ONTARIO SPORTSMAN SERIES

Ollie Ferguson moving up to series in 2023 after long journey

Story by Bryce Turner

Ollie Ferguson will move up to the Ontario Sportsman Series (OSS) this season, following a long journey to get behind the wheel in the sport he loves.

Ferguson’s road to racing was not easy. When he was four years old, in 2014, a virus attacked his liver, where the medication he was given progressed him into bone marrow failure. After a year of treatment and about 90 blood transfusions, another drug he needed progressed him into bone marrow cancer.

With local hospitals unable to handle his condition at the time, the family sold their house and travelled to Ohio for six months, where Ollie received a bone marrow transplant, with his younger sister as the donor, at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital.

Ferguson attended his first race at the age of two-and-a-half and carried his love of racing throughout his medical treatments. He watched the NASCAR Cup Series, rooting for Kyle Busch, and used racing video games as a distraction to help him feel better.

In 2019, with cancer behind him, Ferguson was finally ready to make his racing debut after his family purchased a junior late model that they saw at the Motorama Custom Car & Motorsports Expo. When he arrived at the race track, for the first time as a driver, the feeling of strapping into the car was second to none.

“It was so exciting, it was the happiest day of my life,” said Ferguson. “I was pumped up; I was ready to win. There was no happier moment than when I got into the race car for the first time.”

Ferguson’s junior late model efforts were focused primarily on weekly action at a different short track each season. He competed at Grand Bend, Full Throttle, Sauble, Sunset, and Peterborough speedways, with three wins, a Dash 4 Cash win, a pole position, and a best point finish of third.

The Lindsay, ON driver has now grown out of junior late models and sets his sights on the OSS, which will contest a ten-race schedule at five short tracks, starting May 19 at Delaware Speedway. Ferguson says that he’s looking forward to getting seat team and driving a bigger car, where there are a few things that stand out about the OSS.

“Everyone just seems so nice and there are 100-lap features, instead of something like 20 or 30 laps,” said Ferguson. “I like the endurance races. They (also) look like NASCAR Pinty’s Series cars, which is the coolest thing to me. My dream is to go to the Pinty’s Series one day, so this is the closest thing I’ll get for now.”

Ferguson’s goals for this season are to finish on the lead lap and not wreck the car. While he plans to focus on learning, he also has lessons learned from junior late models that he can apply to the OSS.

“I gradually learned car control over the amount of time that I’ve raced,” he said. “I’ve learned to make smarter moves on track, instead of just taking every advantage I have to dive into a corner that I shouldn’t dive into. It’s made me smarter on where I should put my car and where I shouldn’t put my car.”

The switch to OSS comes with another change for the driver. With Busch sporting a new number in the Cup Series and Ferguson getting older, he felt like it’s the right time to switch his yellow No. 18 wrap for a blue, purple and green No. 55 – a combination that represents both his past and his personality.

“(In Ohio) we lived in the Ronald McDonald House and our room number was 55; the Ronald McDonald House got me through being sick, so I kind of thought that (the number) 55 was a good luck thing,” said Ferguson.

“I always like to make (the design) as crazy as possible,” he continued. “I’m really into paint schemes. I want to like how my car looks, I want other people to like it and I want it to stand out from all the cars.”

As he looks towards the future, Ferguson’s goal is to race in a NASCAR series south of the border, such as ARCA or Trucks. He’d also like to race in the Pinty’s Series, here at home. IT