With five top-five’s on regular nights at Sunset Speedway, and his first career feature victory coming at the Allan Lankin Cup, it’s safe to say Blaise Shaw’s first full season behind the wheel in Mini Stock competition went really well across the board.

The multi-generational driver shared his thoughts on the success, 2024, and more with SHORT TRACK MUSINGS recently.

What are your thoughts as you look back on the 2023 race season?

For me, it went better than I would’ve imagined it would have being my first full season. Like, week-in-week-out, I improved all year and had a lot of good runs in a lot of big races so no complaints at all with how I did. We always had fun at the track even if it’s not a great day, so no complaints at all.

I was going to say, it had to feel pretty special to get your first feature win at an event like the Allan Lankin Cup where you had over 40 guys just trying to make the show.

Yeah. I mean, like I said, I didn’t expect to have the success I’ve had so far with how few races I’ve done – even after a first fullish season. To win it there with all the top guys running with something that I didn’t dream would happen this year, especially a race for Allan to be in Sam(antha Shaw)’s car with her being such good friends with him, it was nice to put her car in victory lane for him.

Kind of the icing on the cake to the day….

Honestly, before that last segment, I was struggling with the car. I was making the wrong adjustments and finally got it figured out and the car was just awesome for the last race and I didn’t have a complaint.

So now that you have your first season under your belt, what surprised you the most?

I would say what surprised me the most was how many cars we were getting on a weekly basis at Sunset. Not that it was a small division – it was one of the bigger divisions at Sunset in ’22, but all year to have 20 plus cars every night was definitely a surprise. I didn’t think there were that many people getting into it and coming back and all that and so that was awesome.

It’s always nice when every night, you can go into a feature and it’s 20 cars. It looks like a real full field, and it just makes it more fun for guys like Doug (Butler) having to pass 19 or more cars to get his way to the front, which he normally did anyway. It was at least a little more challenge for him than normal.

As a fan, it was a great competition all season long because for me, the Mini Stocks were the top-division at Sunset – if not the province with all the tracks getting significant car count.

Absolutely. Besides except the bone stocks at Delaware (Speedway), we probably did have the next best car count out of anything. It was just so awesome to see and be a part of. As far as I can see online, it’s only grown this off-season so excited to see what we’re going to have this year.

So what’s in the cards for you for 2024?

Well, basically, it will be more of the same as last year. Any non-APC (Auto Parts United Late Model Series) nights we will be running at Sunset, whether it’s the mini stocks or I’m there helping with the late models with my sister. If we have an off-weekend where there’s nothing at Sunset for us or no APC, I’ll probably go for another run at Flamboro (Speedway) to get tuned up for Frostoberfest at the end of the year.

Besides the regular stuff at Sunset, we’re definitely going to run Frostoberfest. We always hit that one up at the end of the year. We talked this year about maybe trying out (the Autumn) Colours (Classic at Peterborough Speedway), but we’ll have to wait and see because that is quite a long weekend so I’ll have to see if I can get the time off work to go down to get all the practices in and all not.

Unfortunately, I was really looking forward to running Sauble (Speedway) again this year, but I saw they just released the schedule and it’s really cool they’re doing a two-race series. But unfortunately, one of those falls on the (Jr) Hanley Classic so I’m going to have my hands more than full that day with all the late models we have going on. The second one is the same date as the second APC race at Sunset I believe so again, not going to be able to make it. But I hope they get another good field and have another good race there this year.

Being able to help with the Shaw Motorsports late model program, it has to help translate back into your deal. What’s the biggest thing that you’ve been able to learn by helping them?

I mean, honestly, just everything. Everything I’ve picked up is from either my dad (Randy Shaw), my uncle (Jason Shaw), or Dale (Shaw), my sister, Eric (Della-Riva), Jr (Farrelly) – all the guys. I mean everything from physical race craft and preparing to really listening the feedback that Erik gives during practice, qualifying, and the race so that we can make adjustments and make the car better for him is huge.

I tell everyone – any of the new people getting into it – to try and get around somebody with experience like that because like I said, everything I picked up is from somebody that has something to do with Shaw Motorsports.

So growing up around it, it’s almost figured out that you’d get involved behind the wheel at some point. But yet, it feels you started later than expected. What made this year to have it be the right time to have it happen?

Honestly, I was baseball player and was fairly good. I played AAA for many, many years and was playing Junior and I finally aged out of that. My throwing arm was pretty much toast at that point so I finally had the opportunity to say – sorry, the big thing the year I aged out was the same year Sam moved into the late model so that opened up the mini stock.

So I went to dad and said, “Hey, now that my baseball career is finally up on the shelf, I think I’d like to finally give racing a go.” He wasn’t completely sure about it, but we started out. I was just helping with the late models with Sam and Erik on the APC tour, and once he kind of saw that I was serious about it, he said, “Alright…”

He took me and we went out to practice one day at Flamboro on a Wednesday and ran a couple laps. I believe it was the next weekend he said, “Alright, we’re going to Sunset. You’re running.” It just kind of started from there in ’22. It was probably mid-August or so, so I only got five races in.

As soon as I ran the first night at Sunset , I was hooked. I loved it. I definitely struggled that first night, but I believe we managed a top-10 out of it somehow. I was like, “Yep, this is what we’re going to be doing for my summers for the foreseeable future.”

Not a bad way to spend a summer for sure….

Nope, not at all. I wouldn’t give it up for anything. I mean, between just loving racing the car and working on the car to make it better, everybody knows it – the whole Shaw family, even my mom’s side of the family is racing. Every weekend is like a family reunion and getting to spend time with everybody, there’s nothing better than that.

With everything you learned this past season, what do you feel that you need to work and improve upon to be even better in 2024?

The big thing for me is I’m still working on giving my dad the feedback for what adjustments need to be made to just help the car turn. I find myself a lot of times, I just doubt myself and my ability so I just assume I’m driving it in too far, or not driving it in far enough. So I change what I’m doing on the track rather than doing the same thing and coming in and saying this is what it’s doing. Instead, I’m coming in saying well it was doing this, but then I changed what I was doing and it’s doing that.

I think that’s the biggest thing for anybody is being able to dissect a car and say it’s a little free in the center, but it’s a really good off so we need to make this adjustment. I think that’s the biggest thing for anybody to get better.

You just started off your career essentially, but is there anything else that you’d want to get behind the wheel of?

I would love to try just about anything. What we’re doing right now, I’m still having fun every time we’re at the track. It’s not something that I need to get out of quite yet. I think I need some more experience before I try anything else. Obviously, ultimately, it comes down to what I can afford and right now, we can afford the mini stock and I’m still learning. I don’t know if I’ll be moving anytime soon.

I’d definitely be open to if the occasion arose to get in a late model or a super stock or whatever really and give it a try.