German Cars Track Day, NL

[Tom Nas <tnas@euronet.nl>]

Hi all,

Today was very pleasantly spent by attending my first track event at the
Zandvoort race track here in Holland. The event was the German Car Day,
where a lot of German make clubs met and were allowed on the track for
several races and short sprints. Lots of standard and tweeked cars were
around, and particularly the sprints were very exciting- I'd never seen a
Porsche 911 being trounced by a nearly showroom standard-looking 1969 Opel
Kadett (later revealed to have 200 hp and 300 Nm of torque- some figures
for a car that usually sports a 40 hp 1200cc engine!) There was a Ford
Sierra Cosworth that finally won the sprints, beating a G60 Corrado (with
headlight removed for cooling purposes) by a small margin. Very exciting
stuff- nice to see a battered '80s Opel Manta race Golf GTIs and the like
(and win!) Another nice stealth racer was a stock-looking Opel Corsa GSI
(Geo Metro-size for those in the USA), normally powered by a 1600 engine
with 110 hp, which had been swapped for a 2-litre 16v turbo intercooled
unit. That car took out lots of supposedly much faster iron, and was said
to have 240 hp and do 0-60 mph in 5.5 sec, with top speed electronically
governed to 240 km/h (150 mph) Wow!
Unfortunately, not a lot of Audis were on the track- although there might
have been a few before I arrived, somewhat late because of the heavy
traffic. I did get to admire the demonstator of the Dutch tuning firm
Jamex, a beautiful CQ 20v with NOS. Wow again! Some people were allowed to
take their cars out on the track (a lot of them ordinary street cars) or
ride with a pro racing driver.
Also out in force were the NSU club, with lots of 1200TTs screaming along
the track with their engine lids open. Wonderful cars, much more
interesting than all the M3s and Porsches. Nicest Porsche around was
undoubtedly the 959, a very rare and fast car. I've seen several
spectacular crashes (take one 19-year-old, put him in a 150 hp Golf GTI and
let him go bonkers on a track- guaranteed to self-destruct within two
rounds) but no more than material damage ensued.
The Zandvoort track itself has seen better days, and its terrain looks like
it's slowly being taken over by the surrounding dunes.
The ride back home (80 km) was hell. The first 10 km took two hours, a lot
of it in solid gridlock in the narrow streets of Zandvoort. This popular
beach resort had a good day with nice weather, and several hundred
hooligans in fast cars didn't help either. Still, with a little more
planning of the ride back, this is one event I'm going to see again next
year.

Sorry for the WOB for those not interested.

Bye,

Tom
1988 80 1.8S- luckily no cooling problems

 _______________________________________________________________________
 Tom Nas                                          Zeist, The Netherlands
 tnas@euronet.nl

            Quantum particles: The dreams that stuff is made of.