Al Ores was born in Slovenia in 1933 before immigrating to Canada in 1953 settling in Burnaby and working at Bert’s Automotive in Vancouver. In 1968, on a bet with two of his workmates,
Ores took racing lessons at Westwood Race Track in Coquitlam and one lap around the track in a 1965 Mustang and he was hooked. He won his first race in a heavy rainfall in Seattle on his 36th birthday.
He’s been buying, building and racing cars, and mentoring many a mechanic and racer at tracks from Portland to Edmonton ever since. Ores would be out at the track almost every Tuesday and Thursday night manning the corners.
Along the way, Ores got to rub shoulders with Canadian racing legend Gilles Villeneuve, and Finnish flash Keke Rosberg, and actors with a hankering for fast cars like Paul Newman and Richard Dean Anderson (aka MacGyver).
Ores was inducted into the B.C. Motorsports Hall of Fame as a pioneer in 2002. He still goes out to race tracks to help out, to dish out advice and to occasionally go out for a lap or two, sometimes even racing around the track with the likes of his grandson.
