Wednesday nights, drag racing and car enthusiasts meet up at the Bunker for some friendly competition, and even character building, by racing slot cars. 

"We just think it's a really good place to have kids. It's a safe place..."

John Friesen has been racing and building his own cars for years and helps mentor kids in the program.

"We have a test and tune night, so everybody comes who has cars and who wants to be introduced to the new program. They come and they try out cars, and they try out the cars that we built," says Friesen.

His collection has at least 20 cars that are 1:32 scale, which was used when he first started, and he has another 20 in the 1:24 scale which is now more common.

"We've got everything from four-year-olds to their grandfathers bringing them in. We've got fathers and sons, we've got whole families, we've had 70-plus-year-olds and it works for everybody," says Bert Pauls, another mentor with the program. While he was always into cars and racing, Pauls says his interest in slot cars was sparked after coming across the hobby online.

"We've got the full new timing system with reaction times. We can bracket race with a fast and a slow car together, we have miles per hour, and it's all printed out on a time ticket the same as we get on a real racetrack," adds Pauls.

The cost to build one car is roughly $150, but the Bunker decided to sponsor a number of kids making it free for them to join. If they stay in the program for a year, they get to keep their car afterwards as well.

"We just think it's a really good place to have kids. It's a safe place. We try to encourage, not run down, and that seems to be working well. Kids like that," says Friesen.

Pauls adds, the competition heat turns up when people from Morden come, or someone with another car make comes in, but the friendly smack talk is one of the best parts.

"I think giving an opportunity because we love drag racing so much, to give kids an opportunity, this is affordable. It gives them a different option of things to do other than playing hockey or video games, and those are all fine things, but this is a totally different concept of mechanics," Friesen says.