Every year since 1979 an average of five local individuals who have played an important role in sports have been inducted into the Glengarry Sports Hall of Fame. The latest induction ceremony was held on Wednesday, August 20, 2025. Among those honoured was David Bissonnette – a multiple DIRT racing champion who accumulated, within three decades, more than 20 championships and has two DIRTcar Pro-Stock Bronze Eagles (2013 and 2015) titles.

In 1989, Bissonette and some friends built a small amateur racetrack in a farmer’s field south of Dunvegan. “I’d been winning a few races in front of my buddies, and this came to the ears of Omer Séguin from Moose Creek. Mr. Séguin, who owned a Duke-Stock (now knowed as Semi-Pro) race car, came to watch us and told me: ‘Come race the real deal!’ I couldn’t refuse this tempting offer: to fulfill my dream of driving a real race car on a real race track!”

“I won my first three Duke-Stock races in-a-row. I was already seeing myself in the run for Rookie of the Year in that class when Ron Morin—the owner of Cornwall Speedway, came to me and said, ‘You’re way too strong for the Duke-Stock class. You need to move up to Pro-Stock immediately.'” Since the competition was much stronger in the Pro-Stock class, it took the driver of car number 47 some time to stand out from his competitors. “At that time, there were at least a dozen drivers who could hope to win every night,” added Bissonette.

The 1996 season was a turning point in Bissonnette’s racing career. At the age of 30, he won 30 races, earning him Pro Stock championships at Frogtown Speedway, NY (now known as Mohawk International Raceway), Cornwall Motor Speedway, and Edelweiss, QC.

Bissonette said it takes more than a driver to win a race.

“The driver is nothing. I just drove the car. The guys on the team became my family. It’s thanks to them that we were able to win so consistently; they all believed in me and supported me. I feel guilty not being able to name all of them of here, but they were all important to my successes,” he remarked.

Bissonnette, nicknamed “The Bulldog” since his debuts because he had a bulldog painted on the hood of his now famous #47 machine says that his fiercest rival over the years was Rob Yetman from the USA. «Yes, locally I was competing against excellent racers such as Joey Ladouceur, Clayton Benedict and the Peters boys but my biggest rival has been Yetman in his #7 Pro-Stock »

Racing is an expensive sport and David Bissonnette knows about it: “We never had the glory of racing with a big budget, as many other guys, us we’ve always been a small budget team. We made with what we had.” Even if some years the #47 Pro-Stock team couldn’t make a full season, Bissonnette never spent a full year without at least one presence on the track.

It is behind the wheel of this yellow machine that “The Bulldog” had his most dramatic race accident. “It was at the end of a 50-lap feature; I was in the top five cars as we all crossed the finish line. I front of me, past the flagman stand, cars spun around. I had nowhere to go and we all crashed together. My fuel cell split and the gas immediately caught on fire. I got wind knocked out of me, this as hard as the crash was. I was trying to get out of the car but I couldn’t and all the metal was so hot around me. I finally managed to get out of the blaze on time by myself.” The track’s firemen promptly put out the flames; but no one knew where Dave was. His girlfriend, was standing next to me in tears watching the scene helpless. Suddenly, out of behind the sponsors signs in the middle of the infield came out Bissonnette coughing from the smoke he had inhaled, but he was OK. All the race fans applauded the local racer.

It was finally at the end of the 2019 season, with more than twenty championships under his belt, so many victories that he had stopped counting, and his two DIRTcar Pro-Stock Bronze Eagles (2013 and 2015), that the Bulldog finally hung up his race car steering wheel for good.

In the spring of 2025, he received a call that nearly brought him to tears: a very nice lady from the Glengarry Sports Hall of Fame informed him that on August 20 of that year, he would be inducted into this local sports hall of fame. “Your portfolio is impeccable, Mr. Bissonnette. You should have been inducted into this Hall of Fame years ago.”

“I’ve never felt happier. It’s the most amazing feeling in the world,” said David “Bulldog” Bissonnette. “This is definitely the biggest dream I could ever have imagined. All my sweat and tears that I put into my years of DIRT racing will forever be inscribed in this Hall.”

In conclusion, Dave Bulldog Bissonnette, who initially enjoyed racing four-wheelers in a field deep in the countryside, encourages those with dreams to follow the motto he has always displayed on the back of his #47 Pro-Stock machine: “Don’t dream your life. Live your dream!”

Submitted photos