Slim Easton is a Greater Vancouver Motorsport Pioneer in the discipline of power boat racing but that was not the limits of his contributions to racing. As well as running cracker box boats in the late 1950s and early 1960s he helped the newly formed drag boat racing community of the mid 1960s. And all the while he did upholstery, not only for the boats he helped build but for trophy winning custom cars.

Slim got into boat racing because he lost his driver’s license. He had bought a 1936 5-window Ford from Jack Williams. Slim’s story is the car wouldn’t do 30 mph, it would only cruise at something above the posted speed limit and the Vancouver Police Department figured it out quickly enough giving Slim seven or eight speeding tickets to prove it.

Slim took the hot flathead from his car and put it into a boat, promptly blowing it up. He eventually moved a Chev engine into his boat, being one of the first locally to do so. Others follow-ed suit.

Inspired in the early 1950s by articles in Speed & Spray magazine Slim built his first cracker box boat and set out with it in False Creek. While there another boat – another cracker box! – roared up. It was driven by Ron Bestward.

Slim Easton and Ron Bestward would build both boats and trophies. And they gathered up their fair share of the trophies they built over the years.

SLIM EASTON - Inducted 2006

Pioneer - Power Boat Racing

Puddles, 1958  (Slim Easton collection)

By Brian Pratt, 2006

Slim Easton

Slim raced the cracker boxes from 1955 to about 1962. In 1957, at Sprout Lake near Port Alberni, Slim set a record in the cracker box class that was recognized by the Canadian Boating Federation. He ran his boat, Puddles, at an average of 54.554 mph over the one-mile course.

In that time period he built about six boats for himself and others, including one for hydro star Bill Muncey. Slim often travelled south to race the better funded U.S. entries and took great pleasure in taking the top trophies home. He’d race eight or nine times a season in the Pacific northwest, one year having to fix a broken engine after almost every meet.

Slim also acted in various official capacities at regattas locally even after

stopping his driving endeavours. In 1966 a new discipline on water, drag boat racing, was introduced in the Greater Vancouver area and Slim was part of the group getting it going.

As mentioned Slim was an upholsterer for vehicles. In the late 1960s he did some award winning work for Bill Traquair’s Mod Rod. The vehicle won several trophies south of the border including one for the upholstery work. Another vehicle that Slim did the work on was for Gary Lang’s Revolution.

While he gave up upholstery as a business Slim still does that sort of work in retirement, but mostly to return older vehicles to their original look. He’s been in the early Ford V8 club for a few decades. He also collects various kinds of auto memorabilia to complement a ’34 Ford and a woody. He’s been a musician for as long, if not longer, than his boating exploits and still plays in a working band. He still gets out on the water, mostly for pleasure and the occasional impromptu race with friends Ross and Milt Blewett. Slim Easton is one of those people who was in on the beginning of a form of racing in the Greater Vancouver area and the waves have continued to ripple outward from that early splash.

And to think it was jump started with a few too many speeding tickets.