Drag racing is usually an individual sport, a race against time and the driver in the adjacent lane to get to the finish line first.
Whether it's bracket racing or heads-up outlaw eliminations, that quarter-mile strip of pavement is the proving ground that separates the winners from the losers, and most often they stand alone.
Not this weekend at NITRO Motorsports Park. There's a North versus South team bracket racing shootout brewing Saturday and Sunday at Rolling Mix Concrete Raceway. The racing duel pits 11 of the fastest doorslammers from northern B.C. against their counterparts from the Lower Mainland. Making the trek north are some of the more prominent drivers from the West Coast Doorslammers club, who get their racing kicks at Mission Raceway Park.
"We have some of the fastest cars from Mission coming up," said Northern Interior Timed Racing Organization (NITRO) club vice-president Tony Wiebe. "We've had a couple cars this fast but nothing like what we're doing with the doorslammer guys, this is the first time we're doing that."
Wiebe said the slowest cars in the shootout will be running eight-second quarter-mile passes. The fastest will be in the low-seven-second range, topping out at close to 200 miles per hour.
Dave Kowalski of Fort St. John and his 2017 supercharged Corvette will be one of the favourites racing for Team North and Wiebe says Kowalski is entirely capable of keeping up to the fastest of the fast. Rod Belsham of Prince George is the only local driver on Team North and he'll be racing his slick Chevy Cavalier built on a tube chassis. Last year Belsham ran in the mid- to low-sevens at 180 miles per hour at Rolling Mix.
Also in the shootout lineup for Team North are Brent Long (Whitecourt, Alta.), James Rutherford (Grande Prairie), Cody Liwiski (Fort St. John), Kham Shantz (Prince Rupert), John Tiegan (Grande Prairie), Dale Phillips (Chetwynd), Graham Foster (Fort St. John), Paul Soarse (Terrace) and Darrell Toews (Dawson Creek).
The North-South showdown is the brainchild of racer Rod LeClaireof Victoria, a West Coast Doorslammer who grew up in Prince George and graduated from Kelly Road secondary school. He'll have plenty of horsepower with his 1967 nitro-burning Camaro.
"Rod really wanted to get back to his hometown and cooked up this idea of a north-versus-south race," said NITRO president Foji Dhansaw. "It should be a fantastic weekend of fun. It's the first race of the season and our guys are just itching to get on the track."
Joining LeClaire on Team South are John De Jong (Abbotsford), Scott Robinson (Chillwack), Phil Davis (Kamloops), Dale Grasdal (Nanoose Bay), Johnny West (Port Alberni), Rick Limb (Hope), Tony Driessen (Abbotsford), Greg Feal (Kamloops) and Otto Schulte (Chilliwack).
Mission Raceway opened its season in April, when the Prince George, Fort St. John and Terrace tracks were still covered by snow, but rain wiped out both NHRA points meets planned for that month as well as most of the street legal race nights. In May, the weather in Mission was dry enough to allow both points meets and they've had a few more chances to practice than the northern racers, which could give the guys from the south an advantage this weekend.
"The word is starting to get around that our track is one of the better ones in B.C.," said Wiebe. "They want to come up and test it out and play in our playground."
Rolling Mix Concrete Raceway has evolved into one of Western Canada's top drag racing facilities, with a quarter of the track paved in concrete. In 2013, then-owner Brent Marshall, with help from local businesses Rolling Mix Concrete, IDL Projects and Northland Dodge, instigated the track improvements, installing better washroom and concession facilities, revamping recreational vehicle/camping spots, and stocking an onsite lake with trout for fishing for community youth groups.
Formerly known as North Central Motorsport Park, the drag strip was purchased from local owner Gordon Schade in 1995 by Ron Cowie of Burnaby. Cowie brought the track up to NHRA specifications but the track was never a profitable venture for him. Shane Lodjn bought the 138-acre property in 2010 and sold it in June 2012 to Marshall. The not-for-profit NITRO club took over ownership of the facility last year.
A test and tune session is on tap for tonight during the street legal races from 6-9 p.m. Because the rules which govern the electronic staging tree are slightly different at the two tracks, just to keep it even, Mission rules (all lights on at once) will apply Saturday and Prince George rules (delayed interval light) will be used on Sunday.
The weekend event also features racing in the local classes, box, no box and sportsman, as well as the teen and junior dragster classes.
Racing begins at 10 a.m. Saturday and Sunday. Admission is $10 at the gate, free for kids 12-and-under and seniors 65 or older. The track is located nine kilometres northwest of the city off Chief Lake Road.
