Shane Ledger has never been more excited to lose.
The Maple Ridge drag racer has Discovery Channel’s Street Outlaws constantly playing in the background of his shop while working on Hot Rods.
However, Ledger made his way to the foreground last weekend at Mission Raceway Park.
He competed against the stars of the reality show at the Street Outlaws Live event on July 26. Ledger was overpowered by Scott Taylor’s vehicle after getting a few car lengths ahead.
“Well, he definitely freight-trained me,” Ledger said.
Due to the circumstances, Ledger was just as excited to lose as he would've been to win.
“It was an odd thing. After the race – of course he he beat me up pretty good – my friends and family all came down on a golf cart to the end of the track where they towed me back and I’ve never been cheered so hard for losing. It was all fist pumps and hugs and smiles, even though we lost,” he said.
Ledger has seen every episode of Street Outlaws at least twice. When the episode airs, he says he’ll have a party to watch the loss.
He said he was nervous at first, but the feeling went away after speaking with the cast.
The Street Outlaws were down-to-earth, courteous, extremely knowledgeable and very fast, Ledger says.
“It’s definitely such an ease when you realize they're just normal guys,” he said.
Ledger has been interested in cars for almost his entire life. His father built hot rods in the ‘60s and ‘70s, leaving Ledger with little choice in the matter.
“We were just working on cars all the time. I grew up reading my father's black-and-white old-school Hot Rod books. So I always tended to do stuff a little bit more nostalgic,” he said.
Ledger’s first car was a pickup truck at 14 and he’s had some sort of hot rod or race car ever since. Currently, he races a 55 Chevy and a 34 Ford.
“They're kind of done up in a nostalgia format. I do gravitate towards the older ‘60s style hot rods and so that's kind of how we do it,” he said.
The interest in cars and racing won't leave any time soon.
“I'm 51 years old now. So I don't think it's going away. I got the disease,” Ledger said.
