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Stories that help build the legend.
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David
Greenblatt and the Dailu
By Colene Allen, Canadian Motorsport
Hall of Fame.
Reading the list of accomplishments in
David Greenblatt's racing career,
one develops a mental picture of an intelligent, determined
and
hard-working man. While that mental picture is accurate, it
barely
scratches the surface of the man whose accomplishments
helped lay the
foundation for future Canadians to race and succeed. None
of David
Greenblatt's accomplishments hint at the ingenious teenage
rebel who
faced down a Montreal Police Chief to recover his parents'
car from
impound, or the young driver who dressed up as a woman and
entered a
race under the name of Prudence Pulver in order to compete
in a historic
race that was for women drivers only!
While talking about his teenage years growing up in the
English quarter of
Montreal, David candidly explains how he snuck his parents'
1953 Pontiac
Bonneville out of the garage at night using the sound of
passing street
cars to cover his movements. At age fourteen, he was
driving without a
license to and from school. He was nearly caught on one
occasion when
the car was towed to police impound and he didn't have the
money to get
the car out. Dave's solution was to have the situation out
with the
Chief of Police, who reluctantly released the car, despite
the fact that
Dave had not paid the fine, and appeared to be underage. In
truth, Dave
drove the family car more often than any other family
member. When
asked how he became such a good racecar driver, Dave shrugs
his
shoulders, and casually jokes that since his sister is
blonde and
blue-eyed, he must have been adopted. His fascination with
cars began
during his school days, and carried him forward to his first
car - a
Triumph TR3 - in 1957.
Dave entered his first competition event in 1957 with the
TR3 under the
assumed name of Luigi Kolantz, since he was still underage.
In 1959, he
came to Toronto and his life briefly crossed paths with that
of Ed
Leavens. Leavens had been racing a Corvette for Gorries
Chevrolet, but
then left the team to strike out on his own, leaving the
ride open. Dave
got the ride, and a driving lesson from Ed that left an
impression that
stays with him even today. From his first race in the
Gorries Corvette
to the end of 1961, when Dave was racing the Sadler MK IV,
he continued
to have the nagging feeling that he could build a better
car. When Dave
finally decided to build the car, it would be for his close
friend Peter
Ryan to race. Thus the Dailu was born.
The Dailu is a car that Dave is extremely proud of, and
rightly so.
Dave and his friends Luigi Cassiani and Mike Saggers built
the Dailu MK
1 in Dave's service shop over the winter of 1961. While
Peter Ryan went
to race in Europe for the Lotus Formula Junior team, Dave
stayed in
Canada to build the Dailu. Peter never drove the Dailu, as
he died in a
racing accident at Reims, France in 1962. Talking about
Peter,
Dave's face takes on a bittersweet expression and he puts
forward the
philosophy that racing was primarily an amateur sport in
America from
which no one made a living, so it wasn't worth dying for.
Peter's death
caused Dave to realize that he wanted to build cars and
manage a team
more than he wanted to drive. He took on managing the
Bardahl
International Team, and chose John Cannon to drive the Dailu.
The latter half of the 1962 season was when Dave entered in
the history
books. The Dailu won the Indian Summer Trophy Races at
Mosport,
becoming the first Canadian built sports racecar to win a
race at
Mosport. A week later, at the Canadian Grand Prix, the
DAILU BARDAHL
SPECIAL, (Dailu MKI) - in John Cannon's hands - went from
fifth to
first on the start and led the first lap of the race.
Spectators were
brought to their feet cheering around the track as the
entirely Canadian
racing effort left the rest of the worlds' best behind. The
pride that
Dave feels in that accomplishment is tangible and
infectious. In all,
Dave built five Dailus, the first which has been certified,
serialized
and plated by the Province of Quebec.
In 1961 Dave raced the first XKE to arrive in North
America. The latter
part of Dave's racing career is characterized by three Ice
Race
Championships and a drive for Ferrari, making him the first
Canadian
driver to be sponsored by Ferrari and UAP ( United Auto
Parts ) to race
for the famed "Prancing Horse", in 1965-1966 in 250LM, and
the Dino
LeMans Factory Team Prototype in 1966 and 1967. Dave last
raced
competitively in 1969 in a Shelby Ford Cobra.
In 1998, Dave was inducted into the Canadian Motorsport Hall
of Fame.
So who is David Greenblatt? Talking with Dave is an
absolute pleasure.
He is gregarious, charming and funny. His stories are full
of humour
and the stuff from which racing legends have grown. Dave's
candid
comments leave you feeling like you've just had a
conversation with a
good friend. He leaves you with a vision of racing that
belies the
serious, stressful nature of today's competitions, and takes
you back to
the days when a race weekend was a party with a bit of
racing thrown in
for fun. He takes you back to the time when it wasn't
unusual to drive
with a hangover. Dave remembers sitting in the dust at the
side of the
track trying to undo the knots the crew had tied in the arms
and legs of
his drivers' suit during a race while lying beside his car
on the
opposite side of the track for a LeMans race start. He
admits to
barricading the highway from Mosport on a Sunday night -
routing the
traffic through a motel parking lot - and causing traffic to
back up for
miles. Dave smiles at you as he talks about dumping just
shy of a whole
case of Mumm's Champagne in a hotel bathtub during Speed
Weeks in the
Bahamas because he wanted to have a champagne bath, and
outright grins
about having the police and a rental car business owner
appear at the VW
Grand Prix during Nassau Speed Weeks to retrieve the rental
car from the
starting grid that Dave had entered in the race. David
Greenblatt is
quite simply a man who loves racing, and who accomplished a
great deal
by intelligence, wit, humor and determination.
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