CARNUT CORNER SHOWS AND RACING THIS WEEKEND
WEEKEND ROSTER: Drag racing in Mission, while Merritt offers dirt track competition
This weekend is a bit of an anomaly as there are only a half-dozen or so car events taking place across the province, and only one for the general public on Saturday.
That said, there’s plenty of racing action going on so the weekend isn’t a complete writeoff.
Tomorrow I’m invited to the care facility that looked after my dear sister-in-law before she died. They are having a small private car show for the residents and a barbecue for residents, staff and family. On Sunday I’m heading east for the always-great Downtown Chilliwack car show, and it looks like the weather is going to be much better than what we had last weekend on Father’s Day.
On Saturday there’s also the London Heritage Farm Classic and Collectible Car Show in Richmond on a wonderful farm setting. The show runs from 11 a .m. to 3 p.m. and both spectators and show vehicles are admitted free of charge.
Last weekend I checked out the first Strong Car Club Car Show at the George Preston Arena and was pretty surprised to see the quality of cool cars at the show, with all proceeds going to mental illness causes.
Luckily the Saturday show at KMS Tools in Coquiltam had good weather although the skies looked threatening all day. I ran across what to me is the holy grail of Sixties’ iron... the 1969 Firebird Sprint with the overhead cam six-cylinder. This always seemed ultra exotic to me back in the day. This particular car was found on the Prairies and is going through a slow restoration, owner Ken Switzer told me, adding that when he lived in England he and a buddy each owned one. It must have seemed more normal then for the Europeans to have the OHC 6 instead of a V8. In England the cars were very well optioned, but they obviously did not trust power steering as most of the Firebirds he ran across overseas had manual steering.
Just because there aren’t the usual amount of events doesn’t mean you shouldn’t load up a kid or two and hit a car show this weekend. They’ll thank you for it.