Month: March 2017

By David G. Firestone

While Canada isn’t exactly well known for auto racing, there are a lot of different kinds of auto racing in Canada. Formula 1, IndyCar, the IHRA, and IMSA all have races in Canada. These series have produced drivers such as Patrick Carpentier, Gilles Villeneuve, Jacques Villeneuve, Jacques-Joseph Villeneuve, Greg Moore, Paul Tracy, Scott Goddyear, Ron Fellows, and

Alex Tagliani.

Stock car racing is popular in Canada, where several series race in the class. Canadian stock car racing series include: The American Canadian Tour, The Lucas Oil Sportsman Cup,The Ontario Stock Car Association of Asphalt Racers (OSCAAR), The Pro All Stars Series, and, The Canadian Association for Stock Car Auto Racing or CASCAR. CASCAR was founded in 1981 by Anthony Novotny, and would go on to create the first Canadian national stock car series, The CASCAR Super Series in 1986.

CASCAR had a decent amount of success, but was suffering financially by 2006, when NASCAR purchased them, and created the NASCAR Canadian Tire Series. In 2016, Pinty’s Delicious Foods Inc. became the primary sponsor of the series, and the series is now known as the NASCAR Pinty’s Series. NASCAR will also send an up and coming driver to the Pitny’s Series to help with their development.

One driver who came into The CASCAR Super Series was Tara MacLeod in 2005. MacLeod had been a driver in the Ontario Late Model scene, and got her chance at the big show with her team MacLeod Racing, who were sponsored by Central Merchant Services. During her rookie season, she raced in 14 events, achieved an 18^th place finish, and won Rookie of the Year, but left the series for some reason. During her rookie year, she wore this Awesome Racewear made driver suit.Made by Awesome Racewear in Port Perry, Ontario, the suit shows decent use, with some stains and marks. I also have a hero card, and a couple of photos of MacLeod wearing the suit. The blue collar is unadorned, and there is a care and size tag in the cowl. Interestingly, there is no warranty label in the suit. The right chest features a MACLEOD RACING patch embroidered into it. Tara has autographed the area above the logo, and added a smiley face. On a side note, I don’t like when people add smiley faces or other things to autographs. Admittedly, I don’t know why this bugs me as much as it does, but it really annoys me.The left chest features a CASCAR logo, and a MICKS MOTORSPORTS logo embroidered into it.The front torso features a CENTRAL MERCHANT SERVICES logo embroidered into it. A red stripe separates the white and the blue material.The belt is blue with white borders, and has TARA MACLEOD embroidered into it.The unadorned legs have a quilt pattern, but no logos on the legs. The cuffs are a boot cut.The shoulder epaulets are blue with red borders. They have no adornment on them. The sleeves have an AWESOME RACEWEAR logo, and a Tara MacLeod #37 logo embroidered into the upper portion, and a red flame design with white borders at the end of the sleeve. The back of the suit shows some light wear.The blue neck is unadorned, but there is an APX RACEWEAR logo embroidered just below it.The back torso features WWW.TARAMACLEOD.COM, Tara’s old website, a CENTRAL MERCHANT SERVICES logo, and the url CENTRALMERCHANT.NET embroidered into it.This was one of the harder suits to research since there are no sites that have CASCAR stats. I would have loved to learn more information about it, but sadly Racing Reference has nothing on Tara, and the one site that had some information, Driver DB was sorely lacking. I’m sorry, but I had to work with what little information I had.

In keeping with firesuits, next week, I’m going to discuss an ARCA pit suit.

By David G. Firestone

It’s sad that African Americans don’t have the success in auto racing they should. Auto racing has a reputation as a “white sport.” Yet drivers like Louis Hamilton, Wendell Scott, Darrell Wallace Jr., Don “The Snake” Prudhomme, Willy T Ribbs, Tia Northfleet, Chase Austin, and Bill Lester have proven that African Americans do race, and are very talented. Looking over to the NHRA Mello Yello Drag Racing Series, the most prominent African American driver continues to prove he is one of the best.

Born in Trenton, New Jersey, Antron Brown developed a love for drag racing at an early age. He joined the NHRA and raced up to Pro Stock Motorcycle, which he raced from 1998 to 2007, winning 18 races during his tenure. In 2008, after getting his nitro license, he joined Don Schumacher Racing, driving their newest Top Fuel team. 8 years, 45 Wallys, and three Top Fuel championships later, Brown has established himself as a top shelf driver, and his positive attitude and respect for the fans has established him as a fan favorite.

In 2011, the year before he won his first top fuel championship, Brown raced a full season for DSR, with sponsorship from both Matco Tools and Aaron’s. During that year, he won six races, made the final round 8 times, made the semi finals 14 times, made the quarter finals 22 times with a won/loss record of 41-18. During that season, he wore this size M Impact undershirt, which he autographed.The shirt shows light use, as it was one of many used in 2011, and has been autographed by Antron in silver Sharpie just below the Impact logo on the chest.The collar is a thick one, with a tag inside that has a date of “1-28-2011” written in Sharpie. The front chest has an Impact logo on the center, just under the collar, and Antron has signed the area underneath in silver Sharpie.The front torso has no adornment, and on the bottom right-hand side, is an SF1 3.3 tag, as well as an Impact warranty label with an M size flag tag.The shoulders and sleeves have no adornment at all. The back of the shirt shows light wear, which is hard to photograph on the dark material, and has the same gold stitching as the front, but otherwise no adornment. In a sport were all drivers are on par with each other, Antron Brown has proven that African American race car drivers can have huge amounts of success. I wish there were more drivers who could have success in American auto racing. Antron is still racing, and he isn’t going anywhere for a while. Hopefully, he can add more wins and championships to his already great resume. Next week, I will discuss a driver suit from a Canadian driver.