Raceline's Erik Tomas inducted into Canadian Motorsport Hall of Fame
BY JOHN CHICK Special to the VOICE
If you’ve ever heard the nationally syndicated weekly show Raceline Radio, it might surprise you to learn that many of host Erik Tomas’ interviews with some of the giants of the global auto racing scene are conducted from his home in Fonthill.
“It’s a locally generated program, and that’s not a stretch,” Tomas said in his unmistakable, booming voice. “I do much of the prep and the interviews from my office at my house on Hurricane Road.”
Over the past three decades, Tomas has interviewed and built relationships with a parade of famous surnames like Andretti, Villeneueve, Goodyear, and Hinchcliffe. That work was honored this week in Toronto when he and nine other racing journalists were inducted into the Canadian Motorsport Hall of Fame.
Not bad for a guy who got his first taste of racing at Merrittville Speedway some 60 years ago.
“It all started when my dad took me to Merrittville when I was seven years old,” he said. “I’m 66 now.”
Tomas later became the track announcer there, meeting his wife Janice — whose father used to own Merrittville — in the process. Ultimately pursuing a media career in Toronto, in the 1980s he saw an opening for a Canadian motorsports TV show. Tomas, Bruce Mehlenbacher, and John Massingberd launched a program on TSN called Raceline, which became the seed for the current radio show — now in its 27th season.
Syndicated in 15 markets from coast to coast across Canada, Raceline Radio is heard locally on CKTB, CHML, and Sportsnet 590 The Fan.
“The greatest compliment I get is from people who tell me two things,” he said. “One, they all think it’s an American radio program — and that’s a great compliment because sometimes locally produced radio shows tend to sound very colloquial. But because we get the major stars on the air, it doesn’t sound like a locally-generated program. And I think the other big compliment I receive, is when [listeners] say, ‘I’m not necessarily a big auto racing fan, but I like the way your show sounds.’”
Slick U.S.-style production aside, Tomas has always made it a priority to cover Canadian racers of all stripes.
“The mandate of the show has always been to not only cover all of auto racing, from NASCAR to F1 to Indy cars, the mandate was to make sure we spotlighted Canadian racing talent and events,” Tomas said. “I mean this country has produced some historically great drag racers. And motorcycle racers in this country have been great for years and years, generations and generations. So you know, I've got 22 minutes every week to renew that, year-round. And thanks to loyal sponsors like Subaru, they’ve been with us since day one 27 years ago.”
Tomas knows that while auto racing’s profile ebbs and flows on the national stage, there’s a base market that has always been there, and that starts at tracks like Merrittville, in less-populated regions such as Niagara.
“NASCAR’s TV numbers have waned a bit, and attendance is down, but in terms of interest in the sport, this little track over here, they’re about to start their 68th consecutive season of operation — the oldest operating dirt track in Canada,” he said. “Junior hockey has come and gone, minor league baseball has come and gone, but they haven’t been as constant as that little old dirt track over there.”
Tomas doesn’t see this changing.
“You’re not going to bump the NHL off that perch, you’re probably not going to bump the Blue Jays off that perch, but down in certain pockets of this country, racing automobiles, man, it’s still a big deal. And I think that’s why we’ve survived as long as we have.”
Tomas is also involved as a media consultant on the long-delayed Canadian Motor Speedway in Fort Erie. Despite little movement on the project, he says it is still a go.
“When you’re building a $400 million project — it took seven years just to get it through the Ontario Municipal Board — nothing this big has been built in this area before,” Tomas said. “So I mean, it sounds like an excuse, but if you’re going to do something this big, you need to do it right.”
In the meantime, Tomas will continue hosting Raceline, preparing the show in Fonthill and driving to Hamilton once a week to broadcast the final product. Thanks to cutbacks and the downsizing of the newspaper industry, he figures he is one of only two sports journalists left in Canada covering auto racing full-time.
“It’s a labour of love, and when you’ve been doing it for 27 years, you don’t get too many no’s on interview requests,” he said. “We’re still riding it. I’m 66 years old, I’m past retirement I suppose, but you’ll find me dead one day at the microphone.”
