Carol Aun Mission City Record MISSION (MetroValley) � The B.C. Custom Car Association, which owns and operates Mission Raceway Park, formed the car club 50 years ago on the suggestion of the police to sanction drag racing. �A whole whack of guys were street racing in the Lower Mainland then because there was no drag strip,� said Richardt Scholz, the street legal racing co-ordinator at Mission Raceway. �Hot rodders met at a warehouse and formed the club. Our constitution is to get racing off the streets and into a safe environment.� �Fifty years later, we�re still trying to get street racing off the streets,� said Scholz. According to Scholz, there are three kinds of racing. There is legal, organized drag racing, which is what Mission Raceway offers. The first kind of illegal street racing is when people go into industrial areas or roads with beaten paths out in rural areas at night to race. �They race in straight lines and are nowhere near cities. The only people at risk are the racers,� said Scholz. The third kind of racing is what is causing the uproar recently. It is known as rat racing, where two guys meet up on a road and are egging each other on to race from stop light to stop light through city streets. �These races endanger the public and this is what killed two innocent people this year,� said Scholz. �These races can go on for miles depending on how much testosterone flows through the drivers and how gutsy they want to be.� Scholz says rat racing is nothing new but what is just beginning is a form of racing called hat racing. Hat racing is similar to rat racing except there is money involved. �These guys will meet in a parking lot and will put in, say $100, in a hat. One of the organizers will take the hat of money and drive to a location,� said Scholz. �These guys all have cell phones, so when the guy gets there, he�ll call the guys at the parking lot and tell them where he is. The first one that gets to the destination gets the money.� At times there are several hundreds of thousands of dollars in the hat and the stakes are high. Of course the winner also has bragging rights, said Scholz. According to Scholz, rat racers and hat racers are the ones getting into trouble and giving racing a bad name. �Everyone is getting tarred with the same brush,� said Scholz, who would like to get racing off the streets. In 1997, a committee was set up by the club at Mission Park Raceway to run a legal street racing program. �It�s in our constitution (to get racing off the streets),� said Scholz. �We want to be a part of the solution.� One hurdle is most street racers want to race at night and Mission Raceway doesn�t have lights. �We don�t have a lot of events at night. It�s noisy and the community doesn�t want noisy cars at night,� said Scholz. Another problem is informing racers a track exists for legal street racing �People also want it to be inexpensive,� said Scholz. Scholz is proposing racing hours from 6 to 11 p.m. if lighting can be made available at the park and a slight reduction in the cost for using the track. �We don�t make any money off the street legal program,� said Scholz. Safety is also paramount at the quarter mile strip, which has been voted the top facility for professional and amateur drag racers in five of the last six years. �There are full guard rails and spectator safety fencing. Safety is the number one priority,� said operations manager Gord Field. There is an ambulance on site and all the race cars must go through a safety inspection. Field says it�s too bad racing is getting bad publicity because it does good things for students. Once a month high schools from around the Lower Mainland with their own drag racing program gather in Mission for a day to race. �It keeps students interested in auto mechanics,� said Field. Mission Raceway Park is the only facility in the Lower Mainland for racing. �Thank god we have such a facility,� said Scholz. �If we didn�t, the problem would be far worse. Mission Raceway Park not only serves Mission, but the entire GVRD.� The track can be reached at 826-6315.