Peace. Tranquility. The smell of cool grass in the morning air. It’s highly unlikely that you would have experienced any of this during the fun that was Southern Wörthersee, the fastest-growing annual gathering of VW enthusiasts in the U.S.
Now in its fifth year, Southern Wörthersee is held in the same spirit as Europe’s original and largest VW fanfest, Wörthersee. The organizers have even found their own unique slice of Bavaria to hold it in–the quaint town of Helen, Georgia. Back in the late ‘60s, this great place decided to model itself after the picturesque villages in the German countryside.
We were lucky enough to spend some time with Matt Bounds, cofounder of Southern Wörthersee, and talk about what makes this event so special:
Q1: How did Southern Wörthersee come about? How did the first event go?
Matt:
It started a couple years ago. We have a club called H20 Tuning-just a local group of enthusiasts here who enjoy modifying cars out of the VAG line. We’d found a new club member who had just moved to the area. We had monthly club meetings, and he showed up at the meeting one day and we went through our whole list of cruises we were going to do and what big projects we were going to do next, and he said, “I have an idea for this car show in Helena, GA.”
We’re all from Alabama, so our first thought was, “What is this Helena, GA, place?.” He said it was an Alpine-themed town, and we hadto go check it out.
So a couple of us hopped in the car and drove over to Helen, and once we saw the town, we said, “Oh man, we have to find a way to make this work.” We started calling local businesses, saying “Hey, can we use your parking lot? Can we take over this portion of town? Can we borrow this for the day?” So once the town got word that we were trying to put together something, some of the local owners came together and said they had some property they wanted us to look at. They said if we could make it something impressive every year, they would give us a little bit more.
The first year we shot ourselves in the foot. We planned this great big weekend and, not thinking about the way it landed, ended up being on Mother’s Day. So we get there and we have this whole event laid out, just a big parking lot hangout. Mother’s Day weekend rolls around and we show up thinking this is going to be a disaster, that we’re going to have five cars show up to this event for Mother’s Day weekend…yet we had 250 cars show up the first weekend. And I thought if we can pull 250 cars for a first-time show, we’ve got something. So each year we just build and build on this event to what it is today.
So we get there and we have this whole event laid out, just like a big get-together – just a big parking lot hangout. Mother’s Day weekend rolls around and we show up thinking this is going to be a disaster – we’re going to have five cars show up to this event for Mother’s Day weekend…we had 250 cars show up the first weekend and I thought if we can pull 250 cars for a first-time show, we’ve got something. So each year we just build and build on this event to what it is today – we’re coming up on the fifth year.
Q2: How does that compare to last year’s event?
Matt:
In year four we registered just over 1,300 people. We are impressed as to how many people show up to our event each year. Again, we’re just this little group of enthusiasts out of Alabama, so we never expected for this to get as big as it is. We really never expected for the type of participation we’ve seen from other clubs, from sponsors, and especially from the city of Helen. Every year the city of Helen does above and beyond what we could ever imagine.
Q3: Generally how far do people travel to attend Southern Wörthersee?
Matt:
One thing that’s really excited us the last couple of years is the people who have come from abroad. This gentleman [Matt Ryder] who Performance Volkswagen wrote about a couple years ago, and who we’ve become great friends with, comes over from the U.K. for our event. Last year he brought five guys from the U.K. with him [from] South Hampton, I believe.
We’ve always given away a trophy for the furthest distance driven, and now we’ve begun giving away a trophy called the Furthest Distance Traveled. We’ve had someone from Shanghai, China and someone who came on their military leave from Afghanistan during R&R.
We’ve also had a group of three from Reifnitz, Austria, where the original Wörthersee is held. They came over to our event to check it out, and then traveled home for their event in Austria. So we’re super excited about that because they’ll get to see how our event is modeled after theirs and then, in turn, myself and about 10 other people are traveling–after we leave the city of Helen–we will be traveling over to Austria to go check out their event because it’s their 30th anniversary and our fifth anniversary.
Stateside, people come from Ohio, Maryland, even Canada. We also had someone who drove from Washington last year coming across country in the U.S. and started out a week in advance and just drove on over. We get excited when we see how far people drive, you know. They come to this little bitty town in the middle of nowhere-in the nestled cup of the mountains here-just to come to our show. So we really try to go above and beyond to let them know how much we appreciate their support.
Q4: Talk about the Sunday Cruise and the “Helenring.”
Matt:
In year three, we expanded the event a bit to include a mountain cruise. It’s a cruise route we created and call the “Helenring,” which on a map looks similar to the Nürburgring. It is just a 40-mile drive through some extremely twisty mountain roads you have to take to get to the famous “Tail of the Dragon.” If you’ve ever been on the Tail, this is what they call the “backside of the dragon.”
Q5: What’s your hope for the event in the future?
Matt:
We hope that we can convince VW, in years to come, to treat our event similar to how VW of Europe treats GTI Treffen Wörthersee, which is to use it as a catalyst to bring new vehicles. They (VW) use that event to really demonstrate some of the new ideas and creative things that are out there. And I’m hoping, I’m pushing real hard for them to be able to use this platform (Southern Wörthersee) as something like that for the U.S. And that may be years down the road, but it’s something I’m really hoping to see.
So there you have it. Car builds, killer German food, the Helenring cruise, and tons of VW-inspired fun. What more could you ask for in celebrating spring’s arrival?
Related Links:
http://southernworthersee.com/
http://www.facebook.com/southern.worthersee
http://www.helenga.org/events/southern-worthersee-vw-audi-show-presented-h20-tuning
