This Canuck is a big wheel
Indy Car star looks to change racing in Canada
who has three victories in what has been a breakout season so far, is the most popular of a thin crop of Canadian drivers. The only other Canadian driver competing in IndyCar is veteran Alex Tagliani of Lachenaie, Que.
In the developmental IndyLights series, Matthew Di Leo of Barrie, Ont., and Mikael Grenier of Stoneham, Que., have made infrequent appearances. In Europe, Bruno Spengler of St-Hippolyte, Que., is the Deutsche Tourenwagen Masters champion while Robert Wickens of Guelph, Ont., also competes in the popular touring car series that gets no exposure in Canada.
Even IndyCar is now limited to just the annual event in Toronto after the Edmonton Indy was scrapped last year. Hinchcliffe said he thinks three races is ideal for Canada, and pointed
Winning races and championships won’t satisfy James Hinchcliffe — he wants to leave a bigger mark on Canadian motorsports than wearing the flag on his firesuit.
It may seem like a stretch for a 26year-old in his third season to be thinking about his legacy. But Hinchcliffe has other things on his mind than the weekend doubleheader at the Honda Indy Toronto, like making sure he isn’t the last Canadian to drive an IndyCar. The first step is a desire to give young drivers a place to train and learn the business.
“I want to be very involved in the grass roots level of the sport,” said the Oakville, Ont., native. “I want to start a carting series and I want to help young kids from Canada graduate through the ranks because I didn’t have a lot of people to ask questions of and get advice from and I want to offer that to kids.”
It’s all just theory so far, but Hinchcliffe is sincere. He recalled the struggles he had coming up through the ranks, and that he and his father Jeremy did it by themselves.
Securing sponsorship, the only way a driver can get a ride, remains difficult for Canadians in a market where open-wheel racing is a niche sport. Hinchcliffe doesn’t worry about sponsorship now with the high-profile backing of the Internet domain company GoDaddy, but it wasn’t so long ago that he had to hustle for support in junior categories where TV coverage doesn’t exist.
“Very difficult. I was lucky that I was preached to at a young age how important it was to be savvy with the sponsorship side of things, pay attention to the off-track as much as the on-track and being a good driver is no longer enough to be a professional,” said Hinchcliffe.
The Andretti Autosport driver, to Montreal, Vancouver and Calgary as possible sites.
Hinchcliffe’s season as been sink or swim, with unlikely victories followed by plenty of disappointments. He opened the season with his firstcareer victory at St. Petersburg in March, then made a slick pass on Takuma Sato on the final lap to win at Sao Paulo in May. Last month, he led all but 24 of 250 laps to take the checkered flag at Iowa.
Despite leading the series in wins, Hinchcliffe is just fifth overall. Crashes at Alabama, Long Beach and Sunday at Pocono, where he hit the wall on Lap 1, have made for what he calls a bittersweet season.
When things are good, Hinchcliffe credits the addition of race engineer Craig Hampson to the team’s success. Hampson worked with Hinchcliffe at Newman/Haas Racing in 2011 when the Canadian was Rookie of the Year.
When that team folded, Hampson joined Andretti for 2013.
“Yeah, we’ve been going steady for two years now. It’s getting pretty serious,” Hinchcliffe cracked.
“We have an understanding,” added Hinchcliffe. “We speak the same language. We’re both realists. He’s maybe a little bit more of a pessimist than I am. But at the end of the day we have a very common goal and we’re both willing to work very hard to achieve it.”
The pair have two chances to make a breakthrough at the doubleheader in Toronto. Hinchcliffe made contact with Toronto’s Paul Tracy in 2011 and was knocked out of the race again last year with engine problems.
“The doubleheader is kind of a double-edged sword, because there’s two chances to do well but also two chances to screw it up,” said Hinchcliffe, who finished 15th and 19th at the season’s first doubleheader in Detroit.
He’s also feeling the pressure to win in Toronto. Tracy, with two victories, remains the only Canadian to win the event. Tracy’s last win was in 2003, and a decade later Hinchcliffe hopes he can win a race he’s never had much luck at.
“I don’t think you can expect anyone to win any race,” he said.
“There are so many variables and so many competitive cars and drivers that on any given weekend it’s almost impossible to predict the winner. Nobody would have picked Scott (Dixon) to win the race in Pocono, nobody would have picked me to win in St. Pete.”