Washington DC Region member Thomas McLeod went to his first sports car race when he was 7 years old – he says he’s been hanging around British cars ever since. He continued to spectate at tracks in Canada, where he’s from, but finally got tired of paying for tickets. “It looked like the guys on the other side of the fence were having a lot more fun than I was,” he says, so he learned to flag at what was then called Mosport and became a flagger in 1989. Back then, it was unlikely he would have thought that 35 years later, SCCA® would name him as the 2024 Pit & Grid Worker of the Year presented by Mazda – yet here he is.

Back to 1989, there were workers at that track who annually made the run to Road Atlanta for the SCCA National Championship Runoffs®. Thomas decided to join them, becoming an SCCA member in 1991.

At corner station 13 at Watkins Glen on a weekend in September 1991, he met Cathy. They met again at the Runoffs and spent the week working together. Over the next five months, Thomas packed up, moved to Frederick, MD, on Valentine’s Day in 1992, and married Cathy.

Cathy McLeod, by the way, was presented with the Steward Worker of the Year award in 2023.

SCCA became a big part of their life together. The McLeods worked corners together for 12 to 14 years, always on the same corner. He learned a lot from his wife, since she had been flagging for much longer than he had. When Cathy entered the Steward’s program, he continued working corners until it was discovered he had leukemia and had to take time off to recover. Thankfully, his sister was a match for a bone marrow transplant, and he has been clean of cancer for 10 years.

The treatment has taken its toll on McLeod, but the summer he was in treatment, he still managed to work all but one race – although he had to be in the tower to stay out of the sun. He did Race Control for all of 2014 and part of 2015.

Eventually, he knew he had to move from Flagging & Communications to a new specialty. “The aftereffects of chemo left me with severe neuropathy in my lower legs, so I didn’t feel I could be safe on corners,” he says. He worked at other specialties then wound up at Pit & Grid in 2018 – and he enjoys the people working there.

To say he’s worked other specialties is an understatement. McLeod holds licenses in Tech, Race Administration, Start, Sound Control, F&C, and Pit & Grid. He even spent a weekend in training as a Steward. About the only thing left is Timing & Scoring.

SCCA has been the McLeods’ life for 30 years. They travel a lot from March through November, especially since Cathy is Race Director for the U.S. Majors Tour® in the Northeast. He pitches in at whatever job is needed, often helping at Registration on Fridays.

“It’s been a lot of fun,” he says. “We’ve met some of the most wonderful people. I would not have missed any of it.”