Big Bang!

Saturday afternoon was spent frantically botching a bumper iron to hold a front numberplate for the bug in preparation for the 150 mile treck down to Santa Pod drag strip on Sunday. We got up pretty early for students on Sunday and began the treck down the country, to be honest the journey wasn't too bad with only a minor hicup following the AA route planners crazy route through some town center (No entry except for access....). It took an alarmingly long time to spot any other VW's on the way down, it wasn't really until we were about 2 miles away that we saw any. Anyway we arrived, paid our money and parked up (the car parks at these shows are a sight themselves with god knows how many old VW's of varying quality from Wow that must be worth a lot to How the hell did that even get here?). A quick hobble over the hill and there was the dragstrip, the noise was incredible. The whole place stunk of burning clutch and rubber as various people warmed up their tyres with absoloutely no mercy. We stood and watched some of the pro drag racers (in various classes) blast up the strip, it is pretty incredible watching a pre 1960 beetle launch on two wheels then blast down a quarter mile reaching 180mph! Unfortunately we had work to do the day before so we missed the 'Run What Ya Brung' so the bug will have to wait until Bug Jam (when I can drive again hopefully) for its run. Next up we headed over to the 'Show n Shine' section, the money people invest into these vehicles is truly ludicrous and one or two of the vehicles badly showed up my messy wiring having only one loom of cables neatly tied down to the body work. I definately had a favourite of the show (which I think i've seen before possible in a magazine somewhere), its a 1960 ish bug powered by a turbo'd flat 6 porsche engine complete with a carbon fibre fan shroud and an air intake from the rear windows (neatly detailed with a NASA afterburner cover). Inside the owner has somehow sculpted a fibreglass dashboard and sunk in fittings from the new cooper s.

As well as that bug there was another orange cabrio that won best engine the previous year, another bug where someone had mounted the fan assembly on at 90' to usual and yes you guessed it another bug with a massive nitrous tank mounted in the back. This year there was also a Show n Go competetion where vehicles were not only judged on the way they looked but how fast they did the 1/4 miles, unfortunately everybody in this category broke some part of the vehicle in a major way before the runs were finished. The most impressive thing I saw on Sunday however has got to be the Fireforce 3 jet car (used on top gear to burn a caravan or two). The 'car' shoots from 0-100mph in under 1 sec and achieved a run of 6.172s and 274mph. An enjoyable show and the weather even got out nice enough for us to drop the top on the return journey.