Adam Prudhomme
Editor
Some 40 years after hanging up his stock car racing helmet, Randy Simkins once again began to feel the need for speed.
An avid racer when in his 20s, he retired from the sport when he got married, bought and house and had two daughters. With his daughters now full grown and out of the house, he began thinking more and more about his racing days.
The desire to get back on the track began to intensify when the Enterprise native met Tim Hegarty of the Eastern Ontario Vintage Stock Car Club.
“I came home and said to my wife if I could just hold the checkered flag one more time, I wouldn’t care if it was at Brockville or Cornwall or wherever it was, but I think it would satisfy me at 65 if I could do it again,” said Simkins.
Shortly there after he purchased a car and was back in the game, just recently completing his second post-retirement season. He raced as a member of the Eastern Ontario Vintage Stock Car Club, taking part at events at tracks such as Brockville and Brighton.
“I did it, I had a couple good wins, some good second place finishes and a met a whole bunch of good people who were out racing,” he said. “I ran two years and I said to my wife it’s a dream come true with what I accomplished.”
The club was a great support, always there to lend a hand whenever he needed help with a quick race day repair. When he banged up his car during a race, his fellow club members were there to help him load the car onto the trailer to help get it home.
“Everybody helped,” he said. “That’s the way everybody is at the club. If you have some kind of misfortune in your qualifying heats, you’ll have everybody at your car, do you need this, I’ve got that. Everybody is helping you and it’s kind of a different experience to be with a group like that.”
He credited his Napanee-based sponsors for helping him relive his dream Hart N’ Hart, Canadian Tire, Chuck’s Roadhouse, Rankin’s Towing, Mackay Insurance, County Butcher Shop, Doyle’s Windows, Access Automotive, Kandi’s Esthetics, Napanee Muffler and Brake, Re/Max Paula Bevens-Rutter.
As much fun as the last two years have been, he says this time he’s stepping away for good. He noted it’s not quite like in his younger days when he was visiting the track in his mid 20s.
“We looked like a group that had just come from a retirement home to the race track,” he laughed. “But we all joke about that. We just have a good time. It’s not about whether you win or not. It’s competitive and we race hard, but it’s about going out and putting a show on and being able to laugh about it at the end of the night.”