Young racer joins Sebastian Vettel for a few hot laps
Formula 1600 champ rides with F1 champ around his home track
It’s not every day you get a phone call and are asked to swing by Canadian Tire Motorsport Park for a little Q&A and a test drive with stars of the racing world.
But that’s exactly what happened to me this week, as Sebastian Vettel and David Coultard were in town on behalf of Infiniti. My immediate reaction was shock, followed by pure excitement.
First, a little about me, which led to the call in the first place.
Everyone tells me I was destined to drive race cars. My grandfather raced various cars through multiple decades and was trackside throughout his lifetime. Both he and my mom and dad are racing champions in their own right, so racing is in my blood.
I can’t argue with that. They had me racing karts as a 7-year-old and I progressed through the junior ranks, picking up championships along the way.
At 15, I raced the final three weekends of the F1200 Championship in Ontario — enough to earn Rookie of the Year for the 2010 season.
In 2011, I followed my father’s footsteps into Formula Ford 1600 racing and was successful again. Running a family-owned Van Dieman out of our single-car garage in Courtice, I took a championship, with nine wins in 14 starts, along with 13 class poles.
I earned the MK Technologies Driver of the Event Award and was a finalist in the Team Canada Racing Scholarship Formula Ford Shootout.
That season showed us that we could compete at the highest of FF levels with our B-class car, and run wheel-to-wheel with the much newer A-class machinery.
A test drive around Canadian Tire Motorsport Park with F1 driver Sebastian Vettel provided a chance to share stories and compare notes with racing hero
So, for 2012, we entered the A Class Championship. By season’s end we had the most pole positions and a class championship, after multiple podium finishes and several wins.
That’s when I also had my first runin with Vettel.
We were at the Canadian Grand Prix in Montreal to run in the FF1600 event and, as I was doing a track walk, making notes, I ran into Sebastian doing his track walk preparing for the Grand Prix.
It was the chance meeting of a lifetime. He signed my track map and I was thrilled.
However, getting to race round CTMP in an Infiniti Q50 for a few hours this week with the four-time F1 World Champion exceeded even my wildest dreams.
There I was, with the reigning champion and former F1 driver and the biggest TV personality in the sport, David Coultard. It was awesome, to say the least.
I was alongside Vettel as he put the Q50 through its paces at one of the most-challenging tracks in the world and, since the speed was not so significant, I had time to talk with him about the track and what he thought of it.
We talked about my racing history, as well, and he joked that with my experience and speed, I should be driving him around.
We traded thoughts about the track back and forth and he even asked for inside information if I had it.
Not every day the world champion asks for advice from the hometown kid — definitely a new experience.
Of course, I spilled everything I knew and he had the Q50 singing around the famed road course.
Sebastian was very personable and funny and I was obviously thrilled and honoured to have had a drive with him. I could say the kid is going places.
As for me, after winning F1600 Championships back-to-back, I needed to move on. Moving upward while staying behind the wheel was the preferred choice, but funding just doesn’t permit that.
Instead, I have turned to driver coaching and become a junior race engineer for Britain West Motorsports and tied it to my studies in Mechanical Engineering at Conestoga College.
It scratches the itch, but I can’t help but dream of working toward another run-in with Vettel — one that’s wheel to wheel.