Paul LeSage still remembers the day one of the business world’s most influential participants asked him a pointed question. 

LeSage, who answers to the nickname Torch from his background as a welder to the stars, never flinched in his response. 

Oakley founder Jim Jannard was the inquisitor. 

Jannard had taken LeSage under his wing as both a protege and his voice of reason, the official business card title at Oakley for the talented welder who was still working in this capacity at the NHRA events. LeSage worked alongside Jannard for a decade before the company sold in 2016. 

“How big are your balls?” LeSage said Jannard asked him. 

“I guess big enough,” LeSage responded, adding, “You’re the one that wrote the Voice of Reason on this card.” 

“Jannard said, ‘I want you to go hand out your business card to all that live in our sports marketing department because they all like you, and if they didn’t, I wouldn’t have given you the key to this door like I’m giving to you now.”

LeSage began his 40th consecutive season in Pomona since he transitioned onto the big stage of championship drag racing back in the early 1980s. 

From his early days as a track welder at Fremont Dragway in 1982, LeSage understood that perception can be reality all too often. 

LeSage understood the sage advice bestowed upon him by Jannard. If a marketing genius such as Jannard viewed him as a voice of reason, who was he to argue?

“That was never my idea,” LeSage said. “He said, ‘I want you to go hand out your business cards to all 38 people in sports marketing because they all like you, and if they didn’t, I wouldn’t have given you the key to this door like I’m giving to you now.”

His days at Oakley are long gone, but LeSage still holds on to those roots for guidance as he has navigated success for his Torch Brand of eyewear and lifestyle clothing.  

LeSage sold his Torch Eyewear brand name to businessman Louis Wellen of Winter Park, Fla, a former three-decade employee of Oakley, who was responsible for first hiring LeSage. His lifestyle clothing and welding wear lines to Mechanix Wear. He’s still actively involved on both sides.

LeSage’s forward-thinking approach as an enterprising welding specialist set the stage for today’s successes. 

“I got to be evolved with the welding machine companies, Lincoln Electric,” LeSage said. “I brought them in as a sponsor many, many years ago, and welding machines became more accessible for the do-it-yourself guy. So what I was doing at the track allowed us to teach people here. I did a lot of school training trackside and Training at Lincoln Electric in Cleveland, Ohio.”

In a sport where welding can be a crucial process, LeSage was influential in making the process mainstream. 

The marketability LeSage exuded through his Team Torch reputation, a nickname bestowed upon him by the late Steve Evans, caught the attention of Jannard, one who LeSage credits as being incredibly influential in his bid to get to where he is presently.

“He’s the guy that really allowed me to become the marketing person I am today,” LeSage said. “What I was allowed to do with him on the estate management side, from his aircraft to his automobiles, essentially allowed me to basically prop up my business, Torch, where under his tutelage, I like to say, because he not only gave me a key to his door but I became part of not only his culture but his life. 

“I miss him dearly, but when I walked off that plane for the last time, he said, ‘Torch, it’s been great, but I’ve got to go on to the next stage of my life.” And I said, “Bro, that’s why I never went to sleep up here.” 

LeSage still prides himself in the ability to hold the role -- Voice of Reason -- and for anyone who wonders what the mission statement for this gig is -- he doesn’t hesitate in hanging it out there. 

“Brand ambassador, culture guardian, product developer ... that’s basically what I’ve done through my life,” LeSage said. “Jim told me I might not have been a psychiatrist, but I do a really good job of giving therapy. Out here, I was kind of like Ann Landers. I rolled in and out of everybody’s pit area, so I learned everybody’s problems.”

“In life, you should never be demeaning, but you can be demanding as long as you’re demanding yourself and your purpose and your team to have the same goal, and that is to win,” LeSage said. “Whatever we do to do in life, we do it to win. Smiles take you farther than frowns every day of our lives.”

“I’ve tried to smile no matter what I’ve done through my career. From down there when I was the welder kid to, I guess, the voice of reason.”