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Index by last name:
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[1993] [1994] [1995] [1996] [1997] [1998] [1999] [2000] [2001] [2002] [2003] [2004] 2005 [2006] [2007]
Frank Allers (2005)
Frank Allers of Coquitlam, B.C., is one of Canada's finest and most versatile road racing drivers. He started his racing career at the Jim Russell Race Drivers School Formula Ford series at the Sentterton Race Circuit in England in 1971 and went on to score many victories and championships. He was national champion of the Honda-BF Goodrich/Michelin Challenge Series in 1978 and '79 and was western champion of the Player's GM Motorsports Series every year but one between 1987 and 1992. Driving in the Formula Atlantic series from 1987 until 1998, he was Canadian Player's Ltd. Formula Atlantic champion in 1990. He finished second in the series in 1989 and 1991. In all, he made more than 90 professional Formula Atlantic starts. He ran in the Speedvision World Challenge series for two seasons - 2000 and '01 - at the wheel of a Corvette C5. Being a consistent front-runner, he was included in GM Racing's prestigious A list. Although he hasn't raced competitively since August 2001, he still does occasional driver-training work. Frank lives in B.C. with his wife Kate and they have a daughter, Lisa. Frank owns and operates Frank Allers Autosport, a successful Porsche service and tuning business in North Vancouver..
More about this member :: Back to top John De Gruchy (2005)
John De Gruchy began his motorcycle racing career in 1957, entering Trials events in Southern Ontario. By the time he stopped, in 1974, he had won more than 100 Canadian Motorcycle Association and American Motorcycle Association events. He was a six-time Canadian national Trials champion - the first coming in 1960 and the last in 1971. He was also proficient at Scrambles and was an Expert Class rider in road racing. His involvement as a racer inevitably led to his long-term commitment to the policy making process within the C.M.A. and he held various executive positions until his retirement at the end of 1975. He was president of the C.M.A. Ontario Region for six years during the 1960s and EARLY '70s and vice-president twice. Mr. De Gruchy co-authored the C.M.A. Training Course program in 1966 to introduce new riders to the sport. He was a member of the C.M.A.'s national executive for seven years and was national president in 1967, Canada's Centennial year. His involvement as president resulted in Canada being awarded an FIA-sanctioned World Championship Motorcycle Grand Prix, which was held at Mosport in the summer of 1967, and won by Mike Hailwood. It was Canada's first, and only, motorcycle Grand Prix. Three times, in 1969, 1970 and 1972, he was awarded the Ontario Achievement Award for his contributions to amateur sport.
More about this member :: Back to top Peter (Pete) Henderson (2005)
At the turn of the last century, auto racing was in its infancy and was a most dangerous pursuit. Many drivers were killed. One who lived to die quietly many years later was George G. Henderson of Fernie, B.C. Known as Pete, he was - as far as we know - the first Canadian to race as a driver in the famed Indianapolis 500, was the first Canadian to be employed as a works driver for a major automobile manufacturer (Duesenberg), was the first Canadian to compete regularly on the AAA championship circuit, which evolved into USAC and then CART/IRL, and he was, we believe, the first Canadian to win what today would be called an Indy car race - an AAA national championship race on the two-mile board track at Maywood Speedway in Chicago in October, 1917. Born in 1895 in Ontario, Pete went to British Columbia as an infant when his father moved the family to Fernie and started the Fernie Free Press, which is still in business today. In his teens, Pete went to study automotive engineering at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa. He started his racing career as a riding mechanic in 1915. He drove in his first 500 in 1916 for Eddie Rickenbacker's team (he was credited with sixth) and his last in 1920, when he finished tenth. It was his last race. He retired and settled in Los Angeles where he died in 1940 while employed as a civilian aircraft inspector for the U.S. Army Air Corps.
More about this member :: Back to top Brian Robertson (2005)
Brian Robertson first went road racing in 1964 after attending the CASC drivers school at Harewood Acres. In 1967, he won both the Ontario Region and Canadian Formula Vee championships. He went Formula B racing in 1968 and had success both at home and in SCCA events in the United States. In 1972, despite tough competition from Craig Hill, Ric Forest and John Powell, he won the Player'S Challenge Series and the Canadian Driving Championship. Following a serious accident in the Grand Prix of Singapore in 1973, he developed vertigo and was forced to retire at the age of 33. In 1969, he and American importer Fred Opert became partners in Fred Opert Canada. From '69 to 1977, the company imported, serviced and supported FB Brabhams and Chevrons. That year, 1977, saw Brian start his own company. For the next 20 years, he was the North American importer for Ralt, which dominated North American Atlantic and Super Vee racing, and he also was one of the continent's biggest suppliers of racing motors. Among his team drivers were Michael Andretti, who won the Atlantic title in 1983, and David Empringham (1994). As a driver, importer and team owner, Canada's Brian Robertson was one of the most important figures in North American open wheel racing.
More about this member :: Back to top Jack Smith (2005)
Jack Smith, who flew combat missions in not one but two World Wars, built his first race car in 1911 in his hometown of Calgary after watching the legendary Barney Oldfield in action. He was 15. After World War I, he built and drove his own sprint cars to two successive Alberta championships. He then moved to British Columbia, where he proceeded to win the Victoria, Northwest, B.C. and Vancouver championships. His many talents enabled him to manufacture not only his own chassis but his own engines and the parts for them. In 1927, he decided to branch out and try boat racing but returned to cars after winning 14 of the 15 races he entered. He's particularly remembered for two things from the early 1930s: he was instrumental in forming, and was the first president of, the B.C. Automotive Sports Association, the parent club from which all B.C. motorsport clubs today have sprung, and he was part of a group that built the Langford Speedway in 1936. His last race as a driver was at Victoria's Colwood Horse Race Track in 1934. He won. He then ran cars as an owner till World War II broke out. Influenced by the European Auto Union cars, he built a pair of rear-engine sprint cars after the war and campaigned them successfully at Langford in the late '40s. Mr. Smith passed away in July, 1974.
More about this member :: Back to top Jim Thompson (2005)
Jim Thompson, a graduate Naval Officer of Royal Roads who studied engineering at U of T and business at Western, had an avid interest in unlimited hydroplane racing. As co-founder and president of the Supertest Petroleum Co., he combined the two and established probably the most dynamic marketing and promotional program of the late Fifties and early Sixties: Miss Supertest. When fellow CMHF inductee Harold Wilson retired, Thompson bought Wilson's Miss Canada IV and renamed her Miss Supertest I. Thus began the journey that would ultimately establish a world's speed record and capture the Harmsworth Trophy - emblematic of world supremacy in powerboat racing - three years in succession. Initially, in the Supertest program, all the development driving and testing was done by Mr. Thompson. The result was Miss Supertest II, a Rolls Royce Griffon powered hydroplane and holder of the Canadian and British Empire speed record for propeller-driven craft. Driven by Art Asbury, Miss Supertest II shattered the existing world record with a speed of 184.54 in 1957. Supertest III soon followed and, driven by Bob Hayward, won the Harmsworth in 1959, '60 and '61. Miss Supertest III was never beaten in a race. She was retired following a tragic accident later in 1961 that took the life of Hayward, the driver who thought of her as human.
More about this member :: Back to top Harold Wilson (2005)
Harold Wilson, the first Canadian to win a world championship in any form of motorsport, won his first speedboat race when he was 15 in the 1926 Muskoka Lakes Regatta. In 1934, Wilson won his first world championship event. Driving the Muskoka-built Little Miss Canada III with his future wife, Lorna Reid, beside him as riding mechanic, he won the 225 c.i. Class race at the Canadian National Exhibition. He successfully defended his title in 1935. In 1939, the International Motor Yachting Union organized a world championship race in Washington, D.C., for the 7 Litre Class. Wilson defeated the U.S. entry, Notre Dame, to win the President's Cup and become World Champion. After the war, the American Power Boat Association declared the Gold Cup Class for unlimited hydroplanes as its top class. Wilson installed a Rolls-Royce Merlin engine in Miss Canada III. In 1946, he set a class speed record of 119.009 mph at Picton, Ont., and won the Silver Cup at Detroit. In 1947, Wilson set a North American speed record of 138.865 mph with his powerful Miss Canada IV. He retired from boat racing in 1950 and went rally driving - he finished second the first two years of the Canadian Winter Rally, and second-in-class in the Shell 4000 cross-Canada rally. He was president of the CASC from 1957-'59, and served on Mosport's founding Board of Directors.
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