Quebec teen already in fast company
In this business, you get a lot of correspondence about this young race driver and that. Some is interesting and some is not. You make note of the name and move on.
But a year or so ago, I started receiving regular reports on the progress of a 15-year-old from SaintJoseph-de-Beauce, Que., named Raphael Lessard.
What made this guy particularly interesting was that, unlike most young racers his age, he was not a go-karter and he wasn’t a formulacar racer. He was competing in the United States in full-size, full-bodied, big-motor, late-model stock cars. And he was more than holding his own.
In fact, he won the 10-race CARS (Championship Auto Racing Series) Super Late Model championship last year and, in so doing, became only the second non-American to do it. This attracted the attention of Toyota, which has taken him under its sponsorship wing for 2017.
I had a chance to sit down with the now- 16-year-old Raphael in Montreal several weeks ago and was amazed by his enthusiasm and focus, considering that he really is still a kid and that until about 18 months ago, he couldn’t speak a word of English. Specifically, I wanted to know:
Why oval stock car racing? Why not formula cars, like most other young Canadians?
Why race stock cars in the U. S.? Why not the NASCAR Pinty’s Series?
How hard has it been to fit in “down South,” considering the language barrier? What is the plan? Raphael had no difficulty answering my first query about stock cars vs. karts.
“Where I’m from — Saint-Josephde-Beauce — is all stock-car racing,” he said. “There’s nothing like Formula One. The only thing we’ve got is an oval race track, so the first thing I learned about racing was stock cars on an oval track.”
The young Quebecer said he was surprised to look out his window one morning to see that his father had bought him a birthday present. “One day he came home, and my dad, he bought me a race car,” Raphael said. “It was a Honda Civic, an old one, just to begin with, and we went to practice, and it was really good, so I won my third race. It was my birthday. I was 12 years old that day, and it was just amazing.”
The boy was actually a pretty experienced driver at that point. His father, who owns a trucking company, put him behind the wheel of a truck in the company yard when he was 9. By the time he was 11, he was driving around that same yard in a pickup.
“And then, after that, my dad bought me another Honda Civic but faster to compete in another series, so I went in this bigger series, and I won my second race there. After that, we went in Quebec Sportsman and raced there a year, and after that in Super Late Model with my parents’ car, so it wasn’t all that good, because the guys we were competing against were big guys with big teams, and we were just my friends working on the car.
“So, I’m now with Robert (Desrosiers), my agent, and he helped me to get a contract with a team in the U.S. (David Gilliland Racing), and Toyota is supporting me now. So, it’s very cool.”
And although he says he never got involved in organized karting, he did try a go-kart — once.
“On my 10th birthday, I asked my dad to take me go-karting,” he said.
“We went there, and my dad is a really good driver, and I was almost faster than him. And there was a guy there who used to race go-karts, and I almost beat him, too. My dad saw that, and then later he came home and said, ‘I just bought a race car for Raphael,’ and my mom, she said, ‘What did you say? No!’
“But my mom, she’s happy for me because she knows I like it and that’s what I want to do, but sometimes, she gets stressed before the race. But she wants the best for me, and I just can’t thank my parents enough for doing that for me.”
The Lessards are a racing family, let there be no doubt, with just about everybody involved in the sport in one way or another.
“My father raced,” said Raphael. “I have two sisters, but they are way older than me — 10 and 12 years older. We’re a close family; my sister raced for fun, my sister’s husband used to be my crew chief when I raced in Sportsman. My other sister, her boyfriend is racing in Sportsman, and I used to race against him. My sister is a spotter for her boyfriend. So, we’re all involved in racing.”
Which brought up my question about going out of country to race, when there are many good opportunities for young people right here in Canada. Said Raphael:
“We’re in the U.S. now, because the biggest teams are there,” he said. “NASCAR is there. I want people to see me and to compete against the best of the best, and I think those guys are in the U.S. Somebody like (NASCAR star) Kyle Busch, he owns a team in Super Late Model, and I race against them almost every weekend, so I get seen by people. I think it would be fun to race in the NASCAR Pinty’s Series, maybe one day, but for me, right now, for my career and everything, I think it’s better to go and race in the U.S.”
His manager, Desrosiers, got involved in our conversation at this point.
“NASCAR Canada is a great series,” he said, “and some of my great friends race in there. But sadly enough, it is not a driver development series. It’s a business gentleman’s racing series made up of highly talented guys who have very little chance of getting into NASCAR. Except maybe (Cayden) Lapcevich.
“The only way to know if this kid’s got something is to take him down there to where stock-car racing was invented — the Carolinas — and he’s going to go up against the best of the best, and if he does, then maybe he’s going to have something. That’s why Toyota USA, last June, they signed him up. They help him out with his helmet and suit and a little bit financially — this year, they paid for three ARCA races for him. But we still need help.
“We started a limited partnership company in Quebec where we now have seven businessmen from Quebec City and the Beauce area that bought shares of his company, his career, to help him move on. His dad has a small company; he’s not Mr. Stroll (Lawrence Stroll is the multimillionaire father of Formula One Canadian driver Lance Stroll), and he’s limited financially. He was able to get him started, but as Raphael started to climb the ladder, he needed help.
“With the limited partnership, anyone in Canada can help him. The business part of it, not a lot of people know about that. They think daddy signs the cheques. That’s not the way it is. They think Toyota pays for everything. They don’t. Eventually, yes — that’s the goal. But not now.”
Raphael says he’s still got a long way to go to master the English language. His agent agrees. “When we went down there two years ago to finish the last four races of the season, he didn’t speak a word of English, and his crew chief from North Carolina didn’t speak a word of French. I was the translator.”
Which is why his parents got him a tutor.
“About two years ago, maybe less, I started to take lessons after school,” said Raphael, who’s going into his final year of high school in the fall.
“Private lessons, with a teacher, four hours a week. She taught me how to speak better. Last year, I moved to North Carolina to live there with the team manager, and I lived with him all summer, and I had to speak English. Right before I moved down there, I was doing my lessons, and that was a good start for me. When I moved there, it took me four months to get better, and I feel like I still have to get better. But I’m way better than I was.”
Raphael said that unlike a year ago, he and his team are not racing for a championship in 2017. They are entering as many of the big races they can, just to get the experience. And he’s not in any rush because, at 16, he’s still two years away from being able to compete in any of NASCAR’s U.S. travelling series, such as the Camping World Truck Series or the Xfinity Series stock cars, which would put him on the road to the big time, the Monster Energy Cup series.
“I want to go to the Cup series, but first I just have to work very hard and learn as much as I can every race,” he said. “And get better every time I get in my race car.”
And by “get better,” he means at every aspect of stock car racing, which — as well as driving really quickly — also means having to nudge somebody a little bit so that they stop racing long enough to concentrate on maintaining control of their speeding race car. This, then, allows the bump-er to pass the bump-ee.
“Sometimes, if you have to move someone, you have to do it. But sometimes you do that and you have to remember that this guy can do the same thing to you. And like, if one guy races me clean the whole race, I’m not going to try to move him. Or if a guy is really aggressive and hits me 20 times in the race, I know I can hit him too.
“I’m just going to race them the way they race me. I think if you race like that, you will get some respect from the other guys. Now they know that I’m able to use the bumper. Sometimes, they think that I am young and I don’t want to touch anyone, but I’m racing for the win like anyone.”
There’s something else happening in this young man’s life this year that’s making him really happy. He’s got his learner’s permit and will soon start to practice driving safely on the roads of Quebec.
Yes, that’s correct. This young racing driver, who learned to drive a truck around his father’s yard when he was 9 and who’s been racing professionally since he was 12 and won a U.S. professional series when he was 15, still doesn’t have a driver’s licence.
“I just got my permit,” he laughed, “Here (Quebec), it’s 16 to get your permit and 17 to get your licence, so now that I have the permit, I can drive with my parents in the car, or someone who has a licence.
“It’s not fun, though. Now, my parents always have to drive me to the race track. I would like to drive myself. I think I could do that.” nmcdonald@thestar.ca