Jack Polito is the most successful driver in the brief history of the Sports Car Championship Canada (SCCC). The young man from Lindsay, Ontario is the two-time and reigning champion of the series’ GT4 class and has 19 victories in 25 starts since his debut in 2022.
His racing career began along a different path, racing dirt bikes and snowmobiles beginning when he was about five years old. Polito reached the ranks of factory rider for Canadian snowmobile manufacturer Ski-Doo and even won a national championship in 2020, before retiring from the game to pursue his newer passion in automobile racing.
After a few regional club races driving a Honda Prelude built by Canadian motorsport manufacturer Multimatic, Polito ventured into the Canadian Formula 1600 Championship with powerhouse Brian Graham Racing. In 2020, he was the Rookie of the Year in the premier A Class – and followed it up with another strong season in 2021, headlined with a win in the Al Craighead CanAm Memorial Cup race at Calabogie Motorsports Park.
A year later, he was ready to make the next step in his racing career at the same picturesque circuit in Ontario, for his sports car racing debut.
“My dad in 2022 had entered in the Sports Car Championship Canada, and he let me drive the last couple races of the year,” Polito recalls. His father Anthony, the president of a Ford dealership and an avid historic racer, had just run the Honda Indy Toronto support races and was now ready to turn his Ford Mustang GT4 over to his son during the second SCCC campaign.
Polito, who is most active on TikTok as his preferred SNS of choice, also believes that a continued push towards marketing Canadian motorsport towards younger audiences will only help series such as SCCC and its sister championship, the Radical Cup Canada, continue to attract audiences and competitors.
“In the last race of the year, I won both races – Saturday, Sunday, and we’re like, ‘Alright, I can drive!’ So we decided to follow through and in 2023 I did a full season, and that season was awesome. I learned a lot, and I had some good competition, and we ended up winning the championship there. That was really awesome for me!”
Polito gave the sixth-generation Ford Mustang GT4, the Multimatic-built car that had previously been the platform for inaugural SCCC champion Marco Signoretti’s perfect run to the title, its second SCCC championship. And this year, the 21-year-old racer followed it up with another title, this time in the new, seventh-generation Mustang GT4.
“This year was really good too. I had some pretty good competition, as well,” he recalls, speaking highly of his fellow competitors over this time – such as sports car racing veteran Nick Galante, a two-time IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge Champion, who raced against him in 2023. “He taught me a lot, especially driving a little bit rougher and stuff like that. Him and I had some good battles, and he really pushed me which I think was really good for me progressing. He really helped me hone my race craft.
“And then I had Justin Di Benedetto, who is a great driver – he’s a quick guy, and he was pushing me as well. I just had a lot of fun, and I really enjoyed driving the car.”
All this with very little testing time – outside of a handful of tests before Toronto Indy and at Shannonville Motorsports Park, it was very ‘arrive and drive’ for the family team, as is the case for pretty much all of SCCC’s privateer competitors.
Polito had the chance to go multi-class racing for the better part of three seasons, and soon he’d be ready for another big test in his young career.
The IMSA Chevrolet Grand Prix weekend at Canadian Tire Motorsport Park (CTMP, formerly Mosport) provided him with that opportunity, but he couldn’t coast off his track knowledge alone.
Entering the VP Racing Challenge Series races as a wildcard, Polito had to step up everything – especially his physical conditioning – if he was to excel against a larger field of GT4 drivers with more high-level experience. and was rewarded with a sensational debut win, holding off no less than the eventual GSX class champion Luca Mars – a fellow Mustang GT4 driver – to get it once fellow Canadian Jesse Lazare broke down while leading.
“I came out there and I knew exactly how I could drive – and yeah, it went really, really well! I couldn’t get over the fact that I’d won… I almost won two days in a row, but yeah, the first race was definitely one to remember,” says Polito, who very well could have doubled up with a Race 2 win were it not for a sensational late-race pass from the Mercedes-AMG GT4 of young Josh Green.
It was a memorable performance that along with his two SCCC titles, has prepared Polito for a step up into IMSA full-time if the opportunity presents itself. Right now, he has no concrete plans for 2025 beyond working in the sales department of his family dealership, which he’s done since graduating from university last year.
“I don’t know what’s going to be my future,” he admitted. “I’ve been looking at potentially doing some GT3 stuff in IMSA, but a lot of it right now is just budgeting. It’s kind of hard to bring Canadian sponsors over to America, because they don’t really get what they would want out of it.
He even admitted that there is a possibility he may not race at all next year. But he isn’t giving up. He continues to push for opportunities to advance his career – knowing that they may not come around if he has to spend time away from racing.
“I’ve already had long talks with my dad. With my snowmobiling, I had a lot of great opportunities – but once you get out of the game, it kind of doesn’t happen any more, right? I think now, because I’m so young, I can be flexible with how often I’m here at work – now would be the best time for me to get in the car and do what I need to do.
“In a perfect world, I’d be in a GT3 car next year, but we’ll see.”
Images © Polito Racing, FEL Motorsports
