Saturday, May 2nd was this year’s date for the 780 Tuners Season Opener; a massive meet in Edmonton held at the United Cycle parking lot (that ends up overflowing into multiple surrounding lots) which draws in cars from other cities and even other provinces! I attended both the 2013 and 2014 editions and decided to head north once again for this year’s meet.

Since it was set to start at around 7 PM, there was plenty of time to make the drive to Edmonton and putter around once there. At noon on Saturday I left Calgary, stopping at Red Deer (which is about the mid-point of the trip) for a quick break. After grabbing some McNuggets, a coffee, and stretching my legs, it was back on the road for the second half of the trip.

With Edmonton being about 3 hours away it’s possible to make the return trip following the meet without arriving home too late (and some friends did) but I was able to get a room at a local hotel which allowed me to have a relaxing night in instead, and not have to drive in the dark. It also let me stop in at a favourite hobby shop of mine the next day before heading back to Calgary.

Last year’s Season Opener ended up being rather cold so we didn’t stay as long as we had planned, but we were worried this year’s may not even happen. Not long before the meet was set to start heavy rain was coming down and there was even hail in parts of the city. Taking shelter in the hotel parkade, we were getting ready to head back inside when the weather finally cleared and we rushed over to United Cycle. It wound up being a great meet and it was a chance to see some amazing vehicles. My coverage of the meet itself will be over on ill.motion, and once it’s live I’ll provide a link here on ThreeTwenty.

If you’re thinking of attending next year’s event, I would recommend it. It makes for a nice little trip and some really impressive cars show up.

-Bill