Road Kings Queen City Cruise — everybody from young kids to retirees
By Brendan Quinn
The Road Kings car club is hosting the annual Queen’s City Cruise this weekend, with up to 400 cars expected to participate in the show.
Vehicles from all over Western Canada and the United States will be parked on Baker Street, and hot rod aficionados from areas as far as California will be making the trip to show off their rides.
Ian Corner is a Nelson local and member of the Road Kings club.
The Nelson Daily sat down with Corner to find out what it is about the event that draws so many people from so many different locations, and why he is so passionate about classic cars.
“Well I’ve been a Road Kings member since 2010,” Corner said. “The first year that I went in the show Mike Keegan, who was president at that time, told me not to join so I could actually compete in the show.”
Corner ended up winning first place in his category that year. After winning, he joined the club and has been working with the event ever since.
This year is expected to draw large numbers of vehicles and fans, closing off Baker Street from the 800 Block near Nelson Chrysler to 200 Block by the Sacred Ride bike shop.
“As long as I can remember going to the show it’s always been huge,” Corner said.
“The car hobby is huge; the numbers of people involved in it are ridiculous. It’s everybody from young kids to retirees.”
“We’ve had cars from California, Alberta Washington Idaho Montana. There’s a show in Langley, a really big one, and it was getting a little out of control. They were trying to cram in too many cars and some of them were getting damaged,” Corner said, citing the fact that some of the cars were priced well into the six-digit mark.
“Some of the guys were getting fed up, as a few of them have six figure cars, so they said ‘screw it, we’re going to come up to your show’ so we’ve been getting more and more people from the Lower Mainland that would normally go to other shows and are now coming up here.”
Corner told The Nelson Daily that he’s been into cars and dirt bikes, ever since he was child, but wanted his first major restoration project to be something original.
“I started expanding my search to something different that not everyone had”, Corner said.
“I was working and a buddy of mine pulled this car into the lot, and I thought ‘you don’t really see Fairlanes like that ever’. He had a ‘for sale’ sign on it and at that point I was ready to buy something. I was tired of looking so we struck a deal.”
Corner began restoring the car in 2005, and made sure it was ready for his son to drive in his graduation parade in 2010.
“I put in work whenever I had free time or a few spare bucks. My son graduated in 2010, so in the beginning of 2009 I started really getting serious because he wanted to in the grad parade with it. I committed to that, told him it would be ready for his graduation,” Corner said.
Corner will be bringing his prize-winning car, a 1963 Fairlane 500 two-door hard top, to the show and could be seen in last weekend’s Pride Parade.
Early registration for the show will be available Friday at 1pm at Bogustown Pub, with regular registration beginning at 9 a.m. on Saturday on Baker Street with the Show and Shine event starting at 10 a.m.
The weekend concludes with the rooftop dance Saturday evening.
For more information head to the Road Kings website
