Rodders and wreckers
by Elaine Weddle
It was Joe Dillon who introduced us to the Banger Races on Turners’ Hill. Until then,
Sunday was reserved for the sermon at St Mary’s where we’d fidget for an hour on the cold
hard pews, Tom examining the inside of his nose with his index finger and me counting the
polka dots on the back of Mrs Bridlow’s dress. After that, there was mother’s charred roast to
look forward to, maths homework, Songs of Praise on the TV, a shallow bath and an early
night. Father’s visits to church were coming noticeably less frequent, as the garden or the
allotment or some other duty demanded his attention.
But the truth was that dad had bought himself a transistor radio and hidden it in the shed
away from mother, he had switched from the Light Programme to Radio Caroline, started
singing ‘Satisfaction’ by the Stones, sometimes accompanied by air guitar. It seemed that
God and overcooked cabbage simply weren’t enough for him anymore. So when Joe
suggested we go Banger Racing one Sunday, it was just what dad had been waiting for.
Mum wasn’t happy at first, but finally agreed that dad could take us while she visited her
sister in Penge, after all how could one Sunday off do any harm?
So a week later dad is telling us to stick close as we weave our way through hundreds of
bodies in faded denim and black leather. The crowd are milling around the curve of a dirt
track with a make shift barricade on the outside edge, a tier of wooden seats to one side and a
battered old trailer on the other used to house the commentator and the winners’ medals.
The air is thick with the smell of petrol, hot dogs, onions and ‘I’ve got a silver machine’ is
blasting out above the sound of engines revving up like a swarm of angry bees.
There’s Joe shouts dad and up until that moment I’d rarely seen Joe in anything other than a
grey suit but now his slim frame has been shoe horned into all-in-one Royal Blue leathers
with a silver trim, he’s perched on the bonnet, legs crossed at the ankle and hair slicked back
like Elvis. He raises the bonnet of the car and we peer in at the unfamiliar pipes and parts
then we inspect the inside through glass free windows, the once plush interior stripped bare
to leave nothing more than the driver’s seat and a metal frame.
Joe says he needs to do some work, explaining that he’s a rodder not a wrecker, and he
slithers into the muddy space under the car, Jack follows before dad can stop him and soon
he’s passing Joe the rench or the rag or whatever Joe needs. While they work, I turn to look
around at the rows of rusty vehicles bolted together, large black numbers in white circles
painted boldly on every roof and door.. Then I see it. A bright pink VW with eyelashes
around the headlights and white fur trim around the windows and getting out a girl in skintight fuschia pink leathers, her long blonde hair pulled up, smiling and laughing, as two
teenage boys polish and buff her VW’s shiny chassis.
By the time the flag comes down, both Joe and the pink VW, are revving hard on the grid and
we are pushing through the crowd hands over our ears at the deafening roar. The cars move
nose-to-tail, then one brakes, then accelerates slamming into the rear of the car in front,
spinning it in to a cloud of dust until it comes to rest, side on, then another three cars shunt
into the back forming a tangle of metal on the south bend. A red Allegro hits the back end
and pushes the pile-up along the track as the crowd whoop and holler and a man waves a
yellow ‘STOP’ flag violently in the air. The island of tangled metal is heading towards the
seating and the crowd leap to their feet some jumping from the stand as the island slams into
the bottom tier. The crowd cheers, they’re part of the race now, and distracted by the thrill of
a near-miss hardly notice that back on the track, out from the dust, moving smoothly past the
pile-up comes Joe, now out in the lead and hotly pursued by the girl in pink.
That was the day that we fell in love. Not with Joe or the girl, but the track and the cars and
the grease and the spine-tingling thrill of it all. We swapped a sermon and a charred roast
dinner for the joy of seeing Joe’s souped-up Marina crossing the finishing line. And, so it
was every Sunday for years to come. Dad became Joe’s right hand man, while Tom trained
as a mechanic and a few years later I was on the track at the wheel of a silver Capri in pink
leathers winning my first race.
And mother? She became a bona fide Banger Race widow who rued the day she ever agreed
to let us go.