Imagine An Evergreen Forest With Hundreds Of Euros Overlooked By A Snow-Capped Volcano. If This Is Your Idea Of Nirvana, Welcome To Waterwagens.
This past July marked the fifth successful Waterwagens event. With over 3,000 people and 300 cars in attendance, there's no doubt this is the largest VW/Audi event in the Pacific Northwest. Located between Seattle and Tacoma, WA, enthusiasts were waiting at the front gates of the Pacific Raceway venue as early as 7am.
The show portion of the event had cars grouped by make and model. One row would be Mk1 Golfs, the following would be Mk1 Jettas, and so on. In total there were 20 classes. Walking through the rows was like traveling back through time, or forward depending on which direction you walked and what generation you're a fan of. Every make and model was well represented.
If showing is not your game, there was also drag racing. With over 100 draggers competing, this made for a fun event. One of the fastest cars is, of course, Bahn Brenner's supercharged Corrado. The little bundle of joy may look cute parked, but when it's at the line, it roars to life with a deafening scream from the open exhaust. It ran an impressive 11.6sec quarter.
The highlight of the drag race was the exhibition run made by the world's fastest watercooled VW from Eserini Automotive. Boasting over 900hp, the dragster holds the record of 7.78sec at 173.14mph over the quarter mile.
There were 15 vendors in attendance including our friends at Achtuning/Stasis, Techtonics Tuning, APR, HPA, Bahn Brenner and more. VW of America also made an appearance to promote the highly anticipated Mk5 Golf. In fact, its booth attracted the most attention, with fans standing in long lines to have their chance to ride in the new car.
Preceding the event was the official BBQ, held at Achtuning the day before. Located just 30min from the track, many enthusiasts couldn't pass up the delights of free food and music. The APR trailer was also present with its chipping service.
For those of you close enough to attend the event and haven't gone yet, you should. It's definitely worth the drive. The show's still growing and hopefully it can become as big as Waterfest has grown on the east coast. Let's show them how the west-coast does things. For more information, check out www.waterwagens.com