Better Volkswagen – ‘ experienced than explained’
VOLKSWAGEN car owners and the media had a blast around the South Track of the Sepang F1 Circuit recently, at the Volkswagen Passenger Cars Malaysia (VPCM) “Volkswagen Track Day 2018”.
The event, which was also attended by VPCM’s corporate partners and prospects, saw the company putting all its current models and variants to the test on the track, for everyone “to enjoy their performance, agility and superior handling in a closed controlled environment”.
Held on Sept 21 and 22, the event was attended by a few hundred guests who not only spent several exciting laps in 20 Volkswagen vehicles (VPCM’s, not the guests’ own cars) on the 2,609-metre, eight-turn track which really suited the stock-standard vehicles.
The Volkswagen models and variants involved were the Vento, Jetta, Passat, Tiguan, Golf Sportline, Golf RLine, Golf GTI and Golf R.
As the event started at 6pm and ended at midnight, there was the novelty of night driving on the track too, which was immensely enjoyed by everyone, especially those who have never experienced driving at night on the track. On Friday, the wet track due to the rain just before the event made things even more exciting,
There were three sessions – all supervised by highly-experienced instructors and marshals: Solo drive, “taxi ride” with an instructor and a drive with an instructor as a passenger.
The most popular instructor was Malaysia’s racing star, 25-year-old Jazeman Jaafar who is now racing in the 2018/19 FIA World Endurance Championship - LMP2 Class. He wowed everyone with his driving, when he took passengers for a couple of exhilarating laps in the awesome allwheel-drive, 286hp, 380Nm Golf R.
A Volkswagen Polo was also used as a J-turn demonstration car to thrill guests who taxi-rode it with instructors, near the South Circuit paddock’s parking lot.
Other than the exciting track drives, there were other activities too for everyone in the family, which included a virtual reality car race simulator, a foosball-of-sorts using two remotecontrolled toy VWs, remote-controlled gymkhana, sales booth by three classic VW Kombis and since this is Malaysia, some awesome food and drinks coming out of four food trucks. All were in and near at the South Paddock.
There was also a section there where VPCM provided Volkswagen car owners free diagnostic checks for their vehicles and a tyre change demonstration by VPCM’s partner, Continental Tyres.
VPCM stated that the objective of the event was simply a branding exercise, as its cars “are better experienced than explained” and what better way to do so than to try them on the race track to feel their power, performance and handling.
The Track Day was the first such event by VPCM, which hopes that it would be considered successful enough to be held annually.
We certainly hope so!