The motor to drive the Weekend of Wheels is roaring once again.
The Innisfail Kinsmen and the Kinette Club of Innisfail have agreed to pick up the late summer weekend event for Sept. 10 and 11 of this year. Last April, the event's founder, the Innisfail Downtown Association, announced the vintage car show was being cancelled after a five-year run due to a lack of volunteer help.
As a bonus, the service clubs are also bringing back the popular 100-foot shootout, which was dropped after the 2013 weekend show. As well, all proceeds from the shootout event, which will cost spectators $5 each, will go towards the funding of the proposed skateboard park.
“It brings a ton of people to Innisfail. I am a car enthusiast myself. It was sad to see the car show go away,” said Alistair Loughlin, an Innisfail Kinsmen member and chair of the service group's Weekend of Wheels Committee. “The previous organizer just did not have enough support, so we have the support of the Kinsmen and the Kinettes and we are going to go forward.”
Loughlin conceded there is a lot of work to do for the service clubs to get everything planned for the event, which has attracted well over 1,000 devoted vintage car lovers each year from across the province and beyond.
“We have a very limited time to get this all done,” he said.
The news of the resurrection of Weekend of Wheels was announced at the June 13 regular meeting of town council. Henry Wong, the town's director of community services, introduced a report and resolution seeking approval of a special event application calling for a temporary road closure on Sept. 11 for the event's 100-foot shootout race. That event will take place at 42 Street between 57 and 59 avenues between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. Council unanimously approved the road closure.
“They (Kinsmen) approached me about a month and a half ago that they were interested in resurrecting the Weekend of Wheels, which I thought was great, and they came along that they would like to do the 100-foot shootout as well,” said Mayor Brian Spiller, adding he convinced the Kinsmen to get the ball rolling early in order to get approvals and insurance filed quickly. “Even though it is not until September 11, you can't start planning on September 8. It takes a couple of months to get all the i's dotted and the t's crossed, so hopefully they have good luck with that.”
Council was told the event's car show, which has been held in the downtown core in the past, will likely be presented in the south end of the nofrills store parking lot.
“Hopefully they will have luck with it and if things are a little slow this year it won't discourage them and they will keep at it. It might take two or three years to get the 100-foot shootout to the way it was,” said Spiller, who was an active Kinsmen member for 23 years before his time-consuming job as mayor. “All the money, $5 a head, is going to the new skatepark. That's a win-win situation having a service club do it like that, and donate the money back to a very worthwhile youth project that we need in our town.”
Alistair Loughlin, chair of Weekend of Wheels Committee
"It was sad to see the car show go away. The previous organizer just did not have enough support, so we have the support of the Kinsmen and the Kinettes and we are going to go forward."
