Date:         Sun, 24 Jun 2007 20:32:06 -0400
Reply-To:     BJ Feddish <bfeddish@NETREACH.NET>
Sender:       Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From:         BJ Feddish <bfeddish@NETREACH.NET>
Subject:      Crappy VW Show and Self Destucting Exhaust
In-Reply-To:  <006301c7b6ba$31faf0d0$2f01a8c0@FirstLaptop>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"

Wow, I wish someone had warned me about http://www.punchbuggyvwshow.com/ .
Decided to go out there and check it out today with my 3 year old. My newly
installed cat and muffler decided to create enough back pressure to blow out
the older gaskets where the 2 head pipes hit the 1 pipe leading to the
exhaust. As Murphy's Law required, this happened on the Ben Franklin Bridge
over to NJ. Of course I first though, "gee, that car behind me sure is
loud." After attempting to navigate NJ roads* I finally made it to Atco
which was 45 min deep into NJ.  I was awarded with the fact this raceway is
used for other simultaneous events and off-road motorcycle and quad racing.
Luckily I brought a wagon this time to tow my daughter around the show.
There was 1 bus. Count them, 1. The owner was pretty upset as he said he
could not even be judged since there were no competitors.  The most buses to
be seen were the ones driven by some of the vendors.  Wow. The only positive
note was there were allot of nice 60's Beetles there. Though staring at the
engine of one of those brought back horrifying flashbacks of standing in the
snow, holding the lid up with my head to remove the air filter in order to
spray some "quick start" fluid into the carburetor so I could get home.
Fri*&%^*& 6V system.

My exhaust got louder and louder on the way home. Looks like I need to order
some more parts... sigh.

Are there any East Coast VW shows with a good showing of buses these days?

Bryan

* I used to work in NJ 20 years ago and they had what was called "circles"
where traffic would drive around in an attempt to make a right hand turn
into your designated direction.  Since these were too complicated they
replaced them with 42 different "forks" which cast you into never-never land
because the signs to tell you the proper direction were posted 5 miles back
and you were supposed to memorize it.