Crazy Train
So, a week and a day ago, our exploration manager mentioned to me that, since the drill crew was not likely to show up until after the long weekend anyway, myself and a coworker could head south for the Labour day weekend.
This was an exciting prospect, as I had worked for seven consecutive weeks by that point, however this was somewhat mitigated by the thought that even if I did head home, there weren't likely to be any of my friends around. So, I gave Joel a call, and found out what his plans were, and that got the wheels turning in my head. He and Sherri (a YP who had recently moved to Saskatoon) were traveling through Regina to pick up Bronwyn, and then continuing on to the a church camp near Winkler, MB. Since my dad was drag-racing near Gimli, MB that weekend, I figured I could travel with them, and then show up on the Saturday to surprise him.
With some help from Joel and Sherri, we arranged to get the oil in my car changed on the Friday, and I managed to get away from camp at a semi-reasonable hour such that I was ready to leave Saskatoon by 5:30 p.m. or so. We didn't actually get away for another hour, and after a brief stop in Regina, we were finally on the road to Winkler by about 9:30 p.m. Losing an hour to the time zone change, this meant we pulled into the camp around 4:00 a.m. So, I crashed for about four hours, attended the morning church service, had lunch, and then jumped in the car and proceeded to Gimli.
I got there just in time to see my dad go down the track, and then was waiting for him in the pits when he came back from the pass. Everyone seemed quite (pleasantly) surprised to see me, although the beard did throw them off a bit. Between Saturday afternoon and Sunday, I saw most of my relatives on my dad's side of the family, which is always nice especially since I don't get out that way as much anymore.
On both days I helped out with my younger cousin's junior dragster, and took pictures of my dad's, uncle's, and "adopted" uncle's car whenever they went down the track. The Sunday race turned out quite well, my dad ended up 3rd out of 25 cars, losing in the semi-finals by two-hundredths of a second. It was a good race, and it could have gone either way, so what can you do?
My aunts told me that, between the beard and the hat I was wearing, I look like Fidel Castro, and seemed generally to be of the opinion that I should shave it off. There are critics everywhere, it seems.
Monday morning I took off around 8:00 a.m., swung by Winkler, and then picked up Joel, Sherri and Robin (a trade-off for Bronwyn, who had went back in another car to give the sole driver a break; I was fairly sure we had gotten the short end of that deal, but he was surprisingly well-behaved. Maybe marriage does that to a guy). We passed through Regina, and I took a bit of time to visit with my parents, and then continued onto Saskatoon. We kind of got there in the nick of time; after dropping Robin off, we went to Angela and Stephanie's where Sherri had been staying, and found a small troop heading out the door to go for supper. Since we hadn't eaten, we came along, and had a good time at Chianti's. It was really nice to see a few familiar faces after a several month absence.
Now for the pictures!
As mentioned, I helped out with my cousin Gareth's junior dragster last weekend. These dragsters are basically a wire-frame built around a heavily modified riding lawnmower engine. This doesn't sound all that impressive, I admit, but they still hit 70 mph or thereabouts. Also consider, my cousin has been doing this for three or four years, and he's twelve years old.
Here is my uncle and cousin getting the car ready to go.
This picture is of my cousin in the car. You may notice the straps leading off the front, we use a golf cart to tow the car up to the staging lanes, and to bring it back after a pass has been made.
Here we are at the line, Gareth is doing a burn-out to warm up his tires prior to the run.
And here is his first time trial of the day.
Right after the run, we head up to the end of the track to tow him back.
Sometime during the weekend, my relatives were telling I should go sit in the junior. I didn't figure I'd fit. Guess I was wrong.
Now for the pictures of the real show. The junior is cool and all, but it's just not the same as my dad's car.
What you're looking at here is a 1967 Mustang Fastback. My dad has been racing it since 1988, although the car looked a lot different then. For one thing, it was street legal and about a 15 second car. Now he races in the superstock category, dialing in at 10.90 seconds, and his fastest pass has been in the low 10 second range.
Here is another burn-out shot.
This is a picture of his launch off the start. Unfortunately, I didn't get any good pictures of the launch this time around, so this picture is actually from the May Long weekend.
My dad had a good day on Sunday, but he lost in the semi-finals, in a very good race to Brian D., driving the car you see here. They have faced off before, and any given day it could go either way. Two hundredths of a second isn't a lot, but it makes a big difference when your race is done in under eleven seconds.
Here is a caricature of my dad, painted on the side of his car by a family friend and fellow racer, Bryon L.
When my uncle Fred isn't dealing with his boy's car, he races this 1968 hardtop Mustang. Kept in working order by our crew chief/mechanic (who also happens to be my uncle Don), the car is a real family effort. It wasn't raced at all last summer, so it's good to see it back in action again.
Last but not least among this motley crew is a friend of the family, Bryon L. Bryon has been racing since 1978, and has really become a part of the family. He paints cars for a living, and did the paint job on both my dad's and uncle's cars, and of course his own as well. His car is a 1970 Nova, the "Reston Rocket", and he also goes by the name "Rocketman".
As you can see, his truck (built from the body of a Ford Econoline van) is painted to match the car.
This next picture may well be the highlight of the post for a few people (Ky, Meg and Julia, I'm looking in your direction).
Bryon has a really good beard, but I'm catching up! Oh, and just in case you can't read the warning label on his truck behind us:
It was a good weekend.
This was an exciting prospect, as I had worked for seven consecutive weeks by that point, however this was somewhat mitigated by the thought that even if I did head home, there weren't likely to be any of my friends around. So, I gave Joel a call, and found out what his plans were, and that got the wheels turning in my head. He and Sherri (a YP who had recently moved to Saskatoon) were traveling through Regina to pick up Bronwyn, and then continuing on to the a church camp near Winkler, MB. Since my dad was drag-racing near Gimli, MB that weekend, I figured I could travel with them, and then show up on the Saturday to surprise him.
With some help from Joel and Sherri, we arranged to get the oil in my car changed on the Friday, and I managed to get away from camp at a semi-reasonable hour such that I was ready to leave Saskatoon by 5:30 p.m. or so. We didn't actually get away for another hour, and after a brief stop in Regina, we were finally on the road to Winkler by about 9:30 p.m. Losing an hour to the time zone change, this meant we pulled into the camp around 4:00 a.m. So, I crashed for about four hours, attended the morning church service, had lunch, and then jumped in the car and proceeded to Gimli.
I got there just in time to see my dad go down the track, and then was waiting for him in the pits when he came back from the pass. Everyone seemed quite (pleasantly) surprised to see me, although the beard did throw them off a bit. Between Saturday afternoon and Sunday, I saw most of my relatives on my dad's side of the family, which is always nice especially since I don't get out that way as much anymore.
On both days I helped out with my younger cousin's junior dragster, and took pictures of my dad's, uncle's, and "adopted" uncle's car whenever they went down the track. The Sunday race turned out quite well, my dad ended up 3rd out of 25 cars, losing in the semi-finals by two-hundredths of a second. It was a good race, and it could have gone either way, so what can you do?
My aunts told me that, between the beard and the hat I was wearing, I look like Fidel Castro, and seemed generally to be of the opinion that I should shave it off. There are critics everywhere, it seems.
Monday morning I took off around 8:00 a.m., swung by Winkler, and then picked up Joel, Sherri and Robin (a trade-off for Bronwyn, who had went back in another car to give the sole driver a break; I was fairly sure we had gotten the short end of that deal, but he was surprisingly well-behaved. Maybe marriage does that to a guy). We passed through Regina, and I took a bit of time to visit with my parents, and then continued onto Saskatoon. We kind of got there in the nick of time; after dropping Robin off, we went to Angela and Stephanie's where Sherri had been staying, and found a small troop heading out the door to go for supper. Since we hadn't eaten, we came along, and had a good time at Chianti's. It was really nice to see a few familiar faces after a several month absence.
Now for the pictures!
As mentioned, I helped out with my cousin Gareth's junior dragster last weekend. These dragsters are basically a wire-frame built around a heavily modified riding lawnmower engine. This doesn't sound all that impressive, I admit, but they still hit 70 mph or thereabouts. Also consider, my cousin has been doing this for three or four years, and he's twelve years old.
Here is my uncle and cousin getting the car ready to go.
This picture is of my cousin in the car. You may notice the straps leading off the front, we use a golf cart to tow the car up to the staging lanes, and to bring it back after a pass has been made.
Here we are at the line, Gareth is doing a burn-out to warm up his tires prior to the run.
And here is his first time trial of the day.
Right after the run, we head up to the end of the track to tow him back.
Sometime during the weekend, my relatives were telling I should go sit in the junior. I didn't figure I'd fit. Guess I was wrong.
Now for the pictures of the real show. The junior is cool and all, but it's just not the same as my dad's car.
What you're looking at here is a 1967 Mustang Fastback. My dad has been racing it since 1988, although the car looked a lot different then. For one thing, it was street legal and about a 15 second car. Now he races in the superstock category, dialing in at 10.90 seconds, and his fastest pass has been in the low 10 second range.
Here is another burn-out shot.
This is a picture of his launch off the start. Unfortunately, I didn't get any good pictures of the launch this time around, so this picture is actually from the May Long weekend.
My dad had a good day on Sunday, but he lost in the semi-finals, in a very good race to Brian D., driving the car you see here. They have faced off before, and any given day it could go either way. Two hundredths of a second isn't a lot, but it makes a big difference when your race is done in under eleven seconds.
Here is a caricature of my dad, painted on the side of his car by a family friend and fellow racer, Bryon L.
When my uncle Fred isn't dealing with his boy's car, he races this 1968 hardtop Mustang. Kept in working order by our crew chief/mechanic (who also happens to be my uncle Don), the car is a real family effort. It wasn't raced at all last summer, so it's good to see it back in action again.
Last but not least among this motley crew is a friend of the family, Bryon L. Bryon has been racing since 1978, and has really become a part of the family. He paints cars for a living, and did the paint job on both my dad's and uncle's cars, and of course his own as well. His car is a 1970 Nova, the "Reston Rocket", and he also goes by the name "Rocketman".
As you can see, his truck (built from the body of a Ford Econoline van) is painted to match the car.
This next picture may well be the highlight of the post for a few people (Ky, Meg and Julia, I'm looking in your direction).
Bryon has a really good beard, but I'm catching up! Oh, and just in case you can't read the warning label on his truck behind us:
It was a good weekend.
posted by Matt at 8:37 p.m.
3 Comments:
Yay, beard! It was the highlight of the post, I have to admit. But the race cars were awesome too. I can't believe you can keep an old mustang in such good condition.
Oh, and Karl says that you would make a good dictator, and that he would vote for you if you decided to run. I think you would be more pleasant than Castro.
Thanks Meg and Karl. Although I appreciate the support, if I decide to become dictator, I don't think there will be any voting. It's not usually an elected position. I would be more pleasant than Castro. Less arbitrary exercises of power; whenever I exercised my power, it would be for a purpose!
I love the caricature of your dad.
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