By: Ashley McCubbin

Following eight top-five’s and a fourth-place finish in the year-end standings, L.P. Dumoulin will return to the NASCAR Canada Series for the 2024 season. As he prepares for his 13th full-time campaign, the three-time champion shared his thoughts with NEWS FROM THE PITS.

What are your thoughts as you look towards to the 2024 NASCAR Canada Day Series season?

Well, my thoughts are very positive. I think that everybody on the series has been working really hard to make it better every year. I think, like any other sport or series or high level competition, they have to deal with a lot of curveballs and things that are not easy to deal with so I believe the people in place right now are in a good team to bring that series to a good level of competition and the level of fairness. I think they’re going to achieve that and I’m happy about that.

We saw the consistency with you each week last season, but I think the big thing missing was not seeing you get a win last year. What is it going to take to get the Weathertech Dodge back in victory lane?

I think we got super close to win some races last year, and we’re just very hungry right now. We want to win – that’s the first goal on the team is winning races. What is it going to take?

I think the oval program is getting better. We actually already made a lot of homework on the oval car. We are planning to go to the pull-down rig at McColl’s (Racing Enterprises) to improve our oval program and to make that car better. We’ve struggled with that car since we built it in 2021 and we had a hard time to find the right adjustments. We really want to go and sit down with (Mike) McColl on the pull-down rig there and really see what’s going on with that car. That’s a big deal for us. There’s new rules coming with NASCAR Canada with the oval cars that I think was helping some people in the past, and I think this should help on the other end.

For the road course car, we took the car all apart. It’s a car that we really like. It’s been doing good for us in the past so instead of building a new chassis – it’s not a new chassis but it’s a good car, fast. But just do a good maintenance on it, take it all apart and do a brand new powder coat on it to look at the chassis itself and see if everything is perfect. We are building the road course car from A to Z. All in all, I think it’s very positive for the WeatherTech team for 2024.

Obviously, we’ve seen the 2024 schedule. Being a guy from Quebec, what does it mean to have a chance to close out the season this year in Quebec?

It is great. Nothing against Ontario, I love Ontario as I have a lot of friends and fans and partners in Ontario – I just love Ontario, and the way we were closing in Ontario in the past years. But I think it’s going to be interesting finishing in Quebec. Montmagny is going to be a new track for a lot of people, but not a new track for a lot of other people. There’s a lot of people that have been racing there in late models for years.

It will be an advantage for some guys, but on the other end, I mean every time we go to London (Delaware Speedway), we know there’s a lot of drivers like (D.J.) Kennington, (Brandon) Watson, (Treyten) Lapcevich, those guys that have been racing late models in London but we were still competitive. So I think Montmagny should be interesting and I’m looking forward to seeing how racy that track can be.

What track on the new schedule are you most looking forward to getting to?

That’s the toughest question that you can ask me because I’m so pumped about the whole season there, all the tracks that we’re going to. I mean, I love oval track, but of course going back to CTMP (Canadian Tire Motorsports Park) and GP3R are the tracks that we can clinch a win there. I have to work for the oval tracks, and of course we have London; I’m looking forward to redeeming ourselves there.

I mean, going out west, out east – and yes, the track that I’m really looking forward to going back to is Antigonish (Riverside International Speedway). We’ve really been fast there in the past. It’s not an easy track and it’s not easy to race there, but of course a track that I enjoy going back there. My mom is from New Brunswick so going back to the Maritimes there is always really cool. I can always go see my family there as well on my mom’s side.

So all in all, I’m super excited about whole season. I’m super pumped about the west coast swing there going to Saskatoon first, and then Edmonton after. I think there’s a lot of positives around the series right now and all in all, I’m really pumped.

What is it about the series that keeps bringing you back each year?

Well, it’s one of those things. I was asked this week why don’t you go try to the U.S side more? I got no problem going to the U.S. side, but I’ve been sponsored by WeatherTech for 13 years now doing full seasons with our other partners on-board like Bellemare. It’s Canadian business for us, and we have no shame about that series if you come here about the down south series. Yeah, it’s a grassroots series – that’s what you call it.

But honestly, you can bring a lot of people into our series from the U.S. and I’m not being cocky about it, but it’s very competitive in our series. That’s what makes it so much fun. There’s no slow driver out there. It’s just a bunch of really good drivers and really good teams. You can bring drivers from around the world and they’re going to have a hard time winning in that series. That’s where we’re at. That’s how I’m looking at it. Maybe one day if I could some road course in the (Craftsman) Truck Series, I would like to do that.

As far as the short tracks and ovals in the province, it’s not easy to race those short ovals and we have CTMP which is world level road course. Like, you really have to come in on that track. You have that on your schedule for two races, and you have street circuits like GP3R which has been there forever, and then you go to Antigonish which is like a little Bristol (Motor Speedway). I mean, then you have the real short track deal. Then you got one dirt race among all that. it’s a pretty complete championship – I can tell you that.

Speaking of championships, you’ve been able to get three of those during your career. What was the most memorable of those?

That’s a tough question. I think they’re all so important. I mean, it’s really hard to say which – it’s like kids. You can’t say there’s one you like more than the other. But they all have something really special. That’s hard to pick one championship, but I can tell you one thing – the first championship is the big goal that you’ve been working forever for. It’s the one that proves what you can do and who you are and gets you some good base in the series in that you have that championship down.

Then we got the second championship with our own team in 2018, which was another big deal as well. That meant a lot as well. Then the third championship was just after the pandemic. I think the other ones were harder than the other ones, but the last one was a lot to go through. We had just gone through the pandemic and everybody went through hard times through all that hard stuff and we show up there for 2021 just digging hard. Not having the results we wanted, but just being good enough and then having the win at the right time, and then having the podiums at the right time and never giving up. Here we go, we got the third one.

It’s really hard to say which one is the best. They all mean so much.

There’s a lot of people that look up to you as a driver. What would be a piece of advice to someone getting started?

Well, first things first, for a kid, keep you’re a-game going. You got to keep going to school. You need to have the – it’s hard to say the A or B plan going because for me, my dad always told me keep going to school. If racing works, fine, but you got to keep going to school. So for him, the A-plan was the school and the b-plan was racing. But for me, the a-plan was racing and the b-plan was school.

But anyways, I would say just keep going to school first and make sure you surround yourself with the right people, the people that really mean well and help you, the people that will work with you to make things happen. That’s one thing that’s very important. I can tell you all the smoozie stuff like never give up and perseverance – but that’s a no-brainer. You have to be that. You have to never give up, you have to keep your dream going, you have to keep believing in yourself. But that’s stuff that you can read on the internet. You can go get that information.

But if you surround yourself with the right people and you work extremely hard – if you doubt you are not working hard enough, that means you’re not working hard enough. It’s just a no-brainer. You have to wake up in the morning, early, work-out, work ethic, get the right people around you, and keep knocking at doors for sponsorship.

Learn about marketing – not only racing cars, but a lot of kids only want to race the cars. I get it. Yep, on the football team, everybody wants to be the line backer or the QB (quarterback), but hey, you know what? You have to learn all the other aspects of racing. If you learn about marketing, learn about how to talk to the media – it’s super important to perform, but you have to perform on and off the track. That’s stuff you can learn.

I went to university and I didn’t know where to go in university. I wanted to be a racecar driver, so I asked myself what could help me? I went marketing and then I can learn how sponsorship works and publicity and marketing around sponsors – that’s part of what I did in university and now it helps me figure out everything else.