The Hit to Pass always kind of sneaks up on you.
You don’t hear the event endlessly being hyped on the airwaves all that much.
But come Labour Day Weekend, as sure as the salmon find their birthplace creek to spawn, as if on some kind of natural cue, the citizens of Prince George make their way to the PGARA racetrack to watch the spectacle of destruction, mayhem and ingenuity.
After 40 years, the annual or bi-annual event is pretty much hardwired in our blood. It has become a tradition. It’s one of the main cultural events of our town.
Some say we invented the Hit to Pass. There was crash-up demolition derby since as long as there were automobiles, but the mind-blowing integration of high-speed lap racing, with the crashing, could very well be our gift to the world.
Over the weekend, I was in the pits, helping a crew keep TJ Wight and his #10 1977 Cutlass on the road. It’s not a job for the fussers who get fixated on details. It’s a hack job. There’s zap straps, pry bars, chain hoists, radiators on the windscreen, busted up cross-members welded and chained in place. Whatever it takes to get another lap.
You also need a certain mentality. Sisyphus comes to mind, the old Greek character who the gods made roll boulders up a mountain, only to have it roll back down again. You don’t fix up the car with the expectation there’s any point to it. There is no forgiveness. Your handiwork will probably get destroyed within a couple more laps and then some. Your efforts are for the fans. Those are the gods to keep happy. And crews from all across the region, from Fraser Lake, some as far as Vernon, gladly come to the PGARA speedway to roll boulders up hills for two days straight.
It’s not just an act of labour. There are other sacrifices. One of our crew nearly lost his pinky finger when a rear coil spring reinstall went awry. But mostly it’s financial. And enjoying the spectacle, it crossed my mind nobody did it for the money. There wasn’t much to win in the first place. Not enough to cover some of the high performance engines you saw, the roll-cages, the bags of cement poured in the doors. For TJ, it was enough to just make a show for his kids and the fans, but it didn’t hurt having the fastest time trial on the track and a trophy for last car standing in one of the heats.
The Hit to Pass may not be the Yaletown, big city look our new civic culture is going for. It’s something born on the backroads, the reserves, and the farms. But it is a core part of what Prince George was and always will be.
Let’s make sure we keep it going.
James Steidle is a Prince George writer.
