What do I know about cars? Why would you care?
There are a lot of so called experts in the wonderful world of the automobile. While I hardly consider myself an expert, cars have been an undeniable force in my life, since before I was born.
In the late Sixties and early Seventies, my dad was an active road racer up here in Ontario, meaning that baby Gary was dragged around all over the place. The smell of hot Castrol R was burned into my brain and left a lasting impression.
Growing up, I hung out with the Ranta family & spent many summers turning wrenches on race karts and travelling to tracks all over Ontario. The Ranta garage was a favourite place for me, with possibly the coolest collection of air cooled wonders imaginable. Including a very early Porsche 901, a Hebmuller, a couple of Corvairs and assorted rear engine Volkswagens.
In high school, my buddies and I built a few VW GTI’s to various levels of tune and I began my own competition career with a few auto crosses and navigational rallies. In the late eighties and into the Nineties, the lovely & talented Mrs. Grant and I crewed for a couple of teams in the Firehawk series and regional racing, along with a couple of performance rally teams. At the same time, we were busy racking up miles on the car doing navigational rallies and solo 1 & 2. Eventually we ended up pairing up in a Swift GTi performance rally car. Today, the competitive efforts have returned to karting as we coach our 12 year old at the Mosport Kart Club.
On the professional side, I’ve worked in new car dealership service departments for almost 18 years. For the last 6 years, I’ve been a Service Manager.
Through all of this, I’ve kept my childish obsession with cars and car racing. Now that I’ve discovered blogging I have a way to share that obsession with the world!
