While at the 24 Hours of LeMons South event, I saw four racing team members (on four different teams) wearing Driveshaft Through The Skull T-Shirts during the course of the weekend- pretty impressive, given that we only made 84 of them and they were shipped all over the world. The proud wearers of those shirts might have been surprised to discover that the artist behind the DTTS design was actually out there on the track with them, reaching the coveted LeMons Top Ten in an '85 Nissan 300ZX. Meet Walker Player Canada, South Carolina artist and racing fanatic.
I worked with Walker at Year One back in the 90s, and we've been friends ever since. When he heard the 24 Hours of LeMons was coming to his neighborhood, there would be no doubt that he'd get a team together.
The Canada family, led by patriarch C.C. (the guy on the right in the above photo), is very serious about racing and cool cars in general. They've got a couple of Ferraris (330GT and 308), quite a few Barrett-Jackson-level musclecars, and a whole stable of road-race Camaros. The 300ZX- which won its class and 8th place overall at LeMons- is used by Walker's brother, Cash, as a practice car at his racing school.
How serious are they about racing? This is the house across the road from Carolina Motorsports Park, which the Canadas bought so they'd have a headquarters near the track. They were kind enough to let me, Mark, and Lieberman stay there while we were working at the race.
I couldn't have imagined a better place to stay; not only did we get a fridge full of beer (love that Southern hospitality!), there was a big stack of inspiring reading material.
The decor was definitely car-guy-centric, but something was missing...
Of course- a BMW E21 hood! The Ones2Drive team left their hood behind at the track after the race, and Walker figured it would look good hanging on the wall at Canada Race HQ. Good thinking!