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.
4th Annual Vw Nationals Results 2018
One of the east coasts fastest growing Vw Events is showing no signs of slowing down. Not even mother nature’s threat of rain hindered the event on Saturday August 11th at Mason Dixon Dragway. The weekend started off with the Legends Race on Friday night which consisted of drivers that were 55 years or older. It was meant to bring out some of the long-time racers such as Pete Peek, Henry Williams and a few other Legends of our sport. Unfortunately for Henry he was unable to make it at the last minute. Pete Peek was in attendance until transmission issues took him out. In the finals of the Legends race it was Doug Stewart in his dragster taking the win over Wayne Farquhar in his stock 2018 Jetta.
At the conclusion of the Legends race the forecast for Saturday’s race was not looking very good. For the racers that had a long drive they decided to listen to the weatherman and stay home. Unfortunately for them mother nature and the weatherman were wrong once again. The weather was absolutely perfect with clear skies and temperatures hovering in the mid 80s. Even with roughly 20 racers that were committed to the event and not making the drive we still had 74 Vw Tech Cards purchased for the event and over 600 spectators through the gates.
In our Island Dubs sponsored A/GAS Pro Mod class we had 6 racers in attendance. At the conclusion of qualifying it was Jerry “The King” Lewis taking the top spot with a 5.961 @ 121mph. In the first round it was Jerry vs Reggie Lee with Reggie taking the win when Jerry broke his ring and pinion. Austin Johnson III took the win over Chris Schaeffer with one of the best racers of the year. Austin had the holeshot and ran a 6.376 to Chris’s 6.373. Last year’s winner Tim Vinkuns took the win over Kirk Adams when he broke his ring and pinion as well.
In the Semifinals Reggie Lee had a bye run into the finals and Tim ran a 6.12 to take out Austin’s 6.26. Once again for the second year in a row Tim Vinkuns was in the finals and won the race over Reggie Lee. Congratulations to Tim for making the long drive from New York and for also claiming the A/GAS Points lead.
In our International Motor Shop sponsored I/GAS class we had 29 cars enter into the race and 22 of them joined the points series. Our returning 2-time champion Scott Pocaro went out in Round #1 against Jonathan Abrams so the door was wide open for all new comers to step up and step up they did. Eric Hengstenberger is no new comer to Vw Drag Racing, but he is new to the points series. Eric marched his way through 4 rounds of competition until facing off against Corbitt Marshburn from North Carolina. Corbitt has a lot of momentum and is fresh off a runner up finish at Vw Drag Night and he won at the SEVWA Race at Piedmont. As the lights came down Eric had a blistering .002 reaction time to Corbitt’s .175 and Eric never looked back and took the win with a 7.661 on a 7.52 dial in. With just 2 races left Eric and Corbitt sit #1 and #2 in points championship.
Other notable winners were:
ASA – Brad Robertson
Limited Pro – Kevin Bartleson
Super Stock – Wayne Farquhar
H/GAS – Wayne Farquhar
Car Show Information
Car Show Registration - $20
Swap Meet & Vendors - $20
Special Awards
- Top 20
- Best Beetle
- Best Bus
- Best Buggy
- Best 4 Door
- Best Water Cooled
- Best Stock
- Best Custom
- Most Unique
- Tracks Choice