John Wright dusted off his archives to bring us a one-on-one interview from over 20 years ago. This look back at John Cordts is still an interesting read.
John Cordts demonstrated a rare versatility, proving his winning ways in many different cars and venues. He was a fan-favourite in the thunderous CanAm Series back in the 1960s and 70s but he also shone in TransAm, Formula 5000 and even in an under-funded one-time foray into Formula One.
Interview by John Wright, Moto|ology Contributor
with photos by Peter Viccary
I first saw John Cordts in the spring of 1968 at Harewood Acres driving Dave Billes’ McLaren Mark lllB, a British Racing Green CanAm car powered by a very powerful Chevrolet V8 engine and capable of a top speed of about 180 miles per hour. It was with this car that Cordts set a lap record at Harewood of 101.4 mph, which stood until Harewood closed at the end of the 1970 racing season. Cordts went on to make a name for himself in professional racing, and then one day it seemed that he just dropped out of sight. He had always seemed a reclusive man anyway, apparently unimpressed by city life, only coming to Mosport for a few races and then retreating to the north woods where he felt more at home. However, a few years ago after writing to him for some information on his career, I received a letter from him revealing that there was more to this man than met the eye at the time.
JW: John, how did about that you began to take an interest in things mechanical, and how did you come to Canada?
John Cordts: “When I was a young boy over in Sweden, my father was in the farm equipment business, and he dealt mostly in ancient old tractors. My elder brother and I spent most of our time fixing up the old relics. By the time I was 8 or 9, there wasn’t a tractor in the country that I couldn’t fix no matter how worn out they were. Their smoking and knocking engines were music to my ears. There was no such thing as a bad motor vehicle to me. My whole life revolved around cars, trucks, and motorcycles.
The first time I drove both a truck and a motorcycle, it was as if I had been driving for years. It just came naturally to me, and I was the only kid around who had a bicycle with a steering wheel instead of handlebars. I owned my first motorbike when I was 12 or 13, and by the time I was 16 and could get my license, I had a big Harley Davidson with a foot clutch and a hand shifter.
Combining my love for cars and bikes with a very competitive spirit, and racing was only natural for me. I raced motorbikes on a small scale in Sweden, but then in 1954, I did the best thing I have ever done. I moved to Canada. The moment I got off that boat in Halifax, I became a 100% Canadian. Somehow, I ended up in North Bay, Ontario and even though I was 18 years old, when I got there, I still feel that that’s the place where I grew up and I think of it as my old hometown.
JW: Now, how did you get involved in racing?
John Cordts: In 1956, I bought a brand-new MGA, and that winter someone organized ice races on Lake Nipissing. I did a lot of winning in my beautiful MG. So, the next summer, I was off to Green Acres (Author’s note: a post-WWII racetrack on the shores of Lake Huron) for my first real race on pavement and that was the beginning of a 20-year career. It was hard for a kid from North Bay, with no money, to come down and compete with the big boys in Southern Ontario. I raced three different MGAs, an Austin-Healey 100-6, and one year that I would like to forget in an Elva Courier. I won a lot of races in my pushrod MG, beating all the twin-cams most of the time. I had over 100 trophies from that era.
JW: Can you describe your first race in southern Ontario? You raced at the old Harewood Acres track as well, didn’t you?
John Cordts: There are some more memories from Green Acres and Harewood. After I had won a few races on the ice in North Bay, I decided I was ready for the big time, but I would need a racing license, but I asked myself—how to get one? I had no idea, but a friend in North Bay, John Foster, who later had a show on CTV called “This Land is Your Land” also wanted a license. He knew a fellow in Southern Ontario who raced a twincam M.G. by the name of Harry Haigh. So off we went in Foster’s shiny new M.G. hard top and paid Mr. Haigh a visit at his house, I think it was in Brantford.
Harry had a house full of racing trophies, and I thought to myself that if I ever reach the level in auto racing that this guy is at, I’ll retire and live in everlasting glory for the rest of my life. Harry Haigh turned out to be a most helpful and pleasant person, and I do believe that if he had been a stuck-up snob, like so many others were in those early days of racing, I would have gone home and forgotten the whole thing. I met Harry and his wife many years later at a Mosport CanAm race and thanked him for his help.
Now armed with a racing license, a $15.00 helmet and a pair of sunglasses for goggles, I was off to Green Acres.
I drove all night and arrived at the track about 4:00 am Sunday morning and promptly began removing the muffler, windshield, bumper, etc. After getting registered, I taped my assigned number on the side of my car. I had moved up from an MGA to an Austin-Healey 100-6. As soon as the track opened for practice, out I went. I had no idea where to go, and so I followed another car who, luckily was not going very fast. I was just starting to learn where the track was when the practice was over.
Shortly after, my number was among those called to line up for the first race. There were 47 cars in that race, and they put me right in the middle of the pack. Suddenly someone waved a green flag and off we went. There were cars passing me on all sides, and all I wanted to do was turn around and go home. But I was completely boxed in and had to stay with the pack or get run over. I could see corner one coming up very fast and to my horror, I realized that 46 drivers had all lost their minds at the same time because no one was slowing down, but finally there was some frantic braking and gearing down and somehow, I got around that corner in one piece. I decided right then that I would finish what I had started, but this would be my first and last race ever. By now nearly everyone had passed me, but when I glanced back in the mirror there was one car back there! I thought: “Oh boy, I was doing great!” On lap 3, someone was waving a black flag at me, and I thought that must mean you are doing fine, but on the next lap, there he was again, this time waving the flag frantically and looking terribly excited, so the next time around I pulled in. It turned out I had the tonneau cover on the passenger side and since I didn’t have a rollbar, this was not allowed. He kindly helped me to tuck the cover behind the passenger seat and sent me on my way. I was now firmly in last place, and I was glad to finally see the checkered flag.
As I was putting the car back together to drive home, I thought to myself, “You know before I got black flagged, there was actually a car behind me so just maybe I should come out of retirement and go to Harewood next weekend.”
Well, I did go to Harewood the next week and a couple of smooth guys with an MGA sold me a set of totally worn-out Michelin tires. I was told it would make me much faster. I thought they were a very friendly bunch because they snickered and laughed a lot when I handed them my hard-earned money ($40.00). However, I did much better in that race (it must have been the tires) and I went home full of confidence. I was well on my way to become a real racing driver with trophies and all—just like Harry Haigh. I sold the Healey and went back to the MGA. I felt it was a better class to race in. I later bought a fully race prepared pushrod MGA from a guy I think was named Kent Harris. That car came complete with a trailer and an old truck. Now I no longer had to drive my racing car to the races. I won more races in that car than I can remember.
JW: It seems to me that things were more relaxed in the old days, especially at club races. Harewood had a good institution where they had a great banquet after each race weekend, didn’t they?
John Cordts: Another good memory from Green Acres and Harewood was the fabulous turkey dinners served by the local farm women in the church basements after the races. I can still remember those great home-cooked meals with the fresh baked pies for dessert. Those women deserve a lot of credit for what they did.
JW: Later on in your career after you had become a professional racer, you ran into some problems testing a McLaren Formula A car at Harewood, didn’t you? Can you tell me about that?
John Cordts: “Many years later, I was helping Roger McCaig’s mechanic (Allan Taylor) to put Roger’s new McLaren Formula 5000 car together, and when it was race ready, we headed off to Harewood to do some test driving. It was a very fast car, and I broke my lap record (101.4 mph) 3 or 4 times that day, but that was unofficial of course, since it was not a race. It was Mr. Hare (Author’s note: ocal farmer Russell Hare who owned the land.) who did the timing. After an hour or so of sorting out the car, I was going flat out into corner one when the left front wheel came off and headed for the cornfield! I followed the wheel and filled the car with so much corn, it took us an hour to clean it out. But there was no damage done so we put on the wheel back on the car, and away I went. Two laps later, I was going down the back straight at approximately 180 mph when I spotted a large seagull sitting on the track at the end of the straight. He saw me coming and spread his wings and by the time he was one inch off the ground, I was on him. I hit him with the front wing and the poor bird blew up all over the car and all over me, and you know what seagulls are full of. As I came into the pits wiping seagull stuff off my face, Allan said: “Let’s call it a day. I’m not cleaning that without a garden hose.” The next time I drove that car was in the 500km, Formula 5000, also known as Formula A Race at Road America, Elkhart Lake. There were no seagulls or cornfields that time, and we finished in second place. I drove that car one more time at Edmonton and had a big lead when I ran out of gas on the last lap. I had some words with my pit crew over that.
JW: Let’s backtrack a little bit to the mid-1960s. How did you make the move to the Corvette, which first brought you to the attention of Dave Billes, the man who would later sponsor you in the McLaren Mark IIIB and in other CanAm cars?
John Cordts: In 1965, I moved up to a Corvette, fully sponsored by Gorries’ Chevrolet of Toronto and won nearly every race entered against some serious competition like the Comstock Ford Racing Team. (Mustangs and Ford Cobras) We took the Canadian Championship for big bore sports cars, and I was voted driver of the year by C.R.C.A. (The Canadian Race Communications Association These are the marshals who look after the manning of the flag positions at a race). That same year, Dave Billes was racing a similar Corvette, and I was always ahead of him, so he decided to hire me to drive his cars, a string of starting with a Mark I McLaren. As everyone who has ever been named Driver of the Year has had a bad crash the year after, I wasn’t about to break tradition. So, I rolled the Mark I in a race at St. Jovite, but Billes got another car and the next year, we finished third in the United States Road Racing Championship, and I was put into the Canadian Sports Hall of Fame. The Canadian teams I can remember driving for were: Gorries’ Chevrolet (Corvettes), Dave Billes (McLarens), Roger McCaig (McLaren Mark VI and McLaren F.5000), Paul Sietz (Elva BMW and Brabham Formula 1). I soon started driving for American teams, and I did about 80% of my driving in the U.S.A. I was one of the very few Canadian professional racing drivers. I got paid to drive and made a good living for a long time. I had an apartment in Sacramento, California and in Los Angeles, and life was good.
JW: You drove for a number of different teams in the CanAm Series, didn’t you? Can you list some of them for us?
John Cordts: I can’t remember all the teams I drove for, but here are most of them: Young American Racing (McLaren), W.O.R.L.D. Racing (McLaren and Lola), U.S. Racing (McLaren), T.G. Racing (Pontiac TransAm), B.F. Goodrich (Pontiac “Firebird”), the John Greenwood Corvette Team (World’s fastest Corvettes), Paul Newman’s CanAm Lola. And I can also name some tracks that I raced on many times. In Canada, there was Green Acres, Harewood Acres (where I hold the lap record), Mosport, St. Jovite, Portage LaPrairie, Manitoba (where I also secured the lap record), Edmonton and Westwood, B.C. (where I set another lap record).
In the U.S.A. I drove at Kent in Washington, Laguna Seca, California, Riverside, California, Brainerd, Minnesota, Mid-Ohio, Watkins Glen, New York (where I also held the lap record), Road America, Texas International Speedway, Road Atlanta, Georgia, Bridgehampton, New York, Sebring, Florida, Daytona, Florida and Mount Fuji Raceway in Japan.
JW: It seems that many Canadian and American race fans think about Paul Tracey, Alex Tagliani and Patrick Carpentier when they think of Canadian race drivers. However, I would think many older Canadian race fans remember you, don’t they, or do they?
John Cordts: I don’t think a lot of Canadians know much about my career because I kept a low profile and shied away from publicity. They would see me at Mosport a couple of times a year and think that was all I did, but I was busy year around in the United States.
It was great fun, but I had too many stupid breakdowns, 90% of them not my fault, but it gave me a reputation as being hard on cars. If I could do it all again, I would, but I would make one big change: no mechanical engineers would be allowed to touch my cars… ever.
JW: Why did you retire from racing, John?
John Cordts: The reason I retired was because the powers to be, the S.C.C.A. officials, decided to change the rules of the CanAm, and for no good reason at all they wrecked the best racing series North America had ever seen. I left Ontario and moved to Vancouver Island strictly for the climate. I was getting sick of seven months of winter and five months of mosquitos and black flies where I lived (Port Sydney, Muskoka, Ontario).
JW: Do the people on Vancouver Island quiz you about your racing past much?
John Cordts: Out here, not many people know much about my past. I still keep a low profile. I’m known as an artist out here, (John is an accomplished woodcarver). My birthday’s in July, but I don’t feel my age, and I certainly don’t act my age. I still have lots of hair and a ponytail that goes halfway down to my butt.
JW: How do you spend your time these days?
John Cordts: I roar around on a 1100 cc Honda Shadow, and that’s when I’m not out cruising in my 1952 Land Rover or my 18-speed mountain bike. I still dream of racing every night and it’s just like the real thing, most of the time I have nothing but car problems. But sometimes I have a really good race, and then I wake up in a sweat and know that I quit too soon. I still have the urge, and I wish I could have done the Indy circuit.
But I’m not complaining. I now have 3 wonderful kids and 6 terrific grandkids. I live in the nicest part of Canada with a great lady who is 20 years younger than myself, and life is very good.
As you can see, John has had a varied career in racing. What he said about most Canadians thinking that he only came down out of the Northwoods to drive a few races was true for many of the people I talked to while preparing this article. Frank Orr who wrote about motorsports for many years in the Toronto Star said that he was the only racing hermit driver he ever knew. As far as Frank knew, Cordts lived in a house just outside of the small town of Port Sydney in Muskoka, and he did not have a phone in his home. If you wanted to get in touch with him, you had to call the General Store and leave a message for him. Then, he would get back to you. What a unique individual when you compare him to the “modern” typical professional race car driver, all “type A” personality and machismo. My one personal memory of Cordts would be the same Canada Day Weekend I mentioned earlier on in this article. My friends and I had had a successful day by our standards. I had finished in the top ten in my class, Formula Vee. We had adjourned to the local church for the dinner put on by the Ladies Auxiliary of the church. There was John Cordts sitting on the grass in front of the building, dressed very simply with jeans, a clean checked shirt and cowboy boots. He had a very composed air about him, and he seemed very modest and quiet—a very private man, and a very fast race driver.
(Editor’s note: Although still accurate, this article was written some time ago and all the information provided is not current.)