Carl Gauthier, now 59-year-old has only been racing for seven years but he’s been dreaming of racing in the world-class NASCAR competition since he was 10 years old and watching his idols race on TV at the famous Daytona 500.
He got his first race car in 2009 for his 52nd birthday and he began racing the following year. He participated in his first official sanctioned race in June 2010 at the CASC-OR Calabogie Cup where he was crowned the winner. After that inaugural race, Gauthier competed in many more races from 2010 until 2016 and now he’s gearing up for the greatest race of his life – the NASCAR Pinty’s Series.
It was two years ago that NASCAR manager Al Lebert contacted Gauthier and invited him to compete in the world-class racing event. Lebert said that he was compelled to invite Gauthier to NASCAR after seeing the racer’s impressive skills and ability to outwit the other drivers. When Lebert presented him with the opportunity to live out his wildest dream, Gauthier was overjoyed. Last year he did a couple of races at Watkins Glen in New York Sate – the most famous road course racetrack in the States and he won both events. He wasn't the fastest team but was most certainly the smartest. And when the checkered flag flew and he took the first win, that was when he decided ‘OK, it’s time to prepare for NASCAR’!”
Now, Gauthier and Lebert are ready to put the pedal to the metal and drive their NASCAR plans into high gear for the 2017 NASCAR Pinty’s Series. Lebert hopes to see Gauthier racing his 2017 Chevy Impala in two of the 12 races for this year’s series. The first would take place at the Canadian Tire Motorport Park (CTMP) in Bowmanville, ON on May 21st and the second would run out of CTMP on Sept. 3rd. With Sept. 10th marking Gauthier’s 60th birthday, the Labour Day weekend race (on Sept. 3rd) would serve as an early celebration and if he places first it would be the greatest birthday gift he could ever hope for!
For each race, Gauthier would be competing against at least 40 professional race car drivers coming from all over North America. To finalize their plans, Gauthier and Lebert are working to raise enough funds to cover the magnanimous racing costs. According to Lebert, by rough estimates, it costs about $35,000 to participate in just one race within the 12-race NASCAR Pinty’s Series. “NASCAR is extremely expensive and racers typically have to come up with the funds through sponsors. For a guy like Carl, we want him to drive for us so we're giving him a pretty discounted rate and NASCAR is absorbing some of the costs. For his two races it would normally be about $70,000, but we told Carl we could run these two races for him if he can come up with $40,000,” said Lebert. “We’re chasing him down to come drive for us.”
To generate the funds, the duo are looking locally to have the Gauthier’s own local community – Pembroke and Petawawa area – support him on his journey to NASCAR and help to take him there. Since he began racing in 2010, he's gotten help over the years from the local community. It was always the community that got him there and now that he is ready to take this jump to NASCAR, it’s only fair that the community comes with us! In all of his 17 years of serving as a manager with NASCAR, Lebert said that Gauthier would be his first driver garnering funds from the local community as opposed to major sponsors. “Carl’s story is totally unique. It’s that of a local community taking their local driver to NASCAR,” said Lebert. “It's not like he's trying to get Lowe’s or a big corporate guy to write a big check, he's trying to get the local community involved."
This really cool opportunity where it’s all about the fans and the community. The duo are hoping to reach their funding goals by the end of February and are hoping to have the community’s support to make it happen. If all goes according to plan and funding goals are reached, the team have plans to host a special day with the local community on March 18th and 19th at the Pembroke Mall.
