Oakville title-holder seems to be able to race and win in just about any kind of car

For the second consecutive year, the Grand Am KONI Challenge series (now called the Continental Tire challenge) won’t have its defending champion competing on a regular basis.

Last year, the 2008 champion, Scott Maxwell of Toronto, wasn’t in the series. And for 2010, the prospects of a full-time ride for title-holder Kenny Wilden of Oakville look bleak. Although he’s in Florida for a Grand Am practice session this weekend at Daytona, the race at the end of the month is a one-off.

“But that’s kind of how my career has gone,” Wilden said “I don’t think I’ve ever had a solid two-year deal in all the years I’ve been racing.”

Unlike many other drivers who’ve quietly disappeared from the scene, Wilden has been able to stay active in the upper echelons of the sport (he started racing in 1987 when he was in his early 20s) because of an uncanny ability to race and win in literally any kind of car – from showroom stock cars to balls-to-the-wall Trans-Am sedans to light-and-nimble Formula Atlantics.

Which is why he’s set his sights this year on as many Grand Am races as he can, as well as at least three races in the NASCAR Nationwide stock car series.

“I can pretty much drive anything fast,” he said.

Wilden’s living and career have revolved around automobiles and driving since the mid-1980s.

“I went out to Expo ‘86 in Vancouver and got work as a valet parking jockey,” he said. “It’s funny, I parked cars on the property that eventually became the track for the Molson Indy Vancouver and where I raced in Formula Atlantic. At the time, I had no idea I would be going racing.

“When I returned to Toronto, I started working in sales with Young Drivers of Canada. I got my instructor’s licence, started teaching and then got enough money together to buy a franchise. I love teaching defensive driving and was with Young Drivers until two years ago, when I opened Drivewise Mississauga.”

During the first Molson Indy Toronto in ‘86, Wilden was impressed by Canadian racing legend Richard Spenard. “He was driving in the Player’s-GM Series and he told an interviewer about his school (the long-gone Spenard-David Racing School at Shannonville Motorsport Park).

“Three months later, I was in a Camaro and Richard and Ron Fellows were my instructors. It turned out that they were my motivation. I figured if they could drive racing cars, then so could I. I always wanted to beat those two; they were my benchmark.”

Wilden entered the old Honda-Michelin Challenge Series and won rookie of the year. He won the top rookie award when he moved up to the Player’s-GM series, too.

“My focus was starting to be on racing,” he said. “But I didn’t have the money to keep going. I went to Le Circuit-Mont Tremblant for the Player’s-GM East-West Shootout (the top six from each region would race) and I was the only car without sponsorship.

“Some guys from Proctor & Gamble came over to me. They weren’t going to have a car in the race and they said they’d love to have Tide on my car. I finished second and that started a relationship with P&G that enabled me to continue.”

Wilden won the Player’s-GM title in ‘92 and broke all of Spenard’s records in the process – most wins, fastest laps and so on. He tested a Trans-Am car for Chevrolet that year (”which gave me a glimpse of what was possible”) and then entered six Atlantic races in 1993, acquitting himself well.

(It was in ‘92, incidentally, that Wilden wrote what he calls his “final exam” as a race driver. “It was at that year’s Molson Indy, in the Player’s-GM race. There was a pileup at the end of the straight – turn 3 – and Spenard got through. I got held up before I could set out after him. But near the end of the race, I’d caught him. I passed him on the outside of turn 1 and I won the race. He was The Man in that series. It was then that I knew I could really be a race driver.”)

The next season, 1994, Wilden suffered one of two serious setbacks that stalled his climb to the top of the racing ladder. At the very last second, his Proctor & Gamble sponsorship was taken from him and handed to another Canadian driver who’d convinced the corporation that he could be just as successful for half the money. He wasn’t – but the damage had been done and Wilden was out.

The late Greg Wilkins was a corporate giant and friend (and a pretty good race driver in his own right) and arranged sponsorship for Wilden to run in the Motorola Cup series for the next three years, in which he won one championship and came close to winning the others.

Then, with strong support from Wilkins’ Trizek Hahn corporation and Slick 50 additives, he went back into the open-wheel Atlantics.

After finishing second in the Atlantic series points race in 1999, Wilden was right on the verge of taking the next step: a ride in the 2000 CART series. He and his wife, Marie, had a successful hospitality business (they handled everything – travel arrangements, hotels, transportation, entertainment – for corporate guests of CART sponsors) and he had strong personal backing from Trizek Hahn and Newcourt Financial Ltd. (which had replaced Slick 50 in 1998 when that company was sold).

“I’d talked to Bobby Rahal about running with his team, the Swift factory team and to Carl Wells,” Wilden recalled. “It was just a matter of deciding where to put the money. But then, within two weeks, both corporations were sold and, just like that, my career was over.”

To say it was a shock would be an understatement.

“I understand the business end of things. But that was a tough one. There were a couple of guys going up to CART – Alex Tagliani, for one – who I knew I could beat. Things like that are pretty hard to take.”

Although he said his career “was over,” that hasn’t been the case. He’s done Trans-Am since (he drove Jim Derhagg’s car at Laguna Seca in 2001 and won the race, beating series superstars Paul Gentilozzi and Boris Said in the process) and then there was that KONI championship last season.

“I’ve branched out, too,” Wilden said. “I’ve done some driver coaching (Mark Wilkins, Jonathan Macri) and then rides just seem to come along.

“Yes, I didn’t go to CART, I didn’t go to the top, but I do get paid to drive racing cars, so I’m not complaining. Some years, you just have to scrounge a little more.”

Looks like this might be one of those years.

nmcdonald@thestar.ca Norris McDonald blogs on motorsport at wheels.ca

Norris McDonald, Motorsport Writer, TORONTO STAR, Jan 09, 2010