Roy Long - Inducted 2005

Pioneer - Oval Racing

In his first race, which was also the first race for jalopies at Digney Speedway late in the 1951 season, Roy Long picked up a heat win and was second in the B Main. Not bad for a beginner running with a bunch of other beginners and a few US drivers who’d been at the stock car game a bit longer. Roy had suggested to Andy Digney the idea of jalopies and Digney let him run his 1931 Model A on the track one afternoon. Word was passed around by Roy to others in the south Burnaby area and after a meeting in Digney’s rec. room a new class of car, a very successful and popular class, was started. At that point like the others, Roy learned how to race the hard way
— on the track.

His education — he was also an apprentice automotive mechanic having come out of the Vancouver Vocational Institute training first at Begg Motors and then his sponsor’s garage — paid off in 1952 as he began the season still with his Model A and ended it with a Hudson. He was making the A Main as the season closed. The progress continued into 1953 with a 1933 Hudson 8 sponsored by Vern Manning of Gateway Garage at Kingsway and Victoria where Roy worked. Despite

Roy Long, 1953

Roy Long “on the fence” Digney Speedway, 1953  (Roy Long collection)

by Brian Pratt - 2005

that Roy’s car was still referred to, as it had been in 1952, as “his bucket of bolts”.

That bucket was a consistent A class car winning a feature early in the season. With the win came another notable quality, the Hudson was probably the loudest car at the track which is saying something when all the cars were un-muffled and extremely loud. But it was loud enough for the newspapers of the day to comment on it

and the late Mel Keen to remember it for that quality.

Shortly after his win Roy made headlines when he flipped out of the speedway landing upside down. Fortunately his injuries were limited to a split lip. Another headline was made when he was squeezed into the fence which, this time, he didn’t fly over but merely landed on top of where he stopped and sat like it had all been planned in advance. Again, Roy ended up relatively unscathed.

The season continued with Roy up with the A class cars, sometimes with fast time for qualifications, sometimes winning the trophy dash, sometimes winning a race they called Russian Roulette but he didn’t register another feature win. When the points were totalled at the end of the year his position matched his car number for the last three years — 5.

Roy Long didn’t return to race the next year. But those few years made a lasting impression not only on the fans in the stands and the other racers who competed against him. His business card these days features the Hudson straddling the fence with a smiling young driver behind the wheel. As good a memory as winning a race the first night you ever raced.