“We were always playing tricks on each other at Player’s,” he said. “I got Phil and the mechanics really good one time. We totally messed up their rental car. We soaked the seats with water, changed the windshield sprayer to go inside the car to it hit the driver on the face when he pushed the button—we covered the windshield with dirt and grease so he’d have to push it, and all this other stuff. They showed up with their pants all soaked from the seats and just a total mess in their nice team travel clothes and stuff.

“So then, of course, Phil wanted to get me back. I don’t know how many people knew this side about Phil. So, you can ask (his current engineer) Todd Malloy, but I still write very detailed engineering reports and debrief notes at the end of each day we run. I did that with Player’s, too, but all of a sudden, Phil asked me to write all of these extra comments and notes in the [transporter’s engineering room]. I’ll be honest, it kinda’ pissed me off at the time because I already gave them everything they normally want. I’m pretty thorough, but I stayed in there and did it. It was weird.

Alex Tagliani laughed while telling a tale of when LePan got his revenge on the French-Canadian. (Photo: LAT)

“So finally, I’m done, I go out, give them my notes and grabbed all my gear to throw in my rental car to make a one-hour drive to Miami to fly home from the test. Well, what was happening when I was writing all those extra notes was Phil had the mechanics filling my rental car’s hub caps with wheel weights and rocks and all this other trash they got. They glued the caps on, and then we all left together, but I had no idea.

“They were following me in the minivan, and as soon as I got to 40mph, I’ll tell you, the ****ing thing was shaking like an earthquake. If I tried to go to 55, the windshield would have exploded, the dashboard would have fallen apart…I could barely control this thing it was so all over the place.

“Then I pulled over right away and tried to take the hubcaps off, but I don’t have [long] fingernails and they glued them on good, so I couldn’t get them off and had to do the whole ride like this with the car shaking itself apart… At the time, I had two choices. I could take more time to try and fix it and miss my flight, or I could deal with it at 40mph the whole time… I got to the airport finally, and they were there all there waiting for me and laughing at me. That was classic. Phil and the boys got me good.”

A memorial service will be held for LePan on February 16th at the Mount Pleasant Cemetery Visitation Centre in Toronto. He is survived by his wife Donna and sons Christopher and Nicholas.

Marshall Pruett is SPEED.com's Auto Racing Editor, and covers the IndyCar Series. Before joining SPEED, Pruett worked in open-wheel racing for 20 years as a mechanic and engineer. He also contributes to RACER, Road & Track and Racecar Engineering. Follow him @MarshallPruett.