Old School quattros V a Success; Second Event Planned for Fall

Text and Photos by: Dave Kraige and Pete Harrison

Well, it’s happened – five years! The Fifth Annual Old school quattro gathering in Cumberland, Maryland was another successful edition of what has become a great summer event for owners of older Audi models. In fact, we are planning to branch out even further and hold two events each year. Read on for more information about the second 2008 event coming up September 6-7, 2008.

OSq V began Friday, July 25th, with a garage party, an element of the weekend we added for the first time last year. We had lots of great grilled food, fixed up some minor issues on some really cool Audis, looked at some wild project cars in progress and even took a few laps on the land owner’s banked dirt track! It was a fun evening for sure with some familiar faces and some great new folks.

The people and cars attending this year represented a good mix with visitors coming from several states in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast region, bringing a variety of older Audi models. As usual the Coupe quattro 20V seemed to be the favorite model at OSq, with four in attendance this year. Some impressive custom 20V Turbos were on display as well, living under the hoods of two extremely fast 4000 quattros brought by Doug Macy and Wiley Coffin. Also of note was Dave Coleman’s V8 quattro, possibly the only 4.2 5-speed manual V8q in the country.

Saturday was an excellent autocross as always, put on by Cumberland enthusiast group National Road Autosport. Although a large number of cones made the course look very tight visually, driving it revealed it was actually extremely fast and open. This allowed the Audis to stretch their legs, and many of them were able to reach deep into third gear.

The Audi drivers put down some very respectable times during the event. OSq event coordinators Dave Kraige and Doug Macy led the Audis in their pearl Coupe quattros, finishing 1st and 2nd in D Street Prepared (43rd and 46th overall out of 85). It was a tight battle as always, this year separated by only 0.262 seconds as Kraige finally broke through for a win.

Turning in a particularly impressive performance was Mo Belhmara who was autocrossing his Coupe quattro for the very first time, but finished less than 4 seconds behind Kraige and Macy on raw time. “Honorary Old-Schoolers” Larry Zajdel (TT 225q), and Tsivas Kourtsounis (VW R32, former owner of Belhamra’s Coupe) also ran well, finishing 2nd and 3rd in G Stock, with Zajdel only 0.656 seconds away from a class victory.

After the autocross the Audi group headed out on the annual mountain cruise, winding through some very nice back roads around Cumberland, including a run up the Polish Mountain Hillclimb route, site of a revival hillclimb event put on by National Road Autosport one week after OSq. The cruise eventually wound its way to Mike McCagh’s farm and Corvette museum, the site of the traditional post-autocross picnic featuring excellent grilled fare and kettle corn.

OSq marches on into the fall with a new event. We will be holding the second 2008 event in State College, PA September 6-7 at beautiful Midstate Airport in cooperation with the Central Pennsylvania region of the Sports car Club of America. We will be having a mountain cruise, dinner in downtown State College, a garage party, and a top-notch runway autocross at Midstate Airport. This event is not to be missed! Be sure to bookmark the event website (www.oldschoolquattro.com) to keep up with the latest updates. Questions regarding the event should be emailed to Dave Kraige (dkraige@kcftech.com).

The organizers of Old School quattros wish to thank this year’s sponsors, Custom Auto Craft of Luxembourg, 034 Motorsport of Fremont, CA, Force 5 Auto of Concord, NH, and Monkey Business Fashions of Cumberland, MD. With their support we are able to keep this event going and celebrate these great old cars. We’ll see you in September!