VW Nationals 2014
2014 VW Nationals
Well, the 27th VW Nationals have come and gone, and again our biggest VW show of the year was a terrific event. Who would have believed that it would still be going after all these years? We had a lot of help from club members and the club committee, so a big thank you to you all. The show wouldn’t have been a success without your help.
The Supersprint was well attended, with competitor numbers increasing from 55 last year to 66 this year. This was due to invitations to members of other CAMS clubs. As a result, we had more non-VWs competing than VWs. Only 23 of the starters were VWs, plus a few Audis and Skodas. The fastest car of the day was a modified Daihatsu Charade, while the fastest VW was a Golf R in fourth. Hopefully next year we will be on the new circuit at Luddenham and we can get more VWs competing.
Thank you to Chris Fraser for all your admin work with CAMS and in the office on the day; the day would have been impossible without you. Thanks too to all the scrutineers, marshals and flaggies who made the day run smoothly.
The show day at Fairfield started late on Saturday night with the big set-up of the site, knocking in signs, putting up tables, hanging banners and all the other work getting everything ready.
Cars and traders began arriving before dawn and soon it was a hive of activity. Almost all the traders were in place early, and we had several brand new VWs on display – Golf GTIs and Rs, a Tiguan and a Passat Alltrack. The swappers had a bit more space this year, and we noticed there were more water-cooled VWs in the show than ever. There were also numerous newly restored older VWs that hadn’t been seen before.
Thank you to all the sponsors who for their continued support; the updated sponsor list appears on the back page of this magazine. Please support them, as they support us.
The peer judging seemed to work pretty well, although many entrants seemed unsure of what category they should enter, and a few of them lost their judging sheets after they parked their cars. We had people coming to the club stand well after 2pm, still trying to enter cars! We had to close those off at 12:30, but people could put in their completed judging and Peoples’ Choice sheets as late as 1:30. Thank you to all the helpers on the main gate, and the traffic marshals, who helped all the entrants come through as quickly and smoothly as possible.
Christine’s raffles were as popular as always, and this year’s designs for the shirts and jackets were well received. The club stand was busy all day. Thank you to Raymond and Grace, Kira, Bettina and Lily for helping in the shop all day.
Our TV and old VW ads DVD had plenty of people lingering by the Club stand too. Parramatta Rotary again did a great job with the BBQ lunch.
Vlad, Bob and Aaron worked flat out all day in the office, tabulating all the results on their computers. Last year we only had First Place for the categories, so this year we wanted to add Second to the most popular categories. Then we found out Bluey had made Second trophies for every category, so the three guys had to work extra hard to work out all the results in time. David Carter also did a great job with the visual photo presentation, matching up each category winner with their VW’s photo.
At 3pm the crowd had gathered but the results weren’t quite ready, so Matt White and Christine drew the raffle for the Camden GTI Golf Cabriolet giveaway. The Hubertus Club German Folk Dancers also gave us some excellent entertainment; thank you to Raymond for organising that. Steve Carter and Bob Hickman presented the trophies to the winners, with me doing the microphone work instead of Dave this year.
Once again, thank you to all our members who helped out with the Nationals, both at Wakefield on Saturday and Fairfield on Sunday. It made the setting up, running of the show and the packing up afterwards so much easier. A huge thank you to everyone. Especially to the #1 man - Dave.
We are open to all input 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, please come along. Or drop us an email or leave a message on the Club website.
Phil and Lily Matthews (filling in for Steve who is in LA)
