Author: Tony Swan

They say age, experience, and treachery will always overcome youth and exuberance. But after the opening races of the 2010 Volkswagen Jetta TDI Cup season, it’s clear that the “always” assertion is not an absolute.

I can say this with absolute confidence, because I was in the field as a guest driver for the first two races, which went down at the beautiful Virginia International Raceway, near Danville, Virginia.

Not to put too fine a point on it, I have acquired a fair amount of age, and a lot of competition experience—almost 30 years in Sports Car Club of America club racing, including 35 round-the-clock endurance events.

Blown Doors

But the youthful VW hotshoes assembled at VIR, many of them series rookies, blew the whole age and experience theorem to pieces. Which is a roundabout way of saying they blew my doors off.

The starting field for both days was 27 cars, which included your humble narrator and one other guest driver. I qualified near the absolute back of the pack, and while I finished 19th on Saturday and 18th on Sunday, most of my forward progress was due to over-exuberance on the part of those ahead of me (read: off-track lapses), rather than my own prowess.

Maybe I should have ramped up on my treachery? But be that as it may, I left VIR Sunday afternoon with a lot of respect for all that young talent, and for Volkswagen’s first-rate program.

The TDI Series

A word on the series. This is the third year of the Jetta TDI Cup, a development series for young drivers similar to programs VW has been supporting in Europe for many years. The cars are race-prepped versions of the Jetta TDI, stripped of all non-essentials, with their 2.0-liter turbo-diesels tuned for 170 hp and 260 lb-ft of torque (versus 140 hp and 236 lb-ft for U.S.-spec production cars).

The drivers—25 of them this season—were culled from a group of about 50 applicants. Many of them have some racing experience, mostly in karts, and youth is a key requirement. The organizers will accept drivers up to age 26, provided they’re returnees. Otherwise the limit is 24, and many—most?—are much younger.

For example, this year’s opening rounds included one 15-year-old, and two who were 16. The winner of both weekend races, Ryan Ellis, is 20. Your humble narrator is in a different age bracket. Let’s just say I have enough mileage to be grandfather to many of these kids.

High Aspirations

A returnee from last year’s series, Ellis, from Ashburn, Virginia, aspires to a career in pro racing, a goal he shares with many—if not most—of the TDI Cuppers.

Is this realistic? Yes, with an asterisk. Tim Megenbier, last year’s series winner, is competing this year in VW’s Scirocco Cup series in Germany, and doing well. But if you’re well into your twenties, and just starting out, the prospects of moving up another rung of the development ladder diminishes exponentially—unless you happen to have access to plenty of money.

This experience is far from cheap—$45,000 for a 10-race season. That includes a turnkey race car, with strong technical support. Everything is highly professional. The only thing the driver is required to do is help out with car cleanup.

In addition, the price includes access to VW’s huge hospitality pavilion, with meals for drivers and their sponsors (who are, in many cases, also their parents).

It does not include travel expenses, and drivers are responsible for crash damage repair.

Things That Go Bump

There was a fair amount of damage at VIR, although the drivers were apparently better behaved than in the first two seasons. Volkswagen Motorsports and SCCA Pro Racing (the series sanctioning body) are cracking down on this with a “no contact” race policy.

However, with a field of evenly matched cars, occasional rubbing and bumping is almost impossible to avoid at times. I’m happy to say that I did avoid it, which was my one real achievement of the weekend.

On the other hand, it is now abundantly clear that I can forget about a career as a race driver.

Related posts:

1. 2010 Volkswagen Jetta TDI Cup Street Edition – Auto Shows
2. Green and Kinda Mean: We Race in the Volkswagen Jetta TDI Cup – Sport
3. Volkswagen Jetta TDI Cup Street Edition – Auto Shows

If you’re one of the many American Alfisti whose hearts beat fast when the new Alfa Romeo Giulietta was unveiled at the Geneva auto show last March, we have some bad news, tempered by a little bit of good news.

Your hearts beat faster, because this nifty new front-drive five-door seemed to be a likely vehicle for Alfa’s return to American showrooms, greased by the new relationship between its Fiat Group parent company and Fiat’s teetering U.S. partner, Chrysler.

At a glance, the stars and planets might seem to be aligned—a sweet-handling hatchback that embodies Alfa’s traditions of style and passion, and a dealer body hungry for new product. But as we return from a brief preview drive on Italian byways, duly impressed by this sexy new compact, we must report that the Giulietta probably isn’t destined for the U.S. Not, at any rate, in the immediately foreseeable future.

The April 21 Proviso

We hasten to add that this is informed speculation on our part, and that the definitive word on Alfa’s future, as well as the future of Chrysler’s relationship with the Fiat Group, will be passed along on April 21 by Fiat CEO Sergio Marchionne.

However, pending Marchionne’s announcement, which will detail a five-year plan for all components of Fiat’s complex enterprises, Alfa’s new CEO, Harald Wester, is cautious concerning the U.S. Now in his second month with Alfa after four-plus years as Fiat’s technical director, Wester expresses concern about the Giulietta’s U.S. sales potential—a hatchback in a market with a historical preference for formal sedans. Wester was willing to confirm that Alfa is evaluating Chrysler’s dealer organization with an eye toward outlets suitable for a European premium brand. On the other hand, development of the all-new Giulietta architecture—code-name C-Compact Wide—did not include crash-testing to U.S. standards, which differ from those in Europe.

Alfa Bits

There is at least a modicum of good news. If the Giulietta, an Alfa nameplate dating to 1954, doesn’t make it to the U.S. as a complete car, elements of its all-new structure and advanced technology features will likely be at the core of new compact and mid-size cars from Chrysler, as well as vehicles already under development by Fiat.

The list of techno elements is impressive, including a new 1.8-liter DOHC gasoline turbo four-cylinder rated for 235 hp (one of five Giulietta engines—three gas, two diesels, all turbos). There’s also a new six-speed dual-clutch automated manual transmission option, and a sophisticated vehicle-control system with three presets setting operating parameters for engine mapping, automatic gearbox shift patterns, the car’s electronic limited-slip differential, stability control system, and its new dual-pinion electric power steering. Alfa calls the new operational matrix DNA, for the three modes—Dynamic, Normal, and All-weather.

Target: Wolfsburg

Wester and his colleagues freely admit that the new Giulietta is aimed squarely at Volkswagen’s recently renewed—and ever-popular—Golf lineup, including the hot-hatch GTI. The Golf commands a worldwide market of over a half-million cars annually. Alfa Romeo hopes to sell about 40,000 Giuliettas during the remainder of the 2010 model year, and 100,000 in 2011.

This would represent a nice uptick for a company that produced just 110,000 cars in 2009. It would also assure the survival of a 100-year-old brand that’s been flirting with extinction the past few years. As to when (or if) the patience and yearning of American Alfisti will be rewarded—it’s been 15 years since Alfa Romeo left the U.S. market—only Signor Marchionne knows. He’ll share his knowledge with the rest of us come April 21.

Over to you, Serge.

Related posts:

1. Alfa Romeo Previews the New Giulietta
2. 2010 Alfa Romeo Giulietta – Official Photos and Info
3. 2010 Alfa Romeo Giulietta @ 2010 Geneva Auto Show – Video