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Index by last name:
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Index by year:
[1993] [1994] [1995] [1996] [1997] [1998] [1999] [2000] [2001] [2002] [2003] [2004] [2005] [2006] [2007]
Alan Labrosse (2007)
Alan Labrosse burst upon the Canadian motorcycle racing in 1980. Riding as an amateur, he won five Canadian championships that year. In 1981, racing as an expert, he won four national pro titles. Over the next four years, Alan won races in Canada and impressed in the AMA's Pro Formula 2 Series. In 1985, he was Rookie of the Year in the AMA's Formula 1 series, the top class in North America, capping the season with an impressive race win at Brainerd. In six years of motorcycle racing, some of Alan's biggest battles had been with the economics of the sport. Seeing better prospects on four wheels, he jumped to the Canadian F2000 series for 1986. His debut was remarkable. Alan finished second in the overall standings and beat Paul Tracy for Rookie of the Year. He also won the F2000 title at the CASC Runoffs. At the end of the season, Alan's team owner, Raymond David, offered him a chance to move to the business side of the sport. He accepted. Since then, Alan Labrosse has been an instructor, a racing circuit and racing school manager, the head of two national sanctioning bodies, a motorcycle magazine publisher, a race promoter, a team owner, track owner and the agent for Miguel DuHamel, Pascal Picotte, Patrick Carpentier, Alex Tagliani, and Andrew Ranger, some of Canada's finest motorcycle and automobile racers. He has been a success in all of those roles.
As a racer and builder of the sport, Alan Labrosse has made, and continues to make, a remarkable contribution to Canadian motorsport on two wheels and four.
More about this member :: Back to top Ed Leavens (1997)
Ed Leavens of London, Ont., an extremely successful sports car racer from 1955 to 1962, also competed with Stirling Moss, Bruce McLaren and other notables of the day at Sebring for the BMC factory team in 1959, '60 and '61. In 1959, he helped set two land speed records for Austin Healey at Bonneville. He was factory driver for both BMC Canada and for Gorries Chevrolet (Corvettes), driving the latter to victory in the first race ever at Green Acres in 1957.
More about this member :: Back to top Norm Lelliott (1995)
Stormin Norm Lelliot's racing career spanned 23 years and included everything from go-karts and formula fords to super modifieds and even top fuel dragsters. But Lelliott really made his name in stock cars, starting in 1954 at the CNE and later at Pinecrest Speedway. In 1971 he joined the Performance Engineering team and won the Export "A" Championship in 1974. He died in 1991 in a tragic snowmobile accident.
More about this member :: Back to top George LeMay (2004)
George LeMay was one of the real pioneers of auto racing in Western Canada. He was born in Kindersley, Sask., but later settledin Calgary. When he was discharged from the Navy after World War II, he opened a gas station and auto repair business. Bow Valley Service became the sponsor of his first race car, a stripped down Model T. which he raced in the Lion's Club races at Calgary and Edmonton and at smaller Alberta fairgrounds in 1947, '48 and '49. In 1949, the International Motor Contest Association (IMCA) sprint cars toured Western Canada featuring most of the top American dirt track cars and drivers. Some of the local Model T drivers who attended the races as spectators - LeMay among them - got together to form the Alberta Auto Racing Association to promote sprint car racing in Alberta. The inaugural season in 1950 included fairgrounds races in Edmonton, Lacombe, Red Deer, Three Hills, Brooks, Calgary, High River, Nanton, and Lethbridge. When the dust settled at the end of the season, George LeMay was Alberta's first sprint car champion. He went south to race full-time on the IMCA circuit for several years and in 1953, replaced the Mercury V-8 in his sprint car with a 440 c.i. Ranger aircraft engine. The car was known as the LeMay Ranger. Years later, he restored this car and raced it several times at the annual IMCA Old Timers Reunion race in Arlington, Minnesota. From 1954 until he retired from race driving after the '59 season, George raced modified stock cars, primarily at Springbank Speedway in Calgary and Edmonton's Speedway Park. In 1995, he was inducted into the IMCA Hall of Fame. It was well known that George LeMay, being Canadian, put the "international" in the International Motor Contest Association. He passed away in 1996.
More about this member :: Back to top Harvey Lennox (1995)
Harvey Lennox amassed an almost unbelievable winning record of 182 feature victories at stock car tracks in Ontario and Michigan in the fifties and sixties. From London, Ont., Harvey was a huge crowd favourite at CNE Stadium, driving his legendary Tammy10 modified. He won five international stock car championships and three Canadian titles, and won track championships at the CNE, Bridgeport, Nilestown and Delaware Speedway. In 1961, he won a 5-mile feature at Harewood Acres, the first time super modifieds had ever competed on a road course in Canada.
More about this member :: Back to top Lorne Liebel (2006)
Competitor Boat Racing
Lorne Liebel, born in Toronto in 1951, was fascinated with boats from an
early age. In 1976, he represented Canada in the Olympics, sailing in the
Tempest class with his cousin. After the Games, Lorne focused his attention
on developing his career as a homebuilder. Six years later, during a visit
to a friend's cottage, he was offered a ride in a high speed offshore
powerboat. In Lorne's words, "To say I was hooked would be an
understatement!" He first purchased a 30-foot performance boat, then a
faster 38-foot "Cigarette." After that, it was off to Miami, the hotbed of
performance boating and offshore racing. He eventually purchased a 41-foot,
three-man, offshore racing machine from Japan and set about building a team.
In 1986, he won the American Power Boat Association's rookie-of-the-year
award and was named Canadian Yachtsman of the Year (Powerboat) that same
year. In 1993, he won the U.S. National Championship and in 2001 earned the
title of Superboat World Champion. Offshore powerboat racing is a very
demanding sport. The combination of high speed and large waves result in
very harsh conditions for the participants. Lorne's career has been free of
major crashes and injury but the constant pounding took its toll on his back
and legs. Lorne began to consider retirement but one goal remained and that
was to be the first to move the A.P.B.A. speed record over 200 miles an hour
and leave the sport with a milestone that would be a legacy of his career.
In 2003, Lorne won his second Word Superboat Championship, set an official
A.P.B.A. World Speed Record of 177 mph and ripped off a single run of 201
mph. In retirement, Lorne is involved in vintage car racing and collecting.
More about this member :: Back to top Graham Light (1996)
Graham Light successfully raced both top fuel and funny cars in his 15-year driving career, which ended in 1978. In 1977, he reached the final round of the 1977 NHRA world finals in the bubble-up top fuel dragster. During and after his driving career, he also managed Edmonton International Speedway until it closed, then accepted a full-time position with the National Hot Rod Association (NHRA) and became vice-president of racing operations.
More about this member :: Back to top Guy Lombardo (2001)
For most people, Guy Lombardo is remembered as the legendary Canadian musician and bandleader of the red-jacketed Royal Canadians best-known for "The Sweetest Music This Side of Heaven". What isn't as well known to many is that he was also a highly successful hydroplane racer. Born in London, Ontario, Guy originally caught the boat racing bug as a young boy by running his fathers flat bottom row boat up and down the Thames River in London. "Papa" had evidently purchased the first outboard motor in London and attached it to the rowboat. Even though the top speed of this motor was only about six miles an hour, the sense of speed and control of this power was enough to set the stage for Guy's future racing exploits. But, it was many years before Guy officially entered the world of boat racing. style="mso-spacerun: yes"> Despite missing the start of his first race because he couldn't hear the starters pistol, Lombardo quickly demonstrated that he was a fast learner and very talented. style="mso-spacerun: yes"> In 1942, in the 225 Cubic Inch class, Guy won 20 of the 21 races he entered. He did not race again until after World War II. When Guy resumed racing, he stepped up to the elite Unlimited Hydroplane racing class following the purchase of MY SIN, the 1939 and 1941 American Power Boat Association Gold Cup Unlimited Class Winner piloted by Zalmon Simmons. style="mso-spacerun: yes"> In 1948, Guy renamed the craft TEMPO VI.Between 1946 and 1953, Guy is credited with fifteen Unlimited or Gold Cup victories. His two major victories were the 1946 Gold Cup and the 1948 Ford Memorial Contests, both run in Detroit with TEMPO VI.Other wins include the 1946, 1950, and 1951 National Sweepstakes Trophy Races in Red Bank, New Jersey; the 1949 and 1950 Star Spangled Banner Regattas in Baltimore, Maryland; and the 1950 and 1951 Buffalo Launch Club Regattas. At Miami Beach in March 1946, Lombardo broke the record for super-charged Gold Cup class boats with a one-mile straightway average of 113.031 mph, eclipsing the former mark of 100.987 set in 1940. In doing so, he became the second Gold Cupper in history to clear the then elusive 100 mph. Guy continued racing TEMPO VI until 1953 and appeared occasionally in the cockpits of other well-known boats.Skipping the 1954 campaign, Guy reappeared in 1955 with a new TEMPO VII - which the press labelled "The Sweetest Boat This Side of Heaven".
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