InMotion
GREATER VICTORIA Advertising Feature
Your community’s transportation station...
• January 25, 2013
Vancouver-area hot rodder sleuths out a piece Events & Activities... of Southern California drag racing history JANUARY 27 – Steve Copp Construction Winter Hornet Series Enduro, 1 p.m. start at Western Speedway. FMI: www.westernspeedway.net FEBRUARY 13 – The Vancouver Island Mustang Association meets at Jasmine’s Restaurant on the Old Island Highway in Colwood. Dinner begins at 6:30 p.m., with the meeting following at 7:30 p.m. Everyone is welcome to attend. FEBRUARY 17 – Steve Copp Construction Winter Hornet Series Enduro, 1 p.m. start at Western Speedway. FMI: www.westernspeedway.net
Send your driving, boating or biking-related events to
jblyth@telus.net
Original owner and builder of Pomona’s Garey High drag race car Royce Hunt is back in the driver’s seat at last year’s Hot Rod Reunion at the Bakersfield, California drag strip
Hot rodder Steve Wright gets emotional when he talks about buying a derelict 1940 Studebaker coupe drag race car and tracing its history back to a Los Angeles-area high ALYN EDWARDS school shop class. His CLASSIC interest in the car RIDES started as a thread on the Hokey-Ass Message Board known by all hot rodders as ‘the HAMB’. Steve, who lives in Surrey, had sold his 1955 Chevrolet drag racer and was looking for a historic 1940s gasser. Gasser is a term used in the early days of drag racing to describe an old stripped down coupe with a huge motor with a straight axle front end for the least amount of weight and the most horsepower to travel a quarter mile from a standing start in the shortest time possible. Someone on the HAMB had posted a photo of the old Studebaker gasser and was looking for its history. Steve engaged online and became obsessed with the very rough old dragster with the engine missing. Steve had been intrigued with Studebakers from a young age growing up in North Vancouver with a bulletnose 1950 model as the family car. He had owned several 1953 models but he couldn’t get the mystery of the 1940 Studebaker coupe drag car out of his mind. His interest increased when he discovered the car was less than an hour south in Washington State. The owner didn’t know any history on the car, having purchased it several years before in Southern California. He had been told by the brother of the former owner, who had passed away, that the car had once displayed the name Garey High School and may have been raced at Irwindale, east of Los Angeles. He had removed some of the mottled paint to discover gold leaf lettered Advance Speed & Marine but
Owner Steve Wright left the exterior of his historic Studebaker drag race car in its original condition while doing a complete mechanical restoration.
had hit the wall in learning more about the car after three years and was losing interest. Steve bought the old drag race car with the determination that he would uncover its history. That would be a challenge to the most astute detective. He started with what he knew. He contacted the owner of the speed shop who said his company had gone out of business in 1975 and he didn’t know anything about the car. Then he travelled to Los Angeles to visit Garey High School in Pomona for direct inquiries. No one there knew anything about the race car. He pored through old school yearbooks without success. In the 1966 issue, he discovered the auto mechanics shop teacher had been Royce Hunt. But he had retired years before and no one knew his whereabouts. When inquiries with a photo of the old car on the Garey High School alumni web site came up empty, he posted a request for information on a
nearby high school’s alumni website. After months without a response, someone posted a clue: “I think this is the car that Royce Hunt had at Garey High.” The man who responded used to work in an auto parts store patronized by Mr. Hunt when he was an auto mechanics instructor. An online search yielded a phone number in Pomona and Steve would finally learn the history of the old race car. “I told him I thought I had something that used to belong to him,” Steve says. “Royce said, ‘Oh my god! I looked for the car for 20 years without success and had no idea what had happened to it.’” He had purchased the partially built race car from its owner in Long Beach Continued on Pg. B3
SG Power... 2012 Camp Returns Here NOW. All Yamaha camp motors listed are 4 stroke c/w power tilt, elec. start and factory warranty til May 2014 Winterize your outdoor power products for a turnkey Spring. Winter Labour Rates on NOW $ 79 00 /hr!
T8 $ 2999 BRAND NEW! from B
3 Year Factory Warranty
T9.9 $ 2899 BRAND NEW! from
Net of All Rebates 3 Year Factory Warranty
730 Hillside d A Ave. 250 250-382-8291 3 291
F40 F50 $ 4799 $4999
CAMP RETURN! from
CAM C AM MP RETURN! ffr room m CAMP from
CAMP RETURN! from
MSRP $7254
MSRP M MS S $7793 793 93
MSRP $13155 55
Fully Serviced & Ready
Fully FFul Fu uullly Serviced & R Ready eaad ady ady
Fully Serviced & Ready ead eady aady
web: b www. www.sgpower.com • email: il jjay@sgpower.com @ wer.com serving Victoria for over 40 years! serv
F115 $ 8499