VW nationals07.DEBRIEF,no pics.

[Golf Loon]

GUYS! I dont know if anyone else feels this way (though im judging so by the lack of pics of it), that that Green vr6 wid the chromes was so pus, so ricer, so wrong; i certainly wasnt expecting to win anything considering mines so rough and dirty from the run down here, so its nothing like he stole my trophy. the only way i can understand him winning is by the amount of mods?! That seriously wrecked my day . . . ricey chrome rims, not even lowered, stupidly loud and rough stereo intstall; to be honest it looked really cheap . . . sorry if ive offended, but im venting my dissapointment in the judging criteria . . . .

will speak again in 24hrz or so . . . .

It was very clean though, the guy had obviously polished it for hours and he did get points for number of mods.
He lost points for his stock 2L engine, but clearly pulled through on overall. The interior was very clean too, but stock.

I allowed for dirt from your Journey down on your car, but whilst it would go heaps faster than the green thing, it looks more rough. Missing plastic moulds and tape on the headlights being 2 examples. Dont lets start an arguement, I was glad to meet you and I like your car. Having 4 judges averages out a lot of the subjectivity, which is how that car won over Steves VR6 and your car amongst others.

We learnt a few lessons today and I will put forward suggestions for changes to the format next year to the committee, so if anyone has any points, let me know or come along to a meeting.

Its not our show, I`m just glad that we can become such a big part of it.

[Golf Loon]

glad you got a shirt, was sick of seeing you run around topless!

i completely agree with what your saying, the numbers have to be proven to provide more trophies/awards as your saying.

but least as mentioned it was proved a lot of people (watercooled) were interested and came along, but as you said why the hell did they do it on such a significant day who knows! im sure it stopped a fair few people from coming due to family & friend gatherings for easter but what can you do!

bigger and better each year

Thats a good point about the date, I`ll put that forward at the meeting.

Keep supporting what is still a fledgling movement in Oz and watch it grow.

[static1800]

it has always been on easter sunday from memory, cant see it being changed.

[gpk_gti]

keep it up guys! this is exactly what we need to get out,so when we go to the meeting at the end of the month,we have as much feedback as possible.

[Golf Loon]

Forums are great, but it's clubs with membership money & passionate people that get things done (not saying Golf loon and gpk_gti aren't passionate ).

I think the forum is good because there is no commercial interest and no-one controls it. As soon as you have a club and committees and management structures and factions it all just becomes about petty politics and not about the dubs.

There are a few shows on around the place who are welcoming our participation with open arms. The Flat Four club have a show at Miller on November 4th which they would love us to goto, but again they cant offer prizes without an idea of who wants to go.

It would be a huuge operation to organize a show and the vw watercooled massive is not massive enough yet. Much easier to be a part of an existing event and by participation mould it into what you want it to be.

[FL00DY]

I think the forum is good because there is no commercial interest and no-one controls it. As soon as you have a club and committees and management structures and factions it all just becomes about petty politics and not about the dubs.

There are a few shows on around the place who are welcoming our participation with open arms. The Flat Four club have a show at Miller on November 4th which they would love us to goto, but again they cant offer prizes without an idea of who wants to go.

It would be a huuge operation to organize a show and the vw watercooled massive is not massive enough yet. Much easier to be a part of an existing event and by participation mould it into what you want it to be.

This is very true about the politics. There has been a bit of talk for a GTI Club. For me this would be more about Track Day organisation then shows like this. Knowing that a group 30+ owners could do a track for $130 is what I'd be wanting out of a club.

[KI11Z]

It was very clean though, the guy had obviously polished it for hours and he did get points for number of mods.
He lost points for his stock 2L engine, but clearly pulled through on overall. The interior was very clean too, but stock.

I allowed for dirt from your Journey down on your car, but whilst it would go heaps faster than the green thing, it looks more rough. Missing plastic moulds and tape on the headlights being 2 examples. Dont lets start an arguement, I was glad to meet you and I like your car. Having 4 judges averages out a lot of the subjectivity, which is how that car won over Steves VR6 and your car amongst others.

Just want to say that i fully didnt expect to win prizes, like i said, my VR is very rough and was very dirty, so no reasons need to be given as to why i didnt win it over him. My main gripe is that to me, he has wrecked the golf image by totally riceing it up and pulls of 1st place at THE VW NATIONALS!; To me that sets a precidence as to what judges are looking for in our cars, and too me thats crud! people bag cars wid big shiney wheels and all the doofdoof and yet it seems to win . . . i just hope that this doesnt change peoples views on how to modify their dub on order to win trophies....

[Tim]

Just want to say that i fully didnt expect to win prizes, like i said, my VR is very rough and was very dirty, so no reasons need to be given as to why i didnt win it over him. My main gripe is that to me, he has wrecked the golf image by totally riceing it up and pulls of 1st place at THE VW NATIONALS!; To me that sets a precidence as to what judges are looking for in our cars, and too me thats crud! people bag cars wid big shiney wheels and all the doofdoof and yet it seems to win . . . i just hope that this doesnt change peoples views on how to modify their dub on order to win trophies....

we had a similar situation here in vic at day of the volkswagen. one of the mk3s that won was modified cosmetically. and quite untastefully. But he won. And he won fair and square cos his car was the best presented. ugly as a hat full of arseholes and made me want to cry.. but.. he presented his hat full of arseholes better than anyone elses car

[KI11Z]

well i think its wrong . . . i got into the dub scene to be different, to get away from the cheap ricey carz; It annoys me to think that a non-dubber (he spoke to me and had no idea bout'em) can come into the scene with wat he had, take out first prize in probably the biggest vw show, think that the vw scene is a push over and move on to a skyline the next week. in all the groups that i cruize with back home, that car would only be laughed at, and then to have him turn around and say "I WON FIRST PRIZE IN THE VW NATIONALS", to me thats an insult . . .

Im really sorry to everyone but im really pissed, there were some really nice mk3z there that to me deserved his spot, at least pedros 1st! c'mon . . .

if i wanted to see ricers i would have gone to autosalon! i didnt even bother with brisbanes autosalon, let alone sydneys!! . . . . . . . .

[deemoE36]

im gonna have to agree with ki11z and Tim, it should be about how well you can present your car which is a reflection of what you want in it and what you like about it, not about whos got more spare cash laying around to spend on a ridiculous mods
but at the same time, judges did the best they could with range of categories that were available, they cant just say "those wheels dont suit it so will mark it down", its an modification and he was marked + for it which is the only way
like Matt said, he lost points for stock engine, but he had more other mods that marked him higher than others

the only way of fixing this is adding more categories next year i reckon

[rayray086]

Overall it was a good day. The parking allocations were a bit tight - when I heard "showground" I thought we would be in like a cricket field or somethin'. As such, I would have expected parking arrangements to be similar to that of foreign watercooled VW shows like H2O and Waterwagens in the US and Edition38 in Europe. I noticed some of the aircooled were parked spatiously, whereas some of us watercooled were a bit cramped, so I suppose after seeing yesterday's impressive turnout (and our ability to meet the quota of 50+ watercooled cars), we may be given more respect and as such better parking allocations.

There were two stalls that caught my attention at the show - there was Tony with ASV/Euro Car Parts, and then there was also Paul from EuroCarDriver (used to be VW Driver). Paul and his new shop, to me, have sparked the most interest in our watercooled cause - he claims to be the exclusive vendor of certain German-branded aftermarket parts, such as IN.PRO and FK, both of which I'm pretty sure have a very large market with the watercooled dubbers in Europe and the US. Paul and EuroCarDriver will be supporting the GTI Nationals that'll involve some track time at Oran Park, I think some time in June.

I believe it will be important to have some aftermarket support down here in Australia for our VWs. Without them, we'll keep getting Autosalon-esque examples. I frequently watch the VWVortex forums (though hardly post) and the styling they pump out for their Mk3's and other generations are absolutely stunning in my opinion. Very few examples here are replicated in that fashion, though I saw a lot of "Euro-tuner" modded cars in the Nats yesterday - the bike rack + bikes on the red Mk4, Porsche rims (and rims from other Golf generations), bad-boy/Boser bonnets (as opposed to eyelids) and so on.

Hmm, the last two paragraphs had nothing to do with the Nationals - just my response based on what seems to be "unfair" judging. Yes, I hate to see the prize for best Mk3 awarded to the green Golf, but judging has been made to be as objective as possible. Hopefully by next year, or in the coming years, we will slowly phase out Autosalon and bring in Euro-tuner to our "scene". I really think we can, and having aftermarket support will definitely help some of us achieve what we want in our cars.

[brackie]

+ive and -ive

Before commenting on Loon's post I would like to say how proud I am of all of you! The turnout was excellent and the spirit was strong. Who could ask for more?

Also I would like to thank the judges and in particularly Matt for the effort they put in for us...Yes, us. We may not be a club but we are a community and it's great to see us mixing it with other VW enthusiasts no matter what they drive. And I believe that we finally are recognised as VW enthusiasts who are supporting the whole scene, not just doing our own thing in isolation.

I reckon most of you know how much work Loon put into all of this and for those who don't, you should.... and a few words to recognise this wouldn't go astray. Judging anything, especially with criteria that are difficult to define and with cars that have so many variables and diversity once they are customised, is a difficult thing.

Sitting here at the computer a zillion miles away in Tassie is light years from being there but the enthusiasm for the whole event and the support shown by members like static, mkvr6, gpk_gti, 1dub2C and other great contributors shows just how strong we are.

Enough of the "Academy Awards" stuff......

I think the forum is good because there is no commercial interest and no-one controls it. As soon as you have a club and committees and management structures and factions it all just becomes about petty politics and not about the dubs.

There's a win/win situation here. If you're into clubs then you can join a VW club and still contribute to this forum. Your club activities will even support and enhance us
We are so geographically disparate that turning this forum into a club is just impractical.

There are a few shows on around the place who are welcoming our participation with open arms. The Flat Four club have a show at Miller on November 4th which they would love us to goto, but again they cant offer prizes without an idea of who wants to go.

Get involved! It can only do good.

It would be a huuge operation to organize a show and the vw watercooled massive is not massive enough yet. Much easier to be a part of an existing event and by participation mould it into what you want it to be.

But we'll get there. We'll have 1k members soon and we will continue to grow. However a show for a national group like ourselves is going to be out of the question for a long time. At present we get together on a state or capital city basis and this is working well. I reckon the social aspects of this forum are a real benefit to its users and when this all started out I had not idea just how important it would be. GTGs are very difficult and time consuming to organise (ask anybody who's done it ) but it requires commitment and persistence to make them come to fruition (as well as a thick-skinned organiser). In the end even if just 2 of us get to the meet it's a success.

[Golf Loon]

On the Mk3 modified front, I would have liked to have seen RayRay and Peedman enter their cars, rather than just park up with us.

Maybe next year we can park all the Mk3s together and the Judges can mark them all one after the other. Its very hard when you mark em hours apart.

[phaeton]

We'll have 1k members soon and we will continue to grow

Had to pipe in, this sites potential is 10K plus posters even more really when you consider VW sell 20K a year now

Congrats to all who participated & organized etc

[GoLfMan]

fantastic guys, sounds like the same issues us watercoolers had at the Day of the Volksy down here...
congrats guys great job for gettin in there and getting your hands dirty and the like...
as for judging, you cant judge peoples tastes so much as their presentation! Otherwise judging would become near impossible with everyones taste different, i know that the presentation thing doesnt work out (eg, yellow perril and the two mk3 winners) but its a fair and even ground... hats off to the judges i dont envy the postion you guys were in!

YOU SYDNEY BOYS SHOULD COME TO DOVW!