Brothers Trevor and Travis Hill help some of Ottawa’s biz elite fulfill their need for speed

If you’ve ever wondered what Shopify’s Tobi Lütke, Ron Tomlinson of Tomlinson Group, and tech exec Richard L’Abbé do on their time off, you have a good chance of finding out in Calabogie – on the racetrack, no less.  TwoTh Autosport is a racing team based out of the Calabogie Motorsports Park, about 90 minutes […]

If you’ve ever wondered what Shopify’s Tobi Lütke, Ron Tomlinson of Tomlinson Group, and tech exec Richard L’Abbé do on their time off, you have a good chance of finding out in Calabogie – on the racetrack, no less.  TwoTh Autosport is a racing team based out of the Calabogie Motorsports Park, about 90 minutes west of Ottawa. Co-founders and brothers Trevor and Travis Hill started the team in 2010. The Hill brothers were born with a love for the sport, watching Formula One races with their dad.  “Our father was very much a hobbyist and enthusiast in racing. We just grew up around sports cars and anything automotive. By the time we were eight and 10, we started go-karting. Our father said that with every dollar we made cutting grass or doing chores, he would match that dollar so we could buy our first go-kart. Travis and I both started our racing careers in 1998 around Ottawa and Toronto and it’s just grown from there,” Trevor told OBJ.  About 15 years ago, Travis became a certified instructor for high-performance driving and got a job at the Calabogie Motorsports Park. To fill a growing need for people with a mechanical background, Trevor joined Calabogie a couple of years later. Almost immediately, the brothers were more successful than they had bargained for. 

“It was just too much funding coming into our personal bank accounts, so we figured we had to start our business and make it more legit,” Trevor recalled.  Through word-of-mouth and hard work, the Hill brothers grew their business and now race all over North America in places such as Daytona, Indianapolis, Florida, Texas and Toronto. They’ve even taken their wheels overseas to race in France and Spain. Over the past 15 years of business, TwoTh has brought home a number of accolades. Both Travis and Trevor won a Touring Car Championship in 2021 and 2023, respectively. In 2024, TwoTh won a team championship in the Historic Sportscar Racing (HSR) prototype challenge in Sebring, Fla. – a success achieved by Travis and Lütke, co-founder and CEO of Shopify. Trevor said one of the greatest pleasures of his career with TwoTh has been the “amazing customers” that have also become friends throughout the years. For example, Lütke became involved with TwoTh in 2017 and wanted to improve his racing skills. Travis began to coach him through the driver development program.  “We started (Lütke) in the Miata program because he wanted to grow his racing skills. He started at the bottom and worked his way up. Now he’s running the big prototypes and, as of this year, he competed at Daytona for the 24-hour race at the pro level,” Trevor said. Trevor said other prominent clients include Tomlinson, president and CEO of R. W. Tomlinson Ltd., and his daughter Megan, as well as L’Abbé, founder and former CEO of Ottawa’s Med-Eng Systems Inc. 

While the team works with a variety of cars — from Mazda Miatas, Honda Civics and Porsches to bigger prototype vehicles typical of a Formula One race – the majority of cars are owned by the drivers themselves.  “Ninety per cent of the cars that are in the shop are owned by the customer. The business (TwoTh) does own one or two little race cars, but we definitely don’t own all of them. The customer usually finances or buys their own asset. We own the tools, the equipment and the infrastructure to make sure the customer has a good experience,” Trevor said. The fun starts when a racing schedule comes out, Trevor added.  “Once we get the calendar, we start mapping out where we can go and we look at different customers and ask them if there is any interest in particular races,” Trevor said. Part of what the TwoTh team does is a driver development program.  “We’ll get kids that are coming out of go-karts that want to step into race cars and small business owners or government workers who have always had an itch to go racing. It starts out like a beer league of racing, because we have a lot of club-level events,” Trevor said. The team brings in professionals such as sport psychologists, data coaches, car engineers and athletic coaches to support the drivers. “We treat it like a sports team. We try to schedule practice days and races. Every year, you have the option to continue where you are or try to move up a class,” Trevor said. The team grows as race weekends approach, Trevor told OBJ, with the addition of “weekend warrior” crew members, bolstering numbers up to about 50. While a large portion of revenues comes from the drivers, TwoTh also generates revenue with partnerships and corporate events.  “Yes, we run race cars, but we’re also starting to get more into the marketing side of things. Our YouTube channel and social media following are growing. We try to put content out two to three times a week so that usually is helpful to the brands and partners we have on board,” Trevor said. “Some businesses want brand activations at racetracks. Some of the events we do can be in front of tens and hundreds of thousands of people. The Toronto Indy, there’s 100,000 to 200,000 people there,” he said. And if someone has a taste for racing, TwoTh’s racecars are available for rent.  “Usually, if you have a car with us, it’s an unwritten rule that you have it available for anybody to utilize. It’s almost like a timeshare, without being a timeshare,” Trevor said. Though the action-packed world of racing has its perks, Trevor said they’ve run into a few speed bumps along the way.  “I obviously like being in this sort of sporting industry, but I don't think we definitely decided to do this because we wanted to be HR managers. I would never consider us businesspeople, because we don't come from a business background, but you definitely have to run this like a business,” he said.  The day-to-day running of the business is facilitated by CFO and business adviser Steve Bruder. Managing expectations has become another issue, Trevor said. “For most customers that we’re dealing with, this is their golf game. They have a higher expectation because they want to have fun, but they also want to do very well. So sometimes that’s a challenge; managing people and expectations,” he said.  In the winter, Trevor said the days are a little slower but it’s still a pivotal time as they prepare for weekends of racing.

“In the summer months we can race almost every weekend. I believe last year we had 38 or 39 weekends of racing. The winter months (consist of) a lot more maintenance and turnaround time between events,” he said. Trevor said interest in racing has picked up in recent years, especially with the popularity of the Netflix show “Drive to Survive,” a docu-series that follows the Formula One racing teams as they go through their seasons. “You’d be surprised at how many people get out to Calabogie and don’t realize there’s a racetrack here. We get more interest in people following us online because of Tobi and the Tomlinsons, but the interest is growing,” he said. Though Ottawa is not your typical market for racing, NASCAR is hosting a race at Calabogie Motorsports Park in July – a race Trevor would love to get in on. “We’re trying to work on a NASCAR program. That’s more funding-dependent, but seeing there’s a race in our backyard we want to be a part of it. If that does happen, TwoTh Autosport will be in all four classes and I don’t know if there is a single business, let alone race team, that can say that,” he said. Trevor said passion for the work is at the heart of what they do. “The people within the team enjoy what they do. None of us want real jobs. We don’t look at this as a real job. We look at this as we all get to come in here and play. We’re in the fortunate situation to live and work in a want industry and not a need industry,” Trevor said.