If Francis Bradley had been fearless and more of a daredevil, would he have attained even more success than he did?
Probably.
As friend and one-time race charter Helen Morgan would say in a constructive-criticism kind of way, "Francis was not an exciting driver to watch. To him, 'Slow and steady wins the race.' "
And many times, especially in 1962, Mr. Bradley did win the race. The thrill for him was sitting in an open cockpit and duelling some of the world's top drivers such as Roger Penske, A.J. Foyt Jr., Stirling Moss, Masten Gregory, Ludwig Heimrath and Peter Ryan.
As a conservative driver, Mr. Bradley's motto was not to crash. This kind of attitude also led to his reputation as a gentleman on the track, a man who preferred to wave a rival past him, rather than cut him off. He boasted no bravado or arrogance.
"Francis was a very smooth driver. He never tried to get into trouble. He did the best he could by doing it safely," said Ed Moody, archivist for Mosport International Speedway.
Mr. Bradley would drive a streetcar or a bus for the Toronto Transit Commission during the week and then race on weekends for fun, exhilaration and a few hundred bucks.
He started out driving the family Volkswagen in races. His greatest fame came in 1962 at 35 when he captured the Canadian sports-car-racing championship at the wheel of a Lotus 19 Climax that boasted a 2.5-litre Cosworth engine. So dominating was Mr. Bradley that Weekend magazine dubbed him "Canada's fastest bus driver" in a feature story.
Buhl, Germany, was his birthplace, but his family moved to England when he was four and later he would begin his transit career driving double-decker buses. By 25, he had started racing cars, two years before he headed to Toronto with his wife, Monica.
Mr. Bradley almost immediately secured a job driving streetcars out of the Coxwell yard. Of course, he resumed his racing career.
In a German-manufactured DKW, Mr. Bradley won his first race on a short-sprint track in Carp, Ont., near Ottawa, in 1955. By the following year, he began taking sponsor rides, the first in a Porsche Spider 560 financed by Eglinton-Caledonia Motors. He even got to meet Ferdinand Porsche, founder of the firm.
In 1959, Mr. Bradley raced against Mr. Penske, now head of an empire that includes Penske Racing and Penske Corp. The company has just purchased Saturn from General Motors. At the O'Keefe Sundown event at the Harewood track near Jarvis, Ont., Mr. Penske and Harry Blanchard won in a team race when Mr. Bradley and partner Bernard Vihl encountered gearbox problems.
On a cold night in October, 1960, again at Harewood, Messrs. Penske and Ryan out-duelled Mr. Bradley and Mr. Heimrath by about a minute in a see-saw battle.
When Mosport Park opened in 1961, Mr. Bradley was chosen to drive through a banner to officially open the track. Not only was he highly respected, but he was instrumental in making recommendations on how Mosport should be constructed from a driver's perspective.
By the next year, the epitome of his career took place after he and manager Al Empringham got a hold of a Lotus 19 that had been driven the year before by Mr. Ryan.
The year of all years for Mr. Bradley involved seven races spread around the country. Four took place at Mosport, where he placed third in the Player's 200, took the checkered flag in the Grand Valley Car Club Grand National, was second in the Indian Summer event and was third in the Canadian Grand Prix.
During that wonderful summer, Mr. Bradley's exploits landed him a lot of media attention, which was gobbled up by the people who rode on his bus routes. They would chat him up after reading about his success in the local papers and in the Weekend and Canadian magazines.
"Everybody would read those magazines," Mr. Bradley told a reporter. "One Monday after I was in Weekend, everybody getting on my bus had a big smile for me and asked how I'd done at the races. It was very gratifying."
Combined with the results of the other three races, Mr. Bradley was declared Canadian champion.
"I was shocked that he did so great that year because he had no experience," Mr. Empringham said. "Most of the time, he had driven the family car in races and he was racing at a brand-new track in Mosport."
When 1963 rolled around, Mr. Bradley was off to England to compete in a race, his bonus prize for winning the Canadian championship.
But a major collision ended his urge to compete at the highest levels. He decided to scale back racing sports cars in favour of the less dangerous sedans.
"The race in England was a massive crash and Francis had no serious injuries, but it scared the heck out of him," Mr. Empringham said.
"I felt, with three children growing up, that I should stop taking chances," he once told a reporter about toning down competitive racing.
His TTC job was more important and gave him a steady paycheque, something car racing didn't do. He drove buses until retiring in 1988.
Francis Bradley
Francis Bradley was born Francis Goebels on April 6, 1927, in Buhl, Germany. He died on June 6, 2009, in Toronto of a heart attack. He was 82. He leaves his wife Carol, sons Chris, Glenn and Mark and sisters Trudie and Elizabeth.
