Why race one car when you can race four?
Toronto entrepreneur goes rallying on the Rock to raise funds for MS
John Hume didn’t find Targa Newfoundland, the annual, 1,600 kilometre, five-day rally race that takes place each September on the Rock’s public roads, it found him.
Back in 2009, Hume, the owner proprietor of Hume Media Inc. a Toronto-based media services company, bought a new Mini.
“I was down at the Mini dealership and the sales chap there says, ‘Did you know it’s the 50th anniversary of Mini this year? And since you bought one, Targa Newfoundland is giving a discount for anyone who wants to enter their Mini in the race. You should enter your car,’ ” he recalled.
“I said, ‘I’ve read about that for the last few years — Jim Kenzie’s articles in the Star — and I’ve always found it intriguing because it’s every little boy’s dream to race a car. I didn’t know I could do that.’ And he says, ‘Anyone can enter, there are different divisions. You can take your normal, everyday driver and do the race.’
“So myself and my son (John Jr.) and my best friend Craig (MacMullen), as a trio, entered the car in the race and that’s how we got started,” he said in an interview.
And just like that, Hume was hooked. He’s raced every year since, with 2015 marking the seventh straight year of competition.
This year, Hume will enter four cars in the race: two in the Grand Touring class (a 2006 Mini GP and a 2013 Mini GP), and two in the modern class (a 2002 BMW M3, and a 2004 BMW M3). It’s not all about personal glory, however. Hume races for a cause, which helps ease any residual guilt associated with spending so much money on one race.
“Racing is a very selfish endeavour,” he said. “I own and run a business and have a lot of clients and a lot of people know me in my industry. I know a lot of people with MS and they’re one of my clients, so I thought if I’m going to do this selfish thing, I might as well do it for a good reason.”
And in seeking pledges, he’s been a pretty impressive earner for the MS Society of Canada. This year, he expects to bring the total raised to almost $160,000, a pretty impressive total in a six-year span. And he’s quick to tell me that the Multiple Sclerosis (MS) Society gets every cent of the funds pledged. But why did he pick MS instead of other, more well-known causes, such as cancer or heart disease? Simple, Hume says: they’re already well-funded.
“MS is one of the few charitable organizations out there with little or no government support. It’s all privately funded. I don’t have a personal connection (with the disease), but I know five or six people who have MS and I don’t know that many people that have cancer. It seems to me that MS is the big disease in this country and I don’t think it gets the attention it should. It’s overshadowed by cancer and other mainframe diseases,” he explained.
And lest anyone think that Hume’s efforts are just about racing to raise money for a good cause, Hume’s cars have done pretty well in the race, too.
Last year, Hume and co-driver Craig MacMullen won the Grand Touring class in the 2013 Mini GP, The 2004 BMW M3 driven by his son and co-driver Justin Crant finished second in the Modern class.
This year, Hume will pilot the 2002 M3 (making its Team Hume debut) in the modern class with co-driver Ron Bartleet. Hume Jr, and Crant will once again pilot the ’04 M3, while MacMullen will drive the ’13 Mini GP with co-driver Nicole Troster.
As for the ’06 Mini GP, well, that’s where things get interesting.
It costs roughly $15,000 per entry, at the low end, and with four cars, Hume decided he needed to defray the cost, even if only marginally.
So he created a Facebook campaign to rent out the 2006 Mini GP and found willing takers in Norm Haas and co-driver Christina Kroner. After a bit of instruction on the finer points of rally racing, Hume reports they’re good to go to take on the challenges of Targa Newfoundland. The car isn’t totally “funded” but Hume says it’s close.
So instead of spending north of $60,000 to race the Rock, he’s only going to be out $45,000 or so. Ah, the rationalizations one makes to go racing.
“I’m a bit of a crazy guy — I like to see how much I can handle and this year I’m going to see if I can handle four cars through the whole week without crashing (into) anything!” he says, alluding to the incident he had in the race in his BMW 335i, which unfortunately made contact with a tree, totalling the car, Hume’s favourite, a couple of years ago.
And if anything does go wrong, he can blame it all on the persuasive Mini sales guy from 2009. Freelance writer Lee Bailie is a regular contributor to Toronto Star Wheels. To reach him, write to and put his name in the subject line.