General Article

Race Calendar 2009

VWDRC — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 16:31:40 +0000

Although the classes have changed for 2009, the calendar hasn't. There are again 7 races in 2009 with any competitors best 6 counting towards the national championship.

There is a 100 point bonus for attending the first event.

There is a 100 point bonus for attending the final event.

There is a 100 point bonus for attending 6 events in the season.

Round 1 - Easter Thunderball

April 10th - 13th, Santa Pod Raceway

All the VW classes plus National Drag Racing Championships, Pro-Fuel Shootout - Top Fuel Dragsters, Funny Cars, Street Eliminator Series plus Rocket Bike, Jet Cars, Jet Trucks, Jet Beetle, Monster Truck and an extravaganza of moto stunts and displays.

Round 2 - Big Bang

April 24th - 26th, Santa Pod Raceway

Many racer's favorite event, Big Bang will once again host a whole line-up of great things to do on and off the track, day time and night time.

The best way to enjoy Big Bang is to camp over with your mates and take things at a relaxed pace. This is the most chilled-out VW show on the calendar!

Round 3 - Spring Nationals

May 2nd - 4th, Shakespeare County Raceway

Mixed drag racing event up in Shakespeare's Stratford.

Round 4 - Summer Nationals

June 13th - 14th, Santa Pod Raceway

All the VW classes plus MSA British Championship for Top Methanol plus all sportsman classes plus The Wild Bunch, Nostalgia Altereds and Drag Bikes inc. SuperTwins. Jet Car demos and track displays.

Round 5 - Bug Jam 22

July 17th - 19nd, Santa Pod Raceway

For a full Bug Jam 21 report and gallery visit: www.bugjam.co.uk.

"Europe's No.1 Summer VW Festival" VW Drag Racing, RWYB track action, Super Mod, VW Traders, 4 music arenas, Top DJs, Comedy shows, Funfair, Mr & Miss Bug Jam, Show & Shine plus weekend camping.

Round 6 - Open Sports Nationals

August 21st - 24th, Shakespeare County Raceway

Mixed drag racing event up in Shakespeare's Stratford.

Round 7 - National Finals

September 26th - 27th, Santa Pod Raceway

All the VW classes plus MSA British Championship Finals for Top Methanol plus all sportsman classes plus The Wild Bunch, Nostalgia Altereds, Drag Bikes inc SuperTwins. Jet Car demos and track displays.

Remember guys, entries have to be in THREE WEEKS before the start of the meeting or you'll be charged double for entering late...

2008 AGM Report

VWDRC — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 20:39:08 +0000

This weekend saw the 2008 AGM, where we officially crowned our champions and commended our runners-up, well done to James, Scott and Spencer for their victories and Phil, Chris and Matt for their excellent runner-up performances.

It was a winning weekend for James Hodson who also netted Rookie Of The Year, Wagenmeister Driver Of The Year and RNJ Motorsport Car Of The Year! Good work James, quite a collection!

Abi Tether looked very surprised as outgoing chairman Brian Burrows announced she had won the Becky Sutton memorial award for services to the club, a huge well done and thank you to Abi.

We also elected our 2009 committee, which will consist of Danny Allen, Chris Bray, Richie Grant, Ian Huggan, Paul Jackson, Polly Naylor, Luke Stevenson, Shane Rae and Abi Tether. Committee roles will be discussed and decided at a committee meeting early in the New Year.

The meeting itself was relatively short with only a few points to make people aware of.

Firstly, the VW Alternate Engine class will be merged with VW Sportsman and VW Pro. The affect of this is twofold, firstly to reduce the overall number of classes at the request of the organisers of the events who are trying to reduce the class count for the 2009 season, and also to boost the numbers of entries in the VW Pro and AE classes since this will see many of the AE racers now entering Pro.

Also we want to alert people to some rule changes for the 2009 season. As some have already found out single layer suits are no longer legal, our Frequently Asked Questions section has been updated to reflect this. There are also helmet regulation changes for 2009, Snell certifications are now valid for 12 years, rather than the previous 10, so Snell SA2000 helmets will be valid until 2012. There are also changes to the validity of BS Type A (NOT Type A/FR) in 2009, but more on that once we have confirmed dates.

The 2009 calendar will be published shortly, but the first event is still Easter Thunderball, starting April 9th 2009. Don't mean to scare anyone, but that's only 17 weeks away!

Stay tuned here for more news from the club as and when we have it.

--2009 Committee

2008 AGM

VWDRC — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 17:20:50 +0000

Members should all already have this information but in case people have been missed it's that time again!

Sunday 7th December will see the 2008 VWDRC AGM at the usual place, The Marriot Hotel, Eagle Drive, Northampton.

Starting at 12pm the AGM is the ideal place to renew your membership for 2009 and to discuss plans and aims with other racers.

We'll see you there.

Members 2008

VWDRC — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 13:03:07 +0000

This is the current 2008 members list.

Lifetime

Brett Hawksbee

Keith Seume

Full Members

Race Number	Name
3	Jim Warner
5	Richie Grant
6	Daz Chandler
8	Mark Malone
10	Russ Fellows
15	Glynn Morgan
17	Andy Agroment
18	Dan Smith
30	Steve Parfitt
32	Phil Norman
36	Luke Stevenson
37	Dave Dorson
38	Justin Rivett
40	Scott Evison
42	Toby Wright
44	Craig Allen
49	Chris Bray
50	Paul Collison
51	Chris Baylis
53	Brian Burrows
58	Peter Christie
61	Spencer Tramm
63	Ian Dale
64	Paul Herbert
66	Ben Roberts
69	Brett Mann
71	Martin Charles
72	Matt Dane
73	Tinker Bell
77	Martin Ayton
78	David Bridge
81	Andy Raw
82	Mark Skeen
84	Darryn Coleman
86	Matt Attwood
88	Stuart Hinds
90	Dennis Cox
94	Danny Allen
97	Abi Tether
98	Ian Huggan
108	James Hodson
110	Paul Jordan
111	Alex Bruce
112	Jacob Bailey
113	Ben Jones
117	Paul Day
148	Laurie Craig
150	David Ramage
151	Laura White
153	Sean Bourke
160	Colin Jardine
161	Donald Harvey
162	Harvey Smith
163	Russ Weir
167	Chez Williams
175	Sinclair Ellis
180	Ian Gale
183	Simon Bailey
187	Shane Rae
188	Helen Williams
198	Ken Blomer
204	Graeme Freeman
212	Paul Braithwaite
270	Nigel Hull
276	Adrian Wigley
318	Paul Venners
321	Rich Merriman
333	Polly Naylor
490	Kat Earp
600	Matty Walker
673	Jason Aldred
714	Daniel Wharton
901	Claire Williams

Associate Members

Race Number	Name
7	Gary Lumley
16	Graham Fairhead
26	Phil Woodward
52	John Baylis
70	Neil Ellis
80	Martyn Baylis
90	Paul Cox
93	Paul Lay
105	Paul Cullen
107	Chris Wrench
122	Alex Hill
123	Koen Fraeyman (Belgium)
124	Nick Pugh
125	Andrew Joyner
126	Rich Storey
127	Rich Jones
128	Mark Howard
129	Andy Voce
130	Clare Jenner
131	Star Best
132	Jon Dimond
133	R Summers
134	Marc Williams
135	Peter Middleton
136	Kevin Baumber
137	Alex Leiserach
138	Sarah Blackstone
139	David Williams
140	Neil Ayres
141	Simon Davey
142	Michael Stoner
143	Martyn Cook
144	Vince Cambridge
145	Daniel Green
146	Jim Barrett
147	Alan Cross
149	Tom Price
152	Michael Outhwaite
189	Kip Williams
334	Rob Judge
441	Paul Blake
481	Andrew King

2007 - A Super Pro Odyssey

Spencer Tramm — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 17:02:07 +0000

As many of you will know after a 2 year tenure running in VW Alternate Engine and winning the 2004 and 2005 championships I wandered off into the distance to try my hand first at Super Gas and then Super Pro ET.

After becoming SPRC Super Gas champion and National Championship Runner-Up in 2005 with the trusty 468ci (7.6 litre) engine that propelled the Corrado to a best of 9.10 @ 145mph, I took most of 2006 off to crew for a Super Pro ET dragster and occasionally dabbling in Competition Eliminator.

At the beginning of 2007 I decided to celebrate my impending 30th and my Dad's 60th (still now we race as a family) by having Jeff Bull Race Engines build a new 555ci (9.1 litre) engine ready for Easter and moving up to Super Pro ET.

For those that don't know, Super Pro ET is full mainly of dragsters with a smattering of door cars and altereds running under 8.99 seconds. The car was readied the day before Easter and I set off to Chris Isaacs to collect the car, after suffering 3 mishaps on the way to the track all was set to run the engine in on Friday and blast an 8 on Saturday morning, the day of my Dad's birthday. After keeping my toe in a bit too long an 8.79 shutoff run spoiled that, but at least we had run the 8 we so wanted.

Easter finished with an 8.60 best and a semi final finish. The plan was to run just at the Pod and leave Avon Park out due to holiday contraints. After Avon was rained out meant that by the time the Main Event rolled around we were still in the top five.

Friday of the Main Event reminded me of what the extra 1.5 litres was capable of as I nuked the gearbox on the startline and had to sit and watch the others run. Thankfully the rains came (how many people have said that?!) and no ground was lost.

Summer Nats is my worst meeting always, it was one I could never win even in AE and a 2nd round redlight proved my luck wasn't about to change. This left a quandry, to go to Avon or not.

We eventually went and landed a semi final finish redlighting to the Giles and Hartley team who along with Steve Johnson both have 30 years experience each and were my closest rivals.

The Euro Finals is the biggest meeting of the year with 28 cars turning up, things were looking bad when first Steve Johnson and then Giles and Hartley both ran dead on the dial to the thousandth! No pressure we ran a perfect run the next session, to end up third, in the end Steve Pateman from Street Eliminator ran perfect too and 4 of us ended up perfect.

For those that haven't been to a Euro Finals you arrive on a Wednesday, qualify on a Thursday and Friday and run round one on Saturday and 9am, to run on finals day you have to win 2 rounds which we did over John Tebenham (Ford Probe) and Steve Neimantis (Aston Martin), finals day saw us defeat Steve Green, Barry Giles and Steve Johnson to win my first Super Pro meeting and take the points lead with one round to go.

The National Finals was a bit odd, Barry Giles broke out when his opponent broke, this meant a 2nd round win over Chris Orthodoxou and we were champions, Chris redlit and it was all over. A fantastic year and we were the first 'door car' to win Super Pro in 4 years!

A big thanks to my superb crew (who are all V-Dubbers) George and Rachel Georgiou, Steve and Adele Woodbridge and Ady Goodier.

To all those that said it couldn't be done, it can!

Spencer

p.s I've bored you enough now but hopefully later in the week I will have pics of the new Sportsman VW beast!

Race Calendar 2008

VWDRC — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 09:26:35 +0000

There are again 7 races in 2008 with any competitors best 6 counting towards the national championship.

There is a 100 point bonus for attending the first event.

There is a 100 point bonus for attending the final event.

There is a 100 point bonus for attending 6 events in the season.

Round 1 - Easter Thunderball

March 20th - 24th, Santa Pod Raceway

Round 2 - Big Bang

April 25th - 27th, Santa Pod Raceway

Many racer's favorite event, Big Bang will once again host a whole line-up of great things to do on and off the track, day time and night time.

The best way to enjoy Big Bang is to camp over with your mates and take things at a relaxed pace. This is the most chilled-out VW show on the calendar!

Round 3 - Spring Nationals

May 2nd - 5th, Shakespeare County Raceway

Mixed drag racing event up in Shakespeare's Stratford.

Round 4 - Summer Nationals

June 14th - 15th, Santa Pod Raceway

All the VW classes plus MSA British Championship for Top Methanol plus all sportsman classes plus The Wild Bunch, Nostalgia Altereds and Drag Bikes inc. SuperTwins. Jet Car demos and track displays.

Round 5 - Bug Jam 22

July 18th - 20nd, Santa Pod Raceway

For a full Bug Jam 21 report and gallery visit: www.bugjam.co.uk.

"Europe's No.1 Summer VW Festival" VW Drag Racing, RWYB track action, Super Mod, VW Traders, 4 music arenas, Top DJs, Comedy shows, Funfair, Mr & Miss Bug Jam, Show & Shine plus weekend camping.

Round 6 - Open Sports Nationals

August 22th - 25th, Shakespeare County Raceway

Mixed drag racing event up in Shakespeare's Stratford.

Round 7 - National Finals

September 27th - 28th, Santa Pod Raceway

Remember guys, entries have to be in THREE WEEKS before the start of the meeting or you'll be charged double for entering late...

RNJ Motorsport open day

Polly Naylor — Sun, 09 Dec 2007 17:09:30 +0000

thanks to everyone that attended, was a great day, shame about the weather :(

we will have another in the summer you will all be welcome :)

Out For The Season

Chris Bray — Sun, 13 May 2007 18:01:58 +0000

Look like I'm out for the year :(

Exactly a year and a day after the last one :(

Thanks for a great start to the season, sadly it doesn't look like I'm gonna be at any more races.

Taken from http://www.chrisbray.co.uk

Spring Speed Day One

VWDRC — Sat, 05 May 2007 23:18:59 +0000

At the end of Day One of the Spring Speed event at Shakespeare County Raceway it's been an awesome day, great weather and very few stoppages.

Rookie Steve Parfitt sits at the top of the qualifying ladder, Mark Malone in second but with news of yet more damage to his gearbox time will tell what if any further role Mark will play.
Graham Fairhead fills in third in his Fastback.
Matt Attwood makes the move over to Sportsman for the weekend due to lack of entries in Alternate Engine (nice one Angie for lending him your car!) and takes fourth. Rounding out the top five is Martin Ayton, still in the stand-in Audi but after a second meeting finding some consistency.

We're looking forward to another great day tomorrow :)

Sad news from Santa Pod

VWDRC — Sat, 31 Mar 2007 19:51:05 +0000

We've just heard news from Santa Pod about todays Peak Performance test day. Two of our VW Pro drivers were in attendance, and unfortunately both had problems!

Paul Lay had a big moment in his "Playtime" car when a rear tyre blew just past the 1/8th mile trap and spun the car into the wall and onto it's roof! There looks to be severe damage to the car but fortunately Paul's ok.

There was mixed news for Scott Evison, he had a great morning going 11.0 with his new turbo motor, it all sadly ended in tears as a 10.8 on the second run resulted in severe engine damage and a fire in the engine bay. It looks like the engine has been totally destroyed :(