1990-1993 (FORMERLY 4 YEARS- NOW CONDENSED TO 3)
bedjo78:
We still checking every day ...
karl h:
me too...
Jim Ratto:
Sacramento Bug A Rama May 1991 coming up, what if we go racing?
I read some of the comments about the Lonuge or the scene dying off, sorry if you guys are seeing/feeling that. I think this is a weird year for everybody and what has taken place globally, not to mention locally, IS having an effect on people psychologically. But we don't need to go into that bad news here. Just something to keep in mind I guess.
Back to sometime during the spring of 1991, post-disastrous trip down the California coast to Ventura and back. We're going to skip ahead just a bit and that takes us to an after hours bullshit session, in the Buggy House office, about an hour after closing time. The shop manager, Mark was still there and Frank had stopped by to hang out or pick me up or pick up parts or something. We were sitting around in wheeled, ragged office chairs, listening to Mark reminisce about his earlier VW years, around 1978-into early 1980's, in the East Bay. At the time Mark drove a blue sedan with widened glass fenders and wide tires, powered by an 1835 with a K8 Engle, way too much compression and 48mm Webers. Mark and his car were part of a small, but exclusive performance VW club, Der Kleiner Lowen, for a short period of time. As we all know, a lot of these stories from days gone by get wildly embellished, but Mark made it sound like this was your usual army of like-minded misfit guys with Bugs, all with high compression and Webers and a lust to get into trouble. All kinds of stories about Friday and Saturday nights cruising and street racing, and Wednesday nights spent clicking off ET's at Baylands in Fremont. And there sat Frank and I, not blinking, listening to Mark like two little kids, once in awhile saying "Dude.... no way... how cool" and the like. And then Mark asks us "Why don't you two and your idiot friends start some kind of club?" Yeah! Good question, but uh, which idiot friends? Especially if we were talking a performance oriented club. I knew very few people, at this point, locally that had any interest in dumping their meager incomes into heads, new case, forged stroker crank, Webers and a gearbox. And even fewer guys with existing, already built, fast VW's. Yeah there were a few kids with 1776's with baby Dells and stuff like that, but nothing like Mark was remembering. Well, nobody that Frank and I knew or would talk to us (Only guys I knew of was Pete Staat, with the blue show car and ARPM motor and a guy that came around only every once in a while, that I had heard ran a 1915 with 48's and an FK89, but didn't know how to get ahold of them). But wait a minute, the big guy, the customer Roger, with the white 1967 sedan. The one, about 6 or 8 months prior, gave me a white knuckled ride down Mission Blvd and back. The car that ran an 82 SPG crank x 94, fuel injection case and full blown Super Flow heads, all in a stock looking Lotus white '67. Roger was a good guy and we had become friendly as he came to the counter and I began to learn how to properly look up parts and count back change. In fact, just weeks prior, I had instigated a Friday night match up, at our "undisclosed location" way off in a remote, dark corner of the extreme East Bay Area between Roger's VW and some mouthy spoiled punk with a "10 second" Chevelle. (More on that night later, I promise).
So I brought up Roger to Mark and Frank, "What about big Rog with the white car? The Super Flow car? He's cool and that car hauls ass. We should talk to him..." Mark kept us there for a good while longer, pulling out his yellowed old pictures and some sketches of his old club logo. He helped us think up very Germanic names and a few logos and suggested we make a flag and have shirts made and host BBQ and show and shines.
And go racing.
And then the questions started... "Jimmy, are you going to race your blue car at Sac? Aren't you going to buy 48's for that car (remember at this time, 48's had been out of production, you couldn't just call Russ at Worldwide and say "I'd like to order a pair of 48 IDAs, here's our account number.."). Mark was fully behind Frank and I not only setting up a new club, but also having the club make its debut at Sac, racing!
"What size motor you got in your blue car Jimmy?"
[ reply: 2054cc]
"that's a short storker in your car right, what 74-76mm?"
[yeah 74mm]
"Good for rpm! Which cam is in it?"
[Engle 125]
"And you have those old Pauter heads from Jerry on it right?"
[yep]
"if you can get that car to hook up it should go 13's easy"
Well that was it. All the morose and bummed out crap from the trip to Ventura was out the window. As were any concerns with the neighbor and my '70 Bus eyesore. And, almost, any regret involving the ex-girlfriend or her successor. Now none of that mattered again. I would call Roger, share Mark's ideas and we were going to go drag racing.
More next time. Won't be long.
56BLITZ:
Quote from: Jim Ratto on December 18, 2020, 01:38:42 am
More next time. Won't be long.
Thanks Jim!!
Looking forward to the happy ending to the story with the water-pumper!!!
karl h:
thanx Jim! made my day
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