MARC-ANTOINE CAMIRAND

Veteran Achieves Dream Nps Title In 2022

Story by Bryce Turner

Achieving one dream led Marc-Antoine Camirand to achieve another during the 2022 NASCAR Pinty’s Series (NPS) season. The St-Léonard D’Aston, QC driver changed his racing plans partway through the off-season, deciding to start a team with Jean-Claude Paillé, whose GM Paillé dealership sponsored him since 2016.

“I did have my own team when I was running in smaller series, like F1600 and GT car, but on that level, it was always a dream for me to have my own stuff,” said Camirand.

The team went to work building all aspects of a racing operation, hiring two-time champion crew chief Robin McCluskey. After a few months, the new Paillé Racing effort unloaded for the NPS opener, in midMay at Sunset Speedway. They tested at the 1/3-mile oval just days before the race but thought that the car was not totally ready.

“Let’s go to Sunset and try to survive, to finish the race,” said Camirand. “We showed up at Sunset and the car was really fast in practice…we said ‘oh, maybe the car’s going to be good, we’ll see what’s going to happen for the race’ and we qualified fifth and, after 20-25 laps, the car was crazy fast.”

Camirand led a race-high 203 laps and finished fourth at Sunset. After a tough 14th-place result at CTMP, the team had another strong outing on an oval, leading 92 laps and finishing runner-up at Autodrome Chaudière, despite a pit road penalty at the halfway break. The series then made its inaugural trip to Newfoundland, where Camirand led 138 laps en route to the victory at Eastbound Speedway. His next win came two races later, when the series started its western swing at Edmonton International Raceway.

Comparing the two wins, Camirand says that Edmonton was a turning point. Following rule changes made by the series, Camirand said that teams had an agreement to make just a few modifications due to the short turnaround; however, his crew was told at technical inspection that they’d have to make additional changes.

“We went in the parking lot to make the modifications to the back of the car, brought the car back just in time for qualifying,” said Camirand. “That win was huge, that was a team win for sure, we were not expecting that…that was one of the biggest wins of my career.”

Edmonton was the start of a dominant stretch that saw Camirand record five podiums and six top-five finishes in the last eight races. He returned to victory lane in the penultimate race, at CTMP, which gave the team full control in the standings.

They qualified on the pole before leading the most laps, which, along with the win, gave them maximum points. Camirand took a 33-point lead into the Delaware Speedway finale, where he clinched his first career championship by just starting the race.

“Even though we were really close to winning the championship, it was not a done deal in my mind, the season was not over, let’s get through that last race and after that we can say that we’re the champion and enjoy it with the team and my family,” he said.

Camirand finished ninth at Delaware, capping off a season where he had a career-best three wins, seven podiums, nine top-five finishes, 803 laps led and a 5.6 average finish. He says the team didn’t expect to be that good so quickly and gives a lot of credit to his Paillé Racing crew.

“I think it was the best (year) of my racing career, to put that together, build two cars during the off-season, it was a crazy number of hours,” said Camirand. “The team did a hell of a job to do that, I’m really proud of the team.”

Having achieved his dream of winning a championship at this level, Camirand and his Paillé Racing crew are already hard at work preparing to defend their title in 2023. IT