After a successful season last year, Dale Shaw is excited to get back to the track this year.

“We’re going to continue that we’ve doing in APC – trying to win races, be competitive, keep up with the big boys,” Shaw told Short Track Musings. “It’s gonna be fun a year.”

Looking at the schedule ahead for the season, Shaw admits being excited to get to both Peterborough Speedway and Sauble Speedway with the APC Auto Parts United Late Models of Ontario tour. Though once that is complete, admittedly, the Autumn Colours Classic is circled on the calendar.

“I was running decent two years and then kind of fell off, and then last year, we were really good, got back to third, and my window net fell down last year during the race,” he recalled. “So I had come from the back so I would say, Colors is probably the race I’m looking forward to the most.

“My dad won three of them in a row many, many, many years ago, so I’ve always really wanted an Autumn Colors win. There were many years, I wasn’t able to go just because we put so much effort into the whole season at the end of the year. There’s just nothing left, budget wise, energy wise and my daughter’s a little older now, so I don’t mind kind of running away to Autumn Colors weekend. She’s off doing all kinds of family stuff. So yeah, Autumn Colors has got me pretty excited.”

Shaw had a solid 2025 campaign en route to placing fifth in the APC Series standings with a win, five top-five’s and eight top-10’s in the nine races. After spending a couple seasons focused solely on a home-track program at Sunset Speedway, Shaw was admittedly shocked by the speed they showed in returning to other tracks with the tour.

“Honestly, when I went to Flamboro, it’s been so long since I raced there,” he explained. “I was trying to read, get reaccustomed to the racetrack, so a lot of last year was trying to get me up to speed and it was an awesome year. We had incredible speed. I felt like Flamboro Speedway, we were top-five car both times we went there. At Peterborough, we were a second place car so I was really proud of that. We might have the best car, so our speed was really good. That’s the thing I’m most proud of, right, because that’s what we work for all winter. We work all season to make our cars as good as we can. So I guess if I were to describe last year, the word is proud of the speed we had and how competitive we were to the rest of the province.”

As he continues to fine-tune on the program, Shaw says there needs to be a focus on unloading with a better balance and more speed.

“We went to Flamboro, Peterborough, and then Delaware, we didn’t test any of those racetracks,” he explained. “We went in green and I felt like we spent the whole practice just kind of getting the balance in the car, whereas this year, I think I’ll be able to get the balance closer when we unload, and then we just need to work on speed. Like we didn’t qualify well last year,which is probably mostly me getting old to be honest with you, because when I was young, I could haul like for 2 laps like nobody; but now, I think about stuff, you know what I mean.

“So finding more speed and qualifying better. We need to be in the invert every week because I can’t start 12th and have (Kyle) Steckley and those guys start top third and fourth every week, then expect to drive up there and pass them. So that would be the two keys to I think being better this year than last year.”

Beyond his commitment behind the wheel, he knows he will be busy with Shaw Motorsports and the drivers they are working with.

“We kind of did something we’ve never done before – we sold a car this winter,” Shaw shared. “So the last two years, we ran four late models out of my shop. We built a new shop kind of over the last couple years and then we sold a car this winter. So we sold a car to the Sutcliffe’s this year, which Jacob will be running. So a lot of this year is gonna be about getting him comfortable in the late model, getting him learning all the racetracks.”

Shaw Motorsports has shown speed over recent years not only with Dale behind the wheel, but finding success with Junior Farrelly on the APC tour with a trip to victory lane at Sauble Speedway, and Samantha Shaw running up front in a home-track program at Sunset including a trip to victory lane.

“Honestly, that’s what that’s why we put all the effort into. That’s why we eat craft dinner seven nights a week and work our freaking butts off to try and keep up with those guys,” Shaw commented. “And if you could see the budget differences between the way I run an APC season versus some of the people we race against, like, we’re talking, probably like, two zeros of indifference, like at the end of the number in different budgets. So just super proud.

“You know, Jr Farrelly at Sauble Speedway – he has always been good there. So last year, I didn’t give him as good of a car in both races as I did the year before, so I gotta get him going better there. We gotta get him improved at every racetrack; I feel like he was kind of in that eighth to 10th range a lot of weeks, and we gotta get him out of the top-five and give him some more speed. I felt like most weeks I was a top-five car, top-three some weeks, whereas I need to win a couple races this year.

“We just need to keep showing improvement, and I feel like if we do that like this year will be a success.”

Admittedly, Shaw says the drive to beat guys across the province spending way less money keeps him motivated and coming back each week.

“Basically everybody in Ontario at the late model level in the APC Series level has someone working on the race cars that do it for a living, and I guess I technically sort of do it for a living now,” he commented. “So it’s we’re all kind of doing the same thing, and it’s trying to beat the other people that are doing this for a living, because so I look at it this way. You have professional athletes, NHL, NBA, whatever they do every day is they focus on being as good at their craft as they can. I feel like now we went into racing, trying to make my racecar the best it can, like showing up to the racetrack and trying to find that extra little bit to be better than everybody else on the day. I guess that’s what drives me is just trying to find that little bit and trying to take a perfect race car to the racetrack, which I don’t think is possible.”

Over the years, the hard work has led to a lot of success, including being the inaugural series champion in the APC Series in 2015. It’s a championship that means a lot to Shaw in being his biggest accomplishment.

Another big moment over the years, which he personally calls his proudest, would be winning the Junior Hanley Classic at Sunset Speedway.

“That was the biggest, most money I’ve ever won; that race paid more than the championship,” Shaw shared. “So that one was incredible because we were camping – we took time, we went into the camper, we had beverages, and we enjoyed it. Like, I was kind of proud of myself that we took the time to enjoy that.”