http://lfpress.ca/newsstand/Sports/Motorsports/2007/10/31/4618894-sun.html

Mr. Stock Car

Wed, October 31, 2007

Tony Novotny's undying commitment to his sport, including creating CASCAR and later saving it, has steered him into the Canadian Motorsports Hall of Fame.

By JIM CRESSMAN, SUN MEDIA

Tony Novotny's heart has always been in the right place -- Canadian motorsports.

Because of his lifelong commitment to growing the sport, he's taking his place in the Canadian Motorsports Hall of Fame. The 67-year-old, who was raised on a farm near Blenheim and now lives in Komoka, will be enshrined in the builder category in Toronto on Feb. 23.

"I've been involved with cars pretty much my whole life," said Novotny, who operated Delaware Speedway from 1979 through 2000, and in 1981 formed the Canadian Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (CASCAR), the first stock car sanctioning body in Canada.

The touring Super Series eventually evolved, going coast to coast. It survived some rough years, including bankruptcy by new owners in 2001, but Novotny bailed it out.

A year ago he again sold CASCAR, but this time to much stronger owners. It was renamed the NASCAR Canadian Tire Series.

"From a monetary standpoint we'd have been a lot better off just walking away," he said of 2001. "But my whole life had been focused on being able to achieve something, rather than making a lot of money, and I just couldn't see letting the teams down and the thing we'd built over the years.

"We took the company back and from that point on, until we were able to talk to the France family (NASCAR), it was pretty dismal.

"But I never ever thought 'How can I do this and get rich?' My heart a lot of times got in the way of making serious dollars because you give away a lot of times more than you bring in, and that was to keep everybody on the right side of the ledger.

"I know a lot of people always thought Tony Novotny makes a lot of money doing this, but the money part was not really the issue. The issue is you gotta survive because you're no good to anybody going bankrupt.

"I never ever promised anybody anything I couldn't deliver and I always made good on the purses, although many times I walked out of a race track with no cheque."

Novotny was five when his father died and was raised by his mother and grandparents. He took French in high school and read hot rod magazines in class, "until I got caught."

That was his introduction. He bought a car and was off to St. Thomas Dragway.

When he was 20, he ran a service station in Chatham. Knowing he couldn't pay bills pumping gas, he began selling high performance race equipment out of the station, and he's been self-employed since.

Jump ahead a few years and he was operating a race equipment business in Kitchener when he heard promoter Carl Lave was closing Delaware after the 1978 season.

"When a race track closes up, part of your business suffers," Novotny said. "I approached Carl and said I feel like I can help. He simply said 'I've had a lot of people tell me that, so if you think you can do it, you take it over.'

"And that's how I got into the race track scene."

Canadian stock car racing was fragmented; a hodgepodge of cars with few rules. Novotny called on his drag racing experience, where tracks were sanctioned by the NHRA, and from that template CASCAR was born.

He also started Performance Fibreglass, which he still operates, making bodies for the Canadian Tire Series, some U.S.-based series, as well as the NASCAR Car of Tomorrow for the Richard Petty Driving School and replica bodies for Ryan Newman of Penske Racing.

"Very early I figured out drivers have to be able to tap sponsors and you can't do it with a ragmop of a car. But back then going fast was the No. 1 priority. What the car looked like was not important.

"Going back to the drag racing side, appearance was very important. I remember laying a table cloth lace up against the side of my '62 Chrysler, spraying it, then rubbing it out. And my mother upholstered the seats.

"I knew we had to make our race cars look appealing to the consumer, which was our spectator, and more importantly corporate Canada. That's one of the reasons I got into the fibreglass business."

Divesting himself of Delaware and CASCAR has allowed him more time with his garden, the music of Johann Strauss, and his wife of 10 years, Linda, who was CASCAR vice-president.

Hall of Fame director John Waldie said Novotny and his accomplishments epitomize the builder category.

"It's just amazing if we look at what's happened in the last 12 months, with NASCAR coming to Canada," Waldie said. "You can genuinely wonder if that would have ever happened without Tony Novotny. He carried CASCAR on his back for years."

Novotny, in his typical style, shrugged off that praise.

"Over a period of time motorsports evolved on its own, too. I didn't make all of this happen. But I can truly say I really tried to kick-start things. I've carved a modest living out of what started as a hobby and being able to do something you enjoy is a treasure to behold."