Sports

Canadian Soldier will be Grand Marshall for the Rexall Indy 500

by Karl Gotthardt - albertacowpoke | July 24, 2009 at 06:17 am

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A Canadian soldier and veteran of six overseas tours, including Bosnia, Croatia and Afghanistan has been selected to be this year's Grand Marshall of the Rexall Edmonton Indy 500.

After Warrant Officer David Schultz was introduced as this years Grand Marshall, Alex Tagliani showed the veteran soldier a few features of his white-and black open wheel race car.

Warrant Officer David Shultz, a member of the Edmonton based Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry, recently returned from Afghanistan, protecting Provincial Construction Teams.

He has just learned that he will be awarded the Star of Military Valour, the highest award a Canadian soldier can receive. He currently looks after the Regiments's wounded and ill soldiers.

He is now busy practicing "Gentlemen start your Engines"

The Canadian soldier who will order race car drivers to "start their engines" at this weekend's Rexall Edmonton Indy got a quick lesson Thursday on the intricacies of a car's controls and steering wheel.

After race officials introduced Warrant Officer David Shultz as this year's grand marshal, driver Alex Tagliani showed the veteran soldier a few features of his white-and-black No. 34 open-wheel race car.

Shultz, a member of Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry, has served six tours of duty overseas in locations including Bosnia, Croatia and, most recently, Afghanistan. He worked in Afghanistan protecting the Provincial Reconstruction Team, a job that relied on LAV-IIIs, eight-wheeled armoured troop carriers.

"In comparison to this piece of kit over here, we definitely would take it in a firefight," Shultz said of the LAVIII as he stood in front of Tagliani's car. "But in a straightaway, they'd have the edge."