There's nothing funny about hitting 200 miles per hour on a quater-mile drag strip.
There's simply no time for laughing when you're pinned to the back of the seat hanging on to the wheel and you have only about seven seconds at full throttle before you shut down the engine.
But the Rocky Mountain Nostalgia Funny Cars racing this weekend at Northland Motorsports Park are sure to put smiles on the faces of spectators who show up for the two-day meet today and Sunday.
Six of the nine funny cars in the Edmonton-based series have made the trip to Prince George for the feature series, which has them indexed at 6.90 seconds.
"That's going to push them over 200 miles an hour," said Northland Dodge Motorsports Park general manager Landon LeDuke. "They'll want to run as close to 6.90 second but not go [less than that]. You do get some six-and-a-half second runs every once in awhile when a mechanic puts the wrong tune in.
"This is the third year they've been out here and they love it. They say there's nothing like this facility. It's got the pond in the back and it's just a laid-back atmosphere out in the woods. And there's no bugs to be seen, which is rare."
They'll be joined by between 75 and 100 other racing entries competing in the Enviro-Mulch points series. This is the second of two stops in the season series, which kicked off a three weeks ago in Fort St. John. Champions will be crowned Sunday in several classes, including box (which allows transmission brake delay timers), no box, sportsman, bike/sled, junior dragster and Rocky Mountain Nostalgia Funny Car classes.
"Our Friday Night street legal count has been building all year, we had well over 300 spectators last time and we've seen 60 to 70 entries," said LeDuke. "That's as good as it's ever been and it's getting stronger as the season goes on."
Racing starts both days at 10 a.m. Gate admission is $10 per day.
The drag strip is located nine kilometres northwest of the city off Chief Lake Road.
