Ernie Jakubowski started his motorsports career in off-road racing, where he was the Canadian Off-Road overall or class champion between 1973 and 1984. He participated in other forms of racing early on, including the CASC Studded Ice Race, where he was the champion in 1976. He was also named to the Wheelspin News All-Canadian Racing Team, alongside notable names such as fellow CMHF inductees Junior Hanley, Gilles Villeneuve and Pete Bicknell.

Jakubowski was the Molson Supercross champion in 1984; he finished third in Montreal and first at the Hoosier Dome, in Supercross competition, all while driving off-road Dune Buggies. He won 28 of 32 features in a three-year period, winning his last race in a customer Mantis Spyder at the 1986 Oktoberfest in Kitchener, ON.

Jakubowski ran 121 races in Porsche Club Racing from 2004 to 2019, winning in nearly half of those events. He was a Modern Class winner in the 2003 and 2005 Targa Newfoundland events and won GTS Rookie of the Year in the Pirelli World Challenge, where he raced from 2010 to 2013. More recently, he competed in the CTCC series and CASC/VARAC vintage races.

Away from the driver’s seat, Jakubowski was a driving instructor for Porsche and BMW, teaching Ryan Blaney and Ross Chastain at CTMP ahead of the NASCAR Truck Series race in 2013. He founded Mantis Racing in 1976, designing several off-road cars, including the Mantis Spyder, while building customer cars, engines and transmissions until 2021. He also developed a four-year wind tunnel program for motorsport testing at UOIT.