My Waterfest Story - long, even for me.....

[scirocco16vr32 at gmail.com (Chris Bennett)]

Sorry semi OT. Did you get the scirocco rubbing I mailed?
 Sorry to hear about your son's car. That really sucks. I was 250 miles from 
home this weekend and had a blowout (left front) on the R32. Scared the shit 
out of me, my wife who is almost 7 months pregnant nearly gave birth to 
puppies in addition to the child she was already carrying. My four year old 
slept through it all. 
 In true Bill Cosby tradition I said it and then nearly did it and that 
would have been a shame on the leather.
 Anyhow we towed it into Fayetteville and bought a pair of Kumo's. The 
blowout didn't damage the rim but the asshat that replaced the tire 
scratched the finish on the OZ's both sides. I can't really prove he did it 
and the manager was a friend of a friend, so I didn't blow my stack there. 
Also yesterday during washing the car I noticed a big chuck of finish 
missing from a rear rim near the bolts. I don't think he did that but I 
can't explain how that happened either. No matter but I am still not real 
happy all around this morning. 
 Chris
  

 On 7/18/05, C Boyko <roccit_53@scirocco.cs.uoguelph.ca> wrote: 
> 
> Waterfest and I have a long history of disaster. I'll divide this up, you
> can delete the next ones if you like....but you may want to read on...
> 
> Friday: My son Adam and his girlfriend Paula rolled out at 5 am after
> we'd all had minimal sleep, it had been hot and humid. We were planning
> to take four cars, but had decided to leave the Cabby home. Adam's 87
> Jetta turbo diesel (on air bags/ sparkly paint, etc) had sheared a wheel
> stud and blown a brake line in the week before the trip, that had been
> fixed, so it was good to go. Denny and I rolled out at 7 am with the 87 
> 16V
> and the 99 NewBeetle, both of which had seen lots of road time and had 
> been
> prepped for the trip (including a last minute replacement of the starter
> bolt the 16V decided she no longer needed, she's into "self
> lightening" this year). 5 minutes out, we got a call from Adam. He was
> getting towed to a Walmart, and needed a battery and a fuel filter. Two
> Canadian Tires later, we were "provisioned up" and met him in Batavia. It
> had taken Adam 2 hours to get there, it took us four and a half. He and
> Paula had set up a nice encampment in an abandoned corner of the parking
> lot, and he quickly installed the parts and tested it out, it had been
> stalling on bumps and hard turns. It seemed fine, but by now the nice
> Walmart greeter had notified the local authorities, and no amount of
> explaining the situation would change his mind, he was a real jerk. He had
> the manager, and a few other Walmartians to help him deal with scary me. I
> was in "pissed off mother" mode, a force to be reckoned with no doubt.
> The car seemed fine so we headed out before the cops got there.
> 
> About 200 miles down the road (including the obligatory rain), the Jetta
> decided to shut itself off, several times. We hit the nearest exit, camped
> out in an abandoned parking lot for a while to let it cool down, then
> figured we should check out safe havens. Adam was all set to drive it
> towards Waterfest till it really died, but I pointed out that an injection
> pump (Adam's most likely suspect) was going to be hard to locate and
> impossible to install without the tools to time it, so adding miles to the
> potentially expensive tow likely wasn't best. (I'd also suggested that
> it sounded like an electrical issue, but what do I know?) He wanted it in
> an impound, and that would add to the expense, so we headed for the local
> VW dealer to see what they had to offer. They were closed, so the car 
> ended
> up in the Chev dealership next door for the weekend. We repacked three 
> cars
> into two, including the two extra people, and headed for Jersey. We'd
> changed hotels at the last minute, so we "cruised" around a "really
> nice area" where ornamental iron was more than just a fashion statement,
> and I saw one nice young man "going through his purse", much to the
> dismay of it's PO I'm sure. Yeah, not the best place to be with out of
> state/country plates. Denny was leading the way, and we spent 45 minutes
> trying to find the motel. The only bright spot was the number of railway
> trellises, nice for 6000+ rpm blasts with the window down! At midnight we
> finally located the hotel (not one of the "official" ones), after 18.5
> hours for Adam, 16.5 for us, normally an 8 hour trip.
> 
> I heard the call of nature, and as I passed through the self opening lobby
> doors, at that exact moment, the fire alarm went off. Not wanting to die
> with a full bladder, I forged on ahead, LMAO, and we hung around in the
> parking lot for a while to watch the evacuation, and the pretty lights on
> the fire trucks. Yep, I had arrived at Waterfest.
> 
> Not wanting to waste valuable time, we headed out to find burnouts and
> general nonsense, but none were to be found. We were assured by many that
> such things were going on at "the Canadian Embassy" (aka Hotel #1), but
> since the Waterfest printout was locked safely in the bay of a Chevy
> dealership many hours away, we had to wander about the other locked down
> parking lots, admiring all the pretty police cars and VWs, and listening 
> to
> folklore about twin engined Sciroccos killing asphalt in some other place.
> Sigh.
> 
> That was Friday. I love Waterfest.
> 
> There will be more, delete if you wish. Please note that my two cars ran
> beautifully for the whole trip down.....
> Cathy
> 
> 
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