Norris McDonald's Auto Racing Blog

Grandstand seats for Grand Prix available now

The organizers of June’s Grand Prix of Canada in Montreal announced today that the "grace period" for people who held grandstand tickets for the last Grand Prix in 2008 and wished to re-order is over and all remaining grandstand seats are available on a first-come, first-served basis, beginning tomorrow.

The return of the Grand Prix in 2010 promises to be exciting, with Michael Schumacher returning to drive for Mercedes, Fernando Alonso in a Ferrari and Lewis Hamilton and Jenson Button fighting it out for dominance at McLaren.

Not to forget Sebastien Vettel emerging as a world champion threat for Red Bull.

As well, four new teams have entered the 2010 championship, although whether they will all make it onto the grid at the start of the season or still be around in the middle or the end remains to be seen.

Those wishing to obtain grandstand tickets (and general admission is available for purchase now, too) can contact the Grand Prix office at 514-350-000 or order online at www.circuitgillesvilleneuve.ca

I’d suggest you not dawdle. Now that anyone can order any seat anywhere, they will go fast.

Styres fades, Kevin Swindell wins Chili Bowl

Ohsweken Speedway owner Glenn Styres of Ontario’s Six Nations Reserve started from the pole in last night’s "E" Main at the 2010 Chili Bowl Midget Nationals at the Tulsa Expo Centre in Oklahoma but finished eighth and failed to advance to the final, which was won by Kevin Swindell of Germantown, Tenn.

Kevin Swindell, son of last year’s winner Sammy Swindell, took control about halfway through the 24^th 50-lap final to be held at the indoor dirt speedway and held off Cole Whitt of Alpine, Calif., who finished second, and his father, Sammy, also of Germantown, who came from last place in the 24-car field to finish third.

The Chili Bowl is an annual wintertime gathering of the clan in Tulsa and attracts several hundred of the best short-track speedway racers on the continent (as well as Australia and New Zealand) including Indy car racers (P.J. Jones), NASCAR stars (Kasey Kahne), NHRA drag racers (Tony Schumacher) and sprint, midget and modified stars (Corey Kruseman, J.J. Yeley, Tim McCready).

Racing starts early in the week and uses a somewhat complex format to determine the final 24-car field.

Some cars are locked into the final – the first three finishers in the "A" Main races run on the previous 4 nights of racing – but everybody else (no matter who you are) has to fight and claw their way in.

Styres, for instance, was on pole for the "E" Main. If he’d finished in the top four, he’d have advanced to the "D" Main. If he’d finished in the top six in that race, he’d have moved on to the "C" Main, eventually making it to the "A" Main.

As mentioned, he finished back in the field in his race and was eliminated.

Having said that, the Chili Bowl is the toughest of the tough short-track races. There is pride on the line, and money – but mostly pride. It’s dog-eat-dog and you’d better be ready to fight for every square inch of track you cover. For instance, nobody’s ever won back-to-back Chili Bowls.

Previous winners have included Tony Stewart, Tracy Hines, the late Rich Vogler and Sammy Swindell – who’s won the prestigious event five times.

Speed TV will carry a Chili Bowl Special in February. Check listings. Meantime, if you can’t wait, some of the Tusla TV station websites have footage. Click here for a peek,

　

A chat with rally champs Pat and Nathalie Richard

Last Saturday, I went to the Canadian Rally Championship awards luncheon at the Delta Toronto Airport West Hotel (Subaru Canada, Yokohama Tire Canada and Mitsubishi Motor Sales of Canada all announced their continuing support for the national championship) and I took the opportunity to put some questions to two of the top rallyists in the country, Pat Richard and his sister, Nathalie.

While they started out rallying together 10 years ago, Pat Richard now competes for Subaru with co-driver Alan Ockwell of Toronto while Nathalie Richard co-drives for her life partner, Antoine L’Estage, in a Mitsubishi

Pat Richard won his fourth Canadian championship in 2009. Nathalie Richard missed out on several titles in heartbreaking fashion but during her career has won more than a dozen national and international championships.

I just turned on the tape recorder and let them both talk. Here is some of what they said.

Nathalie, how did you get started?

I have to credit my brother for getting me involved. We don’t come from a rallying family or anything. He was just a fan and one day he saw it on TV and realized we had rallying in Canada and he said, ‘I’m going to do that,’ and that was 10 years ago.

I went to his first couple of rallies and I got hooked and between the two of us we got hooked right away and we just went from there.

Our parents support us to death, they love us and they love the rallies. At first, they were a little hesitant because we were in the same car together and they thought, “Oh, my God.” You know, my mother, Josie,  in particular was freaking out all the time. But now, they find it hard because when they come to a rally it’s almost always Pat who wins or Antoine and I who win.

 She said, "I can never go to another rally. You can never be fully happy for the one who wins because of the other one who lost." That was after Tall Pines.

You didn’t win this year. . .

“No, I won the North American (co-driver) championship but I didn’t win the Canadian championship. It was a big heartbreak for us. We (she and her partner L’Estage) had just about everything wrapped up – the Tall Pines rally (the season-ender at Bancroft in November), the Canadian championship, the North American championship, the Canadian open class. We had everything in our hands. All we had to do was finish.

“And then, on the last stage of the Tall Pines, we had a clutch problem. We were going uphill and we just couldn’t get to the top. I mean, I get goose bumps just talking about it now.

Could you push?

Although I’m allowed, as co-driver, to get out of the car and push, there was no way I was going to be able to push the car up a hill. I mean, we discussed it. But then the other thing we worried about was that if I pushed and we got it started, then we would have to stop for me to get in and we’d stall again. It was very hard for us; it was very emotional.

Were you screaming at each other?

Not all all. There was silence in our car. All we could hope for was that the car would start. It took us 12 minutes to go about 120 metres. It was heartbreaking. Once we got to the other side of the control zone, the spectators there pushed us because they were allowed to at that point and we got started.

You’ve had success in the past and you know you’ll have success in the future. So although this was disappointing, was it really all that crushing?

It was devastating. We rallied all year and, in the end, we didn’t come away with what we were after and we were so close to having. It was really, really hard to get over that.

Pat, your sister says you got the idea to go rallying from watching television.

I used to drive around the back roads of British Columbia with my buddies near Whistler, where I live. We knew rallying existed but we didn’t know it existed in Canada. Then I saw it on TSN and I said, “Wow, I’m going to try that.”

In 10 years, you’ve gone from an armchair to win four national championships. That has to be some kind of a record.

Well, I wish I’d started when I was 18 instead of 26. But it’s been a great 10 years. I’ve won the Canadian championship four times and the North American championship three times so it’s been fantastic.

Have you ever thought of going overseas and competing in the World Rally Championship?

Sure, but I’ll tell you what the problem is. Rallying in the world is a lot bigger than it is here in Canada so for North Americans to put a package together to do that sort of thing is very difficult.

I did some WRC events in 2002 with Subaru Canada and did okay but to keep doing it you need a big international effort and that just didn’t happen. I get great support here in Canada but it takes a lot more support to take on the world.

You live in Whistler. Is there anything in your contract that forbids you from skiing, or snowboarding?

No, but there probably should be. I had an accident last winter. I broke three ribs and was laid up a month. I nearly didn’t make it to a rally.

Danica gets the NASCAR TV treatment

Danica Patrick was a guest Tuesday night on the Speed Channel’s NASCAR Race Hub show and handled the questions put to her by co-hosts John Roberts and Adam Alexander pretty well, I thought.

What was particularly surprising to me was not her media-trained I-really-like-NASCAR stuff but her backhanded slap at Indy Car (formerly the IRL) in which she said, in so many words, that she didn’t like all the road and street courses now on the schedule.

Danica has had her greatest success in the Indy cars on the ovals – at Indianapolis, in particular, and her one win came on an oval in Japan – so it’s natural for her to like ovals. But she was forthright that she didn’t like the direction Indy Car is going and that’s significant.

Anyway, Speed sent out a transcript of the interview. Here is an edited version.

Roberts: Are you having fun with this?

Patrick: I am. I’m having a lot of fun. When I drove the car for the first time (at Walt Disney World Speedway) and then at Daytona, I realized that I actually like the car more than I thought I would. I think the racing seems like it’s going to be really cool, really fun, really tough. I tried to bump the cars in front of me at Daytona and I couldn’t do it. I was excited to. Tony Eury Jr. came on the radio and he’s like, ‘Go give him a bump.’ And I was like, ‘Hit him?’ and he was like, ‘Yeah, hit him.’ And I was like, ‘Okay.’ And I was talking all kinds of trash that I was going to be doing this and then I couldn’t. It is much more difficult than I thought it would be. But it was fun, it was cool. You can run so close in these cars.

Alexander: At what point in your IndyCar career did you say NASCAR is something I might one day want to be a part of?

Patrick: I started thinking about it about a year or two ago, checking it out and looking at it. I don’t love some of the things we’re doing in Indy Car. I don’t love all the tracks. We’re racing on a lot more road courses and there’s not as much passing, so I kind of started saying …

I love an Indy car. It’s a challenge. They’re very hard … they’re tough to drive and they have an open-wheel race car feel to them but some of the things I wasn’t so excited about. So when things started to transition (more road and street races added, such as this year’s opening race in Brazil), I started saying, ‘Hmm …it (NASCAR) would be kind of fun.’ I’ve really grown to love oval racing, I think is what I’ve found.

Roberts: We all know how difficult it is in any brand of motor sports to go out and win a race. How much pressure is there to win a race and when does that pressure kick in?

Patrick: I kind of felt the pressure to perform right after I won in Japan for the first time and before that. It’s our job as a driver to win races and it’s what we all try to do. There’s always pressure there. There’s always pressure from everyone around you because that’s what they want, as well. And then just your own expectations.

We’re working really hard at Andretti (Indy Car) over the winter to bring things together and have cars that maybe perform just a little bit better and have everything working more efficiently. We all want to win races too. Last year was the first year we hadn’t won any (as a team). So, it was kind of surprising and disappointing. Nothing like that kind of year to get you fired up. We’ve been working really hard. I think we’re going to have a great season.

Alexander: In Indy Car, it seems like win at all costs. In NASCAR, you don’t really have to win to have a successful day. You agree with that?

Patrick: I think it’s proportionate to the amount of cars probably, I think, is one thing. Just like in Indy Car, you have guys that run up front normally but to have a top-10 day in Indy  Car or a top-six or eight day is like an okay day, it’s not great. In NASCAR, if you have a top-18 or 20 day, it’s not a great day but you finish. It’s proportionate, I think, to the car count a little bit. But it also depends on what team you drive for and what expectation levels are realistic. I don’t know. I don’t think so. We’re all drivers and we all want to do well.

Roberts: How closely have you looked at the success of Tony Stewart, former IRL champ, who comes over and we all know what he’s done in NASCAR, and Juan Pablo Montoya, but at the same time the lack of success of names like Jacques Villeneuve, Patrick Carpentier and Dario Franchitti. How closely have you looked at what they did?

Patrick: I definitely watched along the way and have been curious like many. I think that should never take away from the talent that they’ve showed in other places. They’ve all done very, very well from where they came from. So, I don’t really think much about it.

 I try to look at the situation – what team are they driving for? What car? How much testing did they probably get? How long did they get to really perform? I think it was Rusty Wallace that said it takes three seasons to figure it out and I think that Juan (Montoya) had probably showed that. It just takes a while to get used to. It’s different. It’s still racing but everything is the same but everything is different. It’s still racing cars but everything’s a different feel. It just takes a while to get used to.

Alexander: The lingo is certainly different from an Indy car to a stock car, so how did you get acclimated to that during your test?

Patrick: I found that many things are opposite. When we talk about cross weight in an Indy car, we’re using the left front as where we’re talking about, so adding would be adding to the left front, whereas in NASCAR, you talk about adding cross weight and you talk about adding it to the right front. So, there’s lots of things that are backwards and different.

At the test in Orlando that we did, I was saying the car gets just a little bit loose, just a little bit sideways but you hang it out and just ride it out to the exit of the corner. Tony said, ‘That’s perfect, once you get it into that “yaw,”’ and I was like, ‘Ya’ll? Does he really say “ya’ll” for everything?’ And then I came in and I realized I was just really dumb and it was ‘yaw’ with a ‘w.’ So, apparently it’s a technical word that I didn’t know before. . .

Anyway I’m just making excuses for myself. But yeah, there’s lot of different lingo which I’m getting used to. Sometimes I feel like Tony is still speaking another language but I’m working hard to understand it. I need a dictionary for NASCAR.

Roberts: Are you chomping at the bit to get into competition at Daytona in a couple of weeks?

Patrick: Yes and no, I’m nervous. I want to perform well. I want to do well. I want to know I’m ready. I think I’ve talked about it quite a few times – just the little things – pit stops and when do you put it into gear on a pit stop. I haven’t even done many burnouts in the car yet. There’s a whole way you can kind of slip the clutch and get it rolling. So, just little things and getting up to speed on cold tires in the car and where’s that limit?

Once I’m at speed and running in traffic, I have a lot to learn there but I’m a little more comfortable because it’s more common racing situations and it’s just about feeling the car. I have a lot to learn but I’m excited to get going and hopefully it goes well.

More questions about the USF1 team

Those of you who are Formula One fans will recognize the name James Allen. He took over from Murray Walker when ITV had the F1 broadcasting contract (seen here in Canada on TSN) and did a good job calling the play-by-play. He was replaced when the BBC won the contract at the beginning of last season.

In any event, Allen reported on his blog Sunday (here’s the link, if you want to go there) that an item in Italy’s Gazzetta Sportiva had caught his eye – to wit, that the new USF1 team has applied to the FIA for a "derogation to miss the early fly away races and start at the Spanish Grand Prix in April. This contradicts USF1 sporting director Peter Windsor’s assertion last week that the team will definitely be in Bahrain."

It’s hard to say whether this Italian magazine report is mischief or fact. Beginning months ago with Bernie Ecclestone’s assertion that at least two of the four new teams won’t make it to the grid for the first Grand Prix of 2010 (in Bahrain March 14) USF1 has come under attack from just about every quarter.

And yet, at every turn of the screw, team principal Windsor (who’s a very good communicator in his own right – Speed TV reporter, F1 News magazine columnist) has been quick to pour cold water on each and every one of the negative assertions.

As Allen reported, Windsor has said repeatedly that everything is proceeding on schedule and the team will be on the grid.

But if you go to the USF1 website (click here, if you’re curious), there’s not a lot there – and we are only nine weeks away from that first Grand Prix!

You will find a couple of rah-rah pep talks, a video of the car’s nose cone being crash-tested and some photographs of the team’s facilities in Charlotte, N.C., and in Spain.

One of the sub-headings is called "Partners" and there you will find "Development Partners" and "Manufacturing Partners" and "Supply Partners." There’s even a "Clothing Partner" listed.

But there is no "Money Partner," which has got to give pause to anyone going to that site.

Nor is there any photograph of the USF1 car.

There are no drivers listed.

In short, it doesn’t look good for USF1 (nor does it look good for Adrian Campos’s new team, but that’s fodder for another day).

Now, Peter Windsor vows that the team will test the car for the first time at the Barber Motorsport Park in Alabama the first week of February.

So this is what it comes down to:

Bernie Ecclestone says it’s highly unlikely the USF1 team will make it onto the grid for 2010 (he didn't come right out and name it, but you can take to the bank that it's one of the two he's talking about).

Windsor says it will.

One of them is going to look foolish.

Care to bet which one?

Dakar may return to Africa, Canadian Hacking says

Lawrence Hacking of Georgetown, reporting by satellite telephone from deepest South America, says the 2011 Dakar Rally could possibly return to Africa.

Hacking, who became the first Canadian on a motorcycle to finish what’s called the world’s most gruelling rally, was knocked out of this year’s Dakar on its second day in his quest to become to first Canadian to finish on four wheels.

As wheels.ca correspondent Larry Tate reported earlier this week (you can read his account by clicking here), Hacking and co-driver Christian Gerouard of Ottawa (driving a Mason Motorsports prorunner chassis, powered by a 1.9-litre Volkswagen turbodiesel with a five-speed Toyota transmission), were the victims of a bizarre mechanical failure that turned out to be repairable but not within the time allowed to make it to the checkpoints at the end of the day.

Althought he was out of the event, Hacking told Tate: "We are now going to follow the rally, support the Canadian bike riders and learn as much as possible about what is takes to finish this beast."

And following the rally he was when he telephoned me Friday afternoon from Antofagasta, Chile, where the seventh stage had just been completed.

“There’s a huge difference between the Dakar in Africa and the Dakar in South America,” he said. “It’s much more structured, for instance. In Africa, there’s a great sense of adventure that’s not evident here. In Africa, you mostly sleep in tents, for instance.

“In this Dakar (which started in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and will loop through the mountains and deserts of Chile before ending up back in Buenos Aires at the middle of the month), I was able to read my email last night and I went shopping in a mall. Most of the drivers are sleeping in hotels and showering in hot water. This has all the creature comforts, which is not the case in Africa.”

That’s when Hacking dropped his observation about the location.

“I can’t quote the fellow but I was told by one of the organizers – and people connected with the rally are talking about it – that the rally might return to Africa next year. I’d say there’s a 50-50 chance.”

Of course, the Dakar was cancelled abruptly right at the last moment two years ago because of terrorism threats in Africa. It moved to Argentina and Chile last year and this is its second running in that region.

“They wouldn’t go back to Senegal again,” Hacking said. “It it went back to Africa, the rally (Hacking said it would always be known as the Dakar, regardless of where the rally is held) would likely start in Tunisia and head east toward Egypt.”

Hacking said despite good intentions, he really didn’t have a chance when this year's rally started.

His small operation “was like taking a pea shooter to a gunfight. We have to be better prepared in future – we have to test more, for starters – and have more technical support and financial support.”

He said that on the night before our phone call, “I had a tour of (NASCAR driver) Robby Gordon’s operation and it’s there you see the level of support that’s required to do this rally properly.”

Hacking said most of the professional teams have large crews “that lets the driver step out of the car and the crew take over. I have good volunteer help but we’re lacking in resources, financial and otherwise.”

But he said he wouldn’t have missed this rally for the world.

“It’s a great experience just being a part of it,” he said. “It’s important to learn as much as you can in order to go home and build interest and develop a long-term plan to tackle this thing the right way.”

Incidentally, the Associated Press is reporting that Carlos Sainz and Cyril Despres had  extended their leads after the seventh stage of the rally, a 370-mile leg through the Atacama Desert in northern Chile.

VW driver Sainz finished third in Friday’s stage, 4 minutes, 21 seconds behind winning teammate Nasser Al-Attiyah. Sainz leads Al-Attiayah by 11:03 overall.

Two-time motorbike champion Despres won the stage on his KTM, 29 seconds ahead of defending champ and teammate Marc Coma. Despres leads Coma by 1:06:50 overall.

Italian motorcyclist Luca Manca remained in hospital in critical condition a day after sustaining life-threatening head injuries in the sixth stage.

More World of Outlaws races coming to Canada

You often hear the expression, “the Italians love their motor racing,” or, “the French love their motor racing.”

Add to that list, “the Canadians love their motor racing.”

We’ve just about got it all again, folks. The Formula One Grand Prix of Canada will return to Montreal in June after a year’s absence. The Indy Racing League will be back in Toronto and Edmonton come July. NASCAR will bring the Nationwide Series back to Montreal in August but is represented throughout the summer months, coast-to-coast, by the NASCAR Canadian Tire Series.

Now, add to that lineup the announcement this week that the World of Outlaws sprint car circuit will be racing in Quebec come summertime, in addition to regularly scheduled stops in Ontario and Alberta.

The Outlaws – King Steve Kinser, Joey Saldana, Donny Shatz, Kevin Swindell and the rest of the stars – will compete at Autodrome Drummond in Drummondville, Que., on Tues., July 27, as part of a three-race swing that will include two nights at the Ohsweken Speedway near Brantford.

Attention all you F1, Indy and NASCAR fans. You ain’t seen racing till you’ve seen 24 sprint cars on a dirt track all heading for the first turn at the same time.

 The World of Outlaws made their debut in Canada in 1979 at Victory Lane Speedway in Winnipeg and competed four times at that facility over the next four years, with three-time champion Sammy Swindell winning all of those events, making him the winningest World of Outlaws driver in Canada.

It was over 25 years before the series returned to Canada, with a stop at Ohsweken in 2007 with Jason Sides picking up the victory.

For each of the last three seasons, the series has visited both Ohsweken and Castrol Raceway just outside Edmonton. Over that time, six drivers have scored wins: Jason Meyers, Saldana and Sides each have two victories to lead that list while Jac Haudenschild, 20-time series champion Kinser and four-time and defending series titlist Schatz each have won once.

The Outlaws will tow to Ohsweken from Drummondville for the Six Nations Showdown Fri. and Sat., July 30-31. The series then heads to Alberta for the fourth annual Oil City Cup at Castrol Raceway on Aug. 27-28.

 

FIA must find a way to settle with Briatore

Look for the FIA to seek an out of court settlement with ex-Renault F1 team boss Flavio Briatore before the controversy surrounding him threatens to overshadow the upcoming Formula One season, much as it did the final months of 2009.

Briatore had his day in French court yesterday and he won. The court said, in part, that the FIA didn’t have the authority to impose a lifetime ban against Briatore and Renault race engineer Pat Symonds and that the FIA must inform everybody in F1 that it's okay to do business with them both again.

The FIA replied that it was studying the decision (which went on, and on) and that it reserved the right to appeal. Meantime, it said, the bans remain in effect.

So you have a bit of a stalemate.

If the FIA appeals the ruling, the story – of how Briatore, Symonds and driver Nelson Piquet Jr. conspired to rig the results of the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix by having Piquet deliberately crash his car – will continue to make headlines.

And Briatore will keep fanning the flames by threatening to financially ruin all sorts of people, starting with Piquet and his father who he says he will sue.

Now, it’s 2010 and nobody needs this nonsense any more. Michael Schumacher is on the comeback trail and four new teams are entered in Formula One. It’s time to move on.

But how to do it?

The FIA is lucky because it has a new leader, Jean Todt, who’s an old friend and colleague of Briatore’s. (If Max Mosley was still around, this could have gone on forever.) If Todt’s smart, he’ll call up Briatore and suggest a truce.

Sure, get the lawyers together and make it all legal. But find a way for Briatore to save some face and, most important, allow the FIA to get on with the business of running motorsport without any more of these distractions.

It's imperative that Todt's new regime start with a clean slate. Otherwise, as Yogi Berra allegedly said, it'll be deja vu all over again.

Canadian Coniam to be Regan Smith's NASCAR crew chief

Ryan Coniam, son of Canadian Motorsport Hall of Fame inductee Warren Coniam, has signed on as crew chief for driver Regan Smith with the Furniture Row Racing team in the NASCAR Sprint Cup series.

The 30-year-old Coniam, originally from Burlington, is a former New York state modified racer who went on to win rookie-of-the-year in the All Star Circuit of Champions sprint car series. After running with the World of Outlaws for a season, Coniam turned his attention to NASCAR where – in the beginning – he joined Bill Davis Racing to be Jacques Villeneuve’s race engineer. When Villeneuve’s Sprint Cup career turned sour, Coniam took his talents to Michael Waltrip’s organization.

During his stint with Waltrip, Coniam – who graduated in 2000 with a mechanical engineering degree from Barrie’s Georgian College – was the race engineer for Michael McDowell’s entry in 2008 and this past year he was race engineer for driver Max Papis.

Ryan Coniam and Regan Smith share a geographic link. Warren Coniam was a champion supermodified racer at Oswego Speedway in northern New York and Ryan literally spent his summers there before starting his racing career at Oswego in a limited supermodified. Smith is from Cato, N.Y., which is a village not far from Oswego, and also attended races at the speedway.

“I am both excited and humbled to have been offered a position that I have dreamed about,” said Ryan Coniam, in a release.

The 2010 Sprint Cup season kicks off Feb. 14 with the running of the Daytona 500.

At 76, Mel Kenyon calls it a career

The first time I heard the name Mel Kenyon was in 1965 when I was watching a USAC Champ Car race from Langhorne, Pa.

(Yes, there was racing on the tube in the "olden days." And a lot more than I think we realized at the time.) 

In any event, a car had crashed and was on fire. Several other drivers, who either had been involved in the accident or had just stopped to help (including several spectators who’d jumped a fence in the infield), went over to the wrecked race car to help the driver, who was unconscious. I can vividly remember the following scene.

One driver (since identified as Joe Leonard) went to stick his hand into the cockpit. He yanked it back suddenly as he felt the flame. Then he stuck his hand down in again. I thought he had to have been the bravest man alive. (Braver than Dick Tracy, as they used to say.) Then, some other people arrived with fire extinguishers and they put out the fire and pulled out the driver, who the announcer (I think it was Chris Economaki) identified as Mel Kenyon.

I read somewhere months later (auto racing news was hard to find in those days) that Kenyon had returned to racing but had lost most of his left hand in that accident. He was able to drive because of a "socket" glove created by his brother, Don, that he could jam onto a ball that was attached to the steering wheel.

I adored all the midget and sprint car drivers of that generation who managed to stay alive, and mostly whole, to make it to the mecca of motorsport, the Indianapolis 500. So I followed Kenyon’s career in the big race, which started for him in 1966 and went through 1974. He didn’t win, but he was frequently well-placed.

He had another close call in 1971. He lost control early in the 500 that year and hit the wall, coming to rest high in turn three. Thinking he was safe, he’d unbuckled his harness and was starting to exit the car when Gordon Johncock and Mario Andretti collided and Johncock’s car sailed right over Kenyon’s, leaving a mark on his helmet as he’d ducked back down into the cockpit.

It was Kenyon’s brush with death at Langhorne that got him thinking about his spirituality; his second brush in 1971 at Indy convinced him that God was indeed riding with him and Kenyon has been a devout Christian ever since.

Other than at Indy (and that includes Night Before the 500 midget races at Indianapolis Raceway Park that he drove in), I had the pleasure of watching Kenyon race midgets (and he was The Master of that class) at Flamoboro Speedway, near Hamilton, in 1971 (Bob Tattersall won the feature, just edging out Jimmy Carruthers with Kenyon third) and indoors at the Skydome in 1993 (Kenny Irwin was the winner; Kenyon wasn’t really in it).

I had a nice chat with him that time in ‘93. His wife, Marianne, had been grievously injured in a bicycle accident. I'd sent him a donation to help with medical expenses and he’d replied with a signed copy of Open Wheel magazine that contained a feature on him. That night at the Skydome, I asked him for an address for hard-luck Indy driver Jigger Sirois and he asked for my business card, saying he’d send it to me – which he did.

You know, there are so many race drivers who won’t give you the time of day. The class acts are the guys who look after the little things, like sending an address for another driver to a reporter.

The reason I’m rambling on like this today is because Mel Kenyon, 76, after driving racing cars for more than 50 years, officially retired at the Fort Wayne indoor races a week ago, on the Sunday of Christmas weekend.

He’d finished sixth in the Boxing Day feature but had missed qualifying on the Sunday. He was added to the field as a promoter’s option and eventually finished ninth.

"It’s over," Kenyon told a stringer for the newspaper, National Speed Sport News. "I’m glad we got in the feature. I’d have rather have gotten in lawfully but we were in it – and the car’s still in one piece.

"Any time you do something last, it’s one more miracle," he said. "It’s emotional."

Although he raced in other series, Kenyon’s reputation was cemented in the U.S. Auto Club midget series, which was – and probably remains – the benchmark for that class of racing.

He won seven USAC championships and was runner-up eight more times. In all, he won 111 USAC midget features, had 131 second-place finishes and was third 107 times.

In Fort Wayne, Kenyon simply said it was time for him to leave.

He goes out a satisfied man. He said this to racing journalist Robin Miller:

"I went to my 50^th high school reunion and they asked how many of us were happy with our jobs. Out of 550, only six of us raised our hands."

POSTSCRIPT

-- It turns out that NASCAR'S Tony Stewart went racing sprint cars in Australia instead of midgets indoors at Fort Wayne. A racer's racer, Stewart likes to be anywhere wheels are turning and he's usually at the Fort Wayne indoor races, where Kenyon bid us all farewell. Stewart gets around but even he can't be two places at once.