“Maybe we haven’t changed enough over time, but we’re starting to see a little bit more of that and we’re going to be forced to change how we do things.”

From the time he was just a little boy living in Prince Edward Island, Western Fair's track announcer and assistant manager Greg Blanchard has been calling it like he sees it. Despite a turbulent year for Ontario racing, Blanchard is enjoying every minute of his dream job calling races at the London oval.

“When you’re a kid and you’re interested in something like that (track announcing), the odds of you actually doing it I guess are slim,” Blanchard was quoted as saying in a London Free Press article profiling his career in the racing industry. “I’m lucky.”

In the article, Blanchard recounts when his parents bought him a tape recorder at eight years old to begin perfecting his skills behind the mic with imaginary race calls.

"My father used to say, ‘I enjoy your race calls, the only 10-minute-long races in North America,’ because they’d just go on and on,” he explained.

To read the London Free Press profile in its entirety, click here.