Somebody had to leave the first impression on that quarter-mile of freshly-cured concrete and George Hill and Cal Barnes were only too happy to oblige Saturday afternoon at a Rolling Mix Concrete Raceway.
They've been duking it out in head-to-head bracket drag races for the better part of three decades and while their first pass on opening day at the new and improved track wasn't a close race, it didn't matter.
With 720 feet of new pavement to christen, neither driver really cared who got to the finish line first. The fact they were the chosen ones to lay down the first streaks of rubber was all that mattered.
Both cars are capable of 10-second passes but Hill had a better grasp of how hard to push the throttle in his green Ford Mustang on the slippery, unblemished track. He got into shutdown territory several seconds ahead of Barnes, who spun the tires a bit too much in his red Chevy Bel Air.
"That's naturally-aspirated horsepower, I don't even have a supercharger on there," said Hill. "I knew it was going to be slippery so I just feathered the throttle off the line and spun, so I backed off and kind of half-throttled it, and laid right onto it again and a waved bye-bye. It's a beautiful track, nice and smooth."
Barnes knows that surface will get stickier with each patch of rubber and plans on giving Hill a run for his money next time they race.
"George beat me down but it will only get better from here," said Barnes. "The track is new, it's the grand opening and win, lose or draw, we're having fun."
Opening day attracted about 50 cars. It wasn't that long ago Barnes was among a tiny group of only five or six drag racers at the track and there were no spectators in the stands of what was then called North Central Motorsport Park. He keeps hearing about other drag strips closing due to declining car counts or being reduced to one-eighth mile facilities and is relieved to see his home track bucking the trend.
"This is one of the nicest tracks around I think by the end of this season you'll see cars and drivers who haven't been here in years," said Barnes. "George and I and a few other diehards we never quit, we just kept coming because we wanted to, and it's exciting to see all these new cars come here. They've given us a brand-new track."
Hill hasn't missed a race weekend since 1993 and he's been a regular at the track since he started racing in 1981. The strip has been in operation since Ernie Schultz and Gordon Schade opened it in 1978.
"Four or five years ago the track was only running on Fridays and it didn't look good, it's great that it's come around again," said Hill. "Hopefully it will revitalize the sport."
Ken Norbraten's souped-up Volkswagen beetle made its first-ever appearance at a drag strip Saturday. He had a $50 bet riding on him breaking the 15-second barrier but had trannie problems and clocked 15.4 seconds.
"It was a good rush but it didn't want to shift into third on its own, so it started crapping out and I lost the 50 bucks" said Norbraten. "This thing has a 100-shot of nitrous but I'm not going to touch that until we can get going down the track straight."
Getting ready for opening day was a bit of a mad scramble for everybody involved. The wireless timing system had to be reset and didn't work for the first round of street legal racers. The public address system was dead and a backup had to be found. But nobody was complaining, knowing the facility is back in a big way under the ownership of Brent Marshall after several years when it appeared caught in a death spiral.
"Brent has put a lot of time and money into the track and it's going to do a lot for racing, I knew this would happen when he bought the track because he has lots of support from the local community," said Pat Wilkinson, who managed the old drag strip for nearly 30 years.
"We're seeing a resurgence of racers coming back and we're going to start see families coming out again. We're going to get a lot more, better cars up here now."
By his own estimation, Marshall and the Northland Auto Group has poured $500,000 into the NHRA-sanctioned facility and local businesses have followed suit, contributing close to $400,000 to improvements. Rolling Mix and IDL Projects teamed up on the paving project, which also created a wider staging area for drivers as they wait their turns to race.
The washroom facilities were gutted and replaced by R H Jones and Son Mechanical in a $100,000 renovation that includes new sparklingly-clean toilets, sinks, showers, walls and floors. There's a brand-new washer/dryer for racers to use, and even a sani-dump for those who come to the track in campers or motorhomes. Electricians from Centre City Electric worked late Friday night to replace power lines dug up earlier in the week to make way for the wider staging lanes.
"I'm just so happy to see it done and I'm so blown away by the business owners and volunteers who stepped up," said Marshall, just before he put the revs to his 1,500-horsepower twin-turbo Dodge Viper.
"It's been a crazy last few weeks. Right up to midnight [Friday] we were working out the hiccups but so many people stepped up to help and the racers who came to see this are blown away. It might take us another year of things to do, but when we're done it will be the nicest facility in Canada. We already have the most beautiful setting."
Surrounded by trees, fields and fire pits for camping, the drag strip is part of the 140-acre Northland Motorsports Park, which includes a kids' playground, a fish-stocked lake and beach, a motocross/BMX track, a mudbog pit and and a dirt oval race track.
Marshall wants to extend the five-eighths mile paved shutdown lane, believed to be the longest in the country, just to add to the safety factor. The improvements bode well for Prince George attracting top-fuel jet cars and funny cars and for the city to play host to big events like the NHRA national open finals. Mission and Prince George are the only drag strips in B.C. sanctioned by the National Hot Rod Association. Tracks in Ashcroft, Fort St. John and Edmonton are affiliated with the International Hot Rod Association.
"We chose NHRA because their level of safety is higher," Marshall said. "They gave me a wish list of things they wanted to see in Canada and I've done that, and they said if I did we would hold the Canadian finals here."
The first of three NHRA Rolling Mix National Dragster Challenge series points meets is set for this weekend at track as well as the return of the Rocky Mountain Nostalgia Funny Car series which packed both grandstands last year. Jet cars will be coming to Prince George in August.
