Dug out this grainy piece of video footage from a round of the VWDRC championship series that took place at North Weald airstrip on July 29th, 1989. Highlight of the weekend was Moody, running the first ever 9 second pass for a VW in the UK (9.96 @ 136mph). Officially they needed to run another pass within 1% (0.0996 seconds or faster) to make it official for the record books but nevertheless, it was (and still is) a significant moment in UK VW history. A fantastic achievement for Luke Theochari and Peter Englezos of Terry’s Beetle Services – both of whom are still involved in the VW industry today.
Featuring Peter Englezos and Luke Theochari (Terry’s Beetle Services) with Moody, John Brewster’s ‘Street Lethal’, Paul Hughes in the white and scalloped turbocharged Speedster, Keith Seume and ‘Flat Attack’, John Maher’s ‘Mr Beetle’, Cliff Watkins driving the Air Express rail.
This was my first time out after fitting a pair of Dick Nuss Super Flow cylinder heads. On my first pass I missed 4th gear, over revved the motor and bent all the pushrods – sidelining me for the rest of the event. My MicroDynamics rev limiter failed to prevent the engine zinging past the preset rpm limit – they don’t work too well if the engine isn’t under load!