Gear Grabbers green light drag racing event for summer date

The Bonnyville Gear Grabbers have announced they are holding a drag racing event in the summer of 2019.

After the club said in August they were optimistic they could host one, on Tuesday the official announcement was made on their Facebook page, just with no finalized date.

“The demand, the want is definitely there,” said Shon Gamache head of the organizing committee for the Bonnyville Gear Grabbers.

He says this has been over a 15 year process with multiple trying to coordinate, but after finding second hand equipment, and securing the airport as the location, the club is ready.

“The Bonnyville airport seemed like an obvious one, the only that could work for a quarter or an eighth mile drag racing, whatever it may be. Sure enough with a lot of conversation with the Bonnyville Flying club, the town, and the M.D., and a lot of research, we have now gained their approval, which is a big thing, because there’s a lot involved to shut down an airport for a day. You need a lot of people to back you on that,” he said.

The racing will be an eighth of a mile, instead of a quarter mile.

“A lot of guys will set up their car for either an eighth or a quarter. It might not work so well either or. Some guys for the fun standpoint, you reach higher speeds, stuff like that. With quarter mile comes a lot more complications, insurance, liability…Eighth is a still great time. It’s a little safer, a lot of the tracks are going to eighth mile, with today’s technology cars are hitting just insane speeds. Eighth of an mile just keeps it a little more safer,” said Gamache.

Gear Grabbers will host a public information in January for those interested in volunteering or hearing more details about the event.

In the late spring, they plan to have a club only event to test out the equipment and make the public race as smooth as possible.

But with still a date undetermined, they’ll try and find one that doesn’t interfere with local events and drag races out of town.

“We don’t want to conflict with those dates, because a lot of us like to go and race too. And we want them to come race with us too. We got to work around all these dates, all the other local events, and hopefully by January we’ll have that sorted out,” said Gamache.