Norris McDonald's Auto Racing Blog

Grist named 2012 Team Canada Scholarship winner

Reprinted from eFormulaCarNews.com

Rising young Ontario driver Garett Grist of Whitby is the 2012 winner of the 2012 Team Canada Racing Scholarship. The up-and-comer will represent Canada at the 41st running of the world-famous Formula Ford Festival in England in October.

Grist, who's competing this year in the very competitive U.S.  F1600 Formula F Championship Series, is the second winner of the scholarship. Quebec racer Xavier Coupal was the first last year and almost stood the Festival on its ear by finishing second in his heat, winning his semi-final race and starting the championship race from pole before being hit from behind and crashing out of the event.

Grist, a former karting standout, has consistently challenged for top honors in the Formula F championship, displaying not only great speed and race craft behind the wheel but also the skill and professionalism of a future champion outside the cockpit.

Building on a strong debut car racing season in the Ontario F1600 Championship in 2011 - which featured two wins en route to second in the point standings - Grist is currently fourth in the F1600 Formula F Championship Series title chase, with three podium visits as a rookie driving for series newcomers Bryan Herta Autosport.

Grist, a member of the Sofina Foods Drivers' Development program, is now poised to face his biggest racing challenge to date. He'll travel to the famous Brands Hatch Circuit in England to go head-to-head against the best F1600 racers in the world in the Oct. 27-28 festival.

"I am really excited to be selected for the 2012 Team Canada Scholarship," Grist said. "It is a great opportunity to represent Canada at one of the biggest Formula Ford races in the world. For anyone racing F1600, this is the event that you want be in at some point in your career.

"Xavier [Coupal] set the bar pretty high last year, so I know I have my work cut out for me. The chance to run with Cliff Dempsey Racing will be a great experience for me as a driver. I really want to thank everyone on the selection committee for believing in me. I also want to recognize the incredible group of drivers that were on the list. I have raced against most of them, and it really makes this award very special."

Grist was chosen as the 2012 Team Canada Scholarship winner following an extensive evaluation process by the 2012 selection committee of Brian Graham (Team Canada/BGR Team Grote), Ian Willis (AIM Autosport), Kyle Marcelli (Merchant Services Racing), Allan Craighead (eFormulaCarNews.com), and Norris McDonald (Toronto Star).

In what was painstaking affair, the initial list of 10 gifted drivers nominated was narrowed down to five, with Grist emerging as the scholarship winner, marginally ahead of Formula Tour 1600 Series racer Nathan Blok, USF2000 Championship driver Scott Hargrove, Ontario F1600 Championship driver Michael Adams, and USF2000 Championship racer Matthew Di Leo.

"This was a very very difficult decision," saud Graham, one of the three founders of the Team Canada Scholarship program.

"The final group of five drivers were so impressive. We went back and forth trying to pick this year's winner. If we had the funding, we'd send all five, as they are all deserving winners. That being said, we are very excited that we will have Garett piloting the Team Canada entry at this year's Formula Ford Festival and are confident we will be challenging for top honors come Sunday's Final at Brands Hatch."

The Team Canada Scholarship program would not be possible without the  assistance of its corporate sponsors, partners and supporters: Brad Morris & Grote Industries of Canada ( http://www.grote.com ), Nick Majors and the Race Driver’s Guild of Canada ( http://www.racedriversguild.ca ), Gen. Lewis Mackenzie (Ret.), Formula Tour 1600 Series (http://www.siteformulatour1600.com ),LSI Industries ( http://www.lsi-industries.com ), Rod Ends Mechanical ( http://www.rod-ends.com ), Jim Hallman, EFCN ( http://www.eformulacarnews.com ), BGR-Team Grote Racing ( http://www.briangrahamracing.com ), Bamford Produce ( http://www.bamfordproduce.com ), Bollenbach Insurance ( http://www.bollenbachinsurance.com ), Harvan Engineering Ltd. ( http://www.harvan.com ), and Door Doctor ( http://doordoctor.com ).

For more information on the Team Canada Scholarship, see http://www.teamcanadaracing.org 

You can follow the team on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/groups/216921815005015

Dave Zink loved golf, the military and Denis Hulme

Bayview Golf and Country Club assistant pro Dave Zink (left) and teaching pro George Clifton are seen in this 1960s-era picture. Photo is courtesy of Richard Janes.

 

Friends and family will gather at the Royal Canadian Legion branch in Port Perry in two weeks to celebrate the life of David Robert Zink, who died Aug. 7 at age 69.

 

If you want an example of someone with wide-ranging talents and interests, Dave Zink would be your man.

 

He was a professional golfer – a talent inherited, no doubt, from his mother , who was a provincial golf champion – and served as head pro at the Bowmanville Golf and Country Club as well as assistant pro at Bayview in Toronto.

 

In 1970, he was named director of the Peter Jackson Canada Golf Tour and later became executive-director of the Canadian Professional Golfers’ Association. He left the CPGA to start a long-distance trucking company.

 

Work aside, he had a passionate hobby. His interest in the military as a collector of items such as books on military history and artifacts such as cap badges, campaign medals and model soldiers led to him opening his store, Grenadier Militaria, about 20 years ago in Port Perry.

 

And what does this have to do with auto racing, you might ask? Because, back in the 1960s when he was in Bowmanville, he met Can Am and F1 star Denis Hulme and they became friends.

 

After that, whenever Hulme came to Canada to race, particularly at Mosport, Zink worked on his pit crew. He was also a friend of David Hobbs, who raced in the first F1 Grand Prix of Canada at Mosport in 1967.

 

But back to his contributions to Canadian military history.

 

The first store he opened in Port Perry was on the south side of Queen Street. But when the Memorial Library became available, he moved his business there and turned the site into a museum as well as a bookstore.

 

Enter noted Canadian author Ted Barris, who once wrote a profile about Zink, starting with a vignette about a local high school teacher, Dave Robinson, approaching Zink to help find military props for a little theatre production.

 

"It was the beginning of a productive relationship between Robinson and Zink. In the years that followed that first favour, Port Perry High School students began making nearly annual trips to Europe so that students could visit and learn about historic Canadian battles of the First and Second World Wars. . .

 

"In 2003, Port Perry students travelled to Normandy for the 60^th anniversary of D-Day. In 2007, they attended the 90^th anniversary of the Battle of Vimy Ridge. The next year (they attended) the liberation anniversary in Ortona, Italy. Almost invisibly, Dave Zink facilitated all those historical tours.

 

" ‘ Dave helped us . . . with fundraising and by donating things from his collections.’ said Robinson. ‘ He put us in contact with Canadian authors like Mark Ziehike and Norm Christie. Dave’s passion for his country is so genuine and so subtle.’ "

 

Writing about the launching of one of his own military books, Barris reminisced this way:

 

"He staged an autographing and book launch in the store. . . During that period, we staged a meet-the-veterans event, when high school students met Charley Fox, a decorated Spitfire pilot, and George MacDonnell, a survivor of the siege at Hong Kong.

 

"Almost stealing the show, however, was the inclusion of an actual Victoria Cross medal, which Dave arranged to borrow (under police escort) from the Royal Canadian Military Institute in Toronto – just for the evening."

 

The celebration of Dave Zink’s life will be held from noon until 3:30 p.m. on Sat., Sept. 15, at Legion Branch 419 at 484 Bay St. in Port Perry.

 

He leaves his wife of 37 years, Janice (Fernley), and a son, Steven.