Saturday

9:30 am:  Since this weekend's Old Time Drags is a rather low-key event, there's no real hurry to be the first one in the gates this morning. So I've stayed in front of the computer for an extra few hours, beginning the long-delayed (Australian) Winternationals story and finishing up some bits from last month's National Open at Mission.

However, it really is time to get moving in the direction of Mission, as it's looking to be a hot sunny weekend and I can just imagine the congestion on the roads, especially with the Abbotsford Air Show going on across the river from the track.

11:30 am:  As expected, the roads were busy, to the point that my usual one-hour drive took an extra 30 minutes. After all that effort, I need a coffee. "One large capuccino, please" and we can begin our tour of the pits. In stark contrast to the scene at the previous major events here, the Federal-Mogul and National open races, there's large areas of empty space, and a distinct lack of tractor trailer rigs filling up the grounds.

Even the staging lanes are virtually deserted. It's not that there's a lack of cars, far from it, as the total attendance (race and show) is probably higher than the bigger events, but with far fewer categories racing, there's just not the constant flow of cars out of pits and the long lines in the staging lanes.

First stop today has to be in the "exhibition" pits, to see just who and what Mission has booked-in for the show. There's four members of the International Blown Alcohol Association here, part of a group of racers with 7.50-indexed Funny Cars who have been putting on great shows across Western Canada for the past few years.

The group is a mix of early and late style bodies, mostly running big-block Chevys; some with powerglide tranmissions, some with Lenco and clutch combos. Body styles run the gamut: from a '55 T-Bird and '57 Chevy to a '96 Dodge Daytona and stops in between with a '66 Chevy II and '69 Corvette. The performance potential of these cars runs along similarly varied lines, all the way from the mid 6-second to mid 7-second zone.

Keeping all these disparate interests working together is Darrell "The Burnout King" Webb, the president, and Jay Mageau, webmaster of the asociation's Awesome Burnouts site. And the bookings just keep rolling in, with 14 dates on their calendar for this season, mostly concentrated in the months of June through August.

Next door to Darrell Webb's trailer is the pit area of good friends Bob and Jay Mageau, with their "Prospector" '57 Chevy flopper. I was a little surprised to hear they were coming out to Mission this season, after their nasty powerglide explosion a little more than a month ago. They'd optimistically stated that the replacement clutch and Lenco were on order, but I know how long it takes to get all the parts to make such a large switch. Especially without a really strong bank account to make it happen.

With the help of a few friends, like George Sitko, and a transplanted Canuck, Brian Browell, working at Murf McKinney's, they've made it. Ken Sitko put in the overtime to get it all mounted up correctly, and they were able to make one very brief burp with it at their home track in Edmonton before coming out to the Coast. They still don't know how well this new deal is going to work, but at least they're on a track that can show them what it's capable of.

And they've even brought a special guest with them for the weekend. Long time fans -- okay, old guys like me -- that have been around drag racing for more than a few weeks (okay, actually decades) might remember a Top Fuel team based in Edmonton in the late 60's and early 70s, named Egbert & Garrity.

They were one of a bunch of fuel racing teams that for whatever reason, congregated in the Alberta capital at the time; one of the true golden ages of drag racing in Canada. Here's a teaser for the memory banks, with some of the names from that period: Gary Beck (Beck, McLean & Lawrence), Terry Capp (Capp & Fedderly), Ken Auchs, Graham Light, Ken McLean, and of course, the aforementioned Gary Egbert. And there's several others that memory failed me on.

While waiting for the exhibition cars to start their scheduled noon session, Gary and I spent some time bench-racing, talking about his car, the old days of drag racing, the present, and what he's been doing since retiring from driving at the end of the 1974 season.

NOTE:  Time to continue this report from Saturday at the BC Old Time Drags has run out for now, as it's time to head off to work. I'll be back in eight hours and continue from this point. Stay tuned.