FANTASY NASCAR Racin

Born in St.Joseph-de-Beauce, Quebec, Canada, Raphael Lessard, the youngest of three children, has made his mark in the field of motor racing since childhood, where he grew up and evolved with his family. Indeed, his father, François, a former driver, spent several years of his life running the circuits, starting with the clay obstacle circuits, up to the oval asphalt tracks. Growing up, surrounded by everything equipped with an engine and a steering wheel, Raphael quickly realized that in him there was an immense talent for driving. His father immediately noticed him and encouraged him to move forward in the field by starting by buying him a racing car when he was 11 years old. In 2013, Raphael made his debut as a racing driver, first in the Sport Compact Amateur category (formerly Kamikazes) and participated in a few races in the Sport Compact Elite category on local circuits. On the day of his 12th birthday, Raphael's won his very first race in front of his family at the Vallée-Junction Chaudière Autodrome. That same year, he became the youngest driver in history to participate in the Quebec Sportsman Series. In 2014, Raphael embarked on this Quebec series with the help of his father who ran with him to help him develop his driving skills. In the rookie championship, he finished 2nd, just five points from the winner of this title. Then, throughout the season, Raphael finished in 10th Position. He also made his first tests in a Super Late Model car. In 2015, Raphael begins his first full season in the

PASS North series in his own car. At this point, crossing the border forced him to learn a second language: English. To do this, he devoted no less than four hours a week, not counting school hours, to private lessons, making him now a bilingual racing driver. Subsequently, our prodigy won the confidence of NASCAR driver David Gilliland, who allowed him to race for his team, David Gilliland Racing (DGR), for the last four races of 2015, as part of the PASS North Tour. He finished the season in seventh position with three places in the top 10. At the beginning of 2016,at the age of 14, Raphael won his first victory on American soil at Speed Week at the New Smyrna, Florida circuit in the Pro Late Model category. In his first full-time season with David Gilliland Racing,

Raphael won the CARS Super Late Model Tour championship with four wins, eight top 5s and nine top 10s in his Toyota Camry #99. He became the youngest Canadian racing driver to win a major series of stock cars in the United States. 2017 saw Raphael return with David Gilliland Racing in his Super Late Model to participate in twenty of the most important races in three of the most prestigious series of super Late Model (SLM), Cars Tours, Southern Super Series and CRA-Pro Series. In SLM, Raphael has two victories, eight Top 5s and fifteen Top 10s. He also competed in two ARCA series races with

Venturini Motorsport. In 2018, Raphael participated in a total of twenty of the most prestigious Super Late Model races in the United States in the fold of Kyle Busch Motorsports (KBM), including the Southern Super Series, ARCA-CRA Super Series and the Cars Racing Tour that he won in 2016. Of these twenty races, Raphael had two victories, seven Top 5s and four Top 10s. 2019 saw Lessard race a hand full of races in the ARCA Series and the Truck Series; posting some good runs. In 2020, Raphael ran the full 23 race schedule in the Truck Series for

Kyle Busch Motorsports driving the #4 Toyota. He posted his first Top Ten finish at Michigan; and posted his first Top 5 the next race at Daytona on the road course. He picked up his first win at Talladega; but failed to make the Chase for the Championship. For the season, he had one win; four Top 5 and seven Top 10 finishes; while finishing 12th in the points. For 2021 John Hunter Nemechek has been tabbed to drive the KBM #4 truck. In late November it was announced that Lessard would drive 12 races for GMS Racing; while the team is looking for additional sponsorship to compete the full season. As it turned out, the money only lasted seven races. He posted a third place finish on

the dirt at Bristol; and finished eighth at Kansas. The rest of his finishes were 23rd or worse. Young driver, Jack Wood was able to bring some sponsorship to GMS racing and ran most of the rest of the races in the #24 truck. Wood would return to drive the truck in 2022; so it is not known if Lessard will be able to find a ride elsewhere. Then, Lessard was scheduled to drive the #87 for SQR Development on a part-time basis in the NASCAR Xfinity Series throughout the 2022 season but would later be released from the team before the season even started due to Lessard taking issue with a sexual harassment case involving team-owner J. C. Stout. As it turns out Lessard

returned to the Pinty series and raced in Canada in 2022. He ran eight of 13 races in that series, and it started off promising. He finished second at the season opening race at Sunset Speedway in Innisfil, ONT. It was 250 laps around a tight 1/3 mile bull ring. Lessard was leading at the 250 lap mark, however there had been a spin on lap 246 and lap 250 was under yellow. So the race went to over time. As the green flew again on lap 250 Treyten Lapcevich got the jump on Lessard and was in the lead as the white flag flew. He went on to take the win with Lessard a couple car lengths back. He had two top 5 and four top 10 finishes in his eight starts. We'll keep watch to see if Lessard makes it back to race in one of NASCAR's top three series in the coming years. Some info from
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Fantasy NASCAR Racing

RAPHAEL LESSARD - 07/05/2001