Inducted 2006 – Competitor – Stock Car Racing
Lloyd Shaw had a spectacular career as a builder of racing cars, as a champion racer at home and in the United States in both open-wheel and closed-wheel cars, and as an administrator and promoter. Born in Toronto in 1912, he was 20 when he built his first sprint car and went racing at speedways in places like Leamington, Chatham, and Sarnia. With most of the records missing, we don’t know how many races he won in those days but we do know that on his first visit to the circuit in Leamington, he set Canadian and British Empire speed records for a half-mile dirt track. Following the Second World War, in which he flew bombers for the Royal Canadian Air Force, Lloyd won Canadian Auto Racing Society sprint-car championships in 1948, 1950, ’51 and ’52. During the 1950 season, Lloyd also drove a stock car and won that year’s CARS stock car championship. In 1953, NASCAR opened up a Grand National race at Langhorne, Pa., to “foreign cars.” Lloyd’s sponsor, James Cook, who was the Canadian agent for Jaguar cars and had dealerships in Toronto and Winnipeg, entered a Jaguar for Lloyd and he won the pole in it. To this day, Lloyd Shaw is the only Canadian ever to win a pole in NASCAR’s premier division. As well as racing himself, he was also a builder. He was one of the founders of the Toronto Racing Drivers’ Club (he also served as treasurer and was instrumental in the club’s construction of Canada’s first post-war race track, Pinecrest Speedway) and the Canadian Auto Racing Society. He retired from active participation in the sport in the mid-1950s and died in 1983.