By Terry Guest, CWR Journalist
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| Photo: Canada West Racing |
After a 31 year absence from racing, Don Nickel has returned and hasn’t missed a beat. Don lives in Kelowna B.C., with his wife Kathie, they have seven kids collectively: Darren, Christina, Jen, Mike, Shannon, Rob, and Michael and eight grand children, with one on the way. Don and Kathie own Focus Media, a company that publishes scoring and yardage cards for golf courses.
Don first got interested in racing in 1967, when he and friends went to the local races at Langley Speedway, and since then he has been hooked. After watching from the stands for two years, Don decided he wanted to be on the track and bought an Early Late, which was the entry level division at Langley Speedway back in the day, and he debuted his 1954 Chevy in the 1970 season. "The car handled so bad, sometimes I spun at both ends of the track on the same lap" says Don. In 1971, he and his brother Al built a 1957 Chevy B Super Stock and went on to win a club championship that year. In 1972, Don, Al and younger brother Richard built a 1964 Chevelle A Super Stock, racing it in the first Canada 200 in the same year. The track was trying to get Bobby Allison to come out for that race and settled on getting Janet Guthrie, the first woman to compete in the Indianapolis 500 and the Daytona 500. In 1973 they built a 1966 Chevelle. The following year, Don, Al and Richard switched over to Dodge building a 1973 Charger, which they raced at a variety of different tracks and in 1976, they built another car: a 1974 Dodge Dart, "which held the track record at Langley for about four minutes until Tom Berrow took it back" says Don. He also stated, "With all the cars we built you might think that we wrecked a lot, but actually we just always thought we had a better idea on how to make the car faster". After building six cars in seven race seasons, Don and his brothers had young families that needed attention so decided to take a year off to regroup. The projected “one year” turned into 31 years. Finally in 2008, Don made his return to racing, returning in the Late Model Class.
The past three WCSS seasons, Don has accumulated awards for Rookie of the Year and Sportsman of the Year. For Don, racing is more than just trying to make the car faster, it’s about the great people involved in this sport and the opportunity to spend time with his family and doing something he really loves. When I asked Don about the memories he has developed over the years, he responded by saying, “It is all the support I've gotten over the years from my family and friends”.
In the upcoming 2011 season, Don will once again be running in the WCSS and racing a few races from the ARCA and ASA BC Late Model Tour schedules. Don would like to thank his wife Kathie, the Thomas family, Finish Line Racing Products, Shane Harding and Harding Motorsports Supply for all their help, and also his sponsors Focus Media and Smartgolf Scorecards. He would also like to thank his Brothers Rich and Al, his niece Britt, Angie and nephew Randy for all of their help over the past three seasons.
Watch for this veteran racer (Kathie says veteran just means he is older than dirt) in the 2011 season.