of having an accident or damaging their car. The turnout to Wakefield Park for the VW Nationals wasn't too bad, but we only got two VWs at the State Motorkhana round at HMAS Nirimba. The newest possible Aussie Beetle is now at least 34 years old, with most of them considerably older than that. Maybe people want to preserve them and display/cruise rather than flog them in motorsport. I dunno. Then again, we can't seem to interest all the young guys in their hot GTIs either as hardly any came to the Nationals Supersprint. They just seem to want to go on cruises and picnics too.

I would of come if I'd known! my bug is there to be thrashed, I started thrashing it on my L's and am not about to holding back on it!

Hope to drive it down for the boris picnic cruise though, on an unregistered permit.

No way to scary for me the walls are way to close and track not wide enough for me. I'm a big scaredy cat
drag racing and Wakefield Park is enough for me.
Would of went to watched but had other things on.

Normally, I go back to Port Macquarie for the weekends to try and finish the last of my jobs there and get things done at home. Mostly, I work in Newcastle on Saturdays, go home Saturday afternoon as soon as I finish, the come back late Sunday night ready to start again early Monday morning.
However, this weekend, the company I work for, TRUWAY GROUP, were a major sponsor of the hillclimb (they also had a sponsored car running) and called for volunteers to man a stand they had at the site (they are expanding their housing division). Damn, an excuse to go that I could get past Cathy (my wife - she even came down to Newcastle and helped). So.... I worked on site Saturday, worked at the Mattara on Sunday morning, and got to enjoy the racing all afternoon.
It was soo great to see how well the VWs were running, especailly the bug - the crowd around me could really see it was a VW. I heard so many comments about how it was faster than the V8s and other so-called 'sporty' cars.
It was one of the best afternoons I have had for ages.

I