A soggy evening lead to less-than-ideal racing conditions at the Gold Pan Speedway on Friday (Aug. 23).
The second stop at the Doug Larson Memorial Race was to feature 28 Vintage race cars zip their way around the Quesnel track, but a bit of precipitation got in the way, and the small audience gathered had to settle for two small races in lieu of dashes, heats and a big main event.
The modified cars — which can cost in the tens of thousands of dollars — are simply not built to race in wet conditions.
“They’re good to watch,” says Dustin Brown from Quesnel, who won the mini-stock fast time, heats, dash and main that night. “They’re really fast and fun to watch, but it was just a short stint of them on the track, which was tough.”
Quesnel’s Bruce Bentley was the lone local racer in a Vintage car.
Unfortunately, he ran into a bit of bad luck on the day.
“He struggled a bit and got tangled up,” says Brown. “One of the Williams Lake cars tagged him, and he bottomed out and lost a tire.”
Thankfully for him, there was not much of a local audience to see him lose his tire.
“It was a small crowd,” says Brown, “The weather killed it. People are not going to pay to come sit there in the rain.”
“But when the cars were on the track, there was good racing.”
While Brown had a terrific outing, fan favourite Mike Spooner and the Gray Ghost did not fare so well after a 17-year hiatus.
“The car’s still not working the way he wants it to,” says Brown. “I took his car and got a new exhaust and front-end put on to try and make it better, but it still needs some more work.
“It’s still way slow.”
In addition to a six-car mini-stock field, there were two street stock cars competing.
Cory Price from Williams Lake won the main, while Quesnel’s Tyler Beckman won the dash.
READ MORE: Grey Ghost to get back on track at Doug Larson Memorial Race
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