It was a good day when Toni Sharpless was recognized with the Canadian Motorcycle Association Ambassador Award in 2023.
If you have spent any time in a Canadian road racing paddock, you know Toni. Between her own racing career — she went into the Canadian Motorcycle Hall of Fame in 2011 — and what she has built since with the Super Sonic Road Race School (SSRS), nobody deserves it more.
Toni didn’t just promote the sport; she literally built the next generation of racers with her own two hands.
She saw that Canada was missing a grassroots pipeline to develop young road racers, so she created one. She built the Super Sonic school, set up the Arrive-N-Ride program so a family can turn up without owning a bike, created the MiniSBK series with her husband Jamie, and established Canada’s route into the FIM MiniGP world series — captaining the Canadian Ohvale 160 team at a world final herself.
Without Toni, kids like mine wouldn’t have a structured, safe environment to learn how to drag a knee. She bridges the gap from a set of cones on a skid pad all the way to the World Final in Valencia.
The CMA Ambassador Award is a massive honor, but her real legacy is visible on the grid every single race weekend. Thank you, Toni.
