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Phil Jarvis's 3rd European Bug In

25th July '09: Thanks to BWA member Phil Jarvis for sending us an account of his trip to the 3rd European Bug In, Chimay, Belgium! Be sure to look out for his Express Fire Bus in the Gallery and Movie sections of the BWA website!

I set off for EBI 3 from Shropshire on Wednesday with a stop off in North London for the night, Thursday morning we met up with the guys at Lakeside services for the small convoy down to Dover, nice smooth crossing then a cruise down to a lovely campsite in Cerfortaine where we bumped into two other SSVC members who had been to Hessisch Oldendorf. A night in the on-site bar followed by plenty of Smirnoff ensured a good nights sleep.

Thursday morning we were up early and ready for the 30 min. drive to Chimay, then occured our first incident of the trip, Paul Maile's (SSVC & BWA 'Jet 67') '54 Oval was leaking fuel in a BIG way, we pulled over just in time, turns out the brass union going into the carb had come clean out so fuel was being sprayed all over the engine bay. Very relieved, we pushed this back in and carried on to Chimay. We were on-site by about 10.30 and the camping area was already rammed, we managed to get a good spot next to a lovely Westy owned by John Gough (Clyde off Early Bay.com), we were then ready for the weekend! Friday was chilled out, plenty of beer and checking out the stalls then a meal in the town as by this stage we realised we hadn't brought enough food to barbeque anything, the cool box's were just rammed with beer (where are the wives when you need them!) so as usual not the best orgainsed.

Saturday morning we were woken by the famous Dyno Don shouting 'Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Baaaahhhhhhhh' one of his famous lines which is annoyingly catchy. I put the stinger on my Fire Bus, checked the vital signs and all was OK to go, my first run saw me up against a very hot beetle, I did a massive burnout on the line (much to the crowds pleasure), as we pulled up to the line the nerves were going, snaked off the line, missed 2nd gear and did a high 17 - so not best pleased - also shredded the fanbelt, this was one of the spares that I didn't have with me so I had to go and search for one. Once sorted I did a few more runs, best was up against Gazmate (congrats mate on becoming a BWA member at EBI 3) where I managed a 16.5 but still spinning off the line so more to be gained on a better track! Last run of the day I was up against the French high top 'Split Wind' - man is that thing fast pulling 14.5 secs - left me for dead. Have you next time monsieur! ;-)

Another very late night Saturday then a good look round the stalls on Sunday, don't know if it's the Euro or what but prices on parts seem to be really high at the moment, I decided to leave my parts buying for the internet and 'thesamba.com' but did buy the obligatory EBI t shirts for the myself and the family, we set off for the coast mid afternoon on Sunday and stayed our last night in a Belgium Seaside town called De Panne, there's a great campsite there right on the beach called 'Zeepark' - well worth a stop over if your on the way to any of the ports. Sunday night was going well, in fact we were well into Monday morning and on the way back to the campsite when we decided to run up this huge sculpture/monument thing on the seafront, Paul went up it at 100mph and about halfway up fell off the side - ouch - managed to land on his feet and then promptly announced that he thought he'd broken his ankle. 'You'll be alright mate' we said 'just a sprain' - carried him back to his tent and went to bed.

Monday morning we ended up at the doctors where the 'sprain' was more serious, he couldn't drive either so we had to try and arrange to get the Oval back as well as Paul, all sorted and we were on our way eventually, dropped him off at Enfield Hospital on the way home - 3 broken bones and a shattered heal - we all agreed it was the fault of the Belgian's and their beer! What an amazing weekend overall, great company, great cars, great racing and a great atmosphere and feel to the whole event - probably one of the best shows I've been to in a long long time and we can't wait until 2011! 'Ba Ba Ba Ba Ba Baaaahhhhhhhh'

The Worlds Fastest barndoor!

7th May '09: Anyone who attended the 'Big Bang' VW festival held over the weekend of the 24th, 25th and 26th of April 2009 was in for a very special treat beacause, this year, we were to witness the fastest run by a Barndoor Bus in the world!

Tom and Stefan, the Wheelerdealer team from Frankfurt, Germany had towed the 1953 Panel Van over to display at the Volksworld show, Sandown Park, Surrey and then arranged to leave it in the UK so they could attend the Big Bang. The Bus had already run a 13 in Europe, and knowing how good, and how well prepared the Santa Pod track is the aim was to run their first 12 second pass. After fixing a problem with their shifter and qualifying for BWA with an easy 13 they were straight into the 12's, the quickest being a 12.656 at 102.84 mph.

Congratulations to the team and we hope to see you back in the UK soon to run even quicker, over to Tom and the team for their account of the weekend and their time in the UK.....

“A big thank you to all who made this amazing weekend happen and helped realizing our 12 seconds dream with an aircooled 4cylinder VW non turbocharged, non NOS, non knick-knack engine.”

Spez aka "Präsi", Björn aka "Monobrow", Jana & Tom

SCC - VW Type 2 Bonanza!

7th December '08: The guy's behind Norways Scandinavian Cal-look Classic have a new class that should get the BWA interested - Over to them....

BUS DRIVERS WANTED!, Nope, we´re not trying to volunteer people to the now world famous SCC air shuttle taxi service. What we ARE doing is calling out to everyone with VW Type 2´s to put them on the Gardermoen track in 2009! We´ve even got a new special class for those of you who are trying to bend the laws of mother nature by making your 1.5 tonne brick go fast down the 1/4 mile:

The SCC Fastest Bus Award!
Will Rune "The Burnout King" Leirpoll take home the "Smoking" award once again?
Will Jan Holm still be the owner of Norway´s quickest type 2?
Are plans being laid on the British Isles to take home the award?

Full details on the Scandinavian Cal-look Classic website here

BWA in Camper & Commercial

27th November '08: Be sure to pick up a copy of the November/December issue of Camper & Commercial magazine. Editor, David Eccles, has given the BWA a full 4 page feature in the magazine and the designer, Gareth, has done a great job with it! The words are by Rikki and the pictures, which were all taken at this years Big Bang, are by Jules.

In the next issue, due mid December, is a follow up 4 page article all about our buddies on track, the Ultimate Street Bays

Camper and Commercial magazine is available in the shops or online here

All pictures used in both features, and more, can be found at www.julianhunt.net

BWA with a BANG!

20th October '08: Mav dropped us an email with some unfortunate news... "It is with a heavy heart I must let you know my lovely reliable Type 4 2.4 Lt is no more, it let go on the way to the Brighton Breeze with a grrrr sound, followed by a loud bang, followed by a lot of smoke and a pool of oil.

We pulled the engine Saturday afternoon and it appears either the valve seat or a valve has dropped, leading to the almighty bang. The barrel is now in 4 pieces, the con rod end is bent over at 90 degrees, the piston is smashed to bits, the head is mullered, the crank has bits snapped off it and the camshaft is badly scored, oh, and a large portion of the case is missing where the barrel bolts on.

Fortunatlely the Speedster I just bought has a 2.4 Type 4 2.4lt, and if the spec is correct its a little bit more powerful than my old engine! That will make it's way into my bus over the winter and I will end up buidling a nice revvy Type 1 engine for the Speedster.

So, bad but I am not left high and dry as I might have been, and on a plus point I can now fix my fuel sender easily!"

BWA & SSVC at VW Action

18th August '08: The SSVC have been invited to put on a club display again at VW Action, BWA have also been allocated racing slots on all three days! We need as many buses as possible, all weekend.

Last year's Action was one of the most enjoyable show's I attended, and the display area was awesome. This was also the event that BWA did some night racing with the qualification of 4 new members, also we got a limitless amount of runs down the strip!

I will be covering the event in various VW magazines/articles and will be taking pictures of every bus that participates! Come on team, lets make this one a whooper!

Please click here to get the full details of the show dates, location etc.

Mav's 2nd European Bug In

28th July '08: Thanks to BWA member Mav for sending us his account of EBI2 

After a somewhat wet journey to EBI2 on Thursday, where Wendy spent a good 30 minutes going from window to window mopping up as we drove through the torrential rain storm. The new safari rubbers from Custom and Commercial were great, much better than my old rubbers, but still got wet knees! Friday was a much nicer day and I spent it relaxing and polishing my bus.

Saturday started off dry, I caught up with Mark and Wendy, who informed me that Russ Hancock wasn't coming this year and had registered as a racer, no sooner had they said that, I rushed off and registered myself in place of Russ. Finding space for putting the mandatory stickers on the Samba was easy for me, what with 23 windows :-) My bus doesn't normally do stickers but this time I made an exception and I think it looked quite cool.

I joined the queue to race down the track and found myself against a panel van, complete with roof rack and luggage. His 5 minute burnout confirmed it was far from standard (In fact he had run a 15.4 before).  It has been a few years since I last took my bus down the track and last time it cost me a nose cone. But this time I ran an easy 16.9 matching my best time.Then the rain came, so I trundled down to the show and shine. Saturday night my bus was used to transport 8 of us to a local Italian restaurant hidden away in the nearby woods.

Sunday was a beautiful day and after packing up the bed in the bus, I went for another run. A more aggressive launch but with a full tank of petrol I managed an 16.4. Hurrrah! The marshal had mentioned the high winds at the end of the track and they weren't wrong, it felt like I was steering at 90 degrees to go in a straight line. Happy that I had set a faster time, I trundled back down to the show and shine to enjoy the rest of the show. We left about 5pm to get a ferry home for work on Monday.

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