Hemrich Bros. Garage Ltd. was established in 1932 and was run by Gordon’s father and his four brothers. Gord started hanging out at the garage when he was six years old and became the parts delivery person, riding his bike around Vancouver picking up parts for the shop. By the time he was 10 he was parking cars in the lot and, with the help of his Dad, rebuilt a Morris Minor 4 cylinder motor. In 1956 Gord went to work for his Dad full time. His Dad found a 1952 4 door Chev which he gave to Gord to fix. He rebuilt the motor, built his own dropped spindles and lowered the rear end. He also used 1950 Mercury taillights and put in leather seats. In 1958 he built, with the help of his friends, a 1932 Dodge race car with a 6-cylinder motor using drive shaft tubing for roll bars. By 1960 he was ready to build another race car along with his friend, Ray Baldray. They ran the car at False Creek Speedway and won against Reg Royle.

Gordon then decided it was time to really get serious and, in 1963, he bought a 1960 Chev pick-up. He installed a full house Cadillac motor, headers and dumps, lowered it and installed chrome exhaust pipes on the outside of the box. Also in 1963 he decided it was time to go racing again.

GORDIE HEMRICH - Inducted 2003

Pioneer - Oval Racing

By Brian Pratt, 2004

Hemrich in action  (Doug Harder collection)

Gordie Hemrich, 2003

He headed for Haney Speedway with a 1951 Ford convertible which they called “The Chop Top”. This car was built with the help of Ed Roe, Murray Rosner and, of course, his dad.

Racing moved to Langley Speedway. By this time, Gord had a 1955 Pontiac with a 350. He ran this car at Langley, Victoria’s Western Speedway, Nanaimo’s Grandview Bowl, Vernon’s Tillicum Speedway and Washington State speedways in Monroe and Yakima. Gordon Hemrich’s accom-plishments at Langley should be noted. From the years 1966 through 1977, he won at least 60 main events, ten apiece in the years 1968 and 1974. He was the

perennial points champion in the super stock class for a number of years in the early 1970s.

Hemrich took over the operation of Langley Speedway for a couple seasons in the late 1970s after Craig Frazer sold the lease. The combination of the high cost of racing, which cut the fields of cars, and the uncertainty of the limited lease, proved it to be a less than suc-cessful venture and the track was taken over until its final race in 1984 by the local racing association.

Gord left racing for a few years, but by mid-1980s he decided it was time to return. He joined the NASCAR Northwest tour for three years, driving a car owned by rock promoter and man-ager Bruce Allen and sponsored by Labatt’s Blue.

Gordon’s son Dave brought the Hemrich name and the “Hemrich Orange” number 33 back to racing in 2000. With the help of Ed Roe, Scott Mackie, Mike Soppit and others, including Gord, they went off to Agassiz’s Kent Raceways with a 1981 Monte Carlo. For the 2003 season they were running a 1999 Monte Carlo in the Sportsman class and finished second in points. Dave runs under the banner of “Hemrich Bros. Racing”.