Darren Zary
Saskatoon StarPhoenix
Scott Campbell had to put on the brakes.
The retired kart racer — a 2025 Canadian Motor Sports Hall of Fame inductee who tore up the tracks internationally — was nearly driven to tears when he found out they would hold a race day in his honour Saturday at the local Martensville Speedway.
“When the (North Saskatchewan Kart Club) president, Neil (Boyle) told me about it the other week, it almost made me cry,” admits Campbell, who raced competitively for 26 years and has been around kart racing since the day he was born 47 years ago.
“The club has been very supportive of me in the past. For them to name a day in my honour — they actually said they’d be naming a corner in the track — it brings a tear to a guy.”
Earlier this year, Campbell graciously accepted entry into the Canadian Motor Sports Hall of Fame, joining many racing legends.
“Huge honour,” acknowledges Campbell, who resides in Warman. “The names are there — people like the Villeneuves (Gilles and Jacques), Paul Tracy, and people like that. To be in their company is a huge honour, especially coming from our province of Saskatchewan — it’s not like it’s the motor sports capital of the world.
“It’s great. I’m so happy for it.”
Not only is it uncommon to have an inductee from Saskatchewan, it’s rare to have somebody from the kart racing world and not Formula One or NASCAR.
Campbell is just the second person from kart racing to be inducted, and he’s the very first driver.
“It is pretty rare,” says Campbell, who, despite being based out of Saskatchewan, rose through the karting ranks to achieve success on the international stage while also helping the next generation of drivers.
He actively raced from 1990 to 2016, the last year he competed at the world championships.
It was the 12th time he competed at Rotax world championship events for Team Canada.
He won a world title in 2010 and finished second in both 2012 and 2013.
Campbell started out in Honda J2 karts in 1991, collecting many trophies during the 1990s along the way at IKF events in the U.S. He also won the F125 Canadian championship title in 2000.
As part of the Canadian national team, Campbell raced across the globe, from Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt, to Sarno, Italy. He recorded six top-10 finishes in Grand Finals events.
Campbell won the DD2 Masters class at La Conca, Italy in 2010, finished runner-up in the DD2 Masters class at Portimão, Portugal in 2012, and finished runner-up again the following year in New Orleans. In other competitions, he raced in the Challenge of Americas in 2009 and was the ASN National Champion in 2010.
Campbell, who has served as race director at his home track and other facilities, formed Scott Campbell Racing in 2017 to support racers of all ages and has coached Canadians at international and European events since 2018.
The biggest driver, and influence, behind his career has been his dad, Dave Campbell.
“The year I was born, my dad started racing karts,” Scott explains. “I have been at the kart track my whole life.”
Scott started racing BMX bikes when he was five, while his dad was doing karting himself. When Scott got to age 12, he made the transition to karting. That was 1990.
His parents have an acreage out at Neuanlage, complete with a kart shop.
“We were a father-son duo, and we ran it throughout my career,” says Scott. “We never got really big into the ‘big team’ stuff because that’s just the way we did it, with the two of us, and we went all the way to the worlds and did what we did.”
With his dad getting older but still trying to do as much as he can, Scott is doing a lot more stuff on his end and trying to help out, especially with grooming the next generation in the sport.
“Both my kids (daughter Adilyn, 16, and son Lennox, 12) race now, too,” he says. “It is (a family thing) and the karting community is a very much family-oriented thing. Everybody tries to help out everybody.”
And, come Saturday, the karting community will honour Scott Campbell for it.
dzary@postmedia.com
