Delaine racing goes back a long ways at Red River
Co-op speedway. The track opened in 1973 and their has been a Delaine
family member racing there every year since then. My dad, Al Delaine
bought a 1957 Chevy from Wayne Fiddler. I was three years old. My
first three years at a race track were at Brooklyn Speedway. My dad
helped a great driver named Bob Parker in a sprint car. I guess I was
part of the team because I got a team jacket. I still have their team
jacket today. My dad and two of my uncles raced all through the 70's
and I loved every minute of it. My dad and uncle Denis retired around
1978-79 but my uncle Rod still kept going in to the 80's (and he still
races today). I never missed one race and couldn't wait until I was old
enough to drive.
Around 1985 I decided it was time, I was 15 years
old. I found a 1968 Chevelle that hit a pole and got it for free. I
brought it home and started to gut it. My good friend Jim Laxdal and I
went to work on it. My dad tried to talk me out of it but it didn't
work. He decided if I could do the work and came up with half the money
for a roll cage he would pay the other half. Just like that I was a
race car driver. I took a welding course and a machinist course and
learned how to build a motor. I needed all of these because in three
races I blew up the motor and hit the wall - season one was over but we
were hooked. Over the next ten years myself and Jim built a lot of
really good cars and ran big block Chevy's in them. We ran Street Stock
and then a class called Pro Stock. The Pro Stock class had a few
drivers that you might recognize - Kevin Sexton, Gord Hochkevich and
Mike McCaughan just to name a few. In 1995 we went Modified racing and
we still used the big block (very rare). I have had a few Modifieds in
the last 12 years. The first few years was with a Gendron car, then I
bought a car from Mike Tomlinson and after that I got a brand new one
from Pro Chassis. Around 2001, I hooked up with the Laventure brothers
and had two new cars over the next five or six years. For 2007 we will
have a Larry Shaw car that I purchased from Gerry Amundson out of Rice
Lake, Wisconsin.
It has been a fast twenty years of racing. We
have won a lot of races and a couple of championships and are planning
on a lot more in the future. The heritage of Delaine racing in Winnipeg
is definitely long and shows no signs of slowing down. My brother
Kevin, my cousin David, and my uncle Rod are all racing in the 2007
season.
Between the first Chevelle that Jim Laxdal and I
built to the new Shaw car we have for 2007 there are a lot of stories.
For now that's a small look at the history of myself and my family in
stock car racing in Winnipeg, Manitoba.
