Land Speed Events in Ontario/Canada

[sjagman]

Having been a Bonneville fan all my life and a hot rodder, racer etc. I have always wanted to particiate in some land speed events. But alas we have none close to home. :-(

Unless no one knows of some other group locally, I am gauging interest in looking for a suitable venue- Picton? and starting up an Canadian/Ontario version. The spirt and idea would be similar to what the East Coast Timing Association or the Texas Mile groups are doing. They are using unsed runways as their locations and are able to get a full 1 mile course with approx. .8-.9 mile shutdown area.

Are any of you insterested in this? Any other forums, or web sites etc should I post this to? or ANY other suggestions or comments you have please feel free to respond.

links to other websites are:
http://www.ecta-lsr.com/
http://www.texasmile.com
http://www.landracing.com/


Thanks for your time and look forward to your comments.

Steve

[Guillermo]

I would be interested in doing top speed runs in my Honda Insight to determine the affectiveness of a few aerodynamic modifications. ;)
My car does 0-100 in 10.5 seconds, I hope a mile is enough distance to get to top speed :eek:

[abrracing]

Now that sounds really cool! Id love to run my race car at something like that!
________
Paxil Sickness (http://www.classactionsettlements.org/lawsuit/paxil/)

[Sasha]

I would be very interested in testing my car out a few times a year with different modifications, just let me know what needs doing

[George]

What's at Picton apart from an abandoned kart track ?

Some of the drag race guys at the various fbody clubs might be interested in this as well.

[MastaDeeMon]

I would so love to do this, it's a dream of mine to run Bonneville one day. I'd also love to do a hillclimb much like Goodwood, that would be awesome!!

[JoeT]

Sounds interesting..

[gatherer]

What's at Picton apart from an abandoned kart track ?

Some of the drag race guys at the various fbody clubs might be interested in this as well.

an old WWII airforce base.

[speedmerchant]

Count us in. Very interesting idea and we have some cars that would be love to stretch their legs..........

[ADAM]

sounds neat......

I am in for a day

[Doug Stark]

an old WWII airforce base.

Well I don't know which base your talking about. I hope it's not the old Picton airport (ex-RCAF) as the runway length is way to short.
Old photo - the surface dates from 1940!
http://www.copanational.org/PlacesToFly/images/Picton01.jpg
The longest of the 3 runways is only 2580 feet long, (less braking zone!)

The only other airports in the area are CFB Trenton, (10000ft) and CFB Mountainview, (5007ft). Forget Trenton as it's VERY active and I rather doubt DND will allow use of Mountainview as it is currently used for storing or transfer of ex-CAF aircraft by the Crown. The runway (only one paved - plus a gravel one) is active but only to DND. Here's a note from the 8 Wing page (Trenton controls Mountainview)

"NOTE: Since 9/11 permission for civil aircraft to use DND aerodromes has been routinely refused.

Mountain View is a military aircraft storage facility and civil aircraft are generally not permitted to use this aerodrome. The main exception is Air Cadet gliding operations which are regularly carried out here"

So your left with a runway length of perhaps 2580ft at Picton that has to include getting up to speed and braking. FYI: Mosport's backstraight is 2376ft long.

You would be better off with the now closed Miribel with runways of 12000ft long. You'd only have to dodge the odd Challenger, 700 series or Global Express from across the field!

Gander is a possiblilty as it's now owned by the town and most of the mil guys have moved out. They used to land B-36 Peacemakers here during the cold war and the runway is 10500ft long. The tow bill from Ontario and back would be a killer however!

The longest runway in Canada is not that far off the longest in the world, (16000ft somewhere in Russia). Namao Airport 20 minutes outside of Edmonton is offically 14,477ft although with the paved undershoot and paved overshoot areas it is darn near 15200ft long and 300meters wide!!! (Yes Meters!) It's an ex wartime RCAF base that is still used by CAF 1 Wing for copters and is a small training area for flying clubs. I know a guy who used to fly out of Cold Lake In CF18's that said it was the only runway in Canada that you could shoot 10 touch and go's on in a Cessna 150 before the end of the runway! It's THAT long. This is the place you want to try out land speed runs! At one time it was on a NASA emergency landing runway list for the space shuttles.

In 2002 the Parts Canada Superbike series was going to have a race here but it was cancelled for some reason. I bet someone figured out how fast the bikes would be topping out at and the insurance guys freaked is my bet.

[Dave]

The only place I know where you could do real high speed runs, since you need a MUCH longer stretch than a runway, would be the Blainville test facility in Quebec (near Montreal). You could certainly do a top speed run here, though I'm not sure how expensive it'd be to rent.

[rainman]

Exactly what I was thinking Dave. I'm sure if the event was shared with the good folks in the Quebec region, it would be possible assuming rental regs haven't changed from the last time we were there.