The 3rd annual Syncro De Mayo event was held this past weekend in
Hollister California. I'd guess about 50 Vanagons showed up, most of
them Syncros. What a great bunch of people. MANY THANKS to Peter
Buettner and Ron Lussier for taking charge at the last minute when Steve
Schwenk's mother died.

When I woke up Sat am, I did a quick count of 31 Syncros camped
overnight. Many more came Sat but I was too busy and things too confused
to get an accurate count. There were Syncros EVERYWHERE!

 Several groups went up on the trails where John Wessels' SyncroMog
ruled. Tom Lengyel(decoupler fame) put on demos of what a highly skilled
driver could do with a stock looking Syncro. His dual lockers and an
aggressive VC paired with a decoupler helped a bit.

The trails were marked for 3 levels of difficulty and Syncro owners of
all skill and experience levels could find trails to try. It was fun to
see the reactions of new Syncro owners to the unbelievable ability of
Syncros to traverse impossible looking terrain without damage. Then they
got to do it themselves. There is a great video coming with this stuff
on it.

We had many model variations of Syncro such as Passenger, Wolfsburg
Westy, full Westy, Adventurewagen, Country Home, and even Tristar. Most
had minor or major improvements from stock. There were endless
discussions of the advantages and problems posed by each current or
proposed modification as this is the way of Vanagon folk.

For alternate engine choices I saw:
2-  TIICO VW 2.0 inline 4,
6- Subaru 3.3, 2.5, 2.2
2- Audi 5Cyl, 2.5, 2.2

Thanks again to everyone who made it a great event!

Mark and Anne Drillock
87 Syncro Camper, Audi 5cyl 2.2