Stock car racing season in the Prince George Auto Racing Association officially began Saturday at PGARA Speedway and it wasn't exactly a chock-a-block, bumper-to-bumper traffic jam.
Just three Canadian Tire street stocks, two Tri-Par R.V. Rentals hornets and nine Chieftain Auto Parts mini stock entries made their way on the three-eighths-mile oval track at the Turgeon Memorial - not exactly what race car fans were hoping for to start the club's 66th season.
"You can have the opening day on September 1st and there still won't be people ready, so..." said PGARA vice-president Aaron Conn. "Unfortunately the hornets had bad luck, pretty much every one had engine problems. But the mini stocks were really good, there were lots of cars, lots of new guys who built some cars and a couple of people who came back who have been gone from the race track for a couple of years."
Nathan Linfitt dominated the mini class. He qualified quickest in a track-record time of 18.990 seconds, won the heat race and the 25-lap main event. Linfitt now leads the mini stock points standings with 38, six ahead of Jeremy Floer and 14 up on two-time defending points champion Stephen Woods of Vanderhoof.
Street stock points champion Darrell Horwath was back to start defence of his title Saturday but was limited to time trials and some demonstration hot laps when Shane Murphy had engine trouble right out of the gate, with newcomer Gilles Cyr driving the only other street entry.
Conn and the rest of the PGARA board are hoping more cars will be race-ready for the next meet on Saturday, June 16 - the WESCAR White Spruce Enterprise 100.
Conn served as acting president while newly-elected PGARA president Jamie Crawford was away in Alaska for opening weekend. The low car counts meant Conn had a little more time on his hands and he took the opportunity to get back behind the wheel of a race car. He accepted an invitation to race one of the Legends cars.
The people behind the Terrace-based Legends touring series, which will be featured this summer at races in Quesnel and Williams Lake, came out for a demonstration Saturday at PGARA Speedway, hoping to convince a few Prince George drivers to get involved with cars of their own.
Legends are five-eighths replicas of American-built hot rods from the '30s and '40s. They are powered by 1,250 cc Yamaha motorcycle engines with five-speed transmissions, and the rules for Legends are standardized so that means they can be raced anywhere in North America without modifications. Cars vary in price from about $5,000 for a used one to $27,000 brand new.
Phil Hustad of Terrace, who owns several Legends cars, won the five-car main event. Conn said there is some local interest and wouldn't be surprised to see PGARA eventually adopt it as a racing class.
"It was a blast, they're great people to deal with," said Conn. "They're baby versions of the old hot rods, like '34 Fords. They're really tiny, I think from bumper to bumper they're only 10 feet long. They're just a bit bigger than a go-kart.
"They're very nimble and quick. It wasn't my car so I wasn't going to push it as hard as it could have gone but I did get a little racy with the guys a few times. We had a caution and I caught up to them and got racy with them for a couple laps and then got a bit squirrelly with them. It wasn't my car and I wasn't going to push it that hard because I didn't want to wreck it. I don't need to be buying a race car that way."
