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         Ahhhh... The tangled webs we weave…
         Knowing that I'd be doing business in Toronto and would be staying over a Saturday night in order to get a cheap airfare, I decided to book myself a photo shoot (and a model) for the Cougars and Kittens 2002 calendar with the Great Lakes Club in southern Ontario. I wasn't sure how many chances I'd get to photograph some really nice motor vehicles in that part of the world, and this looked like an opportunity not to be missed.
        
Finding the cars was pretty easy. A quick announcement to an internet newsgroup netted me several owners who'd be willing to wash and wax that weekend. And finding a model was only a little more difficult. A few well-placed inquiries hooked me up with the lovely Miss Traci Tropics, who said she'd be happy to do the calendar thing.
         The remaining problem - and the one that turned out to be the most perplexing - was finding a suitable location. The car club members had no idea what I wanted for a setting, and I had little knowledge of the Niagara end of southern Ontario. So I elected to cruise up and down the Niagara parkway in search of the perfect spot when I got there.

         That cruise turned out to be pretty fruitless. A northbound trip up the parkway took me to Niagara on the Lake, which is exactly the sort of lovely, quiet, extremely wealthy community where the mere suggestion that you'd like to come through with a crop of old muscle cars and a pretty girl in a string bikini and heels will get you tarred and feathered.
         Having bombed out on the northward trek, I turned my attentions (and rental car) southward to the parks of Port Erie. Unfortunately, there I found numerous ominous signs posted by the Ontario parks department warning me not to do anything that might cause persons to congregate. And previous photo-shoot-with-pretty-girl-in-swimsuit experience taught me that what I wanted to do would stop traffic for miles around.

         With only an hour to go until I was supposed to meet Traci and the car owners, I dejectedly headed back for our prearranged meeting spot near Niagara Falls.
         And then my luck changed entirely. At the end of highway 3 near Port Colborne, I spotted a sign that said, "Gasport Motor Speedway - Racing Every Sunday from May to September."
         With nothing to lose, I pulled in and struck up a conversation with a woman who appeared to be preparing for the Sunday evening show. Again, fate smiled: I'd found the owner - affectionately known to her staff as "The General" - who wanted photographs of her track.
         Having something to trade, I struck a deal that got me access to the track in the middle of a Sunday night show at which the guests of honor were the members of the Port Colborne volunteer fire brigade.
         And the rest is photographic history.
 

 

A Few More Shots of Gasport Motor Speedway