Old Drag Racing Photos from Edmonton

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The Challenger funny car was owned by the local Dodge dealer in Dawson Creek and my Dad drove it for a couple years. The car was originally the Diamond Jim Annin car. It was sold to Bob Papirnick in Edmonton and was the Crosstown Challenger. He had it for a year or two and sold it to Mike Lycar. My Dad and his friends found it in Salmon Arm brought it back to DC. Moe Boucher from DC bought it from the Dodge dealer and raced it for a few years and it was sold to someone in PG. We have tried to track down the car and have been told the body ended up on a tractor puller? And the chassis has an altered body on it. Anybody have any more info?

Annin

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Papirnick

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Lycar

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This supposed to be how the chassis looked a few years ago.

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The BUCKSHY cars are all from the Rutherford Bro's. I first met oldest brother Steve, in the fall of '79, months after graduating highschool:)
I was lucky enough to crew for them, and made treks to Spokane in 81, and Salt Lake AND Spokane in '82. Dave Rutherford drove the Pinto, at that time still running an iron headed Cleaveland and a toploader was running in Super Gas class, just able to run the 9.90 index. Youngest brother Gord, driving the Falcon with a wrecking yard 429PI was running high 11's.
Sadly, the Pinto is no more, a victim of an oildown through the traps by the previous car down the track in Calgary back in the early to mid 90's. The Pinto was replaced by a Black Fairmont, which Dave is Still running.
The Falcon was originally built in Dawson Creek, and ran a SBF/toploader. The Pinto, as I recall was built in D.C. and Edmonton. Tom Biddell built all the fiberglass parts in DC (he was a bodyman @ Aspol Ford)
Gord is still running the Falcon as well, now powered by a 545C.I. BBF.
Steve still has his Model A Tudor that he bought back in '63, these days it has a V6:71 blown 351W in it. Several years back he took it to Peace River Drags, ran an 11.77, on street tires ,through the mufflers, starting in second gear!!
Steve is still building race cars & street rods, but now his son James is the driver. Their latest is an all round tube chassis'd, strut front end,14:71 blown & injected alcohol burning 427C.I. SBF powered '88 Mustang, which runs a FULL EXHAUST!!
Too bad I haven't been able to get Steve on the computer, he has STACKS of albums full of pics of stuff like ALCAN has posted:)

Thanks Again Alcan!!
BTW: Howzabout a link to the pics on the HAMB?
James
 
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The first Drag Race I ever went to was in my senior year of Highschool (1979)just outside Dawson Creek, BC, near Rolla.
Well, once is all it takes, I was hooked!!
So, only a couple weeks later finds me and a classmate travelling from our hometown of Grande Prairie to Edmonton to attend THE COCA-COLA FUNNY CAR NATIONALS:):)
Man, we were in sensory OVERLOAD, between all the Funny cars, and all the "Class Cars" (this was a divisional points race, so there were tons of Super Stockers, and my fav's, MODIFIED PRODUCTION) we were LOVING IT:)
At some point while wandering through the pits, we stopped to watch them go through the motor on Gordy Bonin's car.....in those days it was close to an hour, but we stood and watched, wide eyed, and after they buttoned it up, they gave it a squirt down the injector hat, and fired it up!! Well, there was RAW FUEL coming out the ZOOMIES, and we were downwind, tears running down our cheeks from the fuel..........BUT WE DIDN'T MOVE, we just kept watching, and once in a whiile looking at each other and grinning:D

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Are you tellig me that sleepy li'l ol' Edm could field a full compliment of altereds, funny cars, diggers, and door slammers? I used to hang out at Gimli Dragways north of Wpg around the same time. I don't remember as big a field. And the overall setup of the strip was nothing like the pictures from Edm. Grandstands and rows of garage space?? Edm must have been THE hotbed of dragracing. Who needs California, eh?
 
Tin: Yup, it was a pretty dcent facility, and there was a roadcourse as well:) Too bad the city encroached upon it, eventually causing it to close in the early eighties....
But I think the fact that it was an NHRA sanctioned track, and the (relative) close proximity to Montanna, Idaho, Washington, Oregon, etc might have been in our favour as well:).....and as I recall, back in those days, the tracks paid tow money to some racers ( I have no idea how that all worked though)

James
 
Sean: thanks for the links! There are some cool cars in there, and it's surprising how many of the BIG names made it up here to SIR, and the track in Manitoba.
I did find one early pic of the Buckshy Pinto in the SIR link,

http://www.pbase.com/nitroimage/image/86811648

That pic goes way back, because I never saw the car with Keystone wheels...
Also recognized a bunch of other cars:D

Thanks Sean!

James
 
Great picture's
The Old Timer anglia was Bill Visser,if the Langley people remember his Old Timer Automotive,
the blue Good Vibrations 56 Chev was built by Jim Armstrong & Peter Holmes.It is still racing,it's red and is owned by Rick Pike,the late Rick Johnston owned it before him.
 
I believe the Old Timer Anglia in the pics was an EDMONTON based car, has changed hands a few times, and ended up in Grande Prarie for a time, then the owner moved to Sask....seen within the last year f/s in Regina.
Alotta folks also don't know that before it was the Old Timer, it was the WHEELER DEALER car run by Wayne Wadson, and before that it was the Feddely & Capp car. I only learned of this within the last year while talking to Wayne Wadson over the phone one Sat morning:)

James

Boyd said:
Great picture's
The Old Timer anglia was Bill Visser,if the Langley people remember his Old Timer Automotive,
the blue Good Vibrations 56 Chev was built by Jim Armstrong & Peter Holmes.It is still racing,it's red and is owned by Rick Pike,the late Rick Johnston owned it before him.
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I think Wayne Barber drove that car at some time. The pictures sure bring back memories of the old track. Espacially seeing the old
floppers, and Nitro dragsters. There was a good bracket racing scene as well. Some of my favorites where, Kargo Automotive's 5 for a Quarter screamin' smallblock Nova, and Bud Rose's "Rosebud" ragtop Chevy II.
 
I should have added,Bill Visser lived in Edmonton at the time.I didn't know it was the former Fedderly & Capp car. Thanks for that.I have heard that the Anglia,Eddie Palzier has was that car,but I guess not
 
Garnet Rose still has (and races) that car!....and a good number of years ago his son picked up a hardroof version and he races as well!
If I'm thinking of the right Nova, it would be a 68-72, with a high winding small block stick carr, possibly even a 5 speed?

James

Rodder29 said:
I think Wayne Barber drove that car at some time. The pictures sure bring back memories of the old track. Espacially seeing the old
floppers, and Nitro dragsters. There was a good bracket racing scene as well. Some of my favorites where, Kargo Automotive's 5 for a Quarter screamin' smallblock Nova, and Bud Rose's "Rosebud" ragtop Chevy II.
Click to expand...
 
Good pics, and some memories for me as well. I remember that '56 Chevy "Gangreen" as the first car I ever saw pull the front wheels for a ways. If I remember correctly it had a really high revving, really really mean sounding small block in it. I saw that one at Shepard in Calgary pre '72, 'cause I was still in high school then. Thanks for the pics.
 
James__WC said:
Garnet Rose still has (and races) that car!....and a good number of years ago his son picked up a hardroof version and he races as well!
If I'm thinking of the right Nova, it would be a 68-72, with a high winding small block stick carr, possibly even a 5 speed?

James
Click to expand...

Thats right it was Garnet ( its been 27 years). And yes the Kargo Nova was of the 68-72 era with a 5 spd. I worked at Kargo automotive in 81-82. Itwas a cool place for a young motorhead to work. Pumping gas, and hanging around racecars.......been in my blood ever since.

The old track was a hoot, the Davis Automotive Fox hunt was very memorable. They put a bunch of good lookin' gals on a flatdeck tractor trailer to parade them down the strip. Before the truck even got to the 60' mark, half of them lost their tops:D.

The old dragstrip used to be one of the biggest events in town, and they used to have the Rebels MC as crowd control. It was an interesting time.
 
Great Pictures, I noticed a picture of Jim Bell's t-bucket. I used to work for Jim back 10 years ago, he still owns JB Automotive which is still one of the big perfomance shops in Edmonton. Those pictures are long before my time but it's always great to see the history and the time when guys cars leaked oil all over the pits and people never complained.
 
Some real neat pics there Alcan, thank for putting them up, I should see if I can scan some of my old ones from N.Z but I never really took many because we were always plugging away at the car.

That was a good time for drag racing and 2 private guys on low wages could run a car between them like we did and have a ball.
 
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