'Crazy Leo' tackles the Tall Pines
Photo by Mèlina Lamoureux (www.melinalamoureux.com)
'CRAZY LEO' URLICHICH LETS IT ALL HANG OUT DURING A RALLY EARLIER THIS SEASON
Urlichich, who’s sitting third in this year’s Canadian Rally Championship and hopes to make a run for second at the final rally in the national championship this weekend, insists his nickname has nothing to do with marketing.
“Everybody thinks I named myself that for publicity,” he told me during a telephone conversation we had this week, “but that’s not what happened. When I first started rallying, one of my teammates asked me why I didn’t take better care of my car. They said, ‘Your car’s all scratched up, aren’t you going to paint it?’ and I said,'Not until I roll it,' and they thought I wasn’t serious.
"But then I did and they said, 'That's it, you’re crazy,’ and that’s been my name ever since.”
One of the largest fields in Tall Pines history will start the rally Saturday morning - 60 cars and driver/co-driver combinations are entered - and although L'Estage and his co-driver, Nathalie Richard, have wrapped up the 2011 title, that doesn't mean there won't be plenty of action.
The Tall Pines covers more than 500 kilometres of twisty roads (including 200 km of stages) around Bancroft, a town about mid-way between Peterborough and Pembroke.
The big matchup of the weekend is expected to be between national champion L'Estage, who was runner-up this year in the Rally America championship, and British rally driver David Higgins, who won the Rally America tiitle.
And the Tall Pines is no picnic. Those roads around Bancroft at this time of year can be muddy, icy and sometimes snow-covered.
Urlichich, who came to Canadian from Russia nine years ago to attend Trent University in Peterborough, thinks he might have an edge in the Tall Pines.
"The Tall Pines is based out of Peterborough," he said. "When I left Russia, I had the choice of three countries - the U.S., the U.K. and Canada. I chose Canada and I came to Peterborough, which is the home of the biggest rally in the country.
"So I know these roads. I have a better knowledge of these roads than any other. I don't want to sound too optimistic but if I stand a chance at any rally, this is the one."
Urlichich nearly wasn't around to follow his dream of rally driving. A big crash on the street three years ago last summer left him seriously injured with six broken bones, including his spine.
"It took me a year to recover," he said. "Thank God that nobody else but me got hurt and I learned my lesson and that's the last time I drove fast outside of motorsport. I have a metal plate in my arm, all sorts of things, as a result of that.
"I like to think that it made me better because the one thing it really made me do is exercise regularly. If I didn’t go to all that physio, all that recovery, I wouldn’t have been able to race."
Besides his success in rallying, Urlichich has also taken a crack at auto racing. His rally team, Can-Jam Motorsports, treated him to an outing during a round of the Castrol Canadian Touring Car Championship at Mosport on the American Le Mans Series weekend in July.
"The road race was a bonus from the team because I didn't crash a rally car this year," he laughed. "The deal was that if I kept the rally car in one piece, and they didn’t have to spend money fixing it, I would get a road race as a bonus. So we went to Mosport.
"I qualified second to last, but finished the first race in eighth place and the second race in seventh. I was off the track, but for me I considered that normal. But the marshals weren’t impressed. One marshal said he counted that I went off 11 times and maybe I went off once but not 11 times. Anyway, I was in a Subaru, so I knew how to handle it in the run-off areas."
Urlichich said he has plans to go rally racing in the United States next year and would like to take a crack at the X Games.
"Next year, we almost certainly have secured the funding to do U.S. events that would allow us to go for the North American rally cup," he said. "I'm really excited about that. Obviously, the X Games would be a dream come true sort of thing, too." (With a monicker like "Crazy Leo," I don't know how he could miss.) Urlichich, who works for a Toronto media company and is busy these days promoting it on social media, says his ultimate ambition is to rally race on the world stage - the World Rally Championship. "Every day I eat, sleep and dream to become a good competitor in WRC. That’s the goal. Between myself, the team and my family, we’re pushing so hard to make it happen. Maybe nothing will come of it, maybe I’m just not fast enough or I don't have enough talent, but we’re doing everything we can to make it there. I’ll do whatever it takes to get there." "Crazy Leo" says he's still single but he wonders how long he's going to be able to hold out. "My mother starts into me, you know, saying that maybe I should find a permanent girl, but not yet. She's not pushing for grandkids yet, but I’m starting to feel the vibes."
Comments