This past year, Cody McPherson took home four championships: DIRTcar Sportsman Series, DIRTcar Sportsman Modified Hoosier Tire Weekly Championship, Ransomville Speedway, and Merrittville Speedway. What drove him to this success? His grandfather, Allan Willard.
“My grandpa passed away a year ago,” McPherson, of St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada, said. “In the last conversation I had with him, I promised to go out in 2024 and win everything I could to honor him and everything he did for our family’s racing.”
McPherson credited Willard as a major reason for his success. He had bought McPherson’s sportsman modified, as well as those for McPherson’s brother, Tyler, and cousin, B.J. Willard. The trio started in go-karts and then moved into sportsman modifieds once they were of age.
“We weren’t very good back in the day — we were always wrecking,” said McPherson. “Nevertheless, [my grandfather] built our confidence. He picked us up when we were down and made us keep on racing. He didn’t care about wrecked cars — he was letting us learn. ‘You wreck it, you fix it,’ was what he said. There was never a doubt in his mind that we would succeed.”
McPherson won 15 features in weekly racing competition and DIRTcar Sportsman Series race at Ransomville Speedway. His most memorable victory came at Merrittville — the Al Willard Memorial. McPherson started 14th and moved into second by lap five.
“It was a race I had to win,” McPherson said. “I honored him in the most memorable way.”
In the end, Cody McPherson certainly made good on his promise to his grandfather.
“Grandpa would call me the next morning after the races, asking how I did,” McPherson said. “He couldn’t call me anymore. It meant the world to me to win and to make my grandpa proud.”
Mike Adaskaveg has written hundreds of stories since the website’s inception. This year marks his 54th year of covering auto racing. Adaskaveg got his start working for track photographer Lloyd Burnham at Connecticut’s Stafford Motor Speedway in 1970. Since then, he’s been a columnist, writer, and photographer, in racing and in mainstream media, for several outlets, including the Journal Inquirer, Boston Herald, Stock Car Racing, and Speedway Illustrated. Among Adaskaveg’s many awards are the 1992 Eastern Motorsport Press Association (EMPA) Ace Lane Photographer of the Year and the 2019 National Motorsports Press Association (NMPA) George Cunningham Writer of the Year.
