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Experience Adding Up As Urlin Wins Ontario Rookie Award

Canadian Jonathan Urlin has an extraordinary amount of diverse racing experience under his belt, from go-karts to IRL Firestone Indy Lights. He says despite his experience and racing pedigree as a second-generation driver, his rookie season as a NASCAR Late Model driver was a lot tougher than he expected.

“It was a real eye opener,” Urlin said of the competitive level in Late Model racing at Delaware Speedway, a .500-mile paved banked jewel of a race track in London, Ontario. “These cars are completely different to me, and I’m racing with guys who have been studying their craft long before I got here.”

As an owner/driver, Urlin was able to catch on quickly. In official NASCAR points races, Urlin had one win, 11 top 5s and 16 top 10s in 19 starts. He placed second in the final 2009 NASCAR Whelen All-American Series national rookie ranking. He topped his season in late September when he won the St. Eustache Castrol 300 at the NASCAR-sanctioned Autodrome St. Eustache. Located near Montreal in Quebec, the track is a flat .400-mile oval.  

“That was the most exciting race of the year,” Urlin said. “It was a 38-car field and the longer the race, the better we seem to do. I just sat back and saved the tires and brakes. We took the lead with 30 laps to go and got the win.”

Urlin raced for the first time in go-karts at age eight, his interest sparked by his father, Russ, who is still well-known from his pavement Late Model racing days. Young Urlin worked his way through the local go-kart circuit to CIK international karting. Instead of branching of toward stock-car racing, Urlin moved to Motorola Cup/Koni Challenge sports car road racing, USF2000 Zetec Series that featured single-seat open-wheel cars, and then in 2003 to the IRL’s Firestone Indy Lights, the league’s developmental series.

Urlin was impressive in Indy Lights. He started seven of the series’ 12 races and posted two top fives and five top 10s. He also got a healthy dose of big track experience, racing at Homestead-Miami, Phoenix, Indianapolis, Pikes Peak, Kansas, Nashville and Michigan. His two top 5s, both fifth-place finishes, were at Homestead and Indianapolis. His racing career had developed into open-wheel racing that pointed toward the IRL IndyCar Series. 2004 looked as though he would move into that league, then the economy started its downturn. Sponsorships dried up. He continued to attend open-wheel races in 2004 to keep his name and face circulating at the tracks, but ended up sitting out the entire season.

“I realized I was going to have to find my own sponsor, or nothing was going to happen,” Urlin said.

So he went to work and found the help to jumpstart his career practically in his own back yard at McColl

Racing Enterprises in London. The company is a leading chassis builder and race car manufacturer.

“I went in and talked with Mike McColl. I told him I was looking for sponsors. He said he’d help and three months later, we had the sponsorship we needed to go Late Model racing.

“I’m proud to say we found the right partners and built a competitive team from nothing,” Urlin said.

He started out racing in a few events at Delaware in 2007 and traveled to other tracks in Ontario. He was hired by an owner to compete in a regional series in 2008, before returning to his own team and full-time racing at Delaware Speedway in 2009.

“We do the best we can with what we have,” Urlin said. “We have two cars now. In a perfect world we’d have eight cars and we’d be racing three or four nights a week.”

Urlin credits his dad, Russ, for inspiring him to race and for mentoring him.

The senior Urlin, now in his early 50s, cut his own racing career short to support his son’s racing effort.

“The older I get, the more I realize how fortunate I am to have my dad’s support,” Urlin said. “I respect his knowledge 100%. He gave up his own racing for my go-kart racing. That was in 1992. He’s a substantial part of my life.”

The senior Urlin was a rookie of the year and a champion in the old NASCAR North Series, and did some ASA and ARCA racing. He finished third in an ARCA race at Michigan. He was prominently known to be a traveling Late Model racer, following the big money events in Canada and the U.S.

Jonathan Urlin’s sponsors/partners include McColl Racing Enterprises, Trojan U.V., Siskins Law Firm, Roger’s Wireless, CIBC Woody Gundy, Tilco, and L82. His pit crew is known as The Weekly Billies… everyone goes by the nickname “Billy.”

Cousins Take Two Directions

Back in the day, Russ Urlin and his brother, Peaches Pearn, took their sons, Jonathan Urlin and Cole Pearn, to the races. Both were drivers. The kids soon emulated their dads by racing go-karts. Cole eventually went into oval track stock-car racing while Jonathan went into sports car and road racing.

Today, Cole is a race engineer for Richard Childress Racing, while Jonathan is a coach and instructor for Porsche Cars Canada. Jonathan does driving events for Porsche dealers across Canada, and it’s a job he enjoys.