canada’s performance magazine february...

Volume 24, Issue 2

FFEEBBRRUUAARRYY 22001188

24thANNIVERSARY

CCaannaaddaa’’ss PPeerrffoorrmmaannccee MMaaggaazziinneeww

wwww

.. qquu

ii cckk

-- ttii mm

eess.. cc

oomm

FFLLAASSHHBBAACCKK

BBEESSTT OOFF 22001177

e-mail [email protected]

Page 02

February 2018

Page 03

WINNERS CHOICE RACING PRODUCTS1-877-782-8010 TOLL FREE

C A L L U S F O R Y O U R H A R D C O R E R A C I N G C O M P O N E N T S . C A L L B E T W E E N 8 A M - 9 : 3 0 P MCOD

www.winnerschoiceracing.come-mail [email protected]

OONN SSAALLEE NNOOWW!!

Call us forany of your

A.T.I.need’s

L.E.D. Light BarsIn stock and ready to ship!!

LED Worklitesfrom $65

21” 120 watt curved 21” 120 watt strait31” 180 watt curved31” 180 watt strait41” 240 watt curved41” 240 watt strait51” 300 watt curved51” 300 watt strait

$370$270$450$380$580$480$680$580

SPRING RECERTIFICATION?call now for specials!!

February 2018

VOLUME 24 ISSUE 2, February 2018EDITOR Don MacgowanPRODUCTION Linda CollingeMARKETING Don Macgowan, [email protected]

Bill Robertson [email protected] Doug Adams, Moe Putney, Dave Morgan,

Fred Nelson, Ken Sitko, Sheryl Ogonoski, Melinda Neil, Bill Robertson, Todd Young, Jack Feige,Vern Scholz, TomWest, Phil Elliot, NHRA, IHRA, SEMA, Nitroimage, DyanLover, Berny Frye, Butch Henry, Joel Gruzen, Tom SlickCOVER Doug Adams pic

www.quick-times.com(403)886-7663

[email protected] Mail Agreement 40036721

Return Undeliverable Canadian Address ToQUICKTIMES,

20-227265 Hwy 42, Red Deer CountyAlberta T0M-11R0

NO PART OF THIS PUBLICATION CAN BE RE PRODUCED WITHOUTWRITTEN PERMISSION FROM THE PUBLISHER

A battery powered car?Really? That's the legacy forthe Millennial Generation?What is with all this batterypowered crap? How is thatgreen? Batteries are WAYless efficient (about 35%)than corded devices and

nobody I've discovered has agood solution to recycle thebatteries? What about the

infrastructure to power them?This applies to everything

from a battery powered, auto-mated baby rocking chair to

our personal technology.

What happens when the rare earth minerals are depleted?*Bye bye cell phones, tablets, etc.? I say look beyond greenand look at greed - what is REALLY motivating this? My betis this will be the NEXT BIG THING for billionaires, million-aires and even you - the investor - more on that in a bit."They" are going to exploit your attraction to do good (beGreen) and convenience (save time and human energy)because you are young and impressionable; to make money.

Online shopping? More crap. VERY convenient though…but not very green… Years ago and prior to suburbs deliverywas a huge part of retail. In town stores were concentratedin the urban core making parking and access difficult soretailers offered delivery. If you were out of town, there wasalways a stack of catalogues somewhere in the house andmost things were delivered. It wasn't too many years agothat milk, baked goods, papers, fried chicken, etc. all was delivered in Canadian cities.

Then one-day savvy developers devised "the mall ". Buy land in the suburbs where it is cheap, so you can offerfree parking, and charge merchants more rent as the mallwould be a great customer traffic generator guaranteeingdoor swings. No more delivery costs and lots of cus-tomers… and consumers now had to go get their own stuff. Today indoor malls are too expensive, the wheel is round,and we are back to delivery.

Now delivery sounds great except as the number of trucksincreases exponentially, they are impacted by - you guess it- bike lanes! More trucks, less room, splendid. So now Joe,the logistics company driver just stops in traffic, runs into thebuilding - tying up traffic - so he can do his job… aarrgghh!

I heard somewhere that the Mayor of Toronto tags and towsthese guys*** - it's not their fault there is nowhere to park.Why did Amazon buy Whole Foods - so they had a placewhere YOU could go pick up your own stuff because theycan't figure out the last mile to deliver it to you.

And what do you do with all the boxes? The world's largest consumer of recycled materials, China,has just passed legislation to stop buying foreign recycledmaterials*. All the billions spent by municipalities to processthis stuff and now what?

The City of Halifax is asking for permission to put it in theirlandfill as the can't store anymore of it. Where was the foresight in this game?

Young people come by their shortcomings honestly - we have all been young and we have all been idiots. In the 40's 50's and 60's the story was smoking was good - and we listened. Lead in gas - good, let's do it.

Then thalidomide, asbestos, on and on. In the 80's it wasjunk bonds, oil, gas, I could go on… it's kinda like one gen-eration will suffer the Exxon Valdez disaster and mandatedouble hulls for oil tankers but no one thinks about oil carstravelling by rail (Lac-Mégantic, Quebec disaster).

Each generation makes mistakes and the young folks coming up behind blame the ones before and so a divide ismaintained.

continued on page 39

Rant


YYeeaarreenndd rreevviieeww Doug Adams

Greetings Quick-Timers, Happy New Year! It's hard tobelieve that another year has flown by. With the NewYear comes a fresh, clean, slate. It's a chance to hitthe reset button and start anew. For many the NewYear is about resolution and setting goals for some kind ofaccomplishment. I'm of the opinion, if you want to make somekind of change why wait until Jan. 1, you can start any time.As far as the big resolutions go I figure that I prettymuch have them covered. I watch what I eat, I walkthe dog for exercise and I'm as nice as I'm going to get,toward people…..all the big ones covered!

In the past I have fallen victim to the goals and resolu-tions for the New Year. Like they say you learn foryour mistakes. As opposed as I am to resolutions, I will go on the record and proclaim my only resolutionfor this and years to come. Iwill not, I repeat, Will Not, reportany further issues or concerns with Irwindale Speedway.

For the past, I don't know, three to five years I havebeen reporting that Irwindale was closing and that theGrim Reaper was at the door. As recent as last month,after the 2017 Mooneyes Christmas Party we, everyone, were convinced that this was it, the lastMooneyes at Irwindale. From the story that was goingaround you would think that the bulldozers were wait-ing in the streets, waiting for the crowd to leave sothey could start the demolition.

As fate would have it, a major turn of events occurredand now a group has come forward to take over oper-ations of the facility. It's no secret that the track is builton an old dump site.

They have been trying to get good soil reports so theycould build a mall or warehouse or whatever, it's justnot happening. I have become so tired of the on againoff again reports over the years that I didn't really readthe press release. But, the little bit that I skimmed oversaid that the Justice Brothers were involved.

Whatever the case may be it looks like Irwindale livesonce again. As for the fate of Mooneyes, we'll just waitto see what Chico has to say. Realistically, it costs toomuch money to rent the Pomona Fairplex and nobodyin their right mind wants the event to move to Fontana.Auto Club Famoso Raceway in Bakersfield would bemy choice but, more than likely Mooneyes will stay inSoCal at Irwindale. So, there it is, I'm done with thisIrwindale nonsense!

Let's get back to the situation at hand, racing seasonis still about a month away and things have been pret-ty quiet since Mooneyes. I spent my holiday sick with whatever this crazy flu isthat's going around. My wife fell victim first and gave itto me just in time for Christmas (thanks for that) notwhat I was looking forward to getting for Christmas. I got spend my week off from work on the couch.

With that said, I haven't been out and about and really,other than the Saturday morning donut shop meet inPismo there hasn't been much going on. As I told you last month the fires in Santa Barbara puta damper on traveling south and just when the fireswere out a storm came in and dumped rain on us forthree days.

February 2018

Page 07


You might have seen the results of the storm on thenews. Massive mud slides hit the burn area closingthe 101 freeway, the only north/south freeway on thecoast. As we go to press the freeway remains closed.For me, from my location, it would take about 6 hoursto get to SoCal…it's just a good time to avoid any ofthe roads south of Santa Barbara until the situation isin hand and the clean-up complete!

December would be the perfect issue to do a year inreview piece but, December is reserved for theMooneyes Christmas Party. So, I guess the next besttime to take a look back will be the first issue of theNew Year. I'm going to quit typing and get into the2017 photo files and pick some of my favorites fromthe past twelve months. As of right now, it looks like Iwill have coverage of the Grand National RoadsterShow for next month but, until then, enjoy a look backat some of my favorites fromlast year!

I hate to start the year on a sad not but, I just saw that that Dan Gurney passed this afternoonfrom complications of pneumonia. Dan's accomplish-ments were many, from Formula-1 to the Le Mans 24hour, Daytona and NASCAR with Ford, Trans-Am withhis AAR Mopars and of course Indy with his beautifulGurney Eagles. I met Dan at Laguna Seca back in the90's and got his autograph on a few things.

He was a great driver, constructor and team ownerand a very nice man. Rest in Peace Dan Gurney!

Doug

February 2018

Page 09


These are some of my favorites from the past twelve months


Flashback Dyan Lover

Unfortunately the local drag race season is currentlydormant but will fire up soon with the NHRA WINTERNATIONALS in Pomona, California. I haven't beento many races lately so therefore do not have a raceto feature in this months edition. I had hoped to be inQatar at this time to shoot some of my favorite ProMods at the Arabian Drag Racing League race but gotI sidelined so that item on my bucket list is going tohave to be put on the back burner for another year.The guys from ProLine are making power up there.The Q80 orange 69 Camaro driven by Turky Al Zafariand tuned by Steve Petty set a new record nailing a3.62 in the eighth mile! I'd loved to have seen that inperson but rather on dwell on what I've missed Ithought I'd take the timeto revisit some of the greatthe races I did attend in 2017 and a few I didnot instead. I was fortunate to visit a few of myfavorite race tracks this year and even went to twonew ones that I had never been. Here's a brief recap.

Every Spring Mission Raceway Park starts runningcars in April and last year was no different . What wasdifferent was that MRP was celebrating its 25th yearat the current location. The facility originally opened in1965 and operated until 1978 when the District ofMission wanted to establish an industrial park on thesite. After years of legal wrangling and negotiationsthe park finally re opened at the current location onMarch 14th, 1992. The following year NHRA sanc-tioned the track and they ran their first NHRANational Open. The National Open is one of thebiggest NHRA races at MRP but the NHRA LUCASOIL DRAG RACING SERIES Divisional held everySpring is also a fan favorite.

The NHRA Divisional was held from June 1-4th, 2017.The spectators at last year's event sure got theirmonies worth, especially when the Top AlcoholDragsters hit the staging lanes! The class ran amaz-ing numbers all weekend culminating in a new trackrecord and almost a World Record! When Surrey,B.C's Shawn Cowie pulled into the burnout box duringqualifying nobody realized the epic run he was aboutto rip off. Shawn's TAD crossed the stripe at anincredible 5.180 @ 279 .06 miles per hour which isjust two one thousandths of a second shy ofJimWhiteley's World record ET of 5.178 whichhe set in Pomona back in 2012! Shawn did howeverbeat Whiteley's 277.43 mph record and Jim's wifeAnnie Whiteley was in the house to witness the event!It was her first time ever racing at MRP. Shawn notonly tickled the World record he completely annihilat-ed his own Mission Raceway Park TAD track record!

In September of 2014 Shawn set the previous MRPET Top Alcohol Dragster record with his stellar 5.27. InMay of 2007 he set the track TAD Mile Per Hourrecord with his 273.05 MPH hit so he really hit it out ofthe park when he ripped off his 5.180@ 279.06MPH!Not to be outdone during the next qualifying roundWoodburn, Oregon's Joey Severance came off thetree hard and nailed an incredible 5.198 @ 272.31!Right after Joey's 5.198 , Puyallup, Washington's KimParker did the exact same thing in her A Fuel Dragsterripping off an even faster 5.190 at 274.80 miles perhour. It was the first time competing in the dragster forthe feisty blonde school bus driver who does doubleduty wrenching on the car. In Pro Modified it wasnumber one qualifier Garrett Richards who took homethe win and ran his person best which was a wicked5.88 @247.38. It was pretty to watch the boys fromTotal Performance Racing run their very best with theirFord WAR, (Walt Austin Racing) between the framerails. Unfortunately the weekend wasn't all positive.Comp Eliminator driver Sean Cour was involved in ahorrific accident driving a car owned by Ken Reich. Seanwas badly injured and the car totaled.

The next big race at Mission raceway was DOORWARZ. The event was held June 29th until July2nd.Door Warz is always a fan favorite because everyoneabsolutely loves Pro Mods and Door Cars in general.Once again Garret Richards dominated the ProModified field. No one saw that coming becauseShane Molinari and crew were on the property. Shanewas back on his familiar turf after winning the covetedNHRA Pro Modified Wally after his huge win inNorwalk, Ohio. No one expected Shane to make thelong haul across country to attend Door Warz but boywere they glad he did. What an epic weekend it wasbut in the final it was Garret Richards barely overShane with a 5.92 to Shane's 5.93.

canada’s performance magazine february...

Documents