{"id":56539,"date":"2025-08-09T08:50:09","date_gmt":"2025-08-09T08:50:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/56539\/"},"modified":"2025-08-09T08:50:09","modified_gmt":"2025-08-09T08:50:09","slug":"northern-ford-event-celebrates-local-nascar-tribute-car","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/56539\/","title":{"rendered":"Northern Ford event celebrates local NASCAR tribute car"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Article content<\/p>\n<p>It was a sunny morning on Tuesday, Aug. 5 and an even sunnier one for Pat Parker, owner of a tribute Shell Pennzoil Ford and a longtime racing fan.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Article content<\/p>\n<p>A small event was held at the Northern Ford dealership to celebrate the car\u2019s driver, Joey Logano, and his third cup championship victory in 2024. A \u20182024\u2019 decal was applied to the hood of the vehicle around 11 a.m., alongside Logano\u2019s other championship wins in 2018 and 2022.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Article content<\/p>\n<p>For Parker, his family history with Ford dates back generations.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMy grandfather, Jim Parker, sold Model T\u2019s way out in Hanna, Alberta in 1914,\u201d Parker said. \u201cI\u2019ve always admired the mechanical and industrial genius of Henry Ford, who among other things developed the Model T and the first affordable V8 engine. More recently I\u2019ve been impressed by Ford\u2019s EcoBoost technology.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Parker said the story behind the tribute car dates back to Logano\u2019s first championship win in 2018.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Article content<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt had been a really long time since Ford had won a championship like that. I was really excited about it and got together with Northern Ford and we said: \u2018What if we wrapped a car to look just like Joey\u2019s?\u2019\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The car, which includes the logos of over a dozen local businesses, is wrapped to look identical to the car Logano drives. The cost of the custom wrap was covered courtesy of donations from Canadian Tire, Giant Tiger, Napa Auto Parts, Co-Operators Insurance, Veterans Transportation, Espanola Home Hardware, Garnet\u2019s Rental, OJ Graphix, Dan\u2019s Towing, North American Wraps, Guy\u2019s Auto, and the Town of Espanola.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Parker is also a member of the local Knight Cruisers, a group of motorheads and classic car enthusiasts that gather for weekly cruises on Thursday evenings at Giant Tiger. The group also hosts the annual Knight Cruisers Car Show in late May, one of Espanola\u2019s largest events of the year.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Parker says he is proud that the car is currently being used to represent Espanola and Northern Ford outside the community.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe got great support from our local community to make this happen. It\u2019s a wonderful thing. Now I act as an ambassador for Espanola and for the sponsors. We have a racing team, Dark Horse Racing, that competes and helps promote our community at the same time.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Northern Ford event celebrates local NASCAR tribute car\" class=\"embedded-image__image lazyload\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/0814-EP-P2-Tributecar2.jpg\"  height=\"1825\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"2000\"\/> Northern Ford general manager Shane Delisle, left, and tribute car owner Pat Parker, right, stand outside of the Northern Ford dealership after applying the new \u20182024\u2019 decal to mark Joey Logano\u2019s third NASCAR Cup Championship. Photo by Aidan Kallioinen<img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Northern Ford event celebrates local NASCAR tribute car\" class=\"embedded-image__image lazyload\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/0814-EP-P2-Tributecar1.jpg\"  height=\"1800\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1458\"\/> Pat Parker, the tribute car owner, applies the new \u20182024 decal\u2019 to the hood of his car. Photo by Aidan Kallioinen<\/p>\n<p>Share this article in your social network<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Article content It was a sunny morning on Tuesday, Aug. 5 and an even sunnier one for Pat&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":56540,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[446],"tags":[49,48,634,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-56539","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nascar","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-nascar","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56539","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=56539"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56539\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/56540"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56539"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56539"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56539"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}