TEACHER’S SUMMER SPORT WAS RACING
Former high school educator recounts history with hotrods, dragsters, planes
If you can’t afford it, build it.
That ethos was drilled into Dave Watson as a youngster. His father, Clark, was a heavy-duty mechanic and service manager for Massey Ferguson in Calgary.
The family, including Dave’s older brothers, Clark Jr. and Don, moved to Calgary in the 1950s.
“My older brothers were into hotrods and motorcycles,” Watson says. “Clark Jr. built a 1932 Ford hotrod, and my late brother Don bought a police service Harley-Davidson from Bob Kane.
“I have a younger brother, Cameron, who became a musician, but he got into cars a little later.”
Watson’s early teenage years were spent learning how to gas weld, with his dad giving him lessons. He also began “stealing ” his neighbour’s Tote Goat off-road motorcycle, and when he was 14, bought his own Honda 50.
Dismantling cars at a Bowness auto wrecking yard furthered his mechanical education. Watson also watched — and often helped — his dad and brothers as they worked on their personal projects, including building airplanes. His brother Clark Jr. built one, and so did his dad.
“When I was 15, I bought Don’s 1953 Ford,” Watson says. “I modified that Ford the first day I got it, with a Foxcraft shift kit and a tachometer. My dad taught me to prep it, and I painted that car in the spray booth at Massey Ferguson. I got my driver’s licence in that car.”
Watson was introduced to the sport of drag racing when the family was at the Airdrie airport flying a homebuilt plane. At the airstrip, cars were racing on one of the asphalt runways.
“I got hooked on drag racing and that became my passion,” Watson says.
A number of motorcycles also passed through his hands, and before he was finished high school, Watson had built a 1951 Austin with a V8 flathead Ford engine.
Although mechanically inclined, Watson did not enter the trades. He went to university and became a science teacher, starting off instructing at a junior high school.
That left summers free to drag race, and to help fund his activities Watson would take on autobody restoration jobs, often completing two or three cars a year.
In 1982, Watson bought a home in Chestermere with a two-car garage, with one bay a “working ” bay where he’d perform bodywork, fabricate parts or build engines. The other bay often held his dragster. While he’d owned a few race cars previously, in the early 1980s he bought the chassis of the Royal Canadian dragster and campaigned it for several years.
Watson’s mechanical skills were put to use when he taught welding, auto body and biology classes at James Fowler High School from 1982 until 2005. Over those years, he says he spent countless hours working in his own garage.
Here’s what we learned about Watson and the tools he’s accumulated.
Q: What tools are in your collection and where did they come from?
A: The machine shop tools are very precious to me, because I bought them from my dad. He’d bought them in the early 1960s from Massey Ferguson when Massey began outsourcing all of their machining. When I moved into the house in Chestermere, he sold me the engine machine tools, including a boring bar, rod straightener and complete Black & Decker valve-grind service unit.
I’ve done a lot of heads for myself and other people, and I port and polish every motor I’ve built — they’ve all had superclean heads. All my hand tools are Craftsman, from socket sets to wrenches to screwdrivers. The gas welding equipment was given to me by my father. It’s old Victor gear, but it works as good as it ever has. I also have a heavy duty MIG welder, and a Miller TIG welder.
Q: Which tool or tools do you use most often?
A: The auto-body tools. They’re all air tools, so really the most important thing in my garage is the air compressor. I use it a lot.
Q: How did you learn to use the tools? Did you go to school, did someone teach you, or do you watch YouTube videos?
A: My dad was very hands-on with me, teaching me to use basic tools and then I’ve been self-taught. When I came out of junior high, my grades were so good I was placed in the academic stream instead of the technical stream. All of the technical stuff, we learned as a family. I went to university and became a teacher, and then, with my mechanical skills, moved into teaching shop and science.
Q: What’s the most important project in the garage right now?
A: It’s not in the garage, it’s sitting beside it. That’s a 1985 Oldsmobile Cutlass that was my dad’s last new car. It’s a loaded car, but it needs bodywork and paint and I’m going to put a 462-cubic-inch Chevy engine and Turbo 400 transmission in it. I’ve done one of those before; my specialty is putting big motors into small cars. I’ll be pulling that Olds into the garage next spring.
Q : Is there anyone else in the house or in your life interested in working in the garage?
A: I had the James Fowler Drag Race Team, and we had 23 students in that. At least 14 of them had their own cars they raced, and we also built one car for the others to drag race. Some of those students are still drag racing, and a number of those students are in the auto-body industry. That team, and the shop classes, inspired many, many students, and it makes me feel like I did something and made a difference.
I also have two daughters and a son. I think what I instilled in them is the love of teaching. One is a teacher, and my son works for Bombardier as an aerospace engineer. They used to help me in the shop, and what’s more important, they were my drag racing pit crew. My wife, Irene, was my crew chief, and the entire family drove in the motorhome with the race car in the trailer to some distant locations to compete.
If you have a workspace filled with tools, projects or memories and are willing to share, let me know; I’d be pleased to write it up. Email me at gregwilliams@shaw.ca. Driving.ca