Inducted 2001 – Competitor – Snowmobile Racing
Jacques Villeneuve, the brother of Gilles and uncle of Jacques, is being inducted into the Canadian Motorsport Hall of Fame for his excellence in snowmobile racing as well as automobile racing. He is best known as the first Canadian to win a CART Indycar race at Elkart Lake, Wisconsin, in 1986) and has been World Snowmobile Champion three times. In fact, he is favoured to become the sport’s first four-time champion. Modest, friendly and full of fun, Jacques is known for his wide open, sometimes wild, driving style and his passionate desire to win every time out. He started racing in 1976 and was rookie-of-the-year in the Honda Civic championship. He won the title in 1977 b+A59efore going Formula Ford racing in 1978, where he finished second in the Jim Russell championship. In 1979 he was rookie-of-the-year in the Canadian Formula Atlantic series and won the Atlantic championship in 1980, the same year he won his first world snowmobile championship. He repeated as Formula Atlantic champion in 1981 and tried his hand at Formula One, failing unfortunately to qualify an Arrows at the Canadian Grand Prix and the U.S. Grand Prix at Las Vegas. In 1982, he was second in the Can-Am two-litre championship and won his second snowmobile title. In 1983, he won the Can-Am 5-litre title but again failed to qualify for the Canadian GP. He entered CART competition in 1984 with Hall-of-Fame member David Billes and the Canadian Tire racing team and set the series on its ear by winning the pole at the Phoenix round, setting (for that time) a world closed-course speed record in the process. Unfortunately, he crashed heavily while practicing for the Indianapolis 500 and was forced to skip that race but the Canadian Tire team returned to finish fifth in 1985. In 1986 his luck at Indy went sour again and a gearbox problem saw him finish 15th but, in the rain at Elkart Lake, he became the first Canadian to win a CART race, In all, he drove three seasons for the Canadian Tire team before leaving the CART series. In 1986, by the way, Jacques added his third snowmobile crown. Jacques is also known in snowmobile circles as having incredible mechanical ability in that winter sport. From 1986 until 1993, Jacques’ full-time auto racing career wound down but every time out, whether it was in Can Am, the Porsche Super Cup or Formula Atlantics, he qualified frequently on pole (Mont-Tremblant, Trois Rivieres), and either won (Trois Rivieres) or finished near the front. Now, Jacques is unable to be with us tonight. He is snowmobile racing in Winnipeg, naturally, it’s winter and that’s what Jacques does in the wintertime.