Military wife and husband giving back to wounded veterans
There are some spectator sports I just don’t get. (Consider the numbering system in tennis, for example.) At the top of my who-cares-what-you-think list is the grand prix which just came, roared and went in June. I know it is gone because I don’t hear the cars anymore all the way from the West Island. I don’t care for any sport whose monotonous self-serving drone rattles the neighbours in a radius greater than our moon’s orbit.
I once went steady with a female drag racer who got me an envious VIP spot right next to where the long-nosed beast takes off. I’d sooner stick my head in a jet engine, which I think is what I did anyway. All this to say that I recently met someone who made me accept auto racing (when it serves a good cause).
Her story is inspirational: Tiffany Lodder’s love of motorsports blossomed from childhood, watching the Daytona 500 and the Indianapolis 500 with her father, a stock car racer.
Born in Brandon, Man., she moved to Ontario when her husband Diezel, a veteran of 34 years in the Canadian Army, was transferred to Trenton. In 2013, the couple started TLMotorsports, a company that specializes in motorsports event management and fan experience facilitation at sports car racing events.
“We started the company,” Lodder said, “because we wanted to grow and do something together after Diezel retired from the military. We host the corrals where fans park next to the racing cars, and meet drivers and guest speakers.
“On race day, I teach groups about the International Motor Sports Association and walk them through our business centre and team garages. I like to see people have fun. When you are passionate about something, you want to share that experience.”
Last November, the Lodders attended a race held on an old Royal Air Force site at Anglesey Circuit perched on the cliffs of the Irish Sea in Wales. The experience changed their life.
“We saw the Race of Remembrance by Mission Motorsports,” Lodder said. “They retrain and rehabilitate military veterans wounded mentally or physically, re-integrating them into society through all aspects of racing. Mission Motorsports’ motto: race, retrain, recover.”
The event involves 45 race teams with more than 120 drivers in a 12-hour endurance relay.
The next day, Remembrance Day Sunday, the teams pause in the pits at 10:45 for a Remembrance Day service.
“It was the most moving service I’ve ever seen,” she said. “Diezel and I came home thinking, we are going to do this here.”
The Lodders are in talks with their overseas counterparts and have registered Operation Motorsport to raise charitable funds to field a multinational entry of disabled veterans in the 2017 Race of Remembrance.
The Lodders envision an allCanadian team entry of disabled Canadian soldiers and veterans in Wales’ 2018 Race of Remembrance. They plan on bringing an affiliated event to tracks in Canada and the U.S. in 2019, and in 2020 open a disabled veteran retraining and rehabilitation Operation Motorsport shop.
“We want to make the Remembrance Day race a national program involving Veterans Affairs. It is a huge project.” Info can be found at operationmotorsport. org, twitter.com/opsmotorsport or at their page on Facebook.
I am now a racing car believer.