It has been an awsome couple of weeks in my little car world.First the Port Hope Fair and finally getting all the Ratlers together at the same time,in one place for some pictures.Then last week there was the breakfast gettogether with the Aces and Coasters.Then this week the biggie thi one I wate all year for,Armdrop at the Picton airport.The day started of with The Boy and I headng to Grafton to meet some of the Ratlers and friends for breakfast.I say some because half the guys were going to the Brighton Apple fest.We met up with fellow Ratlers TJ and Al and friends Dan and George.The biggest discussion was how the hell we were going to get thru the traffic jam that a rumoured 600 hotrods and some guy named the Count was causing.Al new a way and and said he would lead.So off we we went ,well most of us anyway,The Boy was not behind me.I was driving as slow as I could waiting for him and still keep the rest of the group in site.Up ahead was a mixed blessing in the form of a huge group of bicycles and an escort.I figured this would allow him to catch up but then the escort waved everyone past.The next chance I get I pull over and wate for him.The next thing I know I am surrounded by 20 or more Bicycles who decided to take a break at the same spot I was parked .I was a little worried that I had pissed them off some how and The next video Of me and my car would have been on You Tube under Bicycles get revnge on old guy abd car.But then a strange thing happened they were saying photo,photo with Italian.Turns out it was an Italian bicycle touring club and the guy in front of my car holding up his hand wasn't going to let me go till everyone who wanted a picture had one.I sware, I saw The Boy laughing at me when he did go by and saw the delivery surrounded by 20 Italian speaking bicyclests with cameras.Finaly we are all together again and winding our way thru the closed off streets of Brighton and seeing Old cars,hotrods ,coupes, ratrods ,muscle cars everyware you looked all over town and traffic was backed up for miles.We got thru that and enjoyed a really hour or so drive thru The Counties .I should have said leasurely drive because we were not interested in a repeat performance of our unfortunate runin with the local police from the last Armdrop.We made it without incident either mechanical or legal.Well if the car count at this event is any indication Drag raceing is very healthy indeed because our group was R197thruR200 at about 11:30 and they were coming in all day ,The raceing was great as there was every kind of car and truck you could imagin.Street cars,Tuners,old muscle cars,FED dragsters,ratrods,shiney cars,there was even an old dirt modified wing car there.There were alterds,blower cars,turbo cars just about anything that went fast was there.One car hauler showed up with 4 cars .So everybody is excited an the runofs begin almost on time an the next thing we see is a huge black cloud of smoke from the end of the track an one of the first cars to run has caught fire and is really burning .Someone with field glasses says it wasn't a wreck but it is burning.Fire gets put out and its back to raceing.So I get to the staging lane and line up next to TJ and his yellow 57 2dr wagon.It always fun to race TJ because people always say the two cars look cool together .He beats me every time 5or6 in the last couple of Armdrops except once when his driveshaft broke at Shannonville.We are staged and the starter drops his arms and I get a good start.Got him in first,shift to second always my downfall,no bucking this time,shift to third hard on it finish line where is he ,not in front so that must mean ,yes got him by 1/2 a length,yahoo first time in years.Back in the pits he is laughing and says I must have put in a new engine ,nope I say just superior driving skills.That is the fun of racing with friends everybody is happy to be there win or not ,just raceing .The lines were long though it took a good hour to get a run in and on one round I actually ran out of gas .Fortunatly the line was so slow because the jet dragster was going,that I was able to get back to the pit and get my gas can and we only lost 2 spots.I raced The Boys Roadmaster wagon,ya we like wagons in this family,and was soundly trounced so my braging was short lived.Al gad a couple of runs and did well and if Dan ever gets his 454chev powered Mustang to actually hookup it will be awsome.I met Shag and his georgus Chevell and said hello to LoneMonk and you can see his photos of the event ,This is a guy who takes his holidays and flies over for this ,very cool I think and you should see his Stude it reminds me of a model kit I built as a kid, kind of a dragster/salt look to it.I will try and post some pictures but I think LoneMonk caught the flavour perfictly with his That is about it except to say I was very lucky to spend a beautiful day doing something I enjoy with family and friends and I get to savor the thrill of victory at least till next time. Ed

By far not the best video I have done, but I got a section of the first Jet car run of the day: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8NF7coeQfI

Especially from this small distance from the car, it is the loudest thing I know of except for a space shuttle or rocket launch. I have a much better Audio-only version of this launch which I haven't compiled yet.

In the early 80's my dad and I would go to Cayuga quite a bit, and there were increasing number of jet cars showing up, but almost 50% of the bastards would flame out while trying to reliably get up to take-off power. At least one we saw back then caught big fire and was written off.

Sure is an exciting way to get down a track though.

Dads 1953 Studebaker:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pC5K5hy_0u4

Taken before heading out from Trenton for the Fall 2013 Picton Armdrop