Thread: world's 1st door slammer air cooled vw in the 7s...

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13lbs per c/i too!!!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8lIFd...layer_embedded

Speedworld, in Wittman, AZ, has been both good and bad to VW racing...

(1) That's where Andy Costello crashed the Performance Technology Fastback. Destroyed the car, in October of '97
(2) I will never ever forget the call on my cell hone, one warm summer evening, from Jason Lauffer... it was hard to hear because of the commotion at the track, but I understood load and clear.... VW Paradise had just run a 6.94, the first VW powered car in the Sixes....
and
(3) Now Eric Calabrese, Scott Fetherolf, and all of Team Red Baron, in the Sevens in a door car...

Troy and I were racing his VW in E/G at a West Coast Hod Rod Association night race at SpeedWorld the night this record was broken. It was almost 2 AM! We were the only VW racing that night when The Red Barron team pulled into the staging lanes, laughing. We knew immediately what they were up to, "testing" in Arizona. They looked over at the "VW Paradise" sponser decal on the side of our car and said "what are you guys doing over here"? The answer was "we race all the West Coast Hot Rod races", what are you doing here, entered into B/G (a 8.60 index), knowing they really wanted to run almost a full second quicker than the 8.60 B/G index? They knew their surprise was out and we would be calling The Lauffers "If they broke the record". Troy made that call at 2 AM! LOL

We were pitted next to one of the A/G teams that night. They had a "full on, pro built" 1963 Corvette, It was a "very nice" car. I'd bet it was $100K plus. They were having problems getting it to run the 7.90 A/G class index. When we got back to our pit to load up at the end of the evening they asked.........So........How much horsepower does it take to make a "air cooled", "four cylinder", VW run in the sevens? We said "about 1100" as an educated guess. They just shook their heads in disbelief.

Short of winning our NHRA Wally at Pomona, it was the best VW racing nights I can remember. It's pretty cool racing a Vintage VW at a V8 event and having one of the cars run a 7 second world record.

Use to hang out w/this guy back in the late 80's early 90's that took his Grandma's all original 32,000 mile stock 67 Beetle & turned into a low 10 second street car. At the drag strip he would do 1/8mile wheelies & still blow the doors off of all the cars in his class BBC Camaro's, Chevelle's and anything else. Talk about a bunch of pissed of guys/gals. All they could say was "F'ing VW's"...joe

The VWP folks just ran a 7.70 in their door slammer bug yesterday at Vegas! Holy crap!!!