by Lois Pollard-Grant

When Neil Montgomery was a youngster, he would take apart old baby buggies, and use the spokes for wheels, the handles for roll bars and built "soap box carts."

"The Langford guys had their carts, and the Glen Lake guys (Neil and his buddies) had theirs, and we would drag them to Langford to race - until we were around 14."

Then there was the 1928 Model A that Neil had his eye on when he was 12. None of his friends had any money so Neil saved up $25 from his paper route to buy the car.

"We stripped it down, and turned it into a hot rod. Then we raced 'that goofy old thing,' around a (make do) dirt oval - at my grandfather, George Montgomery's farm."

The boys could never afford the needed gas, so at the end of the day they would drain the pumps from an area gas station.

And of course, Western Speedway was a favorite haunt for Neil as he grew up.

Since Neil's debut in Jalopies in 1960, he has since raced just about everything else - stock cars, super stocks, and modifieds. He raced with the old time racers and even did some of the old figure eight racing.

"My mom used to be horrified to watch me race, Neil remarked. The first time she came to watch - I flipped my car."

When Neil hung up his helmet after a successful 20-year racing career, his eldest son Trevor, was getting interested in racing.

Neil didn't encourage his boys, Trevor or Jeff, to get into racing - "they just came by it honestly."

And racing wasn't handed to them on a silver platter.

"They learned to build and maintain their own stuff. Most of the work," Neil explained, "we do ourselves and the boys learned to do that."

Trevor confirms his dad's statement: "When I first showed an interest in racing - there was an Enduro race coming up so I took the initiative to tow a car home and work on it."

"My dad started to help me, but not until he saw that I was willing to make the effort and take the initiative myself."

Trevor, then 16, went on to race bombers in 1986 and street stocks in 1987, picking up rookie of the year honors, and championships in both of these classes.

In the late 1980's Neil and Russ Lejeune, merged their talents to form LeMonty Racing with Trevor as their driver in modifieds and later in sprint cars. Trevor has an enviable record in racing: in the last five years, he has won 24 NSRA races, seven track records - and this doesn't include his four championships.

The highlight of Trevor's 16-year racing career came when he won his first Daffodil Cup race in 1997.

Coincidentally, winning that Daffodil Cup was also Neil's choice - "and we didn't run with the same equipment as we do today," Neil noted.

A memorable and emotional moment for the Montgomerys came in 1999, when Trevor won the Denny Rand Memorial race. Denny was a long time friend and colleague, and had worked on Trevor's car until his untimely death.

Asked if there was any sibling rivalry between himself and his brother Jeff, growing up, Trevor replied: "No - there never was. Maybe because we were so close in age." (Trevor is 34 - Jeff 33)

"We were very close knit, and today are just as good as friends as we are brothers."

Jeff's earliest recollections in racing were of watching his dad race when he and Trevor were boys.

'We were track kids every Saturday - our dad would give us a buck and it would last all night."

Like his brother, Jeff also did BMX racing, with Jeff going on to compete in the World Championships at Whistler.

Jeff has covered a lot of track since he ran and won both enduro events that he entered in 1988 and 1989.

He has raced stock cars, super street stocks, B sprint cars, thunder cars and sportsman. Currently he races in the WILROC Sprint car series in a car owned by Jeff McLeod.

He likes the competitiveness in racing and the added pressure it brings to perform. This apparently works for Jeff as he has a solid inventory of race victories as well as track records and championships - his most recent, being the 2002 WILROC Sprint car championship.

Neil's wife of 20 years, Claudia (and "mom" to Trevor and Jeff) "supports auto racing totally - I want Neil to be happy, and he is happiest when he is racing," she said.

Neil is more than happy these days to be involved in his sons successful racing careers - and to work along side of them at their Malahat Auto Parts business.