Q: What do the SkyDome and the Molson Indy have in common?
A: Everybody refers to them under their old names.
SkyDome of course is now the Rogers Centre - nobody who doesn’t work for the company ever calls it that.
And that Indy Car race is now sponsored by Honda, so it’s the Honda Indy Toronto.
Yep, after an absence of a year due to the merger of the old Champ Car/CART series and the IRL, what used to be one of Toronto’s major summertime events is back, scheduled for July 11.
An old racing partner of mine, David White, is so excited about this he decided to organize a party to kick off the week. It will be held exactly one week previous, Sunday July 5, at the fabulous Hugh’s Room on Roncesvalles.
Part of Dave’s motivation is to highlight the racing successes of his son Matt. Dave was no mean racer in his own day, but the sprog has surpassed the old man, having won the Formula Ford championship two years running. He had won all his races this year too, up until last weekend when he hit a flock of seagulls and finished second.
Dave Winfield anyone?
Matt is running a Porsche in one of the preliminary races at the Honda Indy.
Maj.-Gen. (Ret.) Lewis Mackenzie, former commander of the United Nations Peacekeeping Force in Bosnia, will also be on hand. Lew joined the army in the first place so he could afford to buy a race car; since his retirement he has got back into competition, having won a couple of racing championships himself, plus a class win at the Targa Newfoundland.
Stand-up comic Leanne Mladen will add her brand of, um, ‘racy’ comedy.
For your dancing pleasure, Dave has asked ‘The Compleat Works on their Mid-Life Crisis Tour’ to jam for a couple of sets. TCWotMLCT plays the best music ever written - ‘60s to ‘70’s rock ‘n’ roll. Their marketing slogan: “They Weren’t Oldies When We Started Playing Them…”.
"We"? Yes - fair warning: I am in this band, so feel free to bring your own rotten vegetables for tossing. To keep The Star’s ombud’s shorts from getting into a twist, I am not being paid for this gig.
You may also think you recognize our keyboard player - Tim Elia looks more like Bobby Rahal than Bobby Rahal does.
The Compleat Works also offers you the chance at Canadian Idol stardom without having Simon Cowell or Mitsu laugh at you - LIVE KARAOKE!
Want to sing along with a real band? Here's your chance. If it's a reasonably well-known rock tune from that era, The Compleat Works either knows it or can fake it (that's what the bass player does all the time anyway).
OK, your friends will laugh at you, but what are friends for?
Check out the Hugh’s Room web site www.hughsroom.com for directions and details.
Come on down and have some fun, and welcome the Indy back to Toronto!
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