WHAT IS ROADSTAR?
The Roadstar meet is a very large gathering for Scirocco and Corrado
drivers. This event is Known as the INTERNATIONALE SCIROCCO-TREFFEN
hosted by SCIROCCO-CLUB ROADSTAR of Holland. The event
is known as Scirocco Weekend by the locals. 400+ Sciroccos
drive to this small town in Holland each year to party and enjoy
the viewing of the most incredible Sciroccos and Corrados in the world.
Body kits, 300 horse power, and dash swaps are all common at this event.
The 12th Roadstar meet was held on the 26,27, and 28 of mei (May) 2000
near Zeeland (N.Br.)NL.
/ ! \ * * * W A R N I N G * * * / ! \
Your car may never satisfy you after attending this event.
This event contains serious enthusiast show cars that are
extremely expensive and challenging to create. It is advised
to put all your money in a long term investment account before
attending this event. Some of the modifications will not be
described in this message to protect Scirocco public from
permanent bankruptcy. Continue at your own risk!!
The venue contains a pond and a restaurant with a snack bar attached to it.
The cars park in a field known as "Scirocco-Field" and if you see this you
will instantly see why the field has this name. Many people camp in the
field. Surrounding the venue are the famous "Dutch Mountains" and if you can
find the mountains through the trees you are having too much fun
and it is time to go to bed.(Holland is flat)
In the town of Zeeland there are a few bed and breakfast type hotels.
They fill up fast and finding them is difficult. I recommend that
if you want to stay in the town you book your reservation early.
You can find rooms for a reasonable rate. You will need to drive to
the Roadstar meet form any hotel in the surrounding towns
and if you want to party you may not make it back to the hotel.
I recommend that you make a map and find a designated driver.
Never drink and drive!
The lucky few stay in the Chalets that surround the pond. The little houses
contain two bed rooms, one has bunk beds and the other has a full
size bed. Each chalet has a restroom, a kitchen, sitting room,
a patio and a shed. You will need bring your Hungarian Goulash
machine or BBQ for outdoor cooking.
Tables and chairs are provided.
The event has plenty of parking but parking is limited
near the chalets and you must have a magnetic card to get in the gate.
Make sure that you do not drive after 10:00 PM near the chalets
because the gate closes and a Dutch man with no pants may
come to visit you. This man does not know how to have fun.
If your car has a fun gage, as several of the cars at Roadstar do,
it would be pointed to the empty position when this man shows up.
If you do get trapped make sure you have a 17mm socket wrench.
You will know why and what to do with it. Please do not hit the
man with no pants with the wench.
Beer and wine is available till 2 AM and I think the parties last longer.
There is a small market too. There is a dance hall that has live
entertainment and a DJ with a full disco rig.
The party starts getting fun around 10:00 PM on Friday and Saturday
evening. You should brush up on your German singing skills because
everyone sings the Scirocco song and dances. The parties last till 2 PM
and I think that additional parties go even longer.
If you were ever thinking of attending this event you must get some insider
information first. There are two Zeelands so you need to find the one that
is near Uden. The hotels book up 7 months in advance so if you were
planing to attend you better make the commitment early or bring your
tent and sleeping bag. The date in not fixed so you need to get the official
date real early. I have a number that you can call to try to get some
information---> (0486) 45 14 58 / 18 32 and you can contact the Club
on line.
I don't think that a train or bus is the best way to
get to this event. If you are renting a car make sure that is a VW
and it is best to drive a Scirocco if you can.
Sciroccos are becoming more rare in Europe each day because
many of them did not come with catalytic converters.
The new laws make it more difficult to own modified or stock
cars with out a cat. In years past the event had more cars.
The cars that attend are incredible. Bring a camera,
walking shoes, sun protection, rain protection, and
some friends that love Sciroccos because you will
see 100s of them. The cars were so incredible that I can't
even describe how overwhelmed I am.
THE INTERNATIONAL SCIROCCO.ORG EVENT
Dirk and Tina did a lot of work to organize this event.
If you ever get the chance to meet them you will find out just
how wonderful they are. Thank you for everything!!
We could not have had this meet without you.
Doug drove home from the ND show in California and slept for 3 hours
and then flew to Germany. Kathy and Doug arrived in Frankfurt at
6 PM. We contacted Dirk with our Talkabouts on channel
5 code 5. This worked out great. After a quick welcome or two
we dash to Dirk's parents Passat B4 wgn and we were
shuttled down to Dirk's house near Karlsruhe (it translates to "Karl's
nap"). On the way we saw a Bora front on a Golf wgn and it looked stock.
We had never seen this before.once we made it to the house
Tina prepared a fabulous shrimp and pasta dinner.
Fritz was introduced to us. He is a Tonkinese, that's a
crossbreeding of Burma and Siamese, kitten that
is fun to play with. He is an indoor cat that does try to get out.
Fritz was on hand to inspect and nibble on a foot or two.
We watched the video of the New Dimensions show on
the big screen. Dirk was able to see some of the list members
for the first time on video. We also watched some auto-x
footage and I think Dirk is interested in doing this when
he visits the US. I think Dirk could win a championship.
After the standard exchange of world events that are
Scirocco related we went to bed.
The next morning Dirk and I went to the local Junk yards after
a wonderful breakfast including hand chosen bread from Tina.
Tina was just wonderful to us, I can't thank her enough for
all the wonderful things she did for Kathy and me.
I drove Dirk's 8v DX GTX for the first time. I love this car!
(hart pounding, big smile, hart pounding)
In the days to come I would grow more and more fond of this car.
It had so many similarities of my MK1 and MK2 that
I was just so comfortable with it. I wanted to polish it up
and make it more beautiful but it was raining out.
This is the car with the Digital display and the MP3 player.
The front has the headlight washers and the Kamei 3 slat
grille with the X1 airdam. The rear badges are stickers and
that was stock form VW. We never had that in the US.
The exhaust note was great and could wake a Dutch man
with no pants and send him in to the streets. I think it had
SP 8000's in 15 inch rims with Koni shocks.
I drove the car more conservative and carefully than I would my
own because I was in a foreign country and this was Dirk's car.
I was not sure of the local driving style and I did not want to damage the
car.
Still I drove the car 203 kph for a short time and loved the time
I spent in a real Scirocco in Europe. Thanks Dirk, I will never forget
the experience. The car has a rich black color unlike any in the US.
The car is so low and looked incredible. Dirk needed some TUV
papers to certify the Borbert wheels for use with a Scirocco
and we were hopping that a car at Roadstar would have the same
setup. We were lucky and found what Dirk needed so the
GTX is 100% legal.
The junk yard visit was great. We found 4 Sciroccos
and several of the parts that we were looking for.
The Sciroccos models were a Tropic, a GTX, a GT and one that
was picked over. The yard was very clean and organized. "We
had big luck" and the man at the counter was nice to us too.
Unfortunately no Passat B3 lights were on the shelves or in the yards
for Jim J. who asked me to look for him. I did get a badgeless 3 slat grille
and some MK1 big lights. It was great. It was sad to see the nice
cars in the bone yard. The interiors of the cars were in such good
condition compared to the Southern California cars. It was frustrating
for me to see all the Euro bumpers in the yard and not bring them
all home. It is too expensive to ship bumpers now that the German
post office will not allow packages that long to be shipped.
UPS is so expensive that you would have to pay more for shipping
than the cost of the parts just to get the used parts back to the US.
Dirk has been black listed in Germany for shipping parts to the US
so if you received parts form him you should consider yourself lucky.
Dirk and Doug did
some shopping afterwards to get some wiper blades for the trip.
And no Scirocco trip could ever be without a little fix on the electrical
contacts. Dirk trouble shot a small problem that the GTX was having
with the wiper switch. We celebrated our great luck with a wonderful
asparagus dinner specially prepared by Tina. Fritz was standing by
attentively waiting for the opportunity to jump on the table and eat
our ears.
I compared the German version of the "Bentley manual" to the real
thing and found that the US Bentley is much more complete.
The German book does not even
show a picture of the Scirocco in it. The book is mainly for the Golf
convertible. Fortuity I brought a Bentley to Europe so the Europeans now
have better information.
Stage two of our international Scirocco meet began in
Germany on Thursday evening when Kriszti and Macsek arrived.
Profile on Kriszti:
She is an amazing woman. She looks great in the Scirocco
hat and is capable of walking seven miles in the rain at night
even though she is 6 months pregnant. I was very impressed
that she could camp in the rain with 40 mph winds,stay out all evening
and still smile early in the morning. She cooks a great
Hungarian Goulash and can program a computer too. She has
a son named Adam and he likes the scirocco hats too.
Dirk was also very impressed how well she managed to do all those things !
In addition, not many girls that we know would have dared to drive a go
Kart like a F1 car!
Profile on Macsek:
He is a true Scirocco driver. Macsek is an Electrical Engineer
in the telecommunications industry. His Scirocco list
E-mail subjects are readable on his cell phone. He is great at keeping
your spirits high and is a pleasure to spend time with.
He drives with passion and is very knowledgeable on many levels.
Just give him some 12 GA wire and he can make anything including
dinner.
Dirk says, "Eeven in difficult situations, he cheers one up with a joke or a
friendly word ! I'm lucky to have him as a friend !"
Macsek drove 1000+ km (620+ miles) from Hungry in his cold silver
1987 16V GT Scirocco with a black VW body kit.
The car has 17inch Zender Wheels that look great! This car was
mostly stock but needed a new rear deck cover and the front
bumper was a little twisted. Dirk and I had seen the
needed parts in the junk yard so we knew the repairs would be made.
The first thing we noticed was that the passenger side main been
headlight was not working. Doug made a quick repair as Dirk began
to load the cars for our trip to Roadstar in Holland. Then Doug noticed
a small leak from the hose that goes to the expansion bottle.
A min later it was fixed and Dirk was adding coolant to top
off the fluid. As Dirk said, "It is most fun to work on the car."
We finished packing up the cars and Dirk demonstrated his
Super Soaker to all of us. Note: If you have an encounter
with the man with no pants in Holland this would be a good
tool to use. Macsek provided me with a retaliation weapon,
a small blue squirt pistol, that was defiantly under powered
compared to the Super Soaker. Now it was time for desert.
Tina prepared strawberries and cream and it was delicious.
(Fritz agreed)
After desert we went down stairs to Scirocco central Europe headquarters.
We checked the E-mail messages for updates on the other listers
and found some information from Rob "speedracer". We expected to meet
Rob driving his US spec Scirocco in the morning. Robs car had only been in
Europe for a few days and had just cleared inspection. Alfred and his
brother were on the road in the Scirocco WhiteCat from Spain
and were closing in on our location. Roland "Mr. Swedish Viking"
(turbo Scirocco) had no updates and we were a little confused about that.
We were hopping to see him at the event.
Toby Reed from Seattle Washington was going to meet
us with his parents at the event too. Dirk and I had packed some
MK2 Euro headlights in the car for Toby and we had hotel reservations
for him and his parents.
Message fromToby Reed-->
Well I'm all pumped up! (snip)Theres got to be SOME cool stuff -- its
Germany, the Scirocco motherland, right? I'll see you there!
I'll bring a talkabout and I'll probably be wearing a greenish-teal hat
with a white "VW" logo.
-Toby '87 16v
Back in the USA news and pictures from the New Dimensions show were
being posted on the Scirocco list. Just a few short days ago I was
together with all the west coast listers and now I was about to see
Europ's best cars. You just gota love the Scirocco list!
Thanks one more time Dirk, You are the best!!!
Message from Shawn M "E-mail asked" -->
"Whats going on with Dougs visit?? Havent heard anything from you guys
over there. BTW Dont eat Doug, he's not done growing yet and besides, he
doesnt taste good either! (Eat his wife instead!) "
I think Fritz was taking Shawn's advice on this. Fritz was nibbling on
Kathy. It was now time for bed. I could hardly sleep.
Morning came so quick. The driveway was full of Sciroccos.
Dirks Convertible was on the pole position closely followed by
"My" black GTX, Macsek's 16v, Alfred's Scirocco WhiteCat from Spain
and George's beautiful 92 GTII. Now this was a driveway!!!
The activity was high at Dirk's house. Wine from Spain was flying
by and Scirocco hats were trading hands and Talkabouts were
being distributed. I felt like I was meeting old friends but this
was the first time I met several of the folks.
We headed off breakfast at the "American Cafe" for a good old
American style meal. On the way to the Cafe Matthias Riehl
had a litel trouble so he was late. Matthias Riehl arrived
in his Mk1 that has the "Mirage" body kit on it. This kit
was designed by Dirk's former Club president Niko Koch.
It is similar to a Rieger bodykit, but not the same.
The molds (dies) to this kit were scrapped a long time ago.
There are less than 5 Sciroccos remaining with a "Mirage" bodykit.
The engine in this MK1 is a "JH" in perfect condition, the custom made
exhaust that is centered below the rear bumper provides a good sound.
The car has the dual round BMW DE-headlights, that have much higher
lighting output than the old-fashioned original Scirocco Mk1 ones.
The most amassing thing on the car is the ICE,
Matthias has won several sound contests with this car.
In addition he has a small camera integrated in the rear sheet metal panel,
that works as a sort of "rear-view-mirror." This car
has a fog machine and a laser installed inside the car and
some other high tech goodies.
We also met up with Matthias Brauer and his Corrado with the G60 engine
installed, but this one is heavily modified! It puts out 30PS in addition
to stock that makes it as strong as a VR6 but with less weight.
The exhaust system is custom made by the well known tuning company "TEC."
After we met up with more of Dirk's club members and friends
we headed off to Holland. The sun was out so
it was time for the top to come down on the convertible.
Dirk and Tina were dressed in a fresh new set of Scirocco.org shirts and
the Stephanie G version of the Team Scirocco hats and
I think they were happy. The list uniform is in Europe!!
I have to say that the Scirocco.org clothing looked
great at Roadstar and was very popular. Tina looked
great in the convertible with the Scirocco hat and shirt too.
On the way to Holland we met Rob on the road.
Profile on Rob:
You may know Rob from the Scirocco List. He recently moved
to Germany (just a week before Roadstar) from the US. His
employer sent him to Germany to live (life could not be better IMHO).
His car was shiped to Germany too. It was odd to see the US bumpers
on the German Autobon. At this year's Roadstar Rob's car
had the biggest bumpers! If you see Rob's car in Europe you will
know it because he has the USA license plates on his US
spec Scirocco. If you do see him say hi to him for me in English.
Ask him where he got his Scirocco hat and buy him a beer for me.
Rob is cool!!
We made two stops for gas on the way up. The price of
gas is unbelievable in Europe but Holland has even higher prices
than Germany so we all made sure to fill up before crossing the border.
On the other hand cigarette prices are much lower in Holland
so we stopped for some just on the other side. We Californians
don't smoke so for us it was just a chance to look at the cars and
rest. It did not take long to find a windmill in Holland. The traffic was
slow and the country side was full of beautiful green trees.
As we drove into Zeeland I could see 100-s of tents.
We were near Roadstar!! Sciroccos were on the streets everywhere.
We drove into the entrance to purchase our tickets and get
the car pass. Sciroccos were EVERYWHERE!!!!!
This was unbelievable!! 100's of Sciroccos, 100's more.
MK1's, MK2's, Body kits, Beautiful MK1's EVERYWHERE!!
Smiles were BIG! This was the place. ROADSTAR.
We got word that Toby was at the event but no one could
find him. We drove to our hotel to check in and then we drove
back over to the chalets to unload and prepare dinner.
We kept calling for Toby on the Talkabout but we got no answer.
Dinner was prepared buy all the group and appetites were high.
It was a good time for all.
Calling Toby....calling Toby......calling Toby.
Wow the time was flying 10:00 PM and the party was going strong.
We headed over to the hall where the Friday party was.
As I walked in I noticed all the Scirocco club shirts.
This was a sight to see. I had my New Dimensions shirt on.
Everyone was dancing and waving drinks and arms to this song
that sounded like Haaae.. Ho.. Haaae.. Ho..
This party was great and the sound was pumping out of the
RCF speakers. I did not get the chance to check out the
DJ rig as I usually do. The music was a mix of Rave-polka, Folk,
US mainstream dance and contemporary rave. The DJ even
played 99 Red Balloons from Nina and many other hits from the 80's.
But this one song kept being played over and over and
when it was played everyone jumped up and started singing.
This song was the Scirocco song. This was a sight to see
for sure. All the girls were on stage and everyone was jumping
and singing to this song.
The live singer showed up for the second half of the party
and sang till 2:00 AM. I don't think a single beer glass
was full by this time. The fun meter was pegged on full.
Now it was time for Kathy, Doug, Dirk, Tina, and Rob to drive
back to the hotel.
******************************************************
More to come....
http://personal.redestb.es/alfred/rdstar1.html
http://www.scirocco2.de/roadstar2000.html
--
Email problems to: scirocco-l-probs@scirocco.org To unsubscibe send
"unsubscribe scirocco-l" in the message to majordomo@scirocco.org