In case you've been under a rock, Le Mans is this week

The greatest, most highly anticipated race of the year (at least here in the household der rennsport) is upon us. Le Mans. Saturday, June 12th. Mrs WRS (no longer the future Mrs, I made her an honest woman) is highly anticipating any and all screen time of 'Mr. Le Mans,' Tom Kristensen, while I will be following the GT2 battle like some sort of sad, nerdy train-spotter, hoping Porsche can break their bad-luck spell of the past few years. What can I say, at least I'm honest. I know I am not the only one.



Needless to say the big battle at the sharp end of the grid is going to be between Audi and Peugeot, and we will be supporting the Audi Team 100%. Ultimately I don't have a ton of passion for that battle, primarily because the 'petrol' cars as the Brits call them are not competitive and I'd like to see that added variety, but also because those cars lack the pure excitement of the days gone buy.



The coverage is already well underway, and with the Twitter / Facebook / etc / connectivity of 2010, everyone has content available. From these pictures, take from the ACO official Le Mans Facebook page, to hours and hours of content from the crew at Radio Le Mans, there is plenty to fill up on. Not to mention 25 hours of live coverage from Speed TV.



I think I can honestly say if this sort of content was available back in the late 90s, I would have died from lack of sleep, or at the very least gotten fired.



I personally will not be attempting to compete, as I have Jury Duty this week and well, it takes up a lot of mental capacity, and so will be leaving it to some fairly minimal posts after qualifying and during the race. However, you know where to go:

Radio Le Mans (live 24 hours+ and countless pre-shows with a lot of great info)

Speed TV (Live for 25 hours starting at 8:30am eastern on Saturday)

ACO / Le Mans official on Facebook.

_WRS

Dubs at the Beach 2010 - Saturday

Things got off to a pretty reasonable start on Saturday, and with a 12pm start time we only had to be at the track by around 8:00am or so. Things were quiet, but some decent cars showed up and with the chaps from 8380 on one side and BFI on the other, we had some good times chatting and generally not being too stressed out.



Some of the cooler machines included an R32-swapped Audi A3 (the pictures to those bright green rollers no justice by the way, they were BRIGHT) and a variety of on-the-ground show / no-go cars.







Jersey plates and an intercooler that size on a VR6 = a car you do not want to race. I can guarantee this thing is running at least 500whp (but probably higher), something you need when you're hitting the track (or highway) with the similarly equipped Hondas of the Tri-state area. They don't mess around in the garden state.

I would have shot more pics of the parking lot, but I couldn't be bothered to try and reason with the security about being a vendor and being allowed back in the "pay" area.











Saturday night was predictably insane on the strip, but for some reason I chose not to take any pictures of that. Seems stupid now that I think about it, but I was a little more pre-occupied with shooting long exposures with my tripod. Still getting the hang of that, but some turned out pretty good.









I'd estimate the number of cars parked at the convention center being about 1/10 what it would be for H2Oi. The cops on hand were more than cool with us hanging out there...there were more than enough yahoos on the strip to take care of, the vast majority of which were not VW / Audi drivers.





A little later night was to be followed by a little earlier morning on Sunday. Slow enough that I stole away from the booth to snap some pics of the main event...part 3 to follow!

_WRS

Save the 8v™ (Total commitment Matt from BFI Mk1 edition)

The word is spreading my friends. Matt from fellow east-coast shop extraordinaire, Black Forest Industries, has jumped on the bandwagon with total, complete, 100% commitment. I could never party with this guy, cause if this is what he does with a sticker, I couldn't imagine what he would do if he got his hands on a bottle of Jägermeister.



Matt's Mk1 is pretty much the ultimate Save the 8v candidate. It's an OG Rabbit GTI, and if anything deserves to be preserved (and doesn't need an engine swap) it's a Mk1 GTI. It also has a pretty dangerous looking hood release...



In Matt's own words: "She is an '84 2 seater, stripped out, JH block with 288* cam and a centerforce clutch, no a/c, riding on JOM coils... not much but she is fun as hell around town!"



With my first car being an 84 GTI I can attest to the potency of the basic Mk1 package. Although I could not disagree more on ripping out the CIS injection, which has more than enough capacity for the 1.8 8v, is dead reliable and easy to tune, he's got the spirit of the movement.



Oh yeah, and he spray-painted his f*cking hood before he added the sticker.



There's not much else to say, except that there are 10 bonus points awarded for the beer-in-koozie on the hood during installation of said sticker. So far Matt is officially in the lead of the Save the 8v campaign. Want to top him? Shoot me an email at wolfsburgrs@gmail.com and I'll send you a sticker. Additional swag, including shirts, coming soon...

_WRS

Dubs at the Beach 2010 - Friday

Working for a performance shop and going to show means that your experience is extremely tilted in one direction. It ends up very one sided. Generally speaking you get to the event well before anyone else does, and typically see very little of the actual show. It's not unusual to never get outside of the booth for any significant amount of time, maybe 5 minutes to hit the restroom and do a 360 second lap of the closest row of cars.



Still it's usually a good time, even with all the hard work and time away from home. This year's Dubs at the Beach was sort of a big question mark for everyone involved though. The show was rumored to be canceled up until practically the last minute, and then when the show was finally official, it was scheduled for Memorial Day weekend. Memorial Day weekend and Ocean City?



Yeah...not the best timing, since rates go through the roof once it's official in season in Ocean City. Added to that the were two other shows in the general area (Bug Out in VA and Cabin Fever in MD) and the attendance was predicted to be down from last year, at least that's what we were guessing.



With the holiday weekend bringing heavy traffic, we headed out a little earlier from the shop on Friday morning. As usual, we found ways to amuse ourselves while following the rig.



Brad and Jason were in Brad's A4, while Arno and I were each rocking our respective 8v slugs. We had a few painfully slow runs down 113 along the way....



Once were arrived at the track construction site we met up with Mark and the rest of the crew for a few minutes before setting up the framing on the new canopy. It rules pretty hard. Luckily we didn't have much else to do and were on our way to the house in no time.











This one was pretty nice, HUGE compared to most, and with a pool table and kick-ass vintage synth organ.



Jason was pretty taken with that last feature. He's a regular Beethoven.



They also had a crab pot so we started finishing for some Blue Crab..or...crabbing for Blue Crab. Either way, we didn't get many this first day, and the little bastards sure do get angry when you take them out of the water!



That was about it for day one. By the time we pried ourselves off the back porch and ate dinner it was time to call it a night. We had an early start for the next day, and couldn't get too crazy, as hangovers do not typically go well with unpacking a 48' trailer worth of product...trust me on that one.

_WRS

Pic post: Mk3 GTI 16v from Germany

That does it. Or should I say this car does it. I'm lowering my car more, (just a little!) putting on the flares that I've been sitting on for the past year and change, and getting some texture top bumpers. I've been sorta headed in this direction anyways, but VW Vortex user denisgeu posted some pictures of his incredible Mk3 GTI 16v and I am forced to take action.



My Mk3 is already sorta halfway there with the textured sides, smoked lamps and the like, and I was playing around with the idea of painting the grill slats black and getting either smoked Hella dual round projectors or some smoked e-code headlights when I was at Dubs at the Beach this past weekend, but this car pretty much overcomes any doubts I had.



I mean really, what's not to like? 286 cams, KW Coilovers, Porsche Cup 1 wheels with R32 brakes. This for me is the perfect Mk3. Low enough to look good but clearly still a decent performer and not a total fashion victim. I first saw this car in the 'stance' thread, but for me this is the opposite of stance. It is functional and can be put to use, something those garage and show queens can't do.



Thread here.



And the car get's time on the 'Ring? Consider the Wolfsburg Rennsport Mk3 officially put into "track" mode from here on out...

_WRS

Jeff Koons' BMW Art car = Awesome

I've never hid my affection for the BMW Art Cars of the late 70s and early 80s, they are in a word, awesome. After a few rather dull and (in my opinion anyways) uninspired examples in the 90s and 00s, BMW and Jeff Koons have righted all wrongs of the recent past.



For those that follow or are 'into' art, you already know that Koons is a weird guy. He was married to a porn star for a while and has a rather interesting collection of work. The man has some original ideas, that is for sure. I think perhaps what is most interesting is that he had contacted BMW all the way back in 2003 about doing an art car, which means he is also extremely cool. (anyone who actively seeks out the completion of a BMW Art car is by default, extremely cool no matter what else they are.)



The car looks fantastic, if a shockingly similar to something I did on that Toyota 'Sponsifier' website a few months ago. (pure coincidence I'm sure) I'm a little disappointed that it is vinyl wrapped rather than painted, which is supposedly lighter than paint, and time was a factor for completion so BMW made that call.



The E92 GT2 M3 will not have an easy victory in class at Le Mans this year, but it will have as good a shot as any others, and could pull off a feat that no other BMW Art Car has done: victory at Le Mans. They have gotten excruciatingly close with the Roy Lichtenstein 320i Turbo and the Andy Warhol M1 both placing on the podiums, but never a victory. 2010 could be the year, I sure hope so.

More at BMW Motorsport.

_WRS

Dubs at the Beach 2010 (coming soon)

Full report on the way...