The Broken Spoke – November 2024
The Broken Spoke
(Digital) November 2024
Hello! Autumn is well upon us and that means we can now look forward to the icing racing that we may have soon (if the weather gods give us safe lake ice). Asphalt tracks are closed for the season, but we’re still driving on gravel and kicking up the dust. More on that in the issue below!
(Johnny Summers, Dirt Cup #1, November 3 Photo by Emily Trojan)
Disclaimer: Hey there! The Calgary Sports Car Club does not currently have an official Broken Spoke editor. Instead, in the interest of getting club news out somehow, someway, it’s me. I don’t mind this task, if I have not a lot else to do … but I DO have a lot else to do. So, if being the editor of the Broken Spoke sounds interesting to you, why not give it a try! E-mail me: jamie.gray@cscc.ab.ca. The Broken Spoke goes out in a pdf version of a Word document, and the format is pretty much set up already. Easy peasy.
In this issue you’ll find:
KANANASKIS RALLY, DONE AND DUSTED
DIRT CUP / ICE CUP 2024
LOON SNARK TSD RALLY
BIG WHITE RALLY
CALGARY HERALD ARTICLE
FROM THE ARCHIVES
CHRISTMAS PARTY
UPCOMING EVENTS THAT MAY INTEREST YOU
ADVERTISING OPPORTUNITIES
KANANASKIS RALLY, DONE AND DUSTED
(Photo by Shawn Bishop)
The rally ran successfully on Sunday, November 10, with many volunteers and spectators in attendance to watch participants drive hard and fast. The weather was excellent and road surfaces variable but easy to negotiate. The following are the results:
Congratulations, organizers and participants! And many thanks to all volunteers, radio operators, and all whose role it was to keep everyone safe. Planning begins for Kananaskis Rally 2025 – get involved and we’ll see you there!
DIRT CUP / ICE CUP 2024 Dirt Cup 2024 is a timed driving competition series, co-hosted with RallyWest, in which entrants drive one at a time along a course defined by cones. The course is on a mixture of dirt, gravel, ice, and snow. It will be run with the 2025 CSCC Ice Cup (formerly Ice Dice) and competitors will be able to participate in championships on just dirt, just ice, or in both for a combined championship.
(Photo by Shawn Bishop) If you like drifting, improving driving skills, test-and-tuning a car (rally car or otherwise), then Dirt Cup is for you. Join us! The next one will be held tomorrow, Sunday, November 17, at the Cochrane & District Ag Society grounds just west of Cochrane. Register here for the next one, to be held on Sunday, December 1: https://www.motorsportreg.com/events/dirt-cup-3-by-cscc-rallywest-cochrane-district-ag-society-calgary-sports-828438. The fourth and last one will be held on December 15. Then we’ll be getting into ice season, weather permitting – more info on Ice Cup 2025 to come. Pricing is $74 for CSCC or WCMA-affiliated club members, and $99 for general public. All the info you could want is on the registration page, so go get signed up!
LOON SNARK TSD RALLY It’s official – the rally is running next weekend, November 22-23! There are still a few spaces, so go register at https://rallywest.com/signup/competitor/HuntingOfTheSnark?token=9gVM6oMszGZkxJTp2cJ9sI-soUYKCP-rBk0_VrgjuFA or contact Pete Chadwick at pete.chadwick@cscc.ab.ca.
From the Edmonton Rally Club Facebook page: “TSD Rally fans!!!! The LOON SNARK Rally is coming soon!!!! The ERC, in conjunction with the CSCC, heard you! You want, and we’ll deliver! November 22nd/23rd
TSD rallies (Time, Speed, and Distance) are run on public roads and a driver and a navigator have to follow the precise route the organizers have laid out and maintain precise timing so that the rally team is always at a specific place at a specific time. The object of the event is to follow the organizers’ directions and timing instructions and while this seems easy, sometimes the directions are not so easy to follow dependent on the nature of the instructions. The speeds set are always below the posted limits, and all rules of the road are expected to be obeyed at all times. Scoring for TSD events usually is determined by arrival times at the very cleverly hidden checkpoints the organizer has along the route.
A TSD rally is NOT a speed event, and early arrivals at checkpoints result in a higher score than being similarly late. Navigational rallies are run in rural or less populated areas and provide challenges to both the driver and navigator. Interpretive abilities and team work are the skills needed to succeed. This is an inexpensive way to get involved in rallying, and you can do it in your grocery getter!”
BIG WHITE RALLY
The Big White Winter Rally is a RallyBC/WCRA event, which will be held on December 6-7, 2024. From their website: “The 2024 Big White Winter Rally is a reconnaissance performance rally consisting of snow and ice special stages and transits. This year we are trying to incorporate some new features and roads with the roads that have given the event a reputation for challenging event with short transits. The stage routebook is elementary. Reconnaissance is very strongly encouraged. No detailed stage notes are provided.
The Big White Winter Rally is a true WINTER EVENT. Teams must be prepared for exposure to cold and snow. Warm clothing and other basic winter amenities should be stored in the rally cars. Service crews need to be adequately prepared for extended time outdoors in winter conditions. There is no fuel available at the resort. Teams should leave Kelowna or Rock Creek with all the fuel they will need for the entire event, including for recce and service crew vehicles.”
For more information on how to attend or volunteer, please see: https://bigwhiterally.com/competitors/.
CALGARY HERALD ARTICLE Thank you, Mark Hillier, who sent me a screenshot of the recent on-line Herald article by Greg Williams. We are grateful to Mr. Williams for writing about our club, and hope it might attract new members or folks who simply want to learn more about or get involved in local motorsports. Below the image is the typed article, transcribed for easier reading. The photo heading up the article is by Shawn Bishop and is underscored by The Calgary Sports Car Club presents Ice Dice events on Lake McGregor, east of High River. Here a Subaru WRX slides around the frozen track.
CALGARY SPORTS CAR CLUB MARKS 70 YEARS City’s department of heritage planning added clubhouse to its inventory in April By Greg Williams With 70 years in the rear-view mirror, the Calgary Sports Car Club (CSCC) continues to adapt and remain relevant for the local automotive enthusiast scene. That’s thanks in part to the CSCC’s president, Jamie Gray, who slid into the driver’s seat in April. “My personal focus is on growing the club, especially post-COVID and amidst various oil and gas crises, and emphasizing inclusion of young people and women, who are in the minority at around 13 per cent,” Gray said. “To that end, I am involved in an organization called Women In Motorsports, which promotes the sport to women and girls.” According to an early CSCC scrapbook, the club held three meetings in 1953 but didn’t formally find traction until March of 1954. That’s when, during a meeting in the showroom of Jaguar, MG and Morris dealer Cooke Motors, discussions were held about the vehicles that would be eligible to participate in CSCC events. These competitive events included wheel-to-wheel road races on airport tracks together with gymkhanas and hill climbs. The cars included most foreign brands, such as those sold by Cooke Motors, as well as Austin-Healey, Auto Union, DKW, Mercedes-Benz, Porsche, Triumph and Volkswagen. Also discussed at an early meeting was the building of a clubhouse. Supplies were purchased and a sturdy wooden structure was built on a small corner of a farmer’s field north and west of Calgary, near what is now Dalhousie. In April 1958 the club hosted the first European and Sports Car Show at the Jubilee Auditorium. During the show’s second year in 1959 attendance broke the auditorium’s record with 12,430 visitors paying admission to see the new sports cars. In the late 1950s the CSCC clubhouse burned to the ground and a new structure was built. But by the mid-1970s, the land on which it sat was required for city expansion. Calgary offered the club a land swap and the building was moved to where it is still located, near the airport at the corner of 80 Ave. and Metis Trail Northeast. Gray found herself becoming loosely involved with the club in 2003 when she purchased a membership for her husband, David. “He’s the car guy,” Gray said. “I’m car-adjacent, as regards racing. I’m more into an appreciation of automotive design and engineering, as I’m a sculptor in real life.” In October 2021, Gray says she and David attended a monthly CSCC board meeting at the clubhouse, “for the purpose of learning how we could volunteer administratively.” She became club secretary, and about a year into the role says she “got annoyed enough about a pile of books and documents in the corner of the main floor of the clubhouse that I wanted to clear it up.” The books and documents were the club’s archival scrapbooks, newspaper clippings, Broken Spoke newsletters and other ephemera. “They were disintegrating,” she continues. “And I took the next year to clean, sort, catalogue, and archive all the documents I could find both in that corner and stored away in boxes here and there.” Gray scanned the information and sent the digital files to the Canadian Motorsport Historical Society (motorsporthistory.ca) where she says they sit on their website, accessible to anyone with internet connectivity. Gray then became vice-president and helped improve clubhouse maintenance and upkeep. The tongue and groove milled cedar log structure with clear span arched cedar trusses was more than 60 years old, and Gray thought the architecture was interesting. Because of this, she applied to Calgary’s Department of Heritage Planning to see if the clubhouse could be added to the city’s inventory of heritage buildings. Thanks to her diligence, the structure was listed in April. The CSCC holds meetings on the first Thursday of every month, and visitors are welcome to attend. Learn more at www.cscc.ab.ca.
Greg Williams is a member of the Automobile Journalists Association of Canada (AJAC). Have a column tip? Contact him at 403-287-1067 or gregwilliams@shaw.ca. Driving.ca
FROM THE ARCHIVES From the January, 1961 version of The Broken Spoke, page 5, transcribed below the scanned image for easier reading. Read on, and see if you can tell me what he means by ““fast men” and special builders”. ????
The Year I Belonged To The Club, 1960 Tony Swain Although I have been a member of the Calgary Sports Car Club for about four years, it wasn’t until the year 1960, that I really belonged, and began to understand just what makes us breathe and tick over. The first three years of my being a member were taken up mainly by competing in all events that I liked, and ignoring events that I didn’t like. I never stopped to think about the amount of sweat and time that went into the organization of even the simplest speed trail. Club night used to be the night when I could moan and groan about the way the last event should have been arranged and how the organizers could at least start things on time. Then, after unfortunate occurrences in 1959, 1960 became the year in which I was to sit on the sidelines at races, or so I thought! As one of the chief know-it-alls just because I’d raced at Spokane and flipped at Davidson, I figured I had all the answers to most of the problems of the Competition Committee. In order to tap the source of this vast amount of knowledge, I was somehow or other slipped into this same committee. Suddenly things weren’t so cut and dried, it became obvious that being an organizer could make you wake up at nights screaming, trying to figure out how you could be fair to everyone even though every car is different, and that a fair classification is virtually impossible unless you can race make against make. The time taken up by meetings, phone calls, interviews and printing entry forms, is fantastic. Remember this is all voluntary work and people like Jim Drummond, Bob Bell, Dale Cooke, Lionel Cook and many others, deserve a medal! Even the silly little cards you receive in the mail to announce an event take two hours to type and run off prints and two hours to address and stick on stamps, sort out into City and Out-of-City and mail them. So let’s get with it this year and instead of plain bitching, help the Organizers and do things, like – be there early, don’t moan about things behind their backs, write it down on paper and submit it to the Chairman, help lay out the course, or clean up afterwards. As you probably all know, I will be your Competition Chairman for 1961 and this is going to entail a great amount of work. In this position there is no Competition Committee as such, but there will be a small group of hardworking personnel serving on a Board at my invitation. This group will increase or decrease as the work load demands. The two regular members are Jim Drummond, Bob Brown Trophy Winner, and Bob Bell, this year’s Bert & Jack Trophy Winner. A pretty solid nucleus I am sure you will agree. By the time you read this, your Competition Calendar should be in your pocket, an idea of Jim’s who pushed it through with tremendous energy. It is a full calendar, so if you are contacted to help, please try if at all possible. The foregoing may have sounded pretty dreary, but it has its compensations. There is that certain glow of satisfaction after a good event, when the competitors feel it necessary to take time out to tell you that they enjoyed it. It is also great fun to help set up a Rally – Paul Dyson’s Winter Rally route was gone over last Sunday and I must hand it to Paul, he’s found the most interesting route I have ever driven and all within 100 miles of Calgary – you’ll never believe that these little valleys and hills have been sitting unused under our noses for so long! Although we are only having one race, I feel that the “GROENEVELD” and other speed events provide sufficient challenge for the “fast men” and special builders. Rallies this year will continue to be “no gimmick” productions, with no timing to the second and no mathematical nightmare navigation, with the emphasis on Drivers Rallies. Well, here’s to 1961, Ice Dice coming up on January 29th, let’s see you there.
CHRISTMAS PARTY
Though we’re not yet sure of final details, please save the date for our annual club Christmas party, to be held on Monday, December 2, starting at 6:30pm. We’ll begin with a very short monthly board meeting. Stay tuned for more info (eg. ticket cost and how to register) as things get fine-tuned over the next week or so. Our meetings are usually on the first Thursday of each month, but December 5 is a travel day for folks heading to Big White Winter Rally. Please SAVE THE DATE and plan to join us.
UPCOMING EVENTS THAT MAY INTEREST YOU
The following is what’s happening that we’re aware of from now until the end of December, including events happening from Fort Saskatchewan south to the border. If you have any questions, fire ‘em our way: info@cscc.ab.ca.
Sunday, November 17
Calgary Sports Car Club, RallyX Dirt Cup #2, Cochrane Ag Centre
November 22-23
Loon Snark TSD Rally, Rocky Mountain House
Edmonton Rally Club / Calgary Sports Car Club
Sunday, December 1
Calgary Sports Car Club, RallyX Dirt Cup #3, Cochrane Ag Centre
Monday, December 2
Calgary Sports Car Club, Monthly Meeting followed by Christmas party, 6:30/7:30pm
December 6-8
RallyBC/WCRA, Big White Winter Rally
December 7-8
Edmonton Rally Club, Year End Double Header Rallycross Championship
Sunday, December 15
Calgary Sports Car Club, RallyX Dirt Cup #4, Cochrane Ag Centre
ADVERTISING OPPORTUNITIES Would you like to see your product or service featured in The Broken Spoke? I’ve decided we’re not going to charge advertisers because I’m not getting paid to do this, so I do what I want. If you’ve read this far, you deserve it. Send me your ad graphic.
That’s all for now! Enjoy your drive somehow, someway, somewhere.
Jamie
President, Calgary Sports Car Club
Fill-In/Part-Time Editor, The Broken Spoke
jamie.gray@cscc.ab.ca
