VICTORIA -- Victoria's tourism industry is putting together a team to look at ways of saving Northwest Deuce Days, a popular classic car event.
Last week, the event's founder, Al Clark, announced that the car show would not be returning after more than two decades.
The event, which draws thousands of visitors and hundreds of classic cars to the island once every three years had grown immensely popular over the years. But Clark said the event took years and thousands of dollars to organize, and he and volunteers were looking at closing up shop.
Now, Destination Greater Victoria says it's putting together a committee to try to keep the tri-annual event running, as its grown to become an economic engine in the region.
Paul Nursey, CEO of Destination Greater Victoria, told CFAX 1070 that a range of industries were interested in continuing the event.
"Later today we'll be announcing an exploratory committee of community leaders about seeing if we can't keep it and operate it," said Nursey on Monday morning.
He adds that Destination Greater Victoria worked with Northwest Deuce Days in the past doing "behind the scenes work," particularly during the most recent event in 2019.
Clark told CTV News last week that the organization helped in multiple ways, including registration help for the roughly 1,400 vehicles that attended the event two summers ago.
"So (we) and other community leaders certainly want to try to save the event, and hotels in downtown have already been reaching out to car clubs," said Nursey.
Nursey says he's grateful to Clark for running the event since the late 90's, and understands his decision to retire.
"I understand why he's tired," said Nursey. "It was actually quite a feat to get 2019 to happen so I think we're going to reach out through our partners here and we're going to try to make it happen."
Destination Greater Victoria is expected to release more information on the exploratory committee on Monday.
