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Index by last name:
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Walter Boyce (2003)
Walter Boyce is a Canadian rallysport hero. He is the only Canadian rally driver ever to win an FIA World Championship Rally. Teamed with co-driver Doug Woods, he decisively won the 1973 Press-On-Regardless Rally. He is one of the few Canadians to have been seeded by the FIA and the only North American ever ranked in the top seed. Additionally, Boyce scored countless Canadian and SCCA sanctioned event victories during his career, including the Canadian Winter Rally and the Rally of the Rideau Lakes. His record of five consecutive Canadian National Championship titles has never been equaled. Entering his first rally in 1967 with his brother Harry navigating in his mother's Mercury Comet, Walter took just two years to hit his stride on the national stage. Between September 1969 and March of 1971, he entered 21 Canadian National Championship rallies (including 4 FIA listed international events) and recorded 10 wins, 5 places and 6 DNF's. 1969 also included a third overall in the famous Press-On-Regardless, his favourite event. He even competed in and won the Cannonball Run - One Lap of America in 1985. Not content to just compete in rallies, Walter Boyce has written about the sport in a number of Canadian publications, assisted in event presentation and was the President of Outaouais Valley Autosport Club.
More about this member :: Back to top British Empire Motor Club (2003)
Had it not been for the British Empire Motor Club and its members, who organized major motorsports events and also helped to develop racing circuits such as Edenvale, Harewood Acres and Mosport Park, it is very likely that motorsport in Canada would not be as successful as it is today. Formed originally in 1928 as a motorcycle racing club (its first event was a scramble), it has gone on to organize more motorsports events - including car and motorcycle races, hill climbs, ice races, scrambles, trials and rallies - than any other club in Canada. The club promoted its first motorcycle road race in 1931 on a 1.5-mile closed circuit at the Bridle Path and Post Road in what is now midtown Toronto. By the mid-30s, it was organizing motorcycle races on the sand at Wasaga Beach - and the crowds were huge. In 1939, the club decided to accept car enthusiasts as full members but auto racing was not promoted until 1950 when a motorcycle-car program was held at an old airport at Edenvale, near Stayner. Sixteen cars entered that first event. Six years later, when the club moved its activities to Harewood Acres near Port Dover, 122 cars were entered for the first auto race there. In 1958, the members - in a huge gamble - took an option on a piece of property north of Bowmanville and the first competitive event, on May 24, 1959, at what became Mosport Park was - what else? - a motorcycle scramble . The club, with partners, operated Mosport until 1966 when it was sold to private interests. Literally thousands of people have enjoyed membership in the British Empire Motor Club. Still organizing races after all these years, the club celebrated its 75th anniversary in 2003.
More about this member :: Back to top Jack Canfield (2003)
Known throughout the Maritimes as Atlantic Canada's motorsports icon, Jack Canfield was a motorcycle and car racer, the driving force behind the construction and development of Atlantic Motorsport Park, an international ambassador for Canadian motorsport and a mentor to literally hundreds of competitors. He started racing motorcycles when he was only 14 years old and collected trophies for victories in scrambles, hill climbs, trials and dirt-track races. That was in the 1940s. In the 1950s, as well as continuing to pile up the wins in Nova Scotia, he was off to compete in road races in New Brunswick and Ontario. In the 1960s, he raced - and won - at Mosport Park, Daytona International Raceway and Briar Motorsport Park in New Hampshire. One victory of note, in the Canadian Motorcycle Grand Prix at Mosport, came on a home-modified Suzuki 250 over Suzuki's own factory team. Suzuki was so impressed, they offered him a sponsorship. That same year, he was a founding member of the Atlantic Motorcycle Competition Riders' Association. In 1973, Canfield spearheaded the building of Atlantic Motorsport Park at Shubenacadie, N.S., just up the road from Halifax. On Aug. 2, 1974, he rode the first lap of the new track and was in charge of continuing development and maintenance at the circuit until his untimely passing in 2003. The opening of AMP got his competitive juices flowing and he decided to try his hand at car racing. He destroyed his first car - a Formula Vee - as well as one of his legs in a practice crash. But his next car, a Datsun 510, saw him win the Maritime Road Racing Championship in that class. But his true love was motorcycles and, putting the cars aside, he raced through the 1990s and into the new millenium in vintage events. He was honoured for his contributions many steps along the way.
More about this member :: Back to top John Cordts (2003)
John Cordts came to Canada from Sweden in the early 1950s, when he was 18, and settled in North Bay, Ont., a place he still considers to be his home town. Thoroughly familiar with machinery from the time he was very young, he started racing, as many Canadians do - on the ice, in winter. From there he moved to a brand-new MGA and soon made his presence known in amateur road racing. He was spotted by Dave Billes of Performance Engineering, who offered him a seat in the company Corvette. He won the Canadian Championship for big bore sports cars in 1965 against some pretty stiff competition. This convinced Billes that Cordts had the Right Stuff (in spades: in 1968, he set a track record of 101.8 mph at Harewood Acres that stood until the track closed in 1970) and the two of them went racing in 1966 in the famous Can-Am series with a McLaren. Now money, although not exactly scarce, was not in plentiful supply and Cordts' skill at keeping ailing Can-Am cars on the track and in the money became legendary. A Road & Track magazine correspondent once wrote: "If I had a Can-Am car, I would want John Cordts to drive it.'' In 1969, Cordts was offered a once-in-a-lifetime ride, a seat in a Brabham-Climax Formula One car for that year's Grand Prix of Canada at Mosport. Only five Canadian drivers made the field for the Canadian GP in the Sixties and John Cordts was one of them - Eppie Weitzes, George Eaton, Al Pease and Bill Brack being the others. After a spin in the original Trans-Am series for BF Goodrich in the early 1970s, John Cordts left motorsport and retired to Vancouver Island.
More about this member :: Back to top Herold Greening (2003)
Herold Benjamin Greening (or Harry, as he was known to most everyone) was a prominent Hamilton industrialist who was president of the B. Greening Wire Co. As well, he was co-founder of International Airways, which became part of Canadian Pacific Airlines, and a major player in the founding of the Hamilton Automobile Club. He was commodore of the Royal Hamilton Yacht Club and Chairman of the Racing Commission of the American Power Boat Association, elected later to the honour squadron for his contribution to the sport of power boating. Also known as the father of Canadian powerboat racing, this tremendous sportsman constructed Canada's first power boat in the attic of his Hamilton home. His originality resulted in the development of a hydroplane, which made boating history. As his enthusiasm for the sport grew, his true talent began to shine. He rocked the power boat word in the Roaring Twenties, shattering world records for speed and endurance. His active racing career dated from 1904 to 1929 but his contribution to the sport through various associations and governing bodies continued for many years. His pioneering achievements broke ground for other Canadians and the successes of Hall of Fame member Bob Hayward, for example, can logically be said to have resulted from Greening's trailblazing efforts. Herold Greening carried the Canadian flag to an unprecedented series of wins and world records, gaining international honours, esteem and respect. In typical Canadian fashion, these momentous achievements have brought little appreciation here at home, except in Hamilton.
More about this member :: Back to top Taisto Heinonen (2003)
As his nominations papers state, Taisto Heinonen's record shows that he stands at the top of the class of Canada rallysport drivers. He heads the small group of drivers who have attained Grand Master status (over 2,000 points) with a lifetime total of 5,580 points - some 800 ahead of the rest. Heinonen racked up a total of 40 victories in Canadian national events in his relatively short driving career and captured five national championships between 1977 and 1982, when he retired from competition. During that time, he was primarily responsible for Toyota winning the Marques Championship six times. The car control demonstrated by Taisto Heinonen was awesome. He seemed to do the impossible, especially in snow and ice and he rarely crashed. He always seemed to be able to "dig deeper'` when necessary to overcome the opposition. He was also a constructor, building his own cars, including the factory entries when he ran for Toyota. The cars were professionally constructed and maintained and seldom did he drop out of an event because of mechanical failure. Taisto started rallying in Finland, the country of his birth, in 1964. He immigrated to Canada in 1970 and entered rallying in this country in 1971. One of the reasons he did as well in winter conditions was that he won the B.C. Region Ice Racing Championship three straight years from 1974 through '76. He retired from competition in 1983.
More about this member :: Back to top Bert Straus (2003)
Bert Straus was a drag racer who competed from the mid-1960s to late 1970s. His specialities were stock, gas, altered and pro-stock. He set National Hot Rod Association records in the altered and pro-stock classes and won the D-Gas championship at the U.S. Nationals in Indianapolis in 1971. He built and maintained his own cars and has worked through the years with Hall-of-Famers Dave Billes and Brad Francis on their various automotive and racing projects. He campaigned "Chilly Willy'' throughout North America and it is still one of the most recognized and respected car names in Canadian drag-racing history. Like most champions, he loved to push the boundaries of conventional vehicles. He teamed with Pontiac in 1973 to build and compete in Pro Stock with the Canadian Pontiac Astro, the only one of its kind. The Astro was a 'Canadian only' car. There were also no other Pontiacs in Pro Stock at the time. All this at a time when there was little or no Canadian participation at the professional/U.S. national level. Throughout his career, he consistently won best-engineered/best appearing car/best crew awards. Although no longer a competitor, he has worked and continues to work with Billes and Francis in CART, SCCA, IMSA and NASCAR racing.
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