In 1950 (I think), my dad took me to the movies and I saw The Big Wheel, with Mickey Rooney. It is about a midget racing driver who makes it to the Indianapolis 500. (Incidentally, there is a reference to Oswego in that picture.) I fell in love with racing and devoured every book and magazine I could find on the subject (not much in those days). As a teen in Niagara Falls , I went to Merrittville most Saturday nights. In my 20s, I would go to Mosport for road racing one weekend and then drive to Toledo  or Winchester  for sprints the next. Covered my first Indy 500 for the Globe and Mail in 1969 and my first F1 Grand Prix for the Globe in 1970. I have been a newspaperman all my working career (primarily a news editor) but I've never been a motorsport "beat" writer. I have been very fortunate, however, because the papers I worked for would call on me to do any racing reporting they needed. By the way, I won the first race meet I ever entered -- a soap box derby in Kapuskasing in 1951! I went to a racing school at Shannonville in 1978 (or so) and then raced Formula Fords for two years. Always loved the supermodifieds best, though, so bought my first  Oswego super in 1982. I drove the thing half-a-dozen times over the next few years but decided I was never going to be as good as I thought I could be. I put a number of guys in it (and a second super I purchased in 1986) but had to call it quits in 1989 because I didn't have the time or the money to continue. I told Romey Caruso at the Oswego Speedway that I was quitting and these were his exact words: "You've always had a big mouth, why don't you become an announcer?" I became trackside announcer at Oswego in 1990, a job I did every Saturday night in summer until 2003 when I took a leave of absence because of family obligations. I'm still officially on a leave of absence -- although the Caruso brothers have since sold the track so I'm not 100 per cent sure of my status. . .

Because of my announcing and writing, I was asked to be photo manager (a fancy title for making sure the photographers could do their job) for the Molson Indy races in Toronto and Vancouver . I am chairman of the Selection Committee for the Canadian Motorsport Hall of Fame (as well as MC of the induction gala). I co-hosted a racing radio show on The Fan590 with Jim Martyn for two years and, in addition to my weekly column  in Toronto Star Wheels, I record a weekly podcast for thestar.com (or wheels.ca), usually with a guest. One of my favourite podcasts, incidentally (which can still be heard) is with sprint car giant Jack Hewitt and the SOS's own Dick Mahoney. I am really lucky, in that I devour and adore all types of racing. I don't discriminate.

Readers of the Toronto Star are extremely fortunate that the editor of Toronto Star Wheels, Mark Richardson, has an open mind when it comes to racing. Sure, some racing personalties and some forms of racing are more popular than others but Mark knows and understands that the Star is a newspaper for everyone and the Wheels section must cater to all tastes.

True story. I wrote a weekly auto racing column for the Globe in the mid-to-late 1990s. One week, I submitted a column on Ron Fellows, who was looking forward to driving in a NASCAR Craftsman Truck race at Watkins Glen. The Globe refused to publish it, because "Globe readers don't like pickup truck racing."

That is not the way it is at the Star. I can write about Formula One or NASCAR or OSCAAR or SOS. The only time Toronto Star Wheels refused to publish one of my columns was because I wrote a piece criticizing the Star's sports department for ignoring car racing. The brass didn't like that.

There are now so many "major league sports" -- NHL, NFL, NBA, Major League Baseball, PGA golf, Olympics, etc. etc. -- that is is very difficult to get anything into "mainstream media" sports pages because they don't have enough room for what they have now. The papers are getting smaller all the time.

So I would start sending your pictures, reports, results, etc., to the sports editors of the "mainstream media" web sites. A phone call to the Globe, TSN, Sportsnet, Sun, National Post, etc. will get you the name and email address of the sports editors.  (An aside: millions of people over the course of a month go to the thestar.com/sports ---- many more than actually read the paper.)

1. F1 Grand Prix of Canada, Montreal
2. Oswego Classic

I am working on a comprehensive history of auto racing in Canada . There have been two books published previously -- "Challenge" (1970), by the late Len Coates and "Our Chequered Past" (2007) by Prof. David Charters -- both about road racing in Canada. My book will include the road racing but also our oval racing heritage. Most race fans in Canada , going back to the start of the last century right up to the present, watch oval racing for enjoyment. Canadian sprint car stars like Fred Horey, Emory Collins and Hal Robson and board track guys like Pete Henderson and Ira Vail were household names in Canada and the U.S. once upon a time (they raced against and beat guys like Barney Oldfield and Ralph DePalma) but nobody knows who they are today. My book will fix that -- I hope. And I will tell the stories of these guys; it will be a history of auto racing but with an emphasis on the "story." I've been working on this for more than three years, now. I hope to have it done this summer and then everybody can run out and purchase a copy in time for Christmas!

Title: "Race Day: Stories of Motor Racing in Canada - 1900-2008."