David Deacon raced in endurance events over multiple decades and helped advance Porsche Canada’s road racing involvement. While most of his career involved turning left and right, Deacon started out on the dirt track scene, competing at Welland County Speedway and Ontario fairground tracks from 1970 to 1972. He started racing in CASC events aboard a Porsche 914 in 1976, before racing in Molyslip Endurance events.

Deacon won the 1980 Molyslip Endurance Championship, driving a 911 Porsche RSR, before becoming the first Canadian to be invited to drive for a major factory effort in the 24 Hours of Le Mans, co-driving a BMW M-1 in 1981. He continued competing in endurance and road racing events in the early 1980s, including with co-drivers Jacques Villeneuve and Ludwig Heimrath on the first Canadian team to qualify for the 24 Hours of Le Mans in 1983.

Deacon became General Manager of the Porsche division for Volkswagen Canada in 1983 and conceived and brought to life a couple of Porsche initiatives. He started the Porsche Advanced Driving School with John Ross, meant for new car customers across the country. He also started the world’s first single-marque Porsche series, the Rothmans Porsche Challenge. He developed the whole concept to help market the Porsche 944 and ideas such as: Providing car warranties for the race cars; deep into the field prize money payout; compulsory sponsorship of $5,000 per competitor from the Porsche dealers and only allowing special serial number cars, so as to hold their value for competitors were all David’s innovation. He took the Canadian Porsche market from the 13^th largest in the world to the 6^th largest through his drivers’ schools and racing marketing success.

He also arranged a ride for 1986 Rothmans Porsche winner Kees Nierop to drive at Le Mans in 1987 for the Porsche factory and raised the sponsorship from the Canadian Porsche Dealers and Magna International for the Canadian entry of Scott Goodyear, Richard Spenard and Bill Adam in that same year.

David was also instrumental in arranging quality TV coverage of Canadian motorsports in the mid-1980s and ensured that all of the events mentioned above had prime TV exposure. He continued to race in select Porsche and endurance events from 1987 to 1991.