Tim Hauraney is living the life doing Formula One and IndyCar analysis for TSN (The Sports Network) after pursuing his dream as a professional race car driver.
From beginning in the Ontario Formula Ford Championship, he moved up the ranks to the Canadian Formula Ford Championship, 24 Hours of Daytona, Fia GT Championship, Formula Renault and Champ Car Toyota Atlantic Series.
But he found himself stuck in neutral when the 2008 recession hit.
“I had made it to such a high level in the sport that it required millions of dollars just to continue,” Tim said. “When I was coming up through (the racing ranks), a lot of the teams had some sponsorship, so it didn’t require us to bring as much as drivers are bringing today to the table.”
He began working for two companies doing streetcar events in North America, branched into racetrack driving skill events and then became a racing instructor.
Then he took a leave from the sport because he no longer had the passion to be involved in the car community.
“It was tough to be involved doing what I was doing and not being able to race and compete, so I figured it best just to leave the industry all together and just try to put it behind me and start a new life doing something else,” he said.
“The problem is I couldn’t find anything that I loved as much as cars, racing, performance, competition – just all of that. It was really difficult for me to deal with psychologically, so I just kind of cut ties with all of it and dropped all the way to the bottom.”
He returned home to the Village of Keene, a town with a population of 300 just outside of Peterborough. His parents, who provided him with some resources to pursue his racing career, were extremely supportive of his decision to leave it all behind.
“My parents were huge in my career, so was my (maternal) grandfather,” he said. “I couldn’t have done it without them. They wanted it for me just as much as I wanted it. They were crushed when I couldn’t keep going. They were just as devastated as I was. We both were on the same journey together.”
He found work delivering pizzas and at a chicken farm whose owner was a family friend.
“It was an easy job, a lot of people could have done it, but it was pretty nasty,” he said. “All the chickens have been defeathered and cleaned out. You prepared them and put them in the freezer and made stuffing for the carcasses.”
It was quite a reality check.
“At one point in my life I was at one level, which was living my dream, pursuing my passion, and doing what I loved, and then, boom, that dream suddenly stripped away, and I was all the way down at the bottom,” he said. “It was hard to adjust and to figure out. I was all the way up here and then all the way down at the bottom. It was like a roller-coaster.
I never went to college or university and all I had was a high school diploma so not much to fall back on to support myself, and so the owners of both the pizza shop and the chicken farm really understood what I was dealing with and gave me a job to make some money.”
It was a chance run-in with a TSN sportscaster who had followed Hauraney’s career and had an interest in motorsport, suggested Hauraney consider working for the network on its nightly sports news shows. But Hauraney had no experience in the broadcast industry. He began working for The Score Network in an entry-level role, which required learning about all kinds of sports, the key players in them and how to archive tape. He then moved over to TSN and learned how to produce, write scripts and edit. He then talked to the upper management about doing a racing show, specifically Formula One.
“They saw me as a great asset for them because they didn’t really have anybody who could tackle racing or Formula One,” he said. “Because I was at such a high level with my racing career I could apply that to what we were trying to do at TSN. The company let me create my own position, which I’m truly grateful for. They gave me the reins and they taught me a lot about broadcasting and journalism and reporting.”
He is in his 10th year with TSN as its racing analyst. He also consults for drivers, teams and companies directly involved with car racing, helping them achieve their goals within the auto sport community.
Hauraney has some simple advice for anyone looking to pursue their dream.
“I believe timing is crucial, hard work is paramount and networking and relationships are massive,” he said. “Whatever it is, whatever your passions are, whatever it is you love to do, you’ve got to put the time and effort into it, work hard, and when the time is called upon, you are ready to execute that’s the way I always look at things. My parents taught me to just work hard, and good things will eventually come.”
Perry Lefko is the Content Manager of The Car Magazine. He can be reached at [email protected]. Feel free to forward any story suggestions or comments.