Everyone asks "How fast is that thing?", so we decided to find out. A semi local dragstrip had a meet last weekend, and it was a relaxed, just run what you want type of thing. We took the beetle there just to get some times.
It is a 1/8th mile strip, which is great for beetles as they usually end up running the last half of a 1/4 mile run in fourth gear topped out anyway, if they have any kind of horsepower and stock gearing.
We got many looks and comments as expected since we were probably the strangest entry. Most of the others were the usual big engined drag slick equipped mostly American cars. Being gearheads there was much looking and asking, a few outright laughs, but generally well received. All could appreciate the concept and hardly anyone knew what was powering the little beetle. Most noticed the turbo, none registered it as a diesel engine. Jaws dropped when they heard that, and they also had he "How fast does it go?" questions. We told them that is why we were there.
We made a total of four runs, and broke out of the bracket more than the other guy in eliminations. The runs were very consistent. 9:12, 9:02, 9:01, and 9:12 in eliminations. we had hoped to break into the 8's but didn't quite get there. The day was warming and everyone was running slower as the day went on, the little diesel seemed to not be too affected though. The trap speeds were very consistent at 75 MPH nearly for all 4 runs. Our friends there at the track running their conventional dragsters all commented about trap speed being very good. the comments ran something like "Wow! that thing has some long legs." I guess the diesel torque was evident to them and there was comments about how well it zipped down the track. There were a couple beetle people there too telling us to ditch the big tires and gear it down for better runs, till we informed them we were second gear launching as it was and couldn't fit any larger tires to gear it higher. Kinda blew their minds about the torque difference in the diesel. It was 2 gear runs, launch in second and shift to third and torque on.
All in all a fun day, and now we have an answer to the second question you get asked.