Hilda Randall - Inducted 2005

Pioneer - Sports Car and Road Racing

Hilda was born on March 14, 1910, and died March 6, 2004.

A long time member of the Sports Car Club of British Columbia (SCCBC), she became the mother of the Westwood Racing Circuit.

Hilda’s life included an incredibly wide spectrum of experiences, from polio victim to skydiver. To Matriarch of Canadian Pacific Airlines (CP Air) to pit crew for her son John, first in go-karts and later in Lotus and Brabham racing cars. Hilda’s life encompassed living in a sod home on a homestead in southern Alberta, to a log cabin home in the Yukon before there was a road in, to world travel in jumbo jets.

She was a talented basketball player in her youth and also danced and sang on the stage. Hilda was the matriarch of a flying family with husband Bob (GVMPS inductee), sons Ted and John, grandsons Rod and Ted all, flying for CP Air and granddaughter Katie, also flying professionally. She was honoured by Canadian Pacific Airlines in 1986 as Matriarch of the

Hilda Randall

by Tom Johnston - 2005

The racing Randalls: Right of number 18:  Hilda  Next right: John . Extreme right: Bob  (Randall family collection)

airline as she mothered so many young pilots who transferred to Vancouver in the 1950s and 1960s.

When husband Bob retired from CP Air as senior pilot in 1965, the couple took up an new career that lasted for over 30 years: motorsport. She and Bob lived for racing.

Bob and Hilda and youngest son John began racing go-karts with the Westwood Karting Association. John went on to a successful career in cars

with his parents support. Soon, however, Hilda and Bob became indispensable members of the SCCBC and its Westwood Racing circuit.

Hilda ran the concession stand at Westwood with volunteers from the Ladies Division. The profits the ladies made paid the taxes on Westwood each year, year after year, saving the track from extinction.

This writer’s personal memory of Hilda involves going to the Randall family home in south Vancouver to join the SCCBC in 1969. Many years later, the SCCBC honoured me by naming me a life member. When I went to the presentation, Hilda was there as she was still the membership chair, a role she ably held for 35 years. Not only was she there for the presentation but she recalled signing me up all those years earlier.

Westwood and both Hilda and Bob are gone now, but the Sports Car Club of British Columbia continues to prosper.