VW Nationals 2021
2021 VW Nationals
Hi all, well after a covid-cancelled non-event in 2020 the 33rd VW Nationals in 2021 have come and gone, and again our biggest VW show of the year was very well attended. The VW Nationals and the club itself could not exist without help from our club members and the club committee. We needed lots of help leading up to the Nationals, during the day and after a long day at the show packing up the venue, so a big thank you to you all. The show wouldn't have been a success without your help.
For the Saturday Supersprint we elected not to go to a regular CAMS motorsport venue, and instead we booked spots at the privately owned and run Luddenham Raceway. It was a great success and I'm pretty sure we will do the same thing next year. The beauty of running the event at Luddenham was that you only need a photo street license (CAMS licence not required), and we didn't have to provide flag marshal, scrutineers, fire truck, ambulance, insurance cover etc. Those who took part had a great day on an exciting new track. We booked 20 spots for VW racers, and anyone after that could just book directly with the venue. The track has a capacity for around 50 cars on any day and was still open to the public. We had around 20 VWs old and new taking part, as well as a couple of Audis, Skodas and Porsches. There were quite a few non-VWs running by members of the public, but it was a good mix of cars. The result sheet is in this issue. Hopefully next year we will see a lot more VW drivers having a go.
After racing it was off to Fairfield on Saturday night to get the venue setup for Sunday's show n shine - setting up signs, setting the layout, putting up tables, hanging banners, organising the club office and shop and all the other work getting the venue ready. Early Sunday it was very cold with lots of cars and traders arriving before dawn. Almost all the traders were in place early.
You may have noticed a Covid checking station at the northern end of venue beyond the swappers. This will be a big new under-cover area that we can put to good use next year - if the area isn't needed for Covid checking (hopefully everyone will be vaccinated and the covid pandemic will be nothing but a bad memory by then).
Thank you to all our sponsors for their continued support, especially those who set up trade stands on the day. The updated sponsor list appears on the back page of this magazine, and the long-term sponsors with their business card ads. Please support them, because they support us.
We planned to make car show entry quicker this year, even with the additional covid check-ins, and it worked. We had a hand-held electronic payment system so that people could tap and go to pay and move on. Our volunteers moved up the line of cars to hand out and collect entry forms, grab the QR codes and take payment, so the delays at the gate were minimised as much as possible.
We were missing Shirley this year as she wasn't feeling well. But Gwen and her helpers were there taking details from people for their show entry. This really sped thinks up and cut down the waiting time considerably. Thanks to Lee, Adam and son Oscar and Stewart for doing this. At one stage the entry queue was all the way down the car park to Smithfield Road, but cars came through the gate quickly to have their photos taken and move on to their parking spots. Almost all the cars were through the gate by 10am and it was only a few latecomers after that before the entry gates closed at 10:30.
I would like to thank Lee very much for also organising our QR code, the Covid Marshalls on the day, and the hand sanitiser stations and info signs all around the ground. I really hope we won't have to do all that rigmarole again next year.
The show classes and peer judging that have worked so well were the same as last time, with cars entering almost every one of the 41 entry categories available. The numbers changed around a bit, some categories more popular than before and some less, but in general it was a great turnout. We had 192 cars officially enter the show for judging, with an additional 3 cars entered by traders with no car show form, making 195 cars altogether. This compares with 198 cars in pre-covid 2019 and 192 cars in 2018, so thank you to everyone who brought their VW along.
Beetle '58-'67 Modified was the most popular category this year, with 15 entries. T1 Kombi up to '67 Standard had 12 entries, the most ever (last time just 7). T2 Kombi '68-'79 Standard was again popular with 12 entries, and T2 Kombi Modified also had 12 entries, the most ever. Another category with remarkable growth was Golf 1 '76-'83, which had 12 entries - by far the most ever. Early Golfs have really taken off in popularity. Even Golf 2 '84-'92, a model that had only a few hundred sales in Australia, had 5 entries, the most since 2016. Golf 3 '93-'97 had 11 entries, again the most ever.
Rat Class had 10 entries, a little down on previous years. Golf 7 2013-on, for current models, had 9 entries, the most ever, showing that many buyers of new Golfs, especially hot ones, are becoming enthusiasts.
In the end there were 48 Beetles entered across six categories, 47 Kombis entered across five categories, and 44 Golfs entered across seven categories. Beetle numbers are consistent with previous years and the same as 2019, while Kombi numbers have increased slightly (up from 43 in 2019). Golf entries however have gone up in leaps and bounds, increasing from 32 in 2019 to 44 this time. That's where the future lies.
Type 3 Standard remains consistent, but Type 3 Modified has dropped considerably - from 10 in 2017 to 6 in 2019 and just 3 in 2021. It looks like modified Type 3s are no longer the done thing. Likewise with Karmann Ghias - Standard entries remain constant at around 5, while Modified Ghias have dropped from 7 in 2017 to 3 this time.
Another big drop is Non-Factory Off-Road - Buggies, Baja, Trikes etc. From 9 entries in 2017 and 11 in 2019, they dropped to just 2 this time. Likewise Aussie Convertibles and Kit cars - from 4 in 2019 to just 1 this year.
The Concours category, for immaculate factory stock VWs over 10 years old, got 3 entries this year, the highest result for a few years (the record is 5 entries in 2015). These cars are judged by a panel of VW industry experts, and the three entries this time were all so beautiful and impossible to separate! In the end the panel had enough difficulty even ranking them 1-2-3, so all three were awarded a trophy.
Every show category had a First Place trophy, with the more popular categories also having a Second, and sometimes even a Third Place trophy, depending on average entry numbers over the last five years.
A great way to be assured of winning a trophy is to be the only entrant in your category! This year we saw only one entry in the Factory Off-Road, Aussie Kit Cars, Air-Cooled Race, Water-Cooled Race, Polo and VW SUV categories, so these entries all won a trophy by default. There were also just a couple of entries in the Karmann Cabriolet, Non-Factory Off-Road, Golf 4, Golf Convertible, Audi and Porsche categories. There were three categories with no entries at all - VW Commercial (Caddy, Transporter, Amarok), SEAT and Skoda. So if you own one of these, please bring it along next year! I hope we see more VWs having a go in these categories next time.
All car show entrants received peer judging sheets, allowing them to choose up to 20 different favourite cars per sheet. Altogether some 1,412 separate votes were cast on these, and posted in the blue box before the close-off at 12:30 (though we accepted some from latecomers up to 12:45). Some people wasted their votes - one fellow voted for the one car 20 times on his sheet! Obviously his own car, but those extras don't count, it's one vote per vehicle per sheet. There was also an additional 482 People's Choice votes cast by members of the public coming in through the gate, which made 1,894 votes altogether (and 192 entry forms) for Phil to enter into the computer. This took all morning and lunchtime, but the actual calculating of the results was quickly done with Phil's custom-built Excel spreadsheet. The results were all worked out by 1:30pm.
This year my son David could not make it to the show, so his friend Sam, a professional photographer, stepped in to take photos of the entrants' cars as they came through the gate (and one of their sticker, to match the car with the entry number). He and Phil and I spent all afternoon matching up the photos to the 61 winners for the PowerPoint display, which was ready to go for the 3pm trophy presentation. The results of the show are in this issue. We will be showing all of Sam's photos at the June meeting on Thursday 17th at the Greyhound Club. We will also be handing out the nine trophies that weren't claimed on the day as they left early.
Thank you to all the helpers on the main gate, and the traffic marshals. Raymond and Grace, and their girls Bettina and Kira, were busy in the Club shop all day, not just selling shirts, jackets, mugs and hats, but taking memberships and answering hundreds of questions all day. Raymond and his girls were also the organisers of the wonderful German dancing, which remains a very popular entertainment. Christine did a great job with the raffle (I was thrilled to win the major prize, a large steel VW-shaped beer cooler!) Parramatta Rotary again did a great job with the BBQ lunch, and there were also a great variety of other food, drink and snack sellers throughout the show. Rotary ensured that all public tables and contact surfaces at the meal areas were cleaned regularly, as per the covid requirements.
Once again, thank you to all our members who helped out with the Nationals at Fairfield on Saturday night and Sunday. It made the setting up, running of the show and the packing up afterwards so much easier. We were all worn out at the end of the day. I think having two golf buggies again really saved our aging legs on the day. And of course major thanks to our main organiser Dave Birchall, who put in many hours of work in the months leading up to the show, and on the day itself.
We are open to all input and suggestions from our members, both at the Committee and Monthly Club meetings, on the Nationals this year. What you liked, what you didn't and how we can make it even better next year. Don't be shy, let us know what you think. So if you have some great ideas or would like to help out next year, please come along to committee or monthly meeting. Or drop us an email or leave a message on the Club website (once it's fixed – we’re moving to a new host).
See you with your VW soon.
Steve Carter
