Waterfest: The highlights....[long]

[Jim Jarrett <jarrett@rpa.net>]

Well, I just arrived home from WF 2K+1.

Friday:

-Hooked up with Brett V. at his house, and headed on down, picked up 
Mike Leach and his wife Daphne who have moved to Elmira, NY, in 
Binghamton at our favorite lunch spot, the Harry L. Drive Wegman's. 
(GOOD gourmet pizza).

Nice, leisurely drive to the Ramada in NJ.  Had to deal with the fact 
that all turns in New Jersey are right turns, even left turns.....got 
a bit screwed up by that.

We arrived at the hotel, and at first glance saw no VW's.  We cruised 
around back to see if anyone was there, and met up with Jan Folkson, 
in his stock '86 16v.  Then a window opened, and Josh Able started 
yelling at us as he is wont to do. Apparently the Ramada had set 
aside a lot for Waterfest parking around the other side, so we staked 
our claim, by "the grassy knoll" (the only shade in the area).

We checked in, found our room had a wide open view of the lot, and 
sat in the air-conditioned splendor and watched the cars roll in. 
Till about 7pm, all we saw were A2's,3s, and 4s, with the odd A1. 
Paul Maione and Nigel Heron showed up, but no more Sciroccos.

Hiked over to Chili's, which was right next door for blue drinks that 
came in glasses with salt on the rims, or very large beers, and some 
food....staggered, er...headed back to the parking lot to dig the 
scene, which by 9, had gotten fairly large; the lot was 3/4 full. 
Burnouts were happening, more cars arriving.  Round about 11 or so, 
the Toronto contingent arrived, burning their way into the 
lot....followed by about 6 East Hanover police cars a few minutes 
later.  The police chief rounded everyone up and sort of read the 
riot act -- telling everyone they had to keep it calm, no more 
burnouts, or they "would arrest you, and impound your car until 
Monday, so you'd miss the show."  Obviously, no one from last year's 
Ramada or town had talked to this Ramada or town.....otherwise I 
doubt they'd have set it up here. <G>.  They were cool about hanging 
out in the parking lot, just did not want people driving drunk or 
burning out.

The party went on into the night, a few more list members showed up 
-- Tony Pelletier, the Ohio contingent, Josh Strait.  Crashed out 
about 2.

Saturday:

The phone rang at the ungodly hour of 9am, it was Jan & Josh seeing 
if we wanted to go to breakfast.  We weren't up for it, but we were 
up.  So we wandered outside and hung in the sun most of the day. 
Scott Williams got the road rally organized and off, some more 
listers showed up.  Allyn M. was there with his slightly bent 
Rieger-kitted car (ouch, dude, my condolences....), and he went off 
to the train station and picked up Brian McGarvey.  Runs to the beer 
store were made, and beverages were consumed (right, Brian? <G>). 
Julie MacFarlane and her daughter arrived, with her primered '81. 
Nice job on the body work, too!  Plus some rather "interesting" 
modifications inside....good God, when an electrical engineer gets 
hold of a VW, interesting things happen!

Around 2pm, Yarrow Thorne, of the 1.8 
Mk1-drive-to-CA-after-doing-One-Lap fame, wandered thru the parking 
lot....but there were only a couple of us out there at the time, he 
looked REALLY tired, and wandered off.

Then the Potterpeople showed up, and greetings were traded all 
around...Pete Lindval(sp?), Marc Getty, Bill Scarince and his fiance 
Rebecca also showed up in the afternoon.  A bunch of us headed over 
to Chili's for more food.

After dinner, the parking lot party got going into full swing, along 
with burnouts in front of the hotel, which brought quite the 
response:  More than twenty police cars, and on the order of 55 
police officers.  Apparently, there was a bit of an overreaction, as 
one of the Toronto guys reported seeing one of the cars pull up, and 
the officers jump out, pretty jumpy --- he asked Al what was going 
on, that there had been reports of a riot.  Well, they swept thru the 
parking lot, telling everyone to either go to their rooms or if they 
didn't have a reservation at the Ramada to leave.  One cop explained 
to us they just needed things calmed down, just go in for a while, 
let things cool off, they'd leave, and then we could come back out 
(as long as it stayed calm).  Okay....off to Chili's for a few drinks 
till this happened.

The parking lot fun continued on late into the night.

Sunday:

WAY too early, we had to get up and get to our cars for the hour long 
drive to the show.  The hotel was over 30 miles away from Island 
Dragway, and a good part of that was county roads.  The line to get 
in was long and dusty, and there was no shade, anywhere.

We all got in and got parked, and waited for the judging to happen. 
The Sciroccos got judges fairly early in the day, albeit not without 
some problems.  I was showing my 16v Rabbit Convertible, and mine was 
the very last class judged; they actually brought the results up onto 
the podium while they were reading off the winners.

I was stuck at my car all day, so I can't really report on what I 
saw, cause I didn't see anything.  I did get into the vendor area for 
about 1/2 hr with Brian McGarvey, and met "Dave" from Adirondack Auto 
Brokers.  I was going to have some fun with Yarrow, and point at his 
clutch cable and ask something about where it came from (remember, we 
had to rebuild it in a gas station lot on the way up to New 
Dimensions), but he looked even more tired and way busy at the 
Adrenalin Tuning booth.

So the awards.  There were some issues.  At first, Steve Szuba had 
won third place for stock Scirocco.  Only one problem.  Unless we 
totally missed you Steve, and a gem like your Callaway is pretty hard 
to miss, he wasn't there.  So frantic recalculation was required.  In 
the end, Jan won 1st place (again) and Jason Cammisa really took 
third place.

In modified, Josh Able got 3rd place, AJ Russo, who's car was also 
done by the place that did Josh's got 2nd, and guess who got first. 
Yes, that's right, Jason TMB. Hehe, no, Brett took back first place. 
However, there was also a rather embarassing mixup in the 
supermodified A1 class that didn't look good for Rapid.  I'll let 
others explain that.

In A1 Cabriolet modified, I humbly have to report that I took first 
place.  Ok, not so humbly....hehe......

Mike Potter took 2nd place in DSP autocross, in a stock 2000 Passat 
with a Tiptronic.  Nice job, Mike!

I unfortunately haven't heard the results of the road rally, so if 
anyone cares to post them, please do!

Now, getting out after the show was a nightmare of the first order. 
We watched cars line up all the way back to the end of the show 
slots, and not move more than 2 car's length in an hour.  There was a 
HUGE traffic tie-up somewhere; it was rumored someone was speeding 
and went off the road near the show.  Again, it was a county road 
leading to the site, so it wasn't designed to handle large volumes of 
traffic.  The awards ended at about 3:30, and we didn't even try to 
start heading out until 5:30.  It still took us over an hour and a 
half to get back to the Ramada.  And the cars in the spectator lot? 
It was the dustiest place on earth since the '30s dust bowl.  Cars 
there were FILTHY.  Anyone who'd left their windows down were in a 
bad way.

We finally got back to the hotel, cleaned up, treated sun burns, and 
had a leisuely dinner across the road at a Japanese restaurant, the 
Potterpeople joined in.  Then back to the back of the hotel near 
TMB's room for a quiet hang out and finishing up of the beverages 
that were left.  If anyone has an agressive cam for their chicken, 
just let Jason know, okay?  He needs one.

Monday:

Long, hot drive home.  I'm sweating myself silly here, so that's the wrapup.

For me, it was the best ever, but I'm biased, I think having taken a 
first place. :)  The hotel situation was rather inconvenient, what 
with bumping people, and being so far from the site.  I will be 
interested to see what next year's show brings.......

/===============================================================\
| Jim Jarrett,Rochester NY      '93 Passat GLX, '84 Scirocco    |
| mailto:jarrett@rpa.net         '81 Rabbit Convertible 16v     |
|                                                               |
|    Any problem can be solved with the proper application of   |
|   Force, Heat, Chemicals, or Money.                           |
\===============================================================/



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