[MAURICE BLENDHEIM]

Recently I had the opportunity to take my 2 nephews to the track for the first time, they are 11 and 14 years old. It was the Lucas Oil Canadian National open in Mission, we went on the Friday for the test and tune. It was a pretty decent turnout of competition and exhibition cars. We got to the stands by 8:45 am and sat there till noon, they were busy taking photo's, video and asking a whole lot of questions and were pretty excited. We took a lunch break and the youngest wanted to go see the Yellow Dart that wheelied (Shawn Blair SS/JA), he took a picture of it. We walked around and looked at some cars and then went back to the stands to continue watching, then Super Street came up followed by Super Gas. The oldest said "boring" and asked me how come they slow down and then go again? The youngest shaking his head said "they burnout good but don't wheelie and they slow down". The same general opinion of Super Comp. I'll admit it was the first time for me to sit in the stands and watch full sessions of each of these classes and it really was boring. The drive home was enjoyable listening to the highlights of their day. They convinced my sister to take them back on Saturday and stayed for the night qualifying and jet cars and tried to answer her questions about the cars that slow down. I think the whole "throttle stop thing" may have hurt the spectators expectations of the first 600 feet compared to every other class. MB.