As part of those efforts, I’ve decided it’s time to part with the Votex roof rack and Votex roof basket. I loved them on my car while I had them, but now I’m taking a different path. I’ve got potential buyers lined up on each part, which is good for DSV and the parts I’m looking to order.

Removing the rack and basket takes the overall height of the car down considerably, and all of a sudden my car seems really low again. Now I just need a VR6 or Vento lip to replace the tiny CL lip out front right now.

Also, a big box from German Auto Parts should be on its way this week, chock full of maintenance parts like e-brake cables (which I’ve been putting off forever), a coolant reservoir tank, a new water pump (mine is starting to leak) and a front O2 sensor. I hope to get all of those parts on sometime this week, finally tidying up some of the small maintenance issues I’m having.

In the thread and in his blog post, GT R4C3R mentioned that he was fairly unimpressed with the drag racing portion of Waterfest. What he failed to mention was that the fastest car of the day was a Mk3! Leg0man filled us in on the details for the car:

“The winner of the event, with the fastest time and highest speed this year was a mk3! It’s a car from a shop local to me, AutoXtrem. Their best pass was a 10.36 @ 143.29mph.”

Upon further inspection, it looks like AutoXtrem is located up in the Great White North (Quebec to be more specific).

Since I don’t speak or read French (Marc Hubert recently confirmed for me that he and the Autoxtrem team speak English just fine), I can’t make much out of their website, but they do have some project photos and a video of their 10-second dragstrip pass.

UPDATE 07/23/08: Here is the video of the 10.36 run at 143.29mph at Waterfest this past weekend.

Below is another one of their many videos hosted out at YouTube.

Check these guys out and be sure to hit them up for some work if you’re in the area. It looks like they know Mk3s pretty well.

I just got back from my first Waterfest and boy was it hot. It must have been 95 degrees with 97% humidity. Either way, it was crazy fun. I cruised to the show with DubsOfQueens, a local group of VW and Audi guys I’ve started hanging out with lately.

The show was amazing, with hundreds of cars in the show area and hundreds more in the exhibition area. There were so many clean Mk3s that after walking around for a while I realized how much work I still need to do on mine.

The vendor area was packed with Mk4s and even more Mk5 GTIs. And of course, no Audi-related event would be complete without a few R8s, and there were plenty to be found. However, Volkswagen wasn’t prepared to let Audi steal the show. VW brought in the coveted GTI W12 from Europe. If you saw it on Top Gear, you haven’t seen anything. It looks that much cooler in person (though still handles just as poorly).

The drag racing was mediocre, especially seeing some cars run 20-second quarter miles and the single participating R8 that did one pass at 14 seconds. The burnout competition was far more exciting, but relatively uncompetitive with several FWD cars against one RWD. The RWD Audi won by a clear margin, blowing out both his rear tires. The GTI that faced him in the finals put on a good show though, engulfing his entire car in smoke to the point that it was no longer visible.

At that point I walked around for a bit more scouting cars and bragged to my friend that I got to see the W12 while he sat at home. Finally I met up with Ashley (VentoBabe) and called it a day.

Now I’m home, tired from a long hot day in the sun, eager to hear the date for next year’s Waterfest.

Each time, when I get back home afterwards and start thinking about my Mk3 and all the time and effort that have gone into it so far, I realize there’s no way I could part with it and move on.

The ‘You Know You Drive a Mk3 When…‘ thread in the forum is one of my favorites of all time and I can agree with nearly every statement there. When parking my car at work in the morning, I always find myself turning around and looking back at it, several times in fact, before finally heading in.

There’s just something about these cars that always pulls you back. Maybe its the stout, stodgy build. Maybe its the bodyline just below the windows. Maybe its because it has that old school feel while still sporting newer features.

It’s different for every Mk3 owner, but there is something.

The next time you’re thinking about throwing in the towel and giving up, stop by the site and flip through the forums, or just take a drive. It’ll all come back to you quickly.

We love these cars and there’s no way we can turn back.

Since Mk3Love was sponsoring both Mk3 classes at the show, I drove out to attend along with vdubstyle (Mk3 GTI VR6) and chunknorris (Mk4 GTI 1.8T). The drive through Iowa was sunny and smooth. Our convey cruised over 150 miles on Interstate 80 while the Mk4’s passenger snapped shots of the Mk3s in action.

We arrived at our hotel in the late afternoon on Saturday and spent the rest of the day gearing up for the show and enjoying the local accommodations. Our group had a bad experience at the local King Kong restaurant, but we all made it back to the hotel with our stomach’s intact.

As the evening drew in and the sun began to fade, our small group made the trek out to Pioneers Park for an evening photo shoot and a chance to meet up with the event’s organizer, Mike Kraus. After doing the meet and greet with the few cars still left at the park, we flew back to the hotel with sunroofs and windows open, taking in the cool night air on the open highway.

Sunday morning brought worries as a severe thunderstorm rolled through the area dropping golf ball sized hail in some areas. Luckily none of the cars were damaged and everything dried up quickly, giving us enough time to wipe down the cars and get out to the park.

As we pulled in to our parking spaces in the event area, we knew we were in for a good show. There was a table full of trophies glistening in the sun from the morning rain and Dubs and enthusiasts aloof everywhere, snapping photos and talking cars.

For the two categories Mk3Love sponsored, Golf/GTI and Jetta, there were five entries total. A clean, white VR6 GTI took top honors in the Golf/GTI class and vdubstyle and his black VR6 GTI grabbed second place. My car, DerSubtileVento, was the only Mk3 Jetta that entered the show (with a stock, green VR6 Jetta parked as a spectator), so I ended up winning the Mk3 Jetta class. I felt bad for winning by default, but several of the other guys kept me excited by confirming the hard work I’ve put into the car.

The show ended around 3pm that afternoon and our convoy headed for home with our spirits freshly renewed, each Mk3 winning its own trophy at our debut event.

I’ll be sure to go back again next year and hopefully the Mk3 showing will be even stronger. Thanks go out to the show organizers and all the cars that participated in the show.

If you got one of the Mk3Love.com stickers I handed out, feel free to say hi.

Kody has been selected as May’s Dubmodder Contest Winner for a $50 Black Forest Industries Gift Card and a Mk3Love shirt brought to you by Mk3Love. We’d like to thank everybody who participated in the contest!

Congratulations to Kody for his winning entry, which included the following mods:

• Smoked Mk4 Projectors
• Smoked Turn Signals
• OZ Wheels
• Reiger Body Kit
• Painted Eurobumpers
• TT Stubby Antenna
• Painted Mirrors
  
• Badgeless Grill
• Boser Hood
• Tinted Windows
• Lowered

Thanks to everyone who submitted their Dubmodder creations and for being a part of our first contest at Dubmodder. Things went very well and we hope to sponsor more contests in the future.

Want to win some Mk3Love Merch? Know of a contest we should get involved with? Give us the scoop.

If you’re in the area, please stop down at the show on Sunday, June 15. I will have shirts for the 1st place winners in each of our classes and lots of decals to hand out.

Get the rest of the details on Dub Center from their website and check out the discussion about the event on our forum.

Held on the grounds of the shopping center Metro in the city of Neuss in North-Rhine-Westphalia, the show offered quite some space - and even around 400 parking spaces with a roof. As the whole Metro parking lot was filled almost completely, attendance was estimated to be over 500 cars.

There were even some Mk3Love members attending the event - namely Tornado with his Vento Variant Syncro and Shadow with his bagged Golf. I spoke to Tornado briefly and chatted a bit longer with Shadow - both proved again that Mk3Love users are nice guys in general.

All in all it was a good event with many nice cars and I for one am hoping that it will get another repeat next year - because I want to be there.

Click here to see the full gallery with all 274 pictures from the event.

We have Radames Torres to thank for all the great photos from the event. AudiVWCrewPR also has their own event gallery with more.

The Mk3s at the show very similarly resemble the styling seen throughout the United States. Clean exteriors, smooth or textured stock bumpers, smoked lighting and roof racks.

Unique features at this show included several cars with yellow or amber lighting (which is starting to grow in the US scene).

Someone from NewBeetlePR put together a video of the event (11 minutes) and captured a few of our own members. Anarchy is seen around 8:00 and roly_vr6 at about 9:32. The video is hosted on DailyMotion.

Thanks to our members from PR for letting us know about the event and linking us out to the great show coverage.

If you are attending a show in your area and want us to feature your photos, please send show details, links to event coverage and your own comments or thoughts about the event,

One of our forum staff members, Tom (ventoCL), was on the scene for us scoping the best Mk3s. He had a fistful of stickers to pass out and one shirt to give away. At the end of the day, Tom decided that Chris Rego’s supercharged Jetta was the best Mk3 at the show. But not only did Rego’s Mk3 win the Mk3Love prize, it also took home Best in Show in the Yarrow Class, which included cars from all generations and truly represented the cream of the crop in attendance.

Congratulations to Chris Rego on being selected as the top Mk3 and thanks to all of the other Mk3ers who picked up stickers. Feel free to link up your own photos from the show and let us know what you thought about Primer ‘08.