Heroic acts can happen anywhere. Magic pops up in the unlikeliest of places.

It was 1969 and I was eight years old. It was summer in my little town and summer meant one thing to me.

“THERE’S RRRACING TONIGHT UNDER THE LIGHTS AT LLLANGLEY SPEEDWAY!!!
5 MILES SOUTH OF LANGLEY CITY AT THE END OF BERRY ROAD…”

Every year from June to September that siren call went out over the local radio station, every year we could hear it at our house as the first practice laps were taken. The howling of V-8s echoed throughout the community.

“SUPER STOCKS, EARLY LATES, MODIFIED STOCKS TONIGHT! TIME TRIALS AT 6:30, RRRRACING AT 8! BE THERE TONIGHT AT LLLLANGLEY SPEEDWAY!!”

It began about 4:30 on Saturday afternoons. Around that time us kids would go out and sit by the side of the road and wait for the parade to begin. There wasn’t long to wait before the trucks started to pass by. Dusty pickups mostly, with garishly painted cars in tow, numbers and colours we recognized. The local stars and heroes passed by in review.

There were the small timers and big-timers, the nobodies and the somebodies it was all a warmup show for the feature to come.

The small-timers had cars with tow bars welded to bumper brackets, the mid and late fifties sedans whistled along behind an old pickup with a toolbox in the back. These were cars built in backyard garages by groups of friends sharing beer. Usually there were at least three of them in the cab, grins and sideburns flashed by in sun-bright windshields. The big-timers had their cars on trailers. Trailers with racks built over them to hold the huge racing tires, tires that impressed the hell out of eight-year-olds. The really big-timers had their trailers painted to match their cars.

We’d sit there in the sunlight while the dust kicked up around us. We’d sit there drinking rapidly warming Mission Orange pop and eating salt & vinegar flavoured potato chips. We’d watch and cheer as our heroes paraded by.

Man, we could see them a mile away and we’d stand and wave as they went by. John Rothwell, with his purple and white,’57 Ford Fairlane number 28, Super Stock,  Gordy Hemrich, with an orange ’55 Chevy, 33, Super Stock, Black Jack Cross, with a ’55 Pontiac Super stock, number 44 and sinister gloss black, the bad boy of the race track. We stood at the side of that dusty road and cheered, god how we cheered.

The Super stocks were fine, but my favorites by far were the Modified Stocks. The Modified Stockers were coupes and sedans from the thirties, they were open wheeled racers with big tires and low gears that howled around the track with the nimbleness of the little sprints but with the big shoulders of the Super Stocks. They were the welterweights of the track, limited to straight-six engines. This was the place where my real heroes were. Marty White with his trademark white ’29 ford coupe whose steering wheel came off once while rounding turn one and drove the last lap with his bleeding hands gripping the shaft. Lloyd Bellamy, the manager of the Langley Super Value who held the lap record in his baby blue deuce coupe, number 4 “Good ‘ol Charlie Brown”

And Doug Firth.

Doug was a hero of a different kind, I guess you might call him an “antihero”.

Doug was an unshaven, corpulent man. Huge, uncouth and unwashed, he was at least 300 pounds, probably more. Doug was a beer drinker with a nosepicking herd of kids and a wife slightly less unwholesome than he was. They all came to the races in an ancient ford pickup truck with their racer hitched on behind. While Marty White and Lloyd Bellamy were the stars, they only shone because of guys like Doug. Doug and his cronies kept the car going on a shoestring, using castoff parts, threats and bullshit to keep it running. While all the other guys had sponsors of one kind or another Doug was an independent all the way. God knows no businessman would ever have their name on his car.

It was flat black and filthy, oil, grime and dirt streaked the sides everywhere except where it was wiped off to show the numbers. Doug was number 00 and by christ he was something to see. Every race, there he was, with a crash helmet crammed on his head  like a pimple, grubby once-white, sweat soaked tee shirt flapping over his meaty arms. His flesh jiggling and a grin visible from the furthest seat. His tired old six-banger roaring gamely as the worn slicks bunny-hopped around the turns of the unbanked 3/8 mile oval there in the summer dusk. Dead last, always dead last but not caring a good goddamn. By jesus he was racing and god help them all. He smoked, he drank and he hardly washed, he was odious and whiskered, he worked driving a gravel truck all week and didn’t have an extra dime. But three times every Saturday, and some Sundays he was a race driver, always dead last, but by god, he raced. Bellamy and White were the winners but it’s only today that I realize that Doug was something few people are able to be. Doug was a good loser.

Doug never stopped smiling when he raced. When the green flag snapped in figure 8s he’d floor the throttle and give it all he could. Then, when the checkered flag dropped he’d wheel into the pits and climb out of the roll cage with a whoop of glee. He’d slap his two buddies on the back and open yet another Carling’s Black Label  and wait for the next time. I guess he lived for it.

It was August I guess. Hot and turning to dusk. It was early evening and the time trials had just finished. The first races were getting underway. This was the Trophy Dash.

The trophy Dash was four cars and four laps. It was hard and mean, you won quick or you didn’t. There was no time for strategy or finnesse. You hammered it down and fought it out. The race  lasted three minutes or so and at the end the winner got a trophy.

This evening Doug was last man in the dash. The cars formed up, did a pace lap and dove out of turn four in a perfect box formation under the whipping green flag. Marty White on the front outside, Lloyd Bellamy on the pole, Charlie Greenaway in a nice red ’34 sedan in the inside rear slot and Doug Firth on the outside rear. As the cars hit turn one they were bunched up dangerously, wheel to wheel. Their engines blasted, making shock rings in my cup of coke. Into the turn, backfiring hard as the over-advanced mills shot raw fuel into the red-hot headers. The straight pipes flared orange flame into the growing dusk.

Out onto the backstretch Bellamy moved up ahead of White and the line extended  a bit, but they were still bunched a bit too tight. Greenaway’s floater wheel, the front left caught the infield  and he spun into the grass. It was a three car race now Bellamy, White, and Firth grinding into turn three.

Out of turn four into the straightaway White and Bellamy were dicing close and dangerous, bumpers whipsawing within inches of each other Firth, grinning, arms whipping, t-shirt flapping held tight to the group, never backing off his throttle, never giving a shred.

Back into turn one, still nose to tail Firth hit the line, the perfect line for once and shot like a cannonball out and around Marty White. I remember the hush, the stillness in the stands as a thousand or so people gasped at once. Firth was neck and neck with White coming out of turn two White’s head snapped to his right for a millisecond in disbelief. It was enough.

The fraction of a second hesitation was enough to let Firth gain a wheel length on White and he managed to hold it desperately down the back stretch. Now it was decision time as turn three approached fast. One of them would have to back off or crash.

Marty White’s exhaust crackled and backfired as his foot lifted, Firth shot forward and took his place at Bellamy’s tail out of turn four. Down the straightaway it was inches again, like three cars tied together with short lengths of twine. I have no idea how Firth’s engine held together, all I know is that as he hit turn one again I thought it was all over. He hopped a bit sideways and looked like he would lose it. But he steered into it perfectly and brought it out into that perfect groove again.

Bellamy was waiting for him though and slid wide to block his bid for another slingshot pass. Firth dove for the inside and took a full hoodlength on him. Down the backstretch again, screaming like all the demons of hell Firth slid out and forced Bellamy to slide in behind. Turns three and four whipped by with Firth trying to extend his lead but his tired engine unable to give another ounce of horsepower. Into the straightaway and under the white flag, one more lap.

We all knew it would go to hell on that last lap, there was no question. There was no way in god’s earth Doug could keep it up. He had the two fastest, most skilled drivers in the Fraser Valley on his tail, both were driving much faster cars and both had to be pretty mad by now. The only question was when they’d pass him.

Into turn one Firth grabbed the groove well again slipping to the bottom, his floater wheel skipping gently on the inside, chirping off the curbing that separated the pavement from the grass. Two feet of flame barked out of the straight pipe under his elbow. Out of turn two Bellamy made another move to the ouside but Firth had him blocked, taking just enough room that he couldn’t go either way. White tried the inside but too late. Firth was onto the backstretch and trying to extend his lead.

We were dumbfounded as he held the lead all the way down the backstretch. As the three cars went into turn three the crowd rose as one and exploded. Just then it struck me that other than the bellowing engines there had been silence in the valley that night as we all figured we were watching a short-lived fluke, we wondered at what was happening, then wondered if it possibly could  be happening, and finally were amazed that it was happening.

Firth still had the lead coming out of turn four.

Like black summer lightning Doug Firth shot across the finish line under the whipping checkered flag. Obese and filthy,sweating and unshaven, his permanent grin pulled impossibly wide, he took his victory lap as White and Bellamy pulled onto the pit lane and parked in the infield.

An ecstatic Doug Firth unfolded himself from the inside of his car in the winner’s circle. The trophy girl, a sweet, innocent perky teenager whose job it was to kiss the winner and present the trophy wore a strained, almost panicked smile pasted to her face at the thought of kissing this man for the photographer. Doug Firth  leered at her as she leaned forward and puckered up clearly wishing she was long dead. The flagman held up the checkered flag as a backdrop to the picture, the photographer was ready.

Magic appears in the most unlikely places, and heroic acts can happen anywhere. Just before the flashbulb popped, Doug Firth turned away from the gamely puckering trophy girl, grabbed the flagman by the ears and planted a huge, wet kiss full on his lips. The photographer recorded it for posterity.  The crowd exploded in screaming laughter and appaluse. Doug Firth then gently took the trophy from the young girl, shook her hand like a gentleman and waved to the still applauding crowd. It was his one moment of glory. I have no doubt whatever that that trophy still sits in an honoured place these thirty years later.

Doug never saw what I did I’m sure, he was still driving back to the pits when I looked over and saw Lloyd Bellamy, Marty White and Charlie Greenaway shaking hands.
 

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