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| I started this article praising the Bug for its versatility. Craig, again, is only the second owner of this car. He even taught his son how to drive in it. |
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| He's raced is from nearly day one as well. Don't believe me? |
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| Well, OK, it didn't start out as his race car, but after a small accident in the car, he decided not to worry about its aesthetics and work on its athletics. |
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| Personally, I would have stopped right here, but Craig didn't. He turned the Bug into his desert rat. Going out to Lake Havasu and checking out the Baja… |
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| Romping around the dunes of Glamis… |
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| It was a full on desert rat until many of the OHV areas started getting shut down. He then turned the Bug's attention to Sand Drags. |
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| These are absolutely a spectacle. You're drag racing on sand; but you are fighting traction, control, and time. Usually, it's over in a few seconds and a few hundred feet, even the slowest cars are under 10 seconds, but it feels like a lifetime because of all that is going on at one time. |
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| The Bug shined in the sand drags, but just like many forms of OHV racing, the sand drags got shut down from Hippie and Yuppie Neighbors. It's sort of ironic that the icon of the Hippie, other than the Bus, is also something they will probably loathe.
However, Hippies are stupid and their Yuppie and Hipster offspring can eat dirt. Well, asphalt in Craig's case. You see, what made the Bug such a wonder in the dirt is also what made it such a wonder on the drag strip. After all the sand drags got shut down, Craig went drag racing and the car became as you see it right now. |
It also brings me to this final point and that is my love of the Bug. As soon as I saw Craig's Garrett Powered Turbo Bug, I knew I had to do a feature on it. The Bug is what got me into Desert Racing, the infamous Baja in particular. It lead me to the Dune Buggy, the Desert Bugs, and as well as the Drag Bugs. The Beetle showed me a world like I have never seen before. A car so versatile that it can be used in nearly any motorsport, even now.
While the Super Beetle is better optimized for it, Beetles of many sorts have been involved in road racing, even the Under 2.0 Liter category in Trans Am Racing in 1966, 67, and 72. Formula Vee is still around and doing very well. The Beetle has won Baja, the overall Rally in Elba, and a version of its body is used in the Uniroyal Fun Cup. The Beetle is a car I don't think we will ever have again and while some may look at is as a joke, take it as a privilege that I compare your 911 to a Beetle!
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