Canadian veteran due for home win
Kennington coming off strong showing in Daytona NASCAR stop
Last Saturday, stock car racer Douglas James (D.J.) Kennington of St. Thomas, Ont., finished-13th in the Coke Zero Sugar 400 at Daytona International Speedway, a round of the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series that was won by Erik Jones.
Come Saturday afternoon at Exhibition Place, Kennington will be hoping to finish on the top step of the podium when the checkered flag falls on the annual Pinty’s Grand Prix of Toronto, the feature race for NASCAR Canada stock cars held each year on the Saturday of Honda Indy weekend.
And the two-time Canadian national champion figures he’s got a shot.
“I want to bear down in Toronto and get a win because it is one of our most important races,” he said in a recent interview. “We always have a great crowd in Toronto and all of our sponsors are there. It’s the Coke 600 for us — it’s that big.”
A career racer, Kennington’s started159 races over13 years in the NASCAR Canada series, winning 26 and recording 126 top 10s. He’s also won 15 poles. In the United States, he’s raced in the Camping World Trucks Series and the Xfinity Series for stock cars as well as the seven Monster Energy races he’s entered this season, starting with February’s Daytona 500.
Which invites the question: With so many young drivers trying to break into the big time, how come Kennington has landed rides at the advanced age — for an athlete — of 40?
“I’m just getting the opportunities,” he said during a chat before the recent Pinty’s Series stop at Jucasa Motor Speedway near Hagersville, Ont., one of 15 races on the 2018 schedule that will take the drivers from Nova Scotia in the east to Alberta out west and even over the U.S. border to Loudon, New Hampshire.
“I’ve been fortunate, over the years, to meet a lot of nice people down south and I just built up a lot of respect running the Xfinity and the truck series. I’m easy on equipment and I’m very aware that car owners like the Gaunt brothers (originally from Barrie, Ont.) and Jay Robinson (Premium Motorsports) have put their faith in me to race hard but stay out of trouble.”
Kennington, the son of Doug Kennington, the founder of St. Thomas Dragway and a mem- ber of the Canadian Motorsport Hall of Fame, has just signed a new, five-year contract to continue representing Castrol. To say he’s thrilled would be an understatement.
“Man, 25 years with the same company and the same sponsor, it’s almost unheard of,” he said. “They support me and we support the brand. I’m just so fortunate to have the people at Wakefield and Castrol to help me out. They are family to me and I will do anything for them and I always will.”
Now that he’s as active as he is in the NASCAR big leagues, Kennington — who’s married and the father of two young children (he proposed to his wife, Jaimie, on one knee while on stage at a NASCAR champions banquet in Charlotte, N.C.) — is often asked where he’d race if there was a conflict.
“Right here in Canada in the Pinty’s Series,” he replies, without hesitation.
“This is No. 1,” he told me during our chat. “This is my bread and butter; it’s where it all started. Missing a Pinty’s race is not an option. This is where my sponsors want me to be and so do the people who are behind me, my family and my crew.”
And Kennington, who’s one of the few drivers to really know, says the Pinty’s Series is every bit as tough to race in as the Monster Energy races.
“This is a great series,” he said. “When I go down there, I’m usually in backmarker stuff. They’re doing the best they can but they’re small and they don’t have a lot of money. You have to be realistic about what your goals are.
“Up here, we’re one of the top level teams and winning is what we have to do. I’ll tell you how tough this series is: I was fastest in practice (at Jucasa) and yet I only qualified seventh. One little mistake can cost you, big time.”
Kennington says, however, that the time spent in the Monster Energy Series racing against drivers of the calibre of Jimmie Johnson, Brad Keselowski and Joey Logano has been beneficial.
“When you race against the top guys in NASCAR, it only makes you better,” he said. “It makes you better as a driver and as a person. I’ve got a ton of respect for those guys. People don’t realize how fast and how tough and how hard those guys race every week and yes, they get paid well for it and that’s their job but they are still the best.
“I was at Michigan and it is a fast track. It is bad fast. You don’t realize how fast that is till you are in there, then you go, ‘Whoa.’ I’ve raced my whole life and I don’t scare easily but it still made me go, ‘Whoa.’ “
Kennington, who prepares a car for Andrew Ranger to drive as well as his own, said he’s had some near-misses in the Monster Energy Series.
The Pinty’s Grand Prix of Toronto will go to the post at 3:25 p.m. on Saturday. D.J. Kennington drives the Castrol Edge Dodge, No. 17.
He’s hungry. And he’s due.