BOB SIMPSON 2000 INDUCTEE

Entering a Model T Ford race at Willows half mile oval started Bob Simpson’s career behind the wheel of a racecar. He then moved on to entering a similar race at Langford Speedway in 1946 and for the following season purchased the #16 Big Car from Bob Wensley and Charlie Flitton which was powered by a four cylinder Dodge engine with a Laurel cylinder head. Running the same car in 1948, he also drove the #47 car. The next year he drove for car owner Jack Greenwood in a flathead Ford V8 powered racer. Seattle’s Gene Fanning was Bob’s car owner the following season and in his #2 car which carried a six cylinder Ford flathead motor, Bob won Langford’s Big Car main event on May 24^th. Later that season, he was involved in a serious accident which put him in hospital for six weeks but following his discharge, Bob took the wheel of Jack Greenwood’s car for the Championship race at Langford.

With racing moving to Shearing Speedway south of Duncan in 1952, Bob joined forces with Grant King, driving Grant’s #1 car to a clean sweep at Shearing’s inaugural race meet and later that season set a new track record for Big Cars of 16.29 and scored another sweep. In 1953, Dick Marks then purchased the car from Grant and with Bob as his driver they took it on the US circuit. As a self employed logger and having his own heavy equipment, Bob assisted Andy Cotttyn in the building of Andy’s new track during 1953. The grand opening of that 1/2 mile dirt oval on May 22^nd, 1954 saw Bob driving a new #77 car for Grant and his setting fast time of 23.30 plus a win in the helmet dash and a second in the main event. Two days later at a second meet at Western, Bob was first in the main event. Continuing to do well the remainder of that year which included him setting three new track records, Bob won the dash and fast heat at the Big Car season-end Championship race and was second in the main event, being awarded the Bardahl Trophy as Track Points Champion and the Bert Sutton Memorial Trophy as the Season Champion.

Bob continued to drive for Grant King in 1955 and ’56 and then bought Rolla Vollstedt’s #27 car out of Portland the following year which he ran until 1960 when he sold it to Eddie Kostenuk. Joining forces with Billy Walters in ’61 for the final year of Big Cars at Western, he later drove Modified Sportsmen and Super Modifieds until his racing retirement at the end of the 1965 season.

Over the span of his career, Bob drove all over the West Coast, often travelling with Seattle’s Del Fanning to tracks which included Edmonton, Great Falls, Boise, Seattle, Portland, Phoenix and Los Angeles. As well as driving, Bob was deeply involved with the British Columbia Automotive Sports Association (B.C.A.S.A.) and was also a Western Speedway programme sponsor with his “Saanich Arm Logging” company.