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A little over a year ago, Allan de la Plante and Bill Brack hatched a plan to bring as many old racing farts together as possible during the week of the Toronto Indy. The event was a complete success and included some of Canada’s brightest stars of racing from “back in the day”. It was such a success that it was decided that this should be an annual event on the eve of what is arguably one of Canada’s most important motorsports events.
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Matt Waldin at Mosport
2010 has been a year of ups and downs here in my corner of The Garage. Fortunately, on a professional level there were more ups than downs and those ups have helped open some doors that will be very important in the coming months.
It is hard to believe, but a year ago I was prepping for my first ever visit to the North American International Auto Show in Detroit. Having been involved in automotive media since 2001 and working in the auto industry for over 2 decades, you would think I would have made it there at some point. Last year, I went down as part of a social media project set up by the good folks at GM. I met some great people who I’ve previously only spoken to online. I’m looking forward to the same trip next week!
Returning from Detroit, I agreed to help out my friends at Porsche Canada by doing social media coverage of Canadian team, Bullet Racing at the Rolex 24 at Daytona. From my couch. For free. It has been something like 18 years since I was involved in a 24 hour race, so it was an honor to work with the team.
The Victoria Day weekend has traditionally been the first big road racing event of the season here in Ontario. I jumped at the chance to ride shotgun with Randy Pobst in the K-Pax Racing Volvo S60 for a couple of hot laps around Mosport. That beast is a machine I’ll never forget!
Thanks to Bridgestone, I had the opportunity to squeeze myself into a formula car for the first time. 900 lbs, 170 hp = the most intense driving experience EVER!
By far the biggest high of the year came from the discovery of photography, which happened as a result of my being prodded by Allan de la Plante. AdlP set me on a path that surprised the daylights out of me. I can actually take killer racing photos!
I’ve had the opportunity to work with teams racing with NASCAR, Indy Lights, Castrol Touring Cars, Playboy Mazda, World Challenge, ALMS and Trans Am. I became a member of the respected American Racing Press Association. This is the stuff dreams are made of and it is only going to get better in 2011 as I travel to more races outside of Ontario.
My photos have been published in 2 of Canada’s top national newspapers and several local papers around the GTA.
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The end of 1976 had a very strange twist for me. On November 15th Rene Levesque led his Parti Quebecois to power in Quebec. I was an Anglophone with a French name! The Bank of Montreal project was over. So were the Olympics! I was living in Montreal on a high, but my client list dried up almost immediatley. I was in a serious situation. The rocket ride had ended so I packed my bags and family and headed to Ontario and Toronto. I was not financially prepared for this change.
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We have a pretty incredible racing history here in Ontario, dating back to the late 1950’s. Fortunately, that is recent enough history that many early racers are still around to share their stories. Our own Allan de la Plante is one of those guys who was in the thick of the action in the Sixties and Seventies. A couple of weeks before the Honda Indy in Toronto, Allan had a spark of an idea to get a bunch of the old racers together for an evening. The next thing we knew, Allan had put together the above invite using his famed Four into Four image, while Canadian racing icon Bill Brack was scrambling to put together the guest list.
I was honored to be included in the list, as I had only been a little guy when these guys were racing past as I played in the sand at Mosport. There had been some discussion before the event as too what constitutes an Old Fart and it was deemed that one should have seen an original Can Am series race in person. I was indeed at a few of them, so I guess that qualifies me as old!
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I struggled through until spring and realized I needed to get either back to North Bay or head for Toronto where my parents now lived. My Father had been offered a senior position with the Globe and Mail. It was an offer he couldn’t refuse so they moved to the big city. I decided to follow and hitch-hiked down where I was met with some reluctance. I had little left that you could call belongings and taking over the sofa was not something either of my parents liked. Through a family friend I was able to get hired on at Dunlop Tire and Rubber Company on Queen Street. I started at the bottom. I enjoyed manual labour, but sweeping carbon black off floors was not my idea of a good time. I watched the job postings constantly. The job I lusted after, but one I never expected to have come up shone like a beacon when it was posted. It was a job many wanted, but somehow I got the job! I was now a fork-lift driver! It was the night shift for some time, but I loved getting behind the wheel of that rig. I actually loved getting behind the wheel of anything, but the big old Clarke was a constant source of challenge and fun. I soon became a much better driver. With very narrow spaces between the rows I had to drive, my precision became much more acute. My real problem at the time was street wheels. I nosed around looking for something sporty. I was tired of taking the Toronto transit. I got pre-qualified for a loan from the company credit union and bought the first decent MGB I could find. I don’t even remember it’s year. I do remember it had wonky spoke wheels that needed truing up and it clanked and rumbled along, but it would go if you wanted it to. I also wanted to get back to skiing and noticed that the Canadian Ski Patrol was looking for patrollers near Barrie and Collingwood. I went to the first aid courses and met a number of young guys that were trying to get on at various ski hills. I met a constantly smiling character who was excited about a private club in Collingwood about ninety miles north. The season had just started and we decided to go up and take a look. The patrol leader was an English guy by the name of Bruce Smith. He was said to be tough as nails and I guess he was if you got on his bad side. Both Larry and I were good skiers and Smith asked us to sign up for the Craigleith patrol and he would see we got that assignment. The Sunday we returned from our first trip to Collingwood, Larry, better known as ‘Woody’, said he wanted to drop in at the Toronto Boat show to see what was new. I have always loved boats and said I wanted to tag along. Who I met at the boat show presented a lot of fun over the next few years. As we walked across the show floor the large yachts towered over us. As we approached one, Larry stopped me and casually said ‘take a look at that!’ I looked up and there on one of the boats was a beautiful blonde girl! I actually could not see her face, but the part that was presented to me looked more than attractive! The rest of the evening Woody and I chatted up Jane Parkinson, the lady of the yacht. We talked about lots of different things, but skiing was near the top of her list. We said we were going to Collingwood the following weekend. I quietly told Woody to go along with what I was going to say to her. I told her I had not skied much. The following Saturday morning Jane and I drove up to the ski hill in my ‘B’. I did not own skis at the time so had to rent them. We went to Zotter’s Ski Shop next to the hill. I was standing at the rental counter when the owner, Carl Zotter, spied me and came over. He wanted to know what I was up to and I just said I needed to rent a pair of skis for the weekend. I had raced with his son Werner. Carl told the rental person to give me the best they had. Jane just stood there bewildered. The cat still wasn’t out of the bag. When we got to the hill I fumbled with the skis, fumbled with the bindings and fell on the way to the lift. On the way up the lift, a T-bar, I nearly fell off twice and succeeded on the third try when the lift got to a short flat section. Jane was frustrated as she helped me get on the lift again. At the top she headed for a hill called ‘The Birches’. Looking back that is the last place I would take a novice, but I guess she thought she could guide me down or maybe she just wanted to throw me off at the deep end. I fell twice getting to the top of the hill. She looked down and said I should watch how it is done and slowly follow her. She descended about fifty yards down the hill doing nice snow-plows. She turned and waved me down. I started slowly towards her making a few wide snow-plow turns. She was smiling as I approached her. As I got to her I said that this was boring and got into a tuck and hurtled straight down the hill. When I got to the bottom I slid into a long turn and looked back up. She was nowhere to be seen! I turned just in time to get a large snowball right in the face! It was love at first descent! We skied, snuggled and just did everything young lovers did all winter. In the spring we went to Mosport to the Victoria Day Sprints. We also went to Watkins Glen in upper New York state.
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Work was now a lot of fun! I’d get some neat assignment like shooting a football game or covering a fire or accident for the sports and the news departments. Best of all I got to drive my Healey and got paid five cents a mile to do so! The television station was set high on a hill in Callander, a small town nine miles south of North Bay. There were few intersections between the tv station and town so it became my personal racetrack every time I lit out on an assignment. It didn’t take the local constabulary long to pull into the driveway at home and have a little chat with me. Apparently they had taken up the chase several times and couldn’t keep up. I also got dragged on the carpet by the station manager and my old man. I was promptly told to cool it a bit. I guess they were concerned about finding another shooter that would work for $45 a week! On my way out of the manager’s office one day I noticed a sign that read ‘Why pay a man $80 a week when he’ll work for $40?’ It was a Roy Thompson organization, what could you expect? At least I was getting an extra five bucks over the forty they expected me to work for! I’d boost a bit more on the mileage. I never really considered it a job anyway. I was just having too much fun!
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In his Love at First Sight segment of Shutter Speed, Allan De La Plante tells us how the sound of that old Healey added to his infatuation. With all the cool race car sounds around here these days, Allan thought we should bring a little bit of the Healey magic into the place.
Somehow I don’t think that Allan’s white Healey was ever driven as carefully as this one as he blasted around North Bay!
Some years ago at some regional race, the Grant family spent a weekend camping up on the hill in the Mosport infield. We shared our favorite spot in the woods with a delightful, long haired gent and his dog. Two year old Shelby, now almost sixteen, had a wonderful time playing with the dog. Over the weekend, I came to learn that this gentleman had spent years as a pro motorsports photographer. He had been away from Mosport for a few years and had come back to see how things had changed. Oh yes, he had also just completed a biography of Canadian racing legend Gilles Villeneuve. His name was Allan De La Plante.
Allan’s book Villeneuve – A Racing Legend has gone on to become one of the most cherished editions in most serious Grand prix enthusiasts’ library.
De La Plante has been shooting hard core sports since the early Seventies, following the Grand Prix circus and the Canadian downhill ski racers known around the world as the Crazy Canucks. He has published books on topics ranging from Pope John Paul II to firefighters and cooking over fire. Perhaps his crown jewel though is the masterfully written, brutally honest book about his good friend from rural Quebec who set the world on fire behind the wheel of a Ferrari.
As one might imagine, a young guy from northern Ontario might have taken part in some pretty incredible scenes on his way to the glitz and glamour that was on offer at the pinnacle of motorsports in the Seventies. We are very excited that Allan has agreed to share some of those stories with our readers here in The Garage! Hold on to your hats, as I suspect we are about to take a wild ride through the wild world of racing’s glory days!
You can read part one of Shutter Speed:from rural Ontario to on your knees in Monaco here
