VW Nationals 2015
2015 VW Nationals
The 28th VW Nationals have come and gone, and again our biggest VW show of the year was very well attended. Who would have believed that it would still be going after all these years? We had a lot of help from our club members and the club committee. We needed 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 first time the Supersprint was held in Sydney, at Sydney Motorsport Park at Eastern Creek. Thank you to Dave Birchall for organising this venue after it was found earlier in the year that Wakefield Park was double booked on the day we needed. The Supersprint was well attended, with competitor numbers increasing from 66 in Goulburn last year to a full field of 80, plus reserves, this year. This was due to invitations to members of other CAMS clubs, so there were a lot of non-VWs running. Even so, we had more VWs competing than non VWs. Forty two of the starters were VWs, including a few Audis, Skodas and 356 Porsches which we will claim as our own anyway.
David Birchall is already trying to organise the same venue for next year’s supersprint, and if so hopefully we can get even 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 and it was good see Chris smiling during the day as apart from a few incidents went off really well. Thanks too to all the scrutineers, marshals and flaggies who made the day run smoothly. Norm Robertson helps out at various CAMS events throughout the year and is able to get return favours from clubs that he has helped out during the year. We have a very small group of club members who have been trained by CAMS to be officials on the day. They did a great job but we need more club members to get involved.
The show day at Fairfield actually started late on Saturday night with the setting up of the site; knocking in signs, setting the layout, putting up tables, hanging banners and all the other work getting the venue ready. It was really good not having to dash back from Wakefield Park at Goulburn after the Supersprint to do the setting up.
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 – a Jetta, a Tiguan and a Polo. 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, because they support us.
The peer judging seemed to work pretty well, although many entrants still seem unsure of what category they should enter. We had 234 cars enter the judging this year, which is the highest ever. Almost all categories had entrants, including the VW SUV class for the first time, but again we had no VW Trikes, and no New Beetles. We might remove those classes next year. There were 88 peer judging forms submitted to the office. There was a wide range of responses; some people chose to nominate only one or two cars – perhaps their own – and others one for many or almost all categories. The most popular classes for entrants were Beetle 58-67 Modified; Rat Class; Beetle 68-on Modified; Kombi 68-79 Standard; Type 3 Modified; T1 Kombi Standard; Golf 5; T2 Kombi modified, and Golf 6-7.
This year we introduced an additional special Concours class, judged by twoVW industry experts. There were 5 entrants, and in the end they couldn’t decide between a restored Oval belonging to Andrew Clements and an original Superbug belonging to Ken Davis. In the end it was decided to have joint winners.
Thank you to all the helpers on the main gate, and the traffic marshals, and the band of ladies, Connie, Gwen, Martha, Susan and Shirley, who handled the car show entry forms and 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.
Parramatta Rotary again did a great job with the BBQ lunch, and Joe had arranged for country yodeller Johanna Hamara to entertain the crowd. The Hubertus Club German Folk Dancers also gave us some excellent entertainment; thank you to Raymond for organising that. It was very popular with the crowd and gave the show a fantastic German feel. This year Raymond joined with Kira and Bettina in the dancer group and showed off his deft footwork.
This year Bob and Vlad were not available to do the computer work, so compiling the results was done by our editor Phil Matthews, using his custom-written Excel spread sheet rather than the previous MS Access database. Peer judging doesn't require adding of the scores, but rather counting the highest instances of any given number. Excel has a MODE command for this, which proved perfect for the task. Phil and Lily did an excellent job and had the results ready in plenty of time.
This year we also had some 2nd place trophies made and these were awarded to the nine classes with the largest number of entries. David Carter also did a great job with the visual photo presentation, matching up each category winner with their VW’s photo, in the right order and in sync with the presentation.
At 3pm the crowd had gathered for the raffle draw. Matt White and Christine drew the raffle for the Camden GTI Golf Cabriolet giveaway. Then I presented the trophies to the winners, with Phil doing the microphone work. It all went well, and only four of the trophy winners weren't around to collect them. These will be available for collection at the next meeting.
Once again, thank you to all our members who helped out with the Nationals, both at Sydney Motorsport Park on Saturday and at 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, and especially to Dave Birchall. We were all worn out at the end of the day, I think we might hire golf buggies or even Segways next year to aid us in getting around the show area. 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.
See you with your VW soon,
Steve Carter
