Ted Powell is enshrined in Canada's Motorsport Hall of Fame

Ottawa driving legend Ted Powell didn't start racing cars until he was 45, but his achievements were so great, the Motorsport Club of Ottawa named its lifetime achievement award after him. Mr. Powell was patriarch of a three-generation racing family. Son John and grandson Devon build ferocious Rolex GT Corvettes, Cadillac CTS-V race cars, Grand-Am Cup cars and Chevy Cobalt supercharged race cars for the GM Performance Division from their sophisticated race shop in Port Perry, Ont. (www.powellmotorsport.com). Mr. Powell loved to race Mini Coopers, those inexplicably quick little British cars, among the first to popularize front-wheel-drive. And he was fast and consistent, a Canadian national racing champion in the late 1960s and early '70s in the Under 2-Litre class, successfully competing with some of the truly greats, like Peter Revson and Mark Donohue in the popular North American Trans-Am series.

Born in Quebec City of British parents, Mr. Powell spent his early years in Jamaica, Britain and Malaya, where he met his wife of 49 years, Dorothea. As a radio operator during the Second World War, he learned the unique skill of many wartime ROs: how to fall asleep for extended periods, then wake up instantly and be 100 per cent lucid when the signal came. "When Ted raced, he waited for the green flag to drop and actually fell asleep on the grid," Mrs. Powell said from her home in Ottawa. "Everyone else was hyped up, but Ted just switched off and slept -- then he burst to life when the flag dropped and the race was on."Mr. Powell loved motorsport of almost any sort. He was a terror racing Mini Coopers at the Dows Lake Ice Races during the Ottawa Winter Carnival in the 1970s and at the Gatineau Hill Climb to the top of Camp Fortune. He dominated his class at the Mosport, St-Jovite and Trois Rivieres tracks. He got into racing at a late age when, at Mosport for a camping weekend with his son, John, Ted watched Innes Ireland, the Team Lotus Formula 1 driver, roll a Mini Cooper in a celebrity race that featured top drivers. Ted bought that very Mini and fixed it up, campaigning it with Ireland's number (30), which he took for his own.Money was tight in those days trying racing and raising three teenagers. Dorothea served as team manager, records keeper and retriever of loaned tools. "I was with him on race weekends, camping and helping out. If I hadn't been, I would hardly have seen him!"

Later an engineer with Transport Canada, Mr. Powell drove his race cars to work some times and raced them most weekends. He participated as a crew member for drivers Vern Shuppan and Dr. Tom Ashwell, which took him to races as far afield as Europe and Africa.Mr. Powell was elected president of the Motorsport Club of Ottawa (www.mco.org) three times, in 1965, 1976 and 1977.He was president of the Quebec Region (which includes Ottawa) of the Canadian Automobile Sport Club, Canada's national governing body (www.casc.on.ca), in 1967 and later served as vice-president. These were all volunteer positions to which he dedicated himself tirelessly.

Mr. Powell gave up racing in 1970 when his career took him to the Canadian High Commission in London as liaison officer, Transport. Three years later, he returned to Ottawa and reopened his garage to other local racers, many of whom revere him still for his kindness and knowledge, both of which he dispensed freely .He continued to participate in virtually all aspects of motorsport as race marshal (flagger), instructor and technical inspection scrutineer. He was a race steward for the Rothman's Porsche and Formula 2000 pro-racing series.