Bookerdog
Veteran Member
...And all he brought me was the burned out shell of a 1998 Jetta TDI
I went to the Derby and stayed with a good friend who lives across the street from the Track. While I was over there, another friend, a trainer, asked if I wanted to watch the races from the backside of Churchill Downs. I've never been in the barn area for the race, so I agreed. We had to ride in his car to get into the stable.
To get his car out, I had to move my car which was parked in the alley behind his house. That done, I tucked it back into the same spot, about a foot further up.
I should point out here this was my 13th consecutive Kentucky Derby.
About 20 minutes later, I get a call just as I'm walking up to the rail on the backside. It's my buddy. My car is on fire, it's destroyed. This call came in about 45 minutes before the big race.
As you may know, there are a lot of people who tailgate before the derby while camping out in big motor coaches. Apparently one of these mental geniuses decided to dump the red hot charcoal out of their barbeque grill in a secluded spot in the alley. Half of the charcoal wasn't even fully grey ashed yet. According to my buddy, you could have still cooked a steak on it. Unfortunately, instead, I cooked my beautiful Jetta.
Thing is, the fire didn't get too bad because there were actually 2 firefighters in the front yard, and half the fire trucks in the city were within a half a block. There's no damage in the passenger compartment at all. Had she not been drinking the diesel, there's an excellent chance we would have seen a spectacular explosion Instead, there was very little damage other than what you see here.
The car was towed to the impound lot, and I was able to get my stuff out of it that evening. I hitched a ride back to Missouri with another buddy on his way back to Fayetteville.
Our insurance company doesn't write policies in Kentucky, so we have to wait for them to have an independent look at the car. Hopefully not more than a week to get to settlement. I won't be buying back the car, I don't have any way to get it home. I will make every attempt to find out where she's headed and pass it along to the club. She's got the A3 Upsolute chips inside, Old Navy CCV, 2 brand new Yoko Avid H4S 205/45/16 tires on the back (I can get you the third from here at home. The 4th is another horrible story that happened 2 weeks ago) She had an epsilonian device, but, um I don't think that's gonna work any more. The shocks, struts, front control arms, bushings, and lower ball joints are all less than one month old.
In doing research this morning on TDI prices to pass along to the insurance company, I found a remarkably underpriced 2000 Golf with 100k on the ticker. $6k for a car with a perfectly documented history, including a timing belt change at 60k, EGR and MAF replacement last week. I couldn't help myself, and made the deposit. So, I'll just be spending a bit more time in that forum.
I went to the Derby and stayed with a good friend who lives across the street from the Track. While I was over there, another friend, a trainer, asked if I wanted to watch the races from the backside of Churchill Downs. I've never been in the barn area for the race, so I agreed. We had to ride in his car to get into the stable.
To get his car out, I had to move my car which was parked in the alley behind his house. That done, I tucked it back into the same spot, about a foot further up.
I should point out here this was my 13th consecutive Kentucky Derby.
About 20 minutes later, I get a call just as I'm walking up to the rail on the backside. It's my buddy. My car is on fire, it's destroyed. This call came in about 45 minutes before the big race.
As you may know, there are a lot of people who tailgate before the derby while camping out in big motor coaches. Apparently one of these mental geniuses decided to dump the red hot charcoal out of their barbeque grill in a secluded spot in the alley. Half of the charcoal wasn't even fully grey ashed yet. According to my buddy, you could have still cooked a steak on it. Unfortunately, instead, I cooked my beautiful Jetta.
Thing is, the fire didn't get too bad because there were actually 2 firefighters in the front yard, and half the fire trucks in the city were within a half a block. There's no damage in the passenger compartment at all. Had she not been drinking the diesel, there's an excellent chance we would have seen a spectacular explosion Instead, there was very little damage other than what you see here.
The car was towed to the impound lot, and I was able to get my stuff out of it that evening. I hitched a ride back to Missouri with another buddy on his way back to Fayetteville.
Our insurance company doesn't write policies in Kentucky, so we have to wait for them to have an independent look at the car. Hopefully not more than a week to get to settlement. I won't be buying back the car, I don't have any way to get it home. I will make every attempt to find out where she's headed and pass it along to the club. She's got the A3 Upsolute chips inside, Old Navy CCV, 2 brand new Yoko Avid H4S 205/45/16 tires on the back (I can get you the third from here at home. The 4th is another horrible story that happened 2 weeks ago) She had an epsilonian device, but, um I don't think that's gonna work any more. The shocks, struts, front control arms, bushings, and lower ball joints are all less than one month old.
In doing research this morning on TDI prices to pass along to the insurance company, I found a remarkably underpriced 2000 Golf with 100k on the ticker. $6k for a car with a perfectly documented history, including a timing belt change at 60k, EGR and MAF replacement last week. I couldn't help myself, and made the deposit. So, I'll just be spending a bit more time in that forum.
