Peach City Car show, Penticton

Post by **bertvorgon** » 14 Jun 2017 09:29

I have registered for the car show on Saturday, June 24th/17. I am going up for the day, leave really early which will be nice to do the Hope/Princeton with no traffic. They have now shut down registration as they have some 900 cars I believe.

Just throwing it out there if anyone would like to drive up with me for the day. Weather is for sure an issue, no 100% and I'm out.

If nice it will be really cool as we park along the lake shore.

http://www.peachcitybeachcruise.com/

The fellow from MY CLASSIC CAR, Denis Gage is going to be there filming for a show.

Post by **bertvorgon** » 20 Jun 2017 20:24

Last call, anyone want to drive up?

Weather is now 100% good.

gooned · Post by **gooned** » 21 Jun 2017 21:18

Have a great weekend up there, gonna be hot I think.

Post by **bertvorgon** » 23 Jun 2017 17:21

Yes, it looks to be 32C. by the afternoon. Looking forward to a nice cool drive up but it is going to be a hot drive back the whole way.

I plan an leaving about 5, fuel up at the Chevron and hit the dusty. The Similkameen Mine hill should be fun, that really loads a motor no matter what. Going to miss that the twistys are now gone, will give a road report with my pictures.

I have a ton of water and electrolyte to stay hydrated. Hope the car is good, be a really good test for the larger radiator.

gooned · Post by **gooned** » 23 Jun 2017 18:11

I ran home that way from Knox, lots of fun stuff left still!

Post by **bertvorgon** » 23 Jun 2017 18:38

My record time from White Rock to the Penticton Inn ( pub), was 3:20 on the old highway...in my Honda wagon of all things, CN36 tires, late 70's or early 80's, have it noted in my old log book..

Will be interesting to see how long it takes, steady speed, I'll run maybe 10 over, to the car wash which is close to the Inn.

I should be able to go non-stop once I light the fire.

Post by **bertvorgon** » 25 Jun 2017 19:12

Here we go with my report from yesterday, hope you enjoy. Lots of pics. For you non locals Penticton was/is a long time fruit growing area, that is slowly transitioning to wine and wineries. Peaches, cherries, plums and apples were its mainstay.

Peach City Car Show

I’m still smiling!!!! What an incredible day, not had that much fun on a drive in a LONG time.

I rolled out of my daughter’s garage at about 4:15, after having ANOTHER starting issue (that bloody battery must have a bad cell). Thankfully, after my son in-law got up and got me his Motomaster battery pack, that car lit off in a heart beat, so it has to be that battery. I had no other start issues for the rest of the day.

There was zero traffic going out 16th and hardly anything on #1 to Hope. Without having to meet up I just headed up the Hope Princeton, heading into a spectacular dawn on the horizon, the mountain tops orange in the morning sun.

Did I say I’m still smiling?

There was NO traffic, I got through the twisty’s before the lodge at warp velocity, just maintaining a steady speed. Then….Just past East gate of the Park, NEW pavement….all the way to the newer pavement at the top of Sunday Summit, the sun was up, clear road…and NO traffic! I have never done that section without cars.

Soon, the section that they have opened up was just a wonderful cruise, staying at about 110 KMH the whole way to Princeton.

Then, after Princeton, just outside of town, NEW PAVEMENT all the way to Bromley Rock Park. Billiard ball smooth, the new yellow lines had not a tire mark on them. I have died and gone to heaven. I have now done 179 Km with an open road. The car was just humming along, pretty much parked at 4,300 RPM, morning temps were still cool, so the engine felt strong. My A/F still seems a bit rich on the primary, so I am going to open up the air corrector one jet size and see what that does.

Dropping down into the Okanogan valley was a treat, blending finally into some early traffic, the morning sun high now with some heat to it, going to be a hot day for sure. I had scoped out where the local car wash was, hitting it at 8:00 sharp, right on schedule. While I did not break my record, I did not drive as fast either as I did back then, I’m 20 minutes short. The specter of getting your car towed is not lost on me. The bug splats on my airdam and windshield were prodigious to say the least.

The car show area was an incredible sea of cars, thankfully the traffic organizer person had me park not far from registration, which was buried in the depths of the casino. After getting my dash card, I was then led through a MAZE of parked hot rods, Detroit iron and other specialty vehicles. They parked me in one spot, then did not like that, so led me through another NARROW maze of cars, which was not easy with my race clutch and limited steering. Then, after being parked for about 10 minutes, they asked me to back into ANOTHER spot, which at this point I was almost getting mad. I said to the guy, this is not like the other cars here. At any rate, I got backed into my final spot, which by the end of the day was good, as I ended up with some shade from a tree, and was close enough to the lake breeze to get a respite from the 32C heat. My very good and long time friend Peter (lives in Penticton) met up with me and we spent a wonderful day both reminiscing and walking to see the cars, of which we did not see everything. Peter is an incredible fabricator, constructor and welder, just like Andy. Peter rode as a factory rider for Honda back in the 70’s for their Trials program, winning the Championship.

Rumour had it there were more than 800 cars. All the while old friends kept showing up, both from my car club days in the 70’s and 80’s and others that I have crossed paths with over the years. Then of course, we had the huge group of people that had a 510, friends had 510’s, etc.. There were a few z cars there but I was the only 510, and as I was next to a walking path, had tons of people come and talk about my car, does the ego good for sure! I am still amazed, and I guess it is because this car has been around for so long, of how many people have seen it run over the years at Solo, the sanctioned street races and of course Knox.

As Pete and I walked along the foreshore, I saw Mick coming in his cool 510, The WARBIRD! He could not get into the show, due to it being maxed out, so he figured he would spend the money on gas just cruising the lake shore, to show off the 510…and that he did. We had a good talk later in the show grounds.
There were some spectacular machines there, covering all aspects of the automotive world, too hard to describe and hopefully my pictures will do some justice to them.
Around 4:00 PM there was a break in cars leaving, so Pete and I jumped into the 510, to head to the Chevron station to fuel up. I literally had 1 litre of fuel left from my drive up, which was not to be the case on the way back!

After having a nice cool glass of Juice at Pete’s, I hit the road at 5:30, with very light traffic, hardly any at all. A few cars from the show were heading back to Vancouver, each of us giving the thumbs up as I passed them. From Keremeos to Princeton traffic was light, just zipped along at 4,000 RPM.

As I started to head out of Princeton I noticed a Corvette Z-06 at the coffee shop, the driver just climbing into the car. I must admit I wondered if he was coming my way. Not long after I saw him coming in my mirror, finally catching up to me a few kilometers from the Similkameen Mine hill. I had a sense he was going to try to zap me on the hill, as he had gotten right up on my bumper. As a lot of you know, my car really shines on hills and I know those two very high speed sweepers quite well, right before the straight away and I know my car at the limit on those. I anticipated the opening to two lanes by being down in third gear and jumped on the throttle right before the split, whammo, boost is up, Mr. Z-06 is on my bumper for a second but when I got into the first sweeper, he did not know his car, and by the second sweeper, I was at full song, at the limit, he was way behind me. This was the first time I could take a second on the steep climb to check the A/F at wide open throttle, full boost and full load, with the new secondary venturi. It was just into the 10’s…PERFECT! I so dropped the Z-06 on the second sweeper that by the time I got to the top of the climb, he was just getting out of the sweeper. I throttled back to the speed limit and he caught up with me on the new section. He passed me and then I settled onto his bumper a bit, wanting to see if he would giver’. Again, who knows, but, I would suck right up to him going into the corners, as he was on the brakes where I was not at all. The rear of the Corvette looked maybe “skippy” on the bumpy hairpins, but overall he was not confident in my opinion. I could stay with him on the straight chutes, was he at a wide open, I don’t know. What we both had was clear road again all through the new pavement…SERIOUSLY….how cool was that. I let him stay ahead all the way to Hope, only getting back on him in the hard twisty bits as that was the fun part. It was 30C all the way back and when I stopped I felt my tires, like gumballs, no wonder I had so much grip, serious heat in those tires and with that medium compound, I would say that is what they were designed for.

Holy cow was that fun!! My neck is actually a bit sore today from the g-force and holding my head against that for over 200+ Km of high speed cornering. My water temp never went over 170F oil pressure dropped maybe 5 lbs. I never did look at the exhaust temp going up the big climb as the speed was pretty zippy at the moment.

Going out of the Massey Tunnel I ran out of fuel, almost made it back to the plant on one tank. I quickly switched to my auxiliary tank to make the last 10KM. I will do some fuel calculations later.

I rolled the car back into the plant till next time, a million bugs covering the front again, the Garmin says I did 812 Km (504.5 miles) for the day, moving time was 8.47 hours. With a moving average of 92 KMH, way better than most of our drives. I won’t say what my top speed was, you can guess out that one.

I will not forget this day, perfect weather, good friends met again and a day of driving that I still cannot believe I had the luck to experience.

Keith law
June 26, 2017