agassiz speedway

Aggravation (Herb McIntyre collection
Herb’s First Foreign Stock Car (Herb McIntyre collection)
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2010 Greater Vancouver Motorsport Pioneers
HERB MCINTYRE
Pioneer - Oval Racing and Power Boating
McIntyre Drag Boat at Speed (Herb McIntyre collection)
By Brian Pratt
Herb McIntyre’s involvement with
the Greater Vancouver motorsport
world has at least four phases that has
covered fifty years.
Herb initially got involved at False
Creek Speedway back around 1959
helping with one of the cars. He quickly
became mechanic for Ken Klatt racing
at False Creek, Haney and Langley
Speedways. With the famous red
Mercury-powered Model T they won
the first three BCTRA points
championships. Herb also helped in the
building of a tube frame modified for
the final year of racing by the BCTRA
at Haney Speedway. They also raced a
Fiat Topolino bodied B Modified at
Langley which won many races in their
class.
A few years later, after Ken had
stopped racing for a short period of
time, Herb came back racing a foreign
stock at both the Agrodome and
Langley Speedway. While he didn’t set
the racing world on fire he was part of
the effort to get the class established
building a couple cars then, and again in
later years for Agassiz Speedway.
Herb McIntyre’s next foray into
motorsport came at Hatzic Lake. Power
boaters in the late 1970s were
developing some speed. Herb was
introduced to this form of motorsport by
Mel Keen. Herb had been helping on
the sprint car Mel owned, which was
driven by Terry Crousure, at Skagit
Speedway. Mel, as Herb puts it, “liked
to scare the s**t out of me.”
Herb, along with others, became
the founding members of the Fraser
Valley Drag Boat Association
(FVDBA). Herb built a number of flat
bottom drag boats and his driver,
Wayne Booth, won a couple FVDBA
titles with boats named Aggravation
and Ear-Rat-Tation in the early 1980s.
A look at the winners of the flat bottom
class titles in the 1980s and 1990s
shows that Herb was pretty much
involved in building most of the Cougar
hulled boats through his business,
Specialty Marine.
As well as building boats (he
guesses at around 30 in total) Herb also
travelled south to race, going to Eugene,
Oregon, and as far south as Phoenix and
north to Edmonton as well as many
points in between. He, of course, held
regular mechanic jobs for Jim Pattison
and then 23 years with Ric Moore’s
Chrysler dealership in Pitt Meadows.
He is now retired and working at his
own pace on various projects.
The cycle of popularity for the
boats waned so Herb did some ice
racing up at Barnes Lake, near Ashcroft.
He won a couple enduros there and had
some fun. Recently Herb has been
trying to get interest up again for the
boats. He’s built a new craft and if
enough interest is shown he’ll probably
build a few more.
Herb McIntyre
2010 Greater Vancouver Motorsport Pioneers Society
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