TDI Fest 2000

This past Labour Day weekend, members of TDIClub.com from across North America gathered in Wilmington, North Carolina for TDI Fest 2000. Over 50 members and their families were in attendance representing seventeen states (MI, DE, CT, OH, WI, CA, NC, VA, MD, GA, NH, MA, NY, PA, SC, FL, IL) and two Canadian provinces (British Columbia and Ontario). Almost everyone drove to TDIFest, including one of the crazy Californians who drove a whopping 4,224.6 miles!

TDIClub.com is a website devoted to the VW turbo direct injection (TDI) diesel engine (which can be found in the Golf, Jetta, Passat, and New Beetle). The website was created in 1996 by Fred Voglmaier and was called "Fred's TDI Page". It started out as a small page with a bit of information about TDI's since Fred was very interested in purchasing one (which he still has not gotten) and a guest book.

Since then the response to his website has been overwhelming, and the guest book has evolved into the most popular aspect of the website, the forums. The forums allow members to exchange ideas and information about different subjects related to TDI such as oil, performance, and modifications. TDIClub.com has grown to over 3000 members and continues to grow at a staggering rate. As you can imagine, over the years, the members have gotten to known each other online and TDI Fest 2000 provided an opportunity for members to meet in person and show off their vehicles'. Some have even started to consider this large group of TDI enthusiasts to be their "family".

On Saturday, the first day of TDI Fest, there was a car show at Bob King Volkswagen. The dealership allowed us to use part of the lot for the show and provided a tent (very appreciated since it was very hot) and also provided the food and drinks.  Bob King Volkswagen also sponsored over two thousand dollars in prizes.  A local rock radio station, WRQR104.5 FM, was there live on air and providing the music.

It was quite a scene. There were probably more VW TDIs here than anywhere else in North America, except the ports of entry.  Competition was tough with all the cars looking top notch. From stock to modified (cosmetic and performance), all the cars were clean and looking great.  A few morning showers kept attendees busy re-cleaning their cars before the judging began. 

Fred and Valois (the main organizer of TDI Fest 2000) did the judging. Classes were based on vehicle type (New Beetle, Golf, Jetta, Passat) with each class getting a number of awards.  The cars were examined over and over again. The decision had to be a difficult one, because all of the cars were first rate.  The car show part of TDI Fest ended with the presentation of the prizes (See Appendix for more details).

 The whole convoy then packed up and headed to the Hilton for the Rally.

This wasn’t the type of rally you see on TV where cars are driven off road in remote parts of the world in adverse conditions, but a drive around Wilmington answering questions while trying to stay on course and on mileage.  Many people increased their mileage by doing too much sightseeing, while meandering through the historic streets of Wilmington.  See Appendix for the results.

The morning brought one of the most anticipated events of the weekend.  Plans had been made to travel to a local drag strip.  Harrell’s Drag Strip had been hit with a violent storm the previous week and the timing and scoring tower had been destroyed by lighting and subsequent fire.  They offered to open the facility but could not provide any timing help.

The  “family” came together again with stopwatches and clipboards to collect the needed statistical information for the all-important bragging rights.

As the line of almost 30 cars made it’s way to Harrell’s Drag Strip the rain started to fall.  When they got there the track was exceedingly wet though it appeared the weather might break.  The owners of the track brought out the blower and brooms and the “family’ again pitched in to dry off the track.

By 1pm the track was ready for the first set of runs from the stock TDI’s on the 1/8^th mile drag strip.

Now the Folks are from all walks of life but the brains to put these together and make them work is astronomically amazing. Valois is one of them. He can take an idea and make it work and build it too.

Each vehicle ran in both lanes against their opponent and the top 4 fastest were then paired off in elimination's.   The two vehicles left raced for the bragging rights for their class.

The modified class had 12 entries.   Early on, two of the entries had mechanical difficulty and had to sit out the race.  This was very disappointing to all that were there since these were the two Propane injection vehicles.  It was felt that one of these two would be the quickest TDI of the meet.   With the first set of elimination's complete, the modified class was down to 4 vehicles. 

The finals were an all Georgia event.  Speedrcr and Gary Miyakawa were both from the Atlanta area…  Gary has been a club member for over 2 years with many mod’s in his ’98 NB TDI.  Speedrcr just purchased his ’01 Jetta TDI and recently fitted Upsolute performance chip (like, 2 hours before the race!!).   The two lined up and the race was on. 

Gary got a jump on Speedrcr off the line and never looked back.  He won with a 10.08 versus Speedrcr’s 10.2.   Both ran very well and proved the Volkswagen TDI can be a performance car.

The last race of the day was between Uwe Ross (Ross Technologies, makers of VAG-COM ECU communications software) and the winner of the Modified TDI race.  Uwe drives a ’98? GTI VR6 with a number of modifications (Schrick intake, 268 cams, Garrett chip, TT Exhaust, etc.).   It would prove to be a very interesting race.  

Off the line, Gary had Uwe by about a car length….  He appeared to hold this lead to the end but in fact, in the last 50 feet Uwe managed to get by Gary by about ½ car length.   It was a very close and entertaining race!   Uwe was a bit surprised at how quick the TDI’s could be.  It was obvious that a stock VR6 wouldn’t have had a chance. This race is available as an AVI.

Not to take anything away from Volkswagen but the after market can greatly improve the TDI at a fairly affordable cost.  There are simple stuff like Air filter to make the car breath better.  Better enhancement chips to give it that extra ummfff, that we all like. Making this little car something to behold.

After the racing was over it’s was back to the Hilton for a feast and awards banquet.

After a great dinner including some great Canadian game cooked by TazzMan, it was time for the awards to be given out and an auction to help cover some of the TDIClub forum costs.  Furthest traveled, best mileage, First, Second of the races. Special awards of Dedications to the Club and Fest.

If you ever get caught up into this you’ll fall in love and will have a romance with a car like no other, even the ladies who drove were impressed.

If you think this was exciting, be sure to attend TDI Fest 2001.

Appendix:

Car Show

Winners of the car show were as follows:

Rally

After the car show there was a Rally organized by Osidak. This rally set each car out with a driver, navigator, 1 out of 3 sets of directions and a question sheet. After following the properly, following directions contestants ended up at the first of three checkpoints and continued their way around Wilmington. After such a slew of cars yours truly even had residents pointing us in the direction we should follow. After the question sheets were handed in (2 people never finished), the answers and correct mileage were taken into account and the results were:

1st Place: Car 2 VWYankee 200 points
2nd Place: Car 14 ITTRAD/EMS 178points
3rd place: Car 5 Andrew/Jill Carpenter 99 points.

Race Times

After the modified contest, #1 stock ran against #1 modified:

Gary Miyakawa 10.4 Winner
Jonathan 11.4

Guest Registry

The Ripster, Switca, Kehi, Birdman, TDi Ray, Ittrad, EMS, garretp, Speedrcr, Jim Wiliston, Skypup, TDI Believer. Mrs TDI Believer. Cars Wanted, CarolinaGolf, Gary Miyakawa, Brian, Osidak, Smokin TDI, Gassin Gerhard, Jonathan  Bartlett, mbciii, Andrew's Dsl, Turbo Steve, HowardZ, BG, Tazzman, Tomo366, Uwe, Brussels Belgian, hudsonjrwt, Driv'n EZ, TDI Steve, VW Derf, Daisy, Bkmetz, Ric Woodruff, VWYankee, Valois, SteveS , dzcad90, Lance Allison, and more who didn’t sign…

Notes and commentary by:

Tazzman, Gary Miyakawa, and Fred Voglmaier.  Pictures shown are from attendees.