By: Ashley McCubbin

With a best finish of seventh on a couple occasions last season, Daniel Bois returns to the NASCAR Canada Series in 2024 with his sights set on the road courses, and the lone dirt event at Ohsweken Speedway. The MBS Motorsports recently shared his thoughts with NEWS FROM THE PITS.

What are your thoughts as we get ready for the 2024 race season?

Just looking forward to it. It’ll be nice to get back on-track and get rid of this weather. Looking forward to it. Similar schedule to last year – we’re going to do all the road courses and the dirt. So it will be good to get back out there and not many big changes with our team, just trying to find a bit of speed here and there so working hard on that.

What are the goals and expectations for this season based on the finishes that you were able to get last year?

Every year, we’re just trying to go a little bit more. Last year, we said if we could run in the top-10 consistently we’d be happy. So each race, we were running well in the top-10, and had a bunch of finishes up there as well. So this year, it’s move to the next step which is top-fives. So if we can run up in the top-five, that will be a win for us. Then incrementally, just try to do a bit more.

Out of the races that are on your schedule, what are you most excited for?

Well CTMP (Canadian Tire Motorsports Park) is my home track and that’s where I work out of, so always CTMP. I feel most comfortable there out of any track. But GP3R is always a cool event, that’s probably the one I’m most looking forward to. Not saying I’m going to run the best there, but just what I’m looking most forward to.

We’ve seen the team keep stepping it up each season as you mentioned in that performance continually getting better. What do you feel that you need to work on and improve to get to that next step?

Some reliability with our cars. We’ve had some silly things break. We were running in the top-five – I think we were sixth or seventh, and we had a spark plug wire burn up because it was sitting on the header and it ended up making us drop back to 10^th. So things like that.

Same thing with ICAR – running up in the top-five, and we started running out of fuel. Just being able to go through the processes to make sure the cars finish the race and getting a bit of reliability will be good and then finding a bit more speed so I don’t have to work as hard to stay up with the pack.

We’re entering the third year of having a dirt race on the schedule each season. What has surprised you from the first two seasons that we’ve running at Ohsweken Speedway?

The biggest surprise was for me is it’s not like driving on dirt. It’s more like driving on ice. So there’s some work to be done on the side of the series to be able to come back with a better tire where we can actually put on a – it’s still a good show, but it’s a bit too slow in my opinion. Ice racing is fun, but cars just don’t get any speed with the tire that we’re on. So to be able to come back with a better tire in my opinion would make for a much better show.

Is there a chance down the road that we could see you and MBS Motorsports step up and run the full schedule?

There’s potential, but as of now, the schedule being the way it is this year with not many Ontario oval, lots of travel obviously going out west – my team owners, myself have our day jobs. Being able to commit to a whole year would be tough when we all have our jobs that we have to do and don’t want to take away from the family time, right?

We saw you get your start in the T.Q. Can-Am Midgets and have success there. What was your most memorable moment from your time racing those, and what’s the biggest thing that you were able to learn during that time that has helped you moving forward?

Lots, to be honest. Obviously winning the championship in 2008 was great. My time running for Cliff Walsh, the team owner, was amazing, and probably what I learnt the most from those cars is learning how to work on a car because Cliff took the time to teach me and what I needed in a car.

Then on the driving aspect of things, because they’re such a small car with a short wheel base, it taught me lots of car control. You always had to have the car a little sideways to be fast and have the control to be able to keep it going the right way.

We’ve seen you T.Q. Can-Am Midgets, and now the NASCAR Canada Series. Is there something else that you want to get behind the wheel of?

I’ve been pretty lucky with all I’ve been able to drive – racing super late models, modifieds, some late model stuff, so I’m pretty content with what I’ve been able to drive. I also do a lot of sportscar racing, some GT4 stuff, so I’m pretty happy to do all that. But if I was to say anything, it’d be nice to do a road course down in the States in something, whether ARCA or a Truck or something like that.

I think anybody aspires to do that, but I’m one of those guys that are done chasing sponsorship and the money where we have a good group of sponsors with us now and they’re happy to run what we’re doing. I don’t want to exhaust myself with looking for money to go down south. I’m just pretty happy to be where I’m at.

What would be a piece of advice that you’d offer to someone getting started based on your experience?

Find yourself good partners on all ends, whether it’s a team owner that believes in you and is willing to work with you. Then run it like a business. You can’t run it like a hobby even if it is your hobby. It needs to run like a business and the sponsors you’re working with, you’re essentially an employee of them and you need to be able to sell their product as well as they sell their product so they see that return. Just putting a sticker on a racecar doesn’t create enough interest in them to do it, unless they’re an obsessive race fan. There’s no benefit unless you can sell their product or their services as an employee.