This is my LAST POSTING for this thread and I would very much like to share something from my Past to the Members of the Camaro Forums. For some of you Older Dogs what I relate may surface memories of a Special Time: for you Puppies, I just want you to know - If you run Double Reds you had better be prepared
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As you've read - I'm NO PUPPY. I was a teeenager through the 60's with my head under the hood of a car and most of them were Muscle Cars. There would be a 383 Road Runner next Door and a Coronet Hemi on the next concession. Hi-Revving SBC's and BBC's were all over the place. By the time I was 16, I could build an 8000rpm 327, one of which which, I put in my Dad’s 68 Pontiac Parisienne 2+2. I personally ran a 71 RS Challenger 340 Magnum after selling my 64 Acadian 327 6-PAC to a Farm Boy who got the bug.
We did not have a legal Drag Strip but we had something BETTER. It was called the
Jack Pine. Every Week End throughout the summer months cars would come from all over to this 1/4 mile stretch of HWY located in the Cambrian Shield some 5 miles North of Capreol just north of Sudbury Ontario Cda. This was the END of HWY 69 and only paved to provide access to Moose Mountain Mine. Cars came from Montreal, the Prairies and the Northern States to face off in what was perhaps the Biggest All Out Free and Most Exciting Muscle Car Weekend anyone could imagine; let alone, experience.
At approximately 12:30 Friday night after the last car for the midnight shift had gone by, the HWY was blocked off with Yellow and Black Stripped "A" Frame Barriers topped with Flashing Red Lights. Each Barrier was manned by 2 Gate Keepers whom used a CNR 5 Watt Radio to communicate with the Starter if by chance someone had to drive through the drag proceeding; however, everybody knew the hours of the Weekend Drags, even the OPP and Local Cops along with Town Officials attended the 3 day long events.
People either drove or tailored their cars to the Jack Pine and set up Camp Sites in Gravel Pits that were in the bush. There would be 2000 to 4000 people there given any weekend and people did not pack up until Sunday afternoon.
Spectators would sit on the banks of the ditch that ran the full length of the 1/4 mile keeping track of the first place runners and screamed with excitement over the deafening roar of Engines and Ripping Tires to cheer their favorites on. Run Times were not important, it was who was consistently winning and still in the running without a break down. Of course Local Competitors were favorites and every local instinctively knew the sound of their favorite whether it was a Hi-Screaming 289, 302 or 327 or the Thunder of a BBC or Hemi Echoing through the Canyon of Trees that lined the Jack Pine Stretch. The Staging Lane could be as long as a mile, cars were jacked up in the gravel pits and the smell of Sonoco 260 and Aviation Fuel mixed with burning Pine from the Camp Fires filled night the Air.
The Jack Pine Stretch was used from 1966 to approximately 1973 when 2 people died, not on the strip but rather separate incidents related to activities of the event. A local boy of 17 (whom I personally knew), while adjusting air pressure, died in the staging lane when run over by a returning car and a young girl was killed when a 66 T-Bird convertible went off the road in route returning from the Jack Pine. After these tragic incidents the Police did not come to the Jack Pine to moderate or view the event but instead would make record and threaten to charge participants. By 1974 the Jack Pine had became History.
Today the Jack Pine is still there. The Trees, the Gravel Pits, the Start Line and the Finish Line paint is still visible. You can even see the spent rubber embedded in the asphalt. Some times at night, if you listen, you might hear the Howl of Ghosts Ripping the Asphalt and the Sound of an 8000rpm 327 running through the gears but this is only a memory of a time when Muscle Cars Re
Tiny_Mud (INTRODUCTION)
