VW Nationals 2008
2008 VW Nationals
Our twenty first Volkswagen Nationals show, over the weekend of May 24th and 25th, went off relatively smoothly once again. It looks like moving away from the traditional date of Easter didn’t detract from people enjoying the show. In fact, we had a record number of Car Show entries on the day, together with spectators poring through the gate. I know of many interstate visitors, and traders who attended on the day.
There was no drag racing this year, nor any cruise. Instead, this year there was a 70th Birthday celebration for the Beetle at Darling Harbour, organised by Ray Black at the Classic Volkswagen Club. Quite a few of our members went along to display their cars.
Thank you to the club members who turned up on Saturday night to help set up, and worked tirelessly throughout the day and followed up by cleaning up and leaving late on Sunday afternoon. They really are the backbone of our club, and the committee really appreciate the effort that it took to have the most successful Nationals to date. This is as testified by the positive comments and emails that have been received after the Nationals. Job Well done!! Couldn’t have done it without them.
We did have a small shower early in the morning, but it passed very quickly, and didn’t interrupt much at all. The new vehicle entry worked well with a few small disruptions at the entry gate. Thanks to our judges for a great effort. The final count was 167 Car Show entries, with the split approximately two-thirds air and one-third water-cooled Volkswagens.
Don’t forget to support our show sponsors this year. They’re all listed on the back page of each month’s magazine. These people help us out, so if you’re looking for something for your car go along and see them. Thanks to all our sponsors on the day, without which there would be no show.
Once again Volkswagen Group Australia supported our show. We had several brand-new loan vehicles for the show day display, including a Golf GT and an Eos. Marcus Hoffman from VGA helped us with the presentation of the trophies for the car show.
The food was once again excellent this year, with the people from Parramatta Rotary Club doing a great job of pushing the meals through. I did notice that we had a queue during the busy lunch period. The Rotary Club has raised some $4000.00 for charitable organisations, and this will be going towards Shelter boxes for emergency aid, the Millennium foundation.
Our June meeting (Thurs 19th) will be used to get feedback and ideas from our members for next year’s VW Nationals. We would love to hear your suggestions, and maybe get some new faces to help out next year. If you’d like to tell us what you think, please come along.
David Birchall
