When racing runs in the family, it’s hard to quit
Racing is a hard habit to break. More than once over the years Merl Fitzpatrick has tried to quit, but the lure of the oval track keeps calling him back — and now he doesn’t want to quit. In 2017, there will be three generations of the Brooks-area family racing at tracks including Dinosaur Downs Speedway, Medicine Hat Speedway and Hythe Motor Speedway. If he races three more years, Fitzpatrick could eventually end up competing against both his son, Jesse, and his granddaughter, Emma.
“On Saturday afternoons when I was a kid, I’d sit and watch the Wide World of Sports,” Fitzpatrick says. “You’d get to see all of the sports action that happened the week before, but what really caught my attention was the coverage of the Daytona 500 races. I thought that looked like fun.”
Later, Fitzpatrick’s brother and a friend attended races at the now closed Brooks Speedway. Brooks, a city 186 kilometres southeast of Calgary, was the site of a 3/8-mile dirt oval track.
They came back with stories, and the tales they told an 18-year-old Fitzpatrick only helped kindle the flame. In 1979, Fitzpatrick went to see his first oval dirt-track races and the hook was set deep. The very next year, Fitzpatrick and a friend pooled their resources and shared a race car.
“We didn’t know what we were doing,” Fitzpatrick says with a chuckle. “When you’re starting out you don’t know anything, so we asked questions and learned as we went along.”
He raced at Brooks Speedway from 1980 to 1984.
“I married Wendy on a Saturday in early May in 1984, and on the Sunday I was at the racetrack,” Fitzpatrick says. “Most of the wedding party from the night before was in the grandstands.”
Fitzpatrick’s son, Jesse, was born soon after. A new dad, Fitzpatrick continued to pile on the laps from 1985 to 1989 at the then newly built Medicine Hat track.
“In 1990 I attempted to stop racing, and bought a Harley-Davidson that we toured on,” Fitzpatrick says. “And for some reason during that time, that motorcycle went to quite a few racetracks.”
A welder by trade, Fitzpatrick operates Black Magic Welding. All of his cars run under the Black Magic Racing banner. Fitzpatrick grew up in the country, and if he wanted to visit a friend or work at a job, he needed a vehicle to get there. His first car, a 1969 Buick Special, was bought from his mom.
“It didn’t have an engine, so I had to earn more money to buy an engine and put it in the car myself,” he says. “I quickly gained some mechanical skills.”
Fitzpatrick was back behind the wheel in 1993, driving an IMCA (International Motor Contest Associates) Modified car for owner Dave Sproule, and continued until 1997.
“I tried to quit again, but I guess I’m not much of a quitter,” Fitzpatrick says. “I enjoy every aspect of racing, and especially the camaraderie. How many stick and ball sports are there where one team will give the other team something that makes sure they win that weekend?
“I’ve done it and it’s happened to me where I’ve been loaned an engine for the weekend and I’ve beaten the guy who gave it to me. Where else does that happen? Would the Calgary Flames help the Edmonton Oilers beat them?”
Fitzpatrick’s son, Jesse, has raced since 2000, and is an accomplished stock car driver with several track championships under his belt. He took a few years off from racing, but continued to volunteer at several tracks. And now Jesse is back racing, this time in the IMCA Modified division.
Now Emma, Jesse’s niece and Fitzpatrick’s granddaughter, is behind the wheel of a Mini-Cup car (half-scale stock cars for racers between nine and 16). That’s not where she started, however.
“I was looking on Kijiji and saw a Mini Sprint car for sale,” Fitzpatrick says. “I showed Emma a picture, and asked her, ‘If granddad buys this, will you drive it?’ She said ‘yup’.”
Before Emma could race, the car needed some work. Fitzpatrick made sure she was involved in the process, and when he learned Emma was struggling with some basic math skills such as subtraction he tutored her while they worked hands-on with the car.
“She helped me drill out all the rivets,” Fitzpatrick says. “So I’d say, how many rivets do we have to take out? She’d count them and tell me, and after she’d take one out she’d have to tell me how many were left. We’d put the numbers on a whiteboard, and she soon grasped the concept.”
It’s with an obvious sense of pride that Fitzpatrick says, “She’s in junior high school now and is on the honour roll.”
She’s also doing very well behind the wheel of her powerful MiniCup car, increasing her lap times as she grows comfortable with the speeds it can attain.
Fitzpatrick has also helped Deven Visser get on the track. Since the age of 12, Visser crewed with the senior racer, and Fitzpatrick helped get him into a stock car two years ago.
“Deven will race one of our Modified cars this year,” Fitzpatrick says of his Black Magic Racing adventures.
“It’s like an extended family on the tracks now.”
Greg Williams is a member of the Automobile Journalists Association of Canada. Have a column tip? Contact him at 403-2871067 or gregwilliams@shaw.ca.