Early dragsters were rebels — with a cause

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Contact:

Catharine Hilton, 604.803.8046 (cell); chilton@sfu.ca
Marianne Meadahl, PAMR, 604.291.4323

Vancouver dragracers and hotrodders in the 1950s were more than free-wheeling rebels - they were young men seeking respectability, happy to race whatever they could get their hands on.

"Instead of embracing the urban delinquent label, enthusiasts struggled to gain respect and legitimacy in the eyes of government, law enforcement and the public," says SFU history graduate student Catharine Hilton, a racing enthusiast who studies Vancouver’s early dragracing and hotrodding scene.

Hilton collects oral histories and has pored through mountains of club newsletters, specialty magazines and media clippings from 1948-65.

Racing and rodding enthusiasts considered themselves "a safe, professional and viable alternative" to street racers. "They were part of a movement that would eventually protect them from public vilification and negative law enforcement pressure,” she says.

Racing and rodding turned from being viewed as an urban problem to one of suburban leisure pursuit. The B.C. Custom Car Association (BCCA) became the first club in Canada to work with police to encourage members to race at the Abbotsford Airport in the 1950s. The BCCA opened Mission Raceway in 1965.

Hilton says the RCMP and local governments would do well to look at the example set by the association to gain perspective on today's street racing problem.

Hilton supports the Cruise the Street and Race the Strip movement, a group of hotrodders hoping to help curb street racing and wean racers to venues such as the Mission Raceway - where her fiancé races Purple Reign, his 1970 Nova. Hilton occasionally races herself - for fun - at a strip at the Sechelt airport.

Hilton will be among participants at the autoConsequences symposium, a forum on the automobile and its social implications, on Saturday, Oct. 7, from 8:30 p.m.- 5 p.m. at SFU Vancouver, hosted by the SFU-led Traffic Safety Project. Check www.sfu.ca/traffic-safety/events.html.