Car Throttle

EuroRennen 2009 was held on June 20th, 2009 at the beautiful Coastal Plains Raceway in Jacksonville, North Carolina. It featured numerous vendors, lots of hot cars, and some good old-fashioned drag racing.  Despite the oppressive heat and humidity (it was miserable!), the turnout was impressive for a first-year show that was in the middle of nowhere.  Here are some of the highlights.

That’s me, preparing to leave from Raleigh at 5:15 am.  I do get out of bed this early; I usually just need a really good reason.

Here’s the caravan of VW’s I travelled down the highway with, picture shot through my sunroof.  The weather was beautiful in the morning; low 70′s and not too humid.  I wish it’d stayed like that, but you know what -- it never does.

This gorgeous Porsche 550 Spyder replica was gathering quite a bit of attention.  For a car engineered in the ’50′s, the 550 Spyder still screams “race car” to me.  What a beautiful, unadulterated form.

Gotta show some love for this ultra-clean MkII Scirrocco 16v.  Even with the 80′s-chic huge bumpers, it still strikes a sleek profile absent from most other VW’s.  Good choice on the wheels, too.

While we’re on the 80′s chic, how about a Maroon Porsche 928 with gold cross-spoke BBS’s?  My soft spot for the 928 is pretty well known at this point, so I hardly need to explain this one.

This B5 S4 really caught my eye -- with RS4 front bumper, Porsche Boxster S wheels in black, and a healthy drop, it’s really ready to haul the mail.  Kudos for white cars, too.

Porsche wheels on a VW is still a good look after all these years -- maybe it has something to do with the shared DNA?  These are Porsche 944 wheels, painted black, gracing a Corrado SLC.

Camo-Wrap is usually applied to rusted-out Ford Bronco’s, but on a 5-door Golf IV with some Porsche Twists… I like it!  It’s certainly not a look you see every day…

Who brought this piece of crap?

Very nicely stanced MKIV GTI.  MKIV owners have it easy; picking wheels is so much simpler for the MKIV than it is for the MKV.

Another example of doing it right with a MKIV.  Well, except for the gold badge.

E46 M3 -- another car that isn’t difficult to make it look absolutely fantastic.  Cross-spoke low offset BBS’s with black spokes and a chrome lip, nice drop.  This was a look a lot of the cars at EuroRennen were sporting -- it works well for the German cars.

It’s good to see people showing some love for the MkIII, which has really been the black sheep of the A-chassis lineup.

How cool is this?  Dumped VW Caddy, aka the Rabbit pickup.  Not to sound like a broken record, but don’t cross-spoke BBS’s look good on German cars?

Darth Vader, your Audi has arrived.  Original Audi S8 -- rare car.

Obligatory Nogaro Blue B5 S4 content!

Isn’t the Audi TT just a drop-dead gorgeous shape?

This car was, at least in my eyes, the star of the show.  Sure, it’s not the prettiest A4 around.  Sure, the headlights are missing.  But…

Yeah, that’s some turbocharger.

This is one seriously fast B6.  The turbocharger is a Garrett GT3076, and fueling comes from massive 830cc/m injectors.  With smaller 630 injectors and a “poor tune” the car laid down 374 horsepower -- to all four wheels.

Which brings us to the drag racing…

This B6 A4 looked mean, but it still got spanked by the GTI.

A tale of two TT’s.  Right lane is my friend Patrick, with his (K03) TT 180 Quattro, which is basically Stage 1+.  Left lane is a TT 225 Quattro, which has the K04.  The real turbo helps; Patrick’s best time was a 15.0@87mph, and the TT 225 was well into the 13′s.  The 60′ times on the 225 were considerably faster, even though the trap speed wasn’t much higher.  Still, they’re both quick for Quattro 1.8T’s.

Although if we’re talking about fast 1.8T’s, let’s return to that big-turbo A4, which spent almost the entire day making passes down the strip.

The A4′s best time was a 12.6 with a trap speed north of 110mph, which is just absurdly fast for a B6 1.8T.  Here’s some video of this beast storming down the track.

And here’s a MKV GTI 2.0T showing a VR6 GTI how to go down the track.  The VR6 sounds better, but it’s still slower.

Here’s the paddock, people preparing for their runs down the track…

This Harlequin MkIII had a built 2.0L ABA under the hood with a gigantic GT35R turbocharger.  He couldn’t quite catch the A4, mainly due to the high temperatures and the fact that this Golf was lighting the tires up deep into third gear.  It was still quite impressive to watch, though.

The vendors were out in force.  This was BFI’s (Black Forest Industry’s) table, featuring all sorts of tasty goods -- mostly for MKIV VW’s.

And here’s Patrick, trying to eek a few more tenths out of his TT.  His runs probably would’ve been faster if his water/methanol injection pump hadn’t kicked the bucket last week.  Stock turbo 1.8T’s pushing 20+psi with stock tiny side-mount intercoolers don’t really agree with drag strips and 100+ degree weather, so 15′s aren’t bad -- right?

EuroRennen was a great experience, at a great venue.  For more information on the show, visit the EuroRennen website.  Hope to see you there next year!

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