2019 Final Season In Ontario
Iron Man and Buttons Heading To Nova Scotia
2019 Farewell Tour In Ontario
Grab A Coffee For This One
It’s with great sadness that I will close out my stock car racing career in Ontario at the end of 2019. I thank Bill and Val Grisdale for giving me and Buttons such a beautiful place to stay the past 4 years.
History
It all started in 1969 at Cayuga Speedway in the Mini Stock class. In 1972 I joined the OARC. The Hobby division, aka CVM, became my home for 33 years. It was in this series that race legend Bill Lyons introduced me to Quaker State….you know the rest of the story.
I was most excited when my son came to race in the Hobby club in 1988. It took David a while to catch on, but once he did he became the first Hobby driver in Hobby/CVM history, to win 3 consecutive Championships from 2000 to 2002.
I loved racing the open wheel Coupes and was rewarded with 2 Championships, the first in 1989 and the second in 1999. I raced against so many great men.

My daughter Shirley joined the Hobby Club in 1992, and became the first full time female driver to race in that series. After her retirement, she would return to win 4 Ladies features, driving both my car and David’s.

At the end of 2004 I left the CVM to join my son racing a Late Model at Flamboro Speedway. That was an incredible journey for me to continue racing with my son. I was the first driver to run a Crate engine. I was told not to complain if I couldn’t keep up. After my second feature win in my first year I was told to add weight. The next year there were 8 Crates, the year after that, all were but one.

Perhaps the most memorable night was on July 26th 2008. It was my 40th year racing. The track had set that date to celebrate my 40 years racing. It was memorable in that David and I won our heat races and we finished 1st and 2nd in the 18 car field. Of our 6 career finishes, taking first and second, David won 4, but this time Dad won.

In 2013 I saw a Modified at Flamboro Speedway, it was a Troyer and was so glad to see that slick machine running with OSCAAR. The next year I bought Mike Westwood’s Troyer.

The past 6 seasons I have enjoyed racing both the Late Model and OSCAAR Mod. I raced 2 cars because one car only gave me 12 nights and it wasn’t near enough.
My heart was with open wheel cars, and most of my friends and fans who watch me race both, see a big difference when I drive the Modified.
I will post the list of Modified drivers in my next, less long post….there are many teams, families and staff to list.
The full list of all the racers I’ve competed against will be on my web site soon.

I was born in Nova Scotia, and I have many family members there. Nova Scotia is my home. My children, David and Shirley, know it’s time for me to head home and enjoy my next 40 years there  They, along with my daughter and son in-law, Derrick, are buying a place for me, with a big garage, and a place to put my museum.

I am so blessed with a wonderful, loving, caring, amazing family. They are heading to Nova Scotia tomorrow morning to look at 4 houses…..Imagine the love for me, it’s incredible. They want Buttons and I to have a relaxing, healthy and peaceful place to spend the rest of my life…..how great is that………I’m forever appreciative to my children, my son and daughter-in-law’s. I’ll be there until I go to Heaven.

It’s very hard and sad for me to leave here, heart breaking really. I will desperately miss all of you. So many of you have made this first 51 year journey rewarding, exciting, emotional, stress free, gracious, teaching me, showing me, learning to know me, letting me know you, giving me support and most of all you have filled me with beautiful memories.

I’ve already cried a ton because I will miss so many people. But we can keep in touch on social media, namely face book and my web site. As sad as it is, I have to go, it’s a dream, and I want to live and race in Nova Scotia.

My east coast family, Uncles, Aunts and many cousins are deep into music and they will allow me to play a few times with them, and I will so look forward to that. I know they will be welcoming me back home.

My goal is to race in the Maritime Pro Stock Tour. I sure picked a tough series….but it’s the biggest and as good and strong as Ontario’s APC series. It will be the best series to show case my sponsors. They have a 12 race series that includes 3 provinces, PEI, New Brunswick and of course Nova Scotia. I’ve met some very nice racing families in Nova Scotia as well as PEI and NB. I know they will help me close my racing career with success.

Quaker State will be with me in 2020 and I am hoping they continue our partnership until we reach 50 years together…..this year is #46. I will keep other sponsors as well, but many I will lose, those who are local, and I will be sad about that because they have been so good to me as well. Thank you so much.

Over the next few months I will be posting memories of my racing career in Ontario. God has been so good to me.

Those who loved me and cheered me on, who said so many great encouraging things, I will love you forever. Those very few individuals who I had issues with, petty dumb stuff, I love you to. All of us have had a bad day at one time or another. The most important thing is to shake hands when the adrenalin level drops, some of my greatest friends were adversaries at one time.

I plan to host a farewell event on July 14th. I will post more on that and hope you can drop by. I plan to return to Ontario for a few bigger races in 2020.
I don’t leave until this season is over, so I have lots of time to see you all and finish out my 2019 season in Ontario. God bless you all and thank you for being great friends. 51 years of helping, teaching, showing and now sending me to the Maritimes to continue living my passion in this life long journey