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Phil Jarvis - Fastest in the UK!
5th October '11: Many thanks to BWA member Gary Yeo for sending us an account of his recent trip to Germany for Das Drag Day#9 along with Phil Jarvis who is also a BWA member and ran a new Personal Best of 13.747 making his Fire Bus the fastest Split in the UK, well done Phil! Over to Gary...
Wheeling & Dealing into the low 12's!
3rd October '10: Congratulations to the Wheelerdealer team who drove their '53 Barndoor Panel into the low 12's at the recent Das Drag Day #8 meeting at Bitburg, Germany with a storming 12.25 second 106.38 mph run! This is an awesome achievement and hopefully it won't be long before we see an 11 second run from a Bus in Europe, Big Bang 2011 perhaps?
Don't miss footage from the onboard Wheelerdealer camera and more in the movie gallery and pictures from the 8th Das Drag Day in the 2010 picture gallery
“DDD8 was, as always, a great and funny weekend. We would like to say thanks again to everybody who helped us out, supported us and spent time with us. As usual Ivan our all time "Liebling", Jim W. for your very personal support and your big knowledge, Stefan B. www.rennfeder.de for the great new shocks, Mark & Jesus / Autotechniks UK, Stefan A. www.kraftkaefer.de for lending tools and last but not least Monobrow, Jens, Rainer, Oli and ... for loveliest catering we ever had, Salva!”
Frank Dancer into the 13's!
2nd October '10: Huge congratulations to Frank Dancer and his unbelievable achievements at VW Action held at Santa Pod Raceway where he managed to run 13.8124 at 97.5 mph on the strip in his 1966 Panel Van. This means that Frank currently has the fastest Split Screen in the UK. Talking to Frank after his record braking run the first thing he said was “I'm pretty sure I can go faster, the clutch was slipping in 4th” Goodness knows what times he's going to run next time!?!?!
Frank also added that he would like to say thankyou to everyone for their support and encouragement.
Click here for movies and pictures of Franks Panel in Action!
“I would like to congratulate Frank Dancer, a very quiet, unassuming Giant of a man, who would bend over backwards to help anyone in need. At Action he ran into the 13s with his 66 panel van. I dont know much about his engine, just that its been done on a very tight budget, hard work and lots of thought! WELL DONE FRANK, I am proud to of had you as a passenger down the strip :)” BusBug&KG
“Had a long chat with Frank and his Mrs Saturday night, what a lovely guy, glad he defected from the Hotrod scene, he's had some nice toys over the years. I will let him update us on the full engine spec but it's not a megabuck turbo/efi, just an old school 2276 on 48 IDA's and the smallest shot of NOS you can get - the man isn't scared to launch the thing though and that's worth a lot on the strip! Well done Frank, according to Rikki this is now the fastest UK BWA bus - Oh, and it's his daily driver!!” Orb
“Well done Frank! Big respect and nice to have an old skool hot rodder on the BWA team!!” Pucka
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.”
“Without the help of all you guys that wouldn’t have worked out at all! First of all our friend Ivan McCutcheon for storing the old lady, the nice gifts, all your support and the time, and and and…, Brian Burrows and the Santa Pod crew for this great event (great organisation with friendly people all around), Mark Prosser (Auto Techniks) for your helping hands and your idea to solve our shifting problem (you are the weekend’s secret hero!), Craig Gibbs and the Obsession Motorsports Team for borrowing the tools that were needed, Alan "Scotty" Scott for the offer to organise a replacement shifter – which would have taken him a 30min drive, Tim Sykes (early VWs) for the offer to borrow his own shifter (that – if needed – he would dismount from the Beltek) and Rikki James for making it possible that the BWA (Buses with attitude) could race again on Sunday where Spez even ran the 12.65!”
“Apart from that a big thank you to all we forgot to mention here – we are still very impressed about the support we got and it was very nice to meet you all and talk to you. We hope that we could have given something back to all of you getting the 12 second run on the UK ground! See you soon, take care!”
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
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