Museum hosts racing showcase Sunday
Drag Strip Memories features vehicles and related materials sitting among military aircraft
Drag Strip Memories, a one-day exhibition at the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum on Sunday, ranks as the largest of its kind in the country.
The main viewing area of the Mount Hope museum is filled with race cars and related materials sitting among the military aircraft.
Show organizer Rob Potter has assembled the presentation for about a dozen years. “I believe we started this show in 2010, and missed three years due to COVID,” he said earlier this week. He also mentioned the museum will be packed with cars this year. “I have over 60 entrants for the show along with displays from ONDR (Ontario Nostalgia Drag Racers), TMP (Toronto Motorsports Park), RCSS (Race Cayuga Sportsman Series), Can Am Stock/Super Stock and the Shannonville Drags.”
He added there will be Pro Modifieds on display, a jet dragster, a pair of Funny Cars and lots of “door” cars, along with bikes and sleds and Junior Dragsters.
Potter mentioned this year’s show will focus on nostalgia, with the vintage dragsters of Mark Rogerson and Mike Smith, displays by the Rod Masters, Road Runners and East London Timing Association car clubs and an appearance by noted Canadian and Super Stock racer Barry Poole, who won the NHRA Winternationals in 1970.
Drag Strip Memories takes place on Sunday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., and admission is $16 for adults and $12 for children.
Force still winning at 74
Here’s some inspiration. Drag racing legend John Force, who will turn 75 years old in a couple of weeks, won the NHRA Winternationals Funny Car title last weekend. The final of this race had been postponed and held at the recent NHRA Arizona Nationals.
It was Force’s 156th career victory and first since 2022.
“I’m just facing the truth in life that, you know, time’s running out, and I’m trying to hang on,” Force said after his win over Matt Hagan. “This morning, I was talking about, ‘You know, maybe this is it, maybe I should just walk out the gate and go to the casino,’ and then all of a sudden you win and your weight and your personality just changes.”
Force’s career is unique and motivating in motorsport, as well as unusual.
While Chris Karamesines drove his Top Fuel dragster until he was 88 years old in 2019, racers in other forms of motorized competition weren’t nearly that age when they parked their cars.
For instance, seven-time Daytona 500 winner and NASCAR record holder (200 wins) Richard Petty stopped in 1992 at age 55. At 50, Bobby Allison was the oldest Cup driver to win the Daytona 500. The oldest driver to win a Formula One race was 53-year-old Luigi Fagioli, who won the 1951 French GP (his only victory), and the oldest driver to enter an F1 race is Louis Chiron, who at 55 started the 1955 Monaco GP and placed sixth.
Sprint Car driver Steve Kinser had a long and prolific career, running on the World of Outlaws circuit from 1978 to 2016 (38 years). Now 70, Kinser won 20 WoO championships.
Al Unser is the oldest to win an Indy 500 race, taking it in 1987 at age 47, and he drove a variety of cars until his retirement in 1994. Mario Andretti drove, and won, in all the big sanctions, including IndyCar, F1 and NASCAR, until 1994 when he was 54.
Film star Paul Newman was behind the wheel of a race car later in his life. He was born in 1925, died at 83 in 2008, and competed in SCCA and Trans-Am road racing from 1972 until 2005 at age 80.