It started on a dirt surface and eventually moved its motorized mayhem onto the highest-banked paved track in the Pacific Northwest.
Decades later, it relocated its base of operations to the eastern edge of town, onto a site that became known as the Playground of Power.
Since then, the thunder generated by the Prince George Auto Racing Association has been rolling down Airport Hill in steady waves of victory, metal-bending defeat and pure showmanship.
To local stock car drivers and racing fans, the association is commonly known as PGARA. And, when PGARA holds its first races of the 2012 season tonight, it will be dropping the green flag on its 60th year.
When a marriage lasts that long, it's celebrated with diamonds.
Chris Arronge, the latest in a long line of PGARA presidents, said the longevity of the organization is rooted in the sport itself.
"I think probably the biggest factor would be the competitiveness of it and the passion that people have for racing," said the 37-year-old Arronge, now in his fifth year as president after a long and sparkling career as a PGARA driver. "It's one of those sports where, if you do it and you're a little bit successful at it, you stay around it for the rest of your life."
Buckle up for a high-speed ride through history.
Humble beginnings
One day, in the winter of 1952, eight or 10 men gathered in the machine shop of Mackenzie, White and Dunsmuir Ltd., an automotive wholesale store at 511 George St. They were having coffee and chatting. Talk soon turned to cars, a passion they all shared. The suggestion was made that they should start an auto racing club.
That led to a more formal meeting the next week, and the seed was planted for the Prince George Auto Racing Association.
Ralph Gardner, now 81, was one of the men at those first two sit-downs.
At the time, he was an automotive machinist who worked in the Mackenzie, White and Dunsmuir shop. Like his buddies, he enjoyed driving as fast as possible but didn't want to do it on the streets where he could get himself in trouble. Safety was also a concern -- nobody wanted to get into an accident or cause one.
By the summer of 1953, the first-ever PGARA track had been built. The all-dirt driving surface was fashioned on ground that had once been home to Prince George's airport. Today, the same piece of real estate is located off the edge of Highway 16 near the present-day Costco.
The first PGARA president was Dan McMaster and one of the first races -- perhaps the very first -- was held on the afternoon of Sunday, Sept. 6, 1953.
A story from the Prince George Citizen, under the headline RECORD CROWD AT 'HOT ROD' MEET, reads as follows:
"Thrills and chills -- but only one accident -- were provided for a record crowd of car racing fans Sunday at a two-hour meet of Prince George Auto Racing Association Sunday afternoon.
The event was sponsored by the Loyal Order of the Moose, and spectators dropped $218 into the hat as a contribution to a fund aimed at providing a permanent track for the association.
No. 88, a car owned by Shields Motors, rolled over while negotiating a soft turn, but driver Bob King was unhurt.
Judging was on a total-point basis, with the winner being car No. 2, a Hilltop entry piloted by Pat Patterson.
In second place was No. 76, owned by Fred Fraser and driven by Alf Keibel, and in third spot was No. 22 owned by Ralph Gardner with Bob Joy at the wheel.
Central B.C. Fire Service provided protection for the cars and drivers.
A soft, dusty track kept the speed of the drivers down, but they still managed to give the onlookers plenty of excitement.
Another meet is planned in about two weeks, an association official stated today."
A 22-year-old Gardner had a 1934 Ford that he and Joy co-drove.
After the original dirt track got chewed up by use, a new one was constructed on the same site but a little further north. Gardner drove purely for the fun of it but his career only stretched about five years. He vividly recalls how it ended.
"I put a brand new radiator in the car and then that night, Saturday night, it hit a [hole on the track]," Gardner said. "On the south end of the track there was a bit of a hole and you tried to avoid it. Bob was driving and he was going around and somebody hit him in the back end and [the car] went up on its nose, twisted around, and came back down on its wheels. And it took the brand new radiator out. So I said, 'That's it, no more.' I was spending too much money. Tommy Richardson was my sponsor. He had paid for the radiator and I couldn't go back and ask him for another one so that was it for me and my car and racing."
Shifting gears
In 1959, stock car racing in Prince George picked up speed -- quite literally. A new paved track at the corner of Highway 16 and Ferry Avenue had been completed and was ready for use.
Mel McConaghy, who wrote a brief history of PGARA in 2010, was told by founding member Ted McCarty that equipment and materials were begged and borrowed and that many personal notes were signed to bring the new track into existence. While the track and bleachers were under construction, people driving by on the highway would often stop and help out.
"That track was not only built by the club, it was built by the people of Prince George," McCarty told McConaghy.
The first race day was July 1, 1959, with drivers piloting rebuilt dirt-track cars.
By the 1960s, PGARA was gaining notoriety in the western provinces and south of the Canada-U.S. border. Late in the decade, that led to an affiliation with the Canadian American Modified Racing Association (CAMRA), which was the stepping stone to the pinnacle of the sport -- Indy Car.
Gene Sagmoen, a long-time PGARA flagman who also served as the association's president from 1968 to 1973, remembers those days as some of the best in track history.
"We brought [CAMRA] up and we used to pay huge money [to the winners] -- it was the best-paying track in western North America," Sagmoen said. "You couldn't get a seat on a Saturday night. You had to buy your tickets on Wednesdays. It would only hold -- well, they said 2,500, but we used to put 4,000 in there all the time."
Some big names in the auto racing world made appearances at PGARA. One of them was Spokane's Tom Sneva, who went on to win the Indianapolis 500 in 1983 and was second on three other occasions. According to Sagmoen, Sneva called PGARA of the 1960s "the best-run race track he had ever seen."
For Prince George resident Cliff Hucul, the old high-banked PGARA track served as a training ground for Indy Car racing. Hucul arrived here in 1967 and started out in the B-modified class. The next season he moved up to the A-modified division and eventually onto the CAMRA scene. He later bought a rear-engine, four-wheel-drive car from Sneva and, with it, set a PGARA track record in 1975. His lap time in qualifying was 13.64 seconds and he dropped that to 13.10 seconds in the main event. Hucul qualified for the Indy 500 three times -- in 1977, 1978 and 1979. At the 1977 Indy, he established himself as the third Canadian ever to qualify and went on to a 22nd-place finish.
In a 2010 interview with Citizen sports reporter Ted Clarke, Hucul said the PGARA surface "was a fast race track, one of the best I ever ran on."
Of course, drivers didn't always manage to stay on the track. One day while Sagmoen was on the flagstand, he was convinced he had just witnessed the end of Nanaimo's Ray Pottinger, a mainstay on the CAMRA circuit. As Pottinger was powering down the front straight-away, his throttle got stuck. Helpless to do anything about it, he launched himself off the up-slope at the end of the track and into the blue.
"We had a high fence [around the track] and he hit that -- went over that -- and went [through a wooden fence] out into the golf course driving range," said Sagmoen. "I thought he was dead. He was going well over 100 miles an hour."
Winds of change
By the early 1980s, Prince George had grown to the point where PGARA was no longer on the outskirts of the city. Complaints surfaced about noise on race weekends and a change of location seemed inevitable.
It was fitting that Bert 'The Barber' Prest, the PGARA super stock champion from 1968 to 1978, won the last race at the track in 1984.
"We raced 36 race meets in a summer and I can remember starting some races at PGARA with 40 cars," Prest told The Citizen in 2002. "It was just awesome racing in those days. We used to have 3,500 spectators to watch a race, and reserved seats. If you didn't get your ticket by Tuesday, you weren't going to get in the race track."
In 1985, the "new" PGARA facility opened to the east of the downtown, at the top of Airport Hill. The paving of the three-eighths-mile oval was completed at noon on a Friday and the first races were held the next night.
Since then, PGARA has experienced its ups and downs -- the swings often tied to the state of the local economy -- but it has always remained in gear. From the early to late 1990s, it was a regular stop for the CASCAR (Canadian Association for Stock Car Auto Racing) circuit, a loop that attracted drivers like Quesnel's Richie Larson and Prince George's Steve Jefferson, who had graduated out of the PGARA hobby stock class. In 1999, Jefferson drove to the CASCAR western championship.
PGARA has gone on to host every type of racing imaginable, including Big Rigs, Baby Grands and the ever-popular hit-to-pass events, which bring thousands of fans to the track on summer long weekends.
These days, for pure power and speed, the biggest attraction each season is the ARCA OK Tire Sportsman Series. ARCA features the top drivers from B.C. and Alberta, including P.G. pilots Bob Williams and Logan Jewell. This year's ARCA show is June 16. The same night, the PGARA mini stocks and street stocks will be on the oval and the association will hold its 60th anniversary celebration.
Arronge used to watch the races at the Ferry Avenue track when he was a kid and remembers the absolute thrill of seeing his dad, Steve, run side-by-side with the other elite drivers of the day. As president, Arronge has helped bring the organization out of some lean years and appears to have it on the verge of booming again.
"The biggest drive behind the race track, especially these days, is the sponsors," said Arronge, who was dubbed "Mr. Saturday Night" during his driving career because of all the success he had behind the wheel. "The fan attendance isn't like it used to be in the old days when they'd pack the place so we rely more on sponsors to get money to do projects and get stuff done around here.
"We do have great attendance for hit-to-pass, and ARCA is usually three-quarters full, but for regular race days it would be great to see the stands full again," he added.
As a way to put more bums in seats this 60th anniversary season, the regular admission price for PGARA race days has been cut from $12 to $6.
"It's our way to thank the fans for being with us and to give everybody a break and a chance to check out PGARA at an affordable price," Arronge said. "It is [a gamble] but, as far as we're concerned, if we have some extra people in the stands and our sponsors show up and say, 'Hey, this place is looking pretty good and there's a bunch of people out here,' then that's great for us."
Time trials tonight are at 6 and racing is at 7.
