By: Ashley McCubbin

Although currently set to defend his ACT LMS Québec Championship this season, Raphael Lessard will be partaking in the four NASCAR Canada Series dates scheduled in Quebec this summer. He recently shared his thoughts about the opportunity and more with NEWS FROM THE PITS.

What are your thoughts as you look ahead to the summer and the NASCAR Canada Series races you are going to be running?

Well I’m really excited, first of all. I’d like to thank all of my sponsors – Larue, XPN – that have jumped on board for these four races out here in Quebec. I’m also running for the ACT championship again in Quebec that I won last year, so I am going to defend my title this year again – unless I am able to find enough sponsorship to run the full NASCAR Canada Series. That’s always the goal, but as of right now, I’m defending my title in the ACT series with Larue Motorsports and they decided to jump on-board and sponsor me for all four races out here in the Quebec in the NASCAR Canada Series.

So I’m really excited. It’s fine to have some new tracks, like Montmagny. The championship is going to end in Montmagny and I have been running that race track since I was 11, 12-years-old. I’m really excited for it. it’s a really nice place, and it’s very exciting to see NASCAR Canada going there this year.

A lot of people who are involved with the NASCAR Canada Series haven’t gotten a chance to see Autodrome Montmagny and what it’s like. What is the biggest challenge when it comes to that oval?

There’s a lot of race tracks like it. The asphalt is pretty old. The front stretch is really, really wide, compared to the backstretch, so you can use a lot of room coming off of turn four. There’s also some bumps, especially in turns three and four – like pretty big bump on exit off of the corner. The race track, you can use different lanes.

I don’t know if in the Pinty’s cars will be able to, but in ACT, the last few years, we’ve been able to run inside, outside during the races and it’s been putting on a good show so I’m really excited. I mean, if you compare to Chaudiere, the other track out here in Quebec, it’s almost twice as big so I think the speed in the Pinty’s cars is going to be pretty surprising with the amount of horsepower they have.

Outside of Montmagny, which of the three other races are you most excited for?

I’m always excited for all of them, but Chaudiere being my home track and I’ve won there in the past in my first NASCAR Pinty’s race so it’s always very exciting going there. I have a lot of fans cheering for me, and I live now in Vallee-Jonction, so the race track is Vallee-Jonction, my house is two kilometers away from the track so it’s always fun to race there. I love the race track. it’s a great place. The pit area, the fans are close to you so usually its packed every time the Pinty’s Series goes there. So that’s going to be fun.

GP3R is always exciting. Some road course experience, it’s always good to run road courses especially against the best of the best in the business like Andrew Ranger, L.P. Dumoulin, Marc-Antoine Camirand, Alex Tagliani – all these guys – Kevin Lacroix. They’re all super good on road courses. If you’re able to run with them on a road course, I think you can run anywhere in any series on a road course.

We’ve seen you have success in the past in the NASCAR Canada Series. What’s been the most memorable moment for you in the series so far?

I would say probably when I won two races at Sunset (Speedway) in one night. That was pretty crazy. You don’t get to do that often in racing. Usually something happens in one of the two races, or you can break or wreck. But winning both races like that was crazy. I couldn’t believe it. It was with Wight Motorsports. We had a really, really fast car that day, and I was replacing Donald Theetge, so that was even cooler to just replace someone and win two races for that guy was really special.

I was going to say – both of those races were great battles that came down to the end. It was a fun night…

Yeah, exactly. It was a lot of fun. It was my first time seeing the place – got my first laps in practice and had to start way in the back the first race because we didn’t go through technical inspection after qualifying due to a weight issue or something like that. it was definitely a lot of fun.

You mentioned the success you’ve had with the ACT Tour the past couple seasons. What are your thoughts as you look back on last season, and the year you were able to put together?

Well, we had a pretty good season I would say. The big thing is we completed all the laps. So I think I’m the only guy that completed every single lap of every single race. So I think that’s what you need to do to be a champion, and my team Larue Motorsports was doing a great job with the car, the maintenance side of thing and the mechanic side of things. We never broke anything. The car always lasted every single lap so that was a big part of us winning the championship.

But we won the first race, the opening race of the season, and then we won the Bacon Bowl, the biggest race of the season. So that was really cool. Our second year in a row winning the biggest race of the season and besides that, we struggled a little bit with the car especially at Montmagny. We couldn’t find any speed out of the car.

I think this year we bought a brand new McColl (Racing Enterprises) car. We were running Port City, but we sold them both. So my car and my teammate’s car – we sold them both so we’re starting off with brand new racecars. I can’t wait to try them, can’t wait to see them if we can be even more competitive and win more races with these two cars.

How did you get started in racing, originally?

Well I started when I was 11-years-old in the mini stock class at Autodrome Chaudiere, and what got me into racing was my dad liked it. I have a racing family. My dad has been racing his whole life, just for fun, and I was following him every summer at the race track and I loved it. Like, my dad could see I was getting it, I was saying stuff that he would do on the race track and he was like. “How is an 11-year-old know all that stuff? A kid isn’t supposed to be telling all that stuff, all that information.”

So I think he saw something in me and my dad owned a trucking company, and at nine-years-old, I was driving the big trucks around the yard with the big 53’ foot long trailer and backing it up – that’s how it started. My dad saw that I was getting it pretty easy, and even in the four-wheeler, snowmobile, all that sort of stuff.

So he just came home one day and we were eating dinner, my mom and I, and he walked in and said, “Well, I just bought a racecar for Raphael.” My mom was like, “What the heck? He’s 11. Are you crazy?” My dad just told me that we’d go practice, make a few laps, and he’ll be the judge if I am ready to race with people around him.

Then we went to practice, the first day, and I think it was a Wednesday, and my dad said, “I think you’re ready, and we’re going to go race on Saturday. The only thing I ask you to do is finish on the lead lap.” So I said alright and ended up running mid-pack all race and it went really well. That’s how it all started.

We’ve seen you over the years get the chance to run the truck series, as well as do the NASCAR Canada Series and the ACT Tour. Is there anything else in motorsports that you’d like to try that you haven’t tried yet?

I mean, I’ve tried a lot of stuff so I’m not really sure – I would like to try a modified maybe, a Whelen Modified on asphalt. Those seem like super fast and fun to drive. Maybe a dirt super late model. That’d be really cool. Like, I’ve raced super late models on asphalt – won a championship in the U.S. also and won some big races, but I’ve never tried a dirt super late model. That’d be something that I’d love to try.

Who do you consider your racing hero?

When I was really young, I really looking at Jeff Gordon. Then it became more Kyle Larson when he first got in Sprint Cup. I was like, “Damn, he seems so young,” and I couldn’t believe it and I could see how good he was. Kyle Larson jumped from one dirt race straight to a Cup race the next day and then back to a dirt race and he’s like crazy good. I worked with him when I was with the Chevy program, and I think he’s probably my racing hero I would say because he’s really, really good.

Also, working with Kyle Busch. He’s extremely good and racing for his team was really special, too.