8th Annual KP Tuned Vw Nationals
Friday started off with the High Roller race. The winner was Jesse Farquhar all the way from Massachusetts in his stick shift Jetta. Runner up was veteran VW racer Paul Langlois.
We also for the first time ran a “bogey” race for anyone that bought a tech card. Tim Norwood was the winner here in his beautiful altered. Second best package went to James Boone in the sandrail.
Saturday I got to the track at 6:55AM and I was all ready greeted by a swap meet vendor. I kind of had a feeling that it was going to be big.
We wound up with over 30 vendors which is amazing since our highest before that was 12!
The car show was headed up by Cecil Affleck and his buddy. Even though we had expanded the car show area, it wasn’t enough. We had 112 registered show cars and there were plenty parked in the grass without a card on the window.
Our racers showed up strong again with another great mix of air cooled and water cooled cars. WE had 76 racers on the property which is down due to a lot of people waiting on parts but everyone who came to race, did a hell of a job.
In Pro Outlaw it was Brad McBride in his front engine type 3 taking the victory over John La Spisa in the GTI. Brad had been on kill and was .008 in the semi finals on the tree.
Limited Street had their largest field in event history with 11 making the qualifying sheet. However, I am sorry that these guys had the track screw up the ladder round 1. Surviving that and making it to the finals was Paolo Santos in his vr6 Jetta versus Drew in his GTI. Paolo was able to put down enough power to stay out front and win.
ASA is where the mighty 1641 of Kevin Bartelson came up against the hammer of Brad Robertson. Brad saved his best for last and went 6.01 to secure victory.
All Motor competed quarter mile and heads up. This was another air vs water final as Jonathan Abrams took out Anthony Frassetto in his GTI. These two had smack talked before the event and ran a grudge match in Q1. There, Abrams was able to beat him also.
Super Pro came to the lanes with 20 cars round one and the battle was on! When it was all over, Todd Chicklo in Hot Chocolate was the winner over Jimmy Boone.
An interesting side note was that we have Pro Stick race with us here too. Their class is all manually shifted V8s, also ran on the 1/8th mile. We decided to run the winner of Pro Stick versus the super pro winner for an additional $400 to the winner and $100 runner up. On this day, the VWs reigned supreme when Todd took out a red lighting 5 second chevelle. They were the last pair down the track of the weekend.
Pro VW came down to Nelson Rodriguez Jr and Troy Mcnair in a pair of street cars. After three years of not racing, Nelson was able to come with the big win.
Super Stock came down to Anderson Ward and Jesse Farquhar in his second final of the weekend. Two finals and two big checks for the Monson Mafia as Jesse yet again would turn on the win light. It is also to note he had a perfect .000 light during the weekend.
Some interesting side stories are—
Dave Fisher entering white lightning and his v8 bug and going rounds in both cars.
The return of Gelber Blitz to the race track.
Joe rule getting his 90s styled race car out of moth balls after 20 years idle.
Hot Chocolates big win at their home track.
The Panty Dropper special award for the car show from Seth was a hit.
Kevin Grimes bringing out his off road Manx and becoming wheelie king of the weekend.
Amber Zent came all the way from California to hang out and meet new people. Plus she got to race Arthur Neary car in Pro.
Erick Negron won the dune buggy raffle
We will do another run on t shirts.
Thank you to everyone who supports the events. Wether you sponsor, show up, share a social media post. If you want to get involved or sponsor in 2023, let me know.
Special thank you to all of my family who helps out. It’s not east to drag two trailers full of stuff and cars almost 5 hours from home along with seven people. This wouldn’t happen with out them.
Scott Pocaro
7th Annual KP Tuned Vw Nationals
You folks better sit down and buckle up if you expect to get to the end of this post. The VW Nationals #7....where do I begin. Holy friggen cow. I know for some established shows and promotors like Farmington they are used to this....but not I! Cars and people just kept coming and coming....ending with 862 spectators, 65 show cars and a bunch of vendors. But 104....that is where I will hang my hat. 104 VW tech cards sold for racing is incredible. I was so busy during the day parking cars, teching cars, solving issues, handing out trophies and trying to race...I really didn't sink in the day of!
It starts with guys like Paul Kiernan and KP Tuned .Com who was the big Kahuna sponsor and Scott Sayers of Deutschwurx the presenting sponsor. Without these corner stones I would not have even thought about putting on an event. Add in all the other sponsors and we were on our way.
I had the easy part...promote it! The pieces were there and all I had to do was beat the drum.
Rain toyed with us all day and gave us some downtime, but everyone did great racing. No oil downs, no crashes...but a whole lot of wheel stands and fast cars.
Thank you to Cecil Affleck and company for taking care of the show car area. It is good to know I can go take care of other stuff and the show car area is NOT a disaster.
My mom and sister for selling t-shirts, counting show votes and holding down the home base all day.
My wife and kids for coming along on "vacation" and my wife for making most of the race trophies. Other promotors like Scott Sain and Kathy Jacobs Sevwa . We all talk to each other and even sponsor each other's events/series.
The team of people who helped me thrash on my own car so I could get it to the track. Only made 1 pass but learned a lot and now its time to refine the package and get competitive. Making 1 pass was my choice, I just drove it off the trailer.
Thank you to Thomas McCracken and Dave Fisher for bringing White Lightning out to display. I will reserve you a spot any day!
All of the winners like Chris Schaefer, Clint Woolard, Adam Dwayne Dalton, Brad Robertson, Jesse Farquhar, Jonathan Abrams ,Paolo Santos,
I know this post is more scattered than a FWD axle on the starting line but....
Let's get it on for 2022!!!
6th Annual Vw Nationals 2020 Presented by GELAIR
Unfortunately mother nature put an official early ending to the VW Nationals. To every person that attended, towed their car, entered the car show, set up a swap area or walked through the gate, THANK YOU! You don't need to be told how difficult 2020 is but we still managed 82 VW racers, 45 show cars and 10 vendor spots. That is unbelievable under pandemic status and the ever-changing forecast.
Friday night went pretty smooth we had Corbitt Marshburn win $1500 in the High Roller class, Mystery Massachusetts win in the 55+ class and Stephen Hawes taking the Quick 4 race win and low E.T with a 5.36 blast.
Saturday we all woke up to a surprise, rain. Where did that come from. That wasn't the plan, but this is the year of groin kicks. We would race for 20 minutes, drizzle, dry the track, race for 20 minutes, drizzle...and so on until 6pm when a real storm came. The only finals that finished were Anthony Frassetto winning all motor and Scott Sain winning ASA. All of the other classes split between the remaining racers.
Big congratulations to Corbitt Marshburn for robbing the North of all the money as his win Friday night was paired with another final round appearance Saturday that unfortunately didn't happen.
Another pat on the back to Stephen Hawes who's become my traveling buddy for these races and is starting to make consistent laps in his car. It’s starting to come together. We also cannot forget Ryan McBride for making the LONG haul from Colorado and nabbing a semifinal appearance in A/Gas. Some dedication there.
The car show guys, especially the bus gang showed up in force it seemed like. Some very, very nice cars were parked in the grass which made award choices a very hard one. Thank you to all of them coming out and hopefully you guys enjoyed the drive down the staging lanes into victory lane for photo ops.
Personal thank you to Art Neary, Cecil Affleck, wife and young monkey for helping organize the parking. My mom, brother and dad for holding down the t shirt tent and upper half of the pits. Track staff for making the starting line good enough to eat a few transmissions and all of the sponsors. As long as I have financial support for pay outs and people show up...we are rolling forward.
Special thanks to my wife for putting up with all of this. How many times she has yelled "put your phone down " because I'm reaching out to racers or participants, answering questions or trying to promote this event. Thank you.
One reason this event and Heritage Series exist is for reasons like this…. I get home and someone I don't know messages me. Says he was at the race and it set off a fire inside him. He rolled his racecar which hasn't been out in a long time...out of the trailer and is getting back into it. If we don't bring people BACK or new people IN....this small hobby that anyone reading this enjoys, is going to go away. Something we don't want.
There are already plans to make 2021 better and improve. Let's enjoy whatever events are left for 2020 and keep going
Scott Pocaro
5th Annual Vw Nationals 2019 Presented by GELAIR
Vw Nationals #5 was by far the largest and best turnout to date. With a total of 103 Tech Cards sold and both sides of the track packed this is the MUST ATTEND event of the year. Promoter Scott Pocaro puts his heart and soul into this once a year event nestled just outside Hagerstown Maryland at one of the coolest tracks in the country titled Mason Dixon Dragway. With a beautiful weather forecast for the weekend festivities kicked off on Friday night with 2 very special classes.
The first was the 55 and older class for the old timers in our community to come back out and show case how it all started. Some of the east coasts biggest names in drag racing made the call on Friday night. Racers such as Pete Peek, Virgil Prehn, Buddy Chicklo and Gene Cook Sr were part of the 55 and older class. In the end it was Virginia’s own Virgil Prehn taking the win over a red lighting Gene Cook Sr.
Another special class on Friday night was the High Rollers Class. It featured a $100 buy in, and with additional sponsor money chipping in the pot was almost $3,000. Racers from as far south as the Carolina’s and as far north as Massachusetts made the drive for this special event. In the finals it was New Jerseys own Scott Pocaro facing off against North Carolinas Trey Sikes. It was over as soon as it started as Scott Pocaro turned on the red light.
On Saturday the main event featured 7 drag racing classes. The Jaycee Enterprises Heritage Series brought it’s 2 classes featuring the fastest Outlaw Pro Mods on the east coast and the best bracket racers from the North and South. Also, a special Thanks to Kathy Jacobs from the SEVWA for jumping on board and making this an SEVWA points race as well. Here is a quick breakdown of what we had in attendance.