After it almost didn't happen, the 19th annual annual Canada D'eh car show will take place at the former Langley Speedway this July 1, with hundreds of cars and spectators expected to pack the track where stock cars used to race.
Organizer Ewald Penner told the Langley Advance Times "everything is on track."
"All the things and the parts people wanted are in place," Penner said.
Running from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. and billed as "a day of celebration, music, food, and vehicles," the event is expected to draw about 700 vehicles and around 1,000 people to the quarter-mile paved oval track for stock car racing that operated between 1965 and 1984.
Organizers have advised there will be no spectator parking at the track this year due to Metro Vancouver renovations, but there will be parking available at 200th Street and on 8th Avenue with a 10-15 minute walk to the event.
Back in April, when Penner reported that there would be no show because of work on the site by Metro Vancouver, news of the cancellation stirred up a major outcry from the car community.
Two weeks later, the show was back on.
Doug Petersen, division manager, Metro Vancouver Regional Parks said show organizers cancelled the event after Metro Vancouver Regional Parks staff let them know about the planned work to improve trail access to the Little River Bowl Activity Area and suggested other locations.
“After learning of the event cancellation, staff met with the organizers to review the challenges that would come with holding the event at the speedway, including significantly reduced parking space. The organizers said they understood those challenges and have committed to managing them. As a result, the event will go ahead as planned."
The annual Canada Day event started as a show-and-shine at Jellybean AutoCrafters, the custom car building business Ewald and his brother Kurt operate near the Surrey-Langley border.
This year also marks Jellybean’s 20th anniversary.
Meanwhile, more photos are being added to the online collection of the Langley Speedway Historical Society that show what the former track used to look like in its glory days
Society founder and president Murray Jones said photos of cars in action and other activities have been donated by former racers and the family of Craig Frazer, the Surrey pharmacist who started the track.
"We had a whole bunch given to us," Jones told the Langley Advance Times.
A 1965 Langley Advance article about the impending opening of the track posted on the Society Facebook page described how Frazer acquired a 130-acre site for development into a "sports car complex" with a "three-ninth mile oval" track.
"The land is so contoured that it forms a natural amphitheatre capable of seating several thousand spectators," the article noted.
Jone was pleased the organizers of the car show and Metro Vancouver were able to work things out, which means cars will be back at the track, even if it isn't to race.
"We may have failed to reopen the track for racing, but we didn't fail to reopen the track as an event site so, you know, it's it is very pleasing," Jones remarked.
"And that's as much as we could have hoped for."
In 2006, the Township of Langley voted to include the Speedway on its official list of Heritage Resources, effectively declaring it a heritage site according to the www.langleyspeedway.ca site.
