Bugorama 61 Sacramento, CA

            Let me first start off by saying that it feels great to be reporting again for German-Pride.com!  I took a few months off due to a career change, and boy was it great to get back in touch with my passion for Volkswagens!  I’m back now and hopefully stronger than ever!

            I guess I’ve represented myself pretty well online and through German-Pride.com, because after our inaugural Dyno Session in the Desert in October of 2007, I was approached by Bugorama Promotions to revamp their website.  In addition, I was asked to photograph and write a report following each of their events.  As you can tell, this is a dream job for me!

             Bugorama 61 was all about “firsts”. This was my first assignment for Bugorama Promotions, my first VW event of 2008, and it was my first trip to Sacramento!  Nestled among the farmlands of Sacramento is Sacramento Raceway Park.  The rural scenery made for a wonderful backdrop for the hundreds of VW campers that filed in one after another when the gates opened on Saturday afternoon.  Although the skies had opened up earlier that morning, all the crossed-fingers, and anti-rain dances performed by

the fans must have worked because they kept the rain away!  At 5:00 PM the drag racers were allowed to make some shake down runs during the test-n-tune session.  At 6:00 PM the first around of qualifying took place. 

            Time Out.  Let’s flashback just a second… With my hectic schedule, I had just returned home from Chicago two days before the event.  In between, generating expense reports, sales reports, and tactic trackers, I packed all my gear and placed all the batteries on their respective chargers.  With all this going on, I thought I had a done a great job packing and preparing for my first gig.  Well that was until I received a phone call from my wife 5 steps before boarding the plane to Sacramento.  “Honey, you left your battery and charger here for your main camera!”  Ooooops!

            Everyone needs a hero from time to time.  I was lucky enough to meet 2 of them.  As I sat in the Las Vegas air terminal waiting for my flight, over my shoulder I heard “Those Volkswagens should really make power with the cool air.”  A grin instantly appeared on my face.  I turned around and introduced myself.  The two gentlemen I met were none other than Scott Fetherhoff’s (Red Baron tuning guru) father and uncle.  “Dad Fetherhoff” and “Uncle Bob” bailed me out by taking me to an electronics store so I could buy a new battery and charger.  Thank you guys!

            Back to the main event… Although I was waiting for my new camera battery to charge, I was able to witness a few shakedown runs, and kibitz with some of the racers in the pits.  It was great to see some familiar faces and look at all the improvements that they made on their cars over the winter months.  Making a strong showing and qualifying in the #1 position in Pro Mod was none other than Pat McDermott and the Fast Fiat.  However, this weekend would not be Pat’s because his rod bearings began to sing during his last pass. 

            Jon Schweers made the long haul in his Jagermeister sponsored chop top featuring a new power plant by Marty Staggs.  I had followed some of the chatter on the forum boards and was excited to see what Jon’s car would do on the track.  The Gods of Speed required another offering in the forum of Jon’s oil pump and rocker assemblies so we’ll all have to wait a bit longer to see what he’s got up his sleeve.  Even the top dog duo of “Team Red Baron” had some issues.  On Saturday Eric Calabrese and Eric Madson both snapped axles on the well prepped track thanks to VW Paradise’s donation of 2 drums of VHT.  After a quick change, both came back strong Sunday and made some impressive passes, including side-by-side 8 second passes. 

            For years I have heard about the legendary Sacramento swap meets.  Seeing is believing as this swap was HUGE!  Rows after rows of parts were to be had.  Frenchy Dehoux was lucky enough to score a few NOS 1967 Beetle parts such as a zero mile speedometer and a head light trim rings new in the box!  I also spotted some rare Race Trim, Deano DynoSaurs, and Vintage Berg parts to be had.  If you need to find it, you probably could have found it at Sacramento’s Swap!

            Cal-Look fans weren’t disappointed either.  The Bugpack sponsored “Cal-Look Challenge” class, loosely resembles the old Der Renn Kafer Cup class.  Participants must earn “show” points with their Cal-Lookers, and then exercise their IDA muscle down the drag strip to earn “go” points.  Judging was done by none other than Dr. Detail, Frenchy Dehoux.  Participants earned some great prizes from Bugpack for Top Show Points, Fastest ET, as well as being the Overall Points Winner.  The class was very well received and Frenchy told me that we can all look for great things to come in this class!

            Speaking of show points, there was a great showing of VW’s from all walks of life on display in the car show.  Rat rods, stock restorations, Cal-Look, German-Look, mild to full custom VWs were bountiful on the show grounds.  After viewing the show field, I was very appreciative that I was not a judge!  There were so many great VWs deserving of trophies.  When was the last time you’ve seen a shark eating a surfboard in the back of panel bus?  The crowd made it hard for me to photograph a totally custom ghia with frenched Mercedes headlights, frenched tail lights, a redesigned dash, and a mega budget leather interior.  I wish I would have had more time!

            I had to cut my walk through the show cars short, because it was time for me to get back to the starting line and get some coverage of the finals in all the race classes.  The race of the day to watch was the Super Street finals.  Rodger Crawford and Ron Flemming were only separated by a few hundredths in qualifying.  Well, that was until Rodger reset the Super Street record with a BLISTERING 9.98 ET!

            Almost as quick as Rodger went, so did my weekend.  Like it or not it was time to go back to the airport and board the plane to Vegas.  Before I sign off, I’d like to thank Steve Hole of Bugorama Promotions for the opportunity to join his staff as webmaster, and official photographer.  I encourage you to view the new Bugorama website, and my image gallery from the event.  I can’t wait to see you all in Sacramento in the fall!