Broken Spoke – December 2024
The Broken Spoke
(Digital)
December 2024
(Credit: Shawn Bishop, Big White Rally, 2024)
Hello and happy holidays!
If you were asked the question, “What one person do you see at track and road events all the
time?” how would you answer? Everyone would say it’s Shawn Bishop. Rain, snow, blazing
heat … that guy gets out to everything, camera equipment in hand, ready to make fantastic visual
additions to the race record.
We know Shawn these days for the expert photos he takes. Think about it – it’s not easy to
capture objects flying by SUPER FAST. He’s an absolute whiz at making vehicles and drivers
look their best and fastest, even when they’re covered in mud, dust, and snow.
But Shawn is also rally racing royalty, in case you didn’t know. He started in 1976 with Calgary
Sports Car Club doing Time-Speed-Distance (TSD) car rallys and autoslalom events, and
progressed to stage events, which included the Canadian Rally Championship from 1982 to
1991. In this career, he won the Production ‘B’ championship four times. From there, he
continued as a volunteer and event organizer, moving to PR and photography. He received his
first media credentials in 1977.
Shawn has always had an interest in photography, particularly as pertains to motorsports. In 1976, he photographed Grand Master rallysport driver, Taisto Heinonen, in a Renault at Blackfoot Motorcycle Park. He picked up speed from there, continuing to provide event photos
for clubs, organizations, and customers of his business, Rallysport.ca. These days, he attends 20-25 events per year, taking hundreds of photos and posting them on social media for all to enjoy.
We can all agree that if Shawn wasn’t doing this, very few of us would have photos of ourselves
in our cars at speed. The fact that they’re all fantastic is even better. When viewing the photos
that follow, see if your eyebrows don’t rise up at a few of them.
Rallysport.ca is the business Shawn operates to sell race equipment of all sorts for body and
machine (see info on page 17). Who here has not contacted Shawn at one time or another with an
emergency request for a helmet, seat-belt harness, or fire-proof socks two days before an event.
Shop local, folks! Shawn has pretty much everything we need or can order it in quickly.
And, finally, Shawn gets out to every single monthly club meeting and makes meaningful
contributions; he’s an ace volunteer. A wealth of information about club history, he recently
assisted Calgary Herald motorsport journalist, Greg Williams, to put together a Herald article
featuring CSCC’s 70-year anniversary. You can see a transcript of this in the November 2024
issue of The Broken Spoke.
Please enjoy this feature issue focussing on a selection of photos which Shawn has chosen as his
personal favourites. And next time you see him – just look around … you will – thank him for
being such an excellent human.
Find Shawn on social media: @shawn_calgary on Instagram and Shawn.Bishop on Facebook.
Shawn’s tagline says it all: Every Racer – Every Car – Every Track
RESULTS: LOON SNARK TSD RALLY
(Drawing from the CSCC Scrap Book, c. 1960, now, after some research, believed to be done by Tony Swain)
On November 22-23, the Loon Snark TSD Rally was run in Rocky Mountain House. The
weather was snowy, creating road conditions questionable enough that the organizers decided to
go out late Friday night after the classroom session to see if all the stages were passable. Early
the next morning, we learned that a few of them had to be pulled due to impassable conditions.
When we got out on the roads available to us, we were able to run without undue challenges …
barring a number of us getting lost at various points! This caused some DNFs but a lot of fun
was had by everyone, and we’re very grateful to Pete Chadwick and team for putting together a
stellar event. Here are the final results:
RESULTS: BIG WHITE RALLY
Big White Winter Rally (Canadian Rally Championship and Western Canadian Rally
Championship) was run on December 7 in BC. You can see the results, below, but if you’d like
more information, that can be found at www.rallybc.ca/results/bigwhite/2024. Congratulations to
everyone who participated and many thanks to the dozens of organizers, volunteers, and
spectators who came out to make it fun, safe, and memorable.
RESULTS AND COMMENTARY: DIRT CUP 2024
Dirt Cup 2024, jointly presented by the Calgary Sports Car Club and RallyWest, and organized
by Johnny Summers, RallyX Director, and David Gray, AutoX/Ice Dice Director, is now done
and dusted. And when I say dusted,
(Photo: Shawn Bishop, Dirt Cup #4)
what I mean is, over the four events in November and December, we had bare gravel, then we
had snowed-upon gravel, then we had chinook-melt-leaving-patches-of-ice gravel. But we
always had dust and lots of it. Bottom line is that it was not a series for those wishing to keep a
clean vehicle. Good thing we all like it a bit grubby.
Each of the events was almost maxed out for registrations, and with enough women competing,
we were able to have a Ladies Division. Please enjoy this photo from Dirt Cup #2, which shows
long-time CSCC Treasurer, Debbie Dyer, scooting around the cones in her 1975 Dodge Arrow
rally car, emphasizing the fact that you can bring anything and run it as long as it’s teched. See
me in the background LOVING THIS?! Our ladies champion this year was Christine Chandler –
congratulations!
(Photo: Shawn Bishop)
Kathryn Livesey was our top cone killer of the day with 6, followed by Brady and Quinton with
5 and 4, respectively. Organizer, David, says, “Often our top drivers are the top cone
killers. That’s because they’re learning the limits of their cars. This was certainly the case for
Kathryn, who steadily improved her times and by her last run had improved by over 10 seconds
over her early morning runs.” Nice job, Kathryn! Let’s just say the ladies represented.
Turning it over to David, for his commentary:
“We had 39 drivers registered for this event, some driving from several hours away to compete
with us. Thank you to the volunteers who took a few hours out of their day to set up on Saturday.
This course was designed by Johnny and was the first one to use the east side as a start. There
were lots of opportunities to rotate the car on those five eyebrow turns in the middle of the
course. Lots of people stuck around afterwards to help smooth out the gravel and collect all of
the club’s equipment. Thank you very much.
The ladies had a close battle with Christine in her ’04 WRX edging out Jamie in her ’12 STi for
first and Kathryn in her ’07 Legacy doing very well in only her 2nd event, finishing 3rd within 2
points of Jamie. We have to give Debbie an award for determination. She came out in her 2005
Nissan Frontier so that she would still be able to compete in RWD, after earlier running RWD in
a 1979 Dodge Arrow that hadn’t been used in many years and didn’t want to start.
Congratulations to Kevin, who won RWD in his ’85 Corolla, but was given a scare by Patrick in
his Miata. Once again, Pat podiumed by handling his large and long ’02 Lexus
wagon. Anything 30 years old or older is an antique, so a couple of antiques topped the podium
in RWD. It’s true that they don’t make ‘em like they used to!
In FWD, Cole (1st) in the grey ’09 Civic was given a run for his money by Tyler (2nd) in his ’04
Neon and Garrett who continued the trend of podiuming in antique cars as he finished 3rd in his
’87 Golf.
Continuing the antique theme in AWD, Alexander (1st) and Troy (2nd) topped the group in
Matt’s ’93 Plymouth Laser followed by Kevin in 3rd in his GC8 STi. Not sure about the
manufacture date for that GC8 Kevin, but they were built between 1992-2000, so another older
car doing well.
It looks like Johnny designed a very fair course because we have all 3 classes in the top 4. In first
is Cole in his ’09 FWD Civic. Just behind Cole is Alexander in the ’93 AWD Plymouth
Laser. Then we have another FWD with Tyler in his ’04 Neon finishing 3rd, and Kevin in his
RWD ’85 Corolla finished 4th. Overall, 3 FWD, 5 AWD, and 2 RWD finished in the top
10.
Good, fair course design, Johnny. I think we all had a lot of fun rotating our cars around the
eyebrows, and the course used about as much of the available real estate as possible.
Congratulations to all who competed. We all win when we’re safe and have fun.”
The overall championship results for the series (all four Dirt Cup events) will be posted soon,
sent to competitors, and written up in the January Broken Spoke.
Congratulations to everyone who organized, drove, volunteered, and spectated. Thank you to
David Gray and Johnny Summers who headed up the series and who will now be putting plans
together for the ice equivalent, Ice Cup 2025, to be held on Lake McGregor (Milo, AB) if/when
the ice cooperates for thickness in January/February. Safety first. Keep an eye on social media
and check into motorsportreg.com to learn dates as they are set.
WHAT’S COMING UP!
This year may be quickly drawing to a close, having seen a lot of epic motorsport action, but
let’s not get too comfy because 2025 is going to be ramping up hard and fast. Not only do we
have Ice Cup in the early months, the date for the Cochrane Rally has already been set for March
8-9. Put this in your calendar and make a plan to go support, spectate, volunteer … or DRIVE.
You’ll find other events from all over the prairies listed on motorsportreg.com, so check them
out there.
FROM THE ARCHIVES
Coming to you all the way from pages 3-4 of the December, 1959 issue of The Broken Spoke, is
the editor’s message. If you don’t like trying to read a scanned image of a 65-year-old document
(me, neither), see the transcript that follows. And, as always, if you want to check out every issue
of The Broken Spoke (that we could locate a couple years ago!), they’ve been scanned and are
available to view on the website of the Canadian Motorsport Historical Society
(www.motorsporthistory.ca).
December, 1959
The Editor [J.S. Ballantyne]
December, the end of 1959, and Christmas! This is also the last “Spoke” for this year. There
have been ideas concerning a Year Book batted back and forth of late. The general proposals
are basically, a bound collection of a year’s papers together with a small summary of the year’s
activities from each of the committee heads. Since I plan to be editor for 1960 (unless ousted by
an ugly mob) the Spoke will retain its present form, therefore being uniform through the year,
and lending itself to this plan. Perhaps some of you will have ideas on this subject, and will be
present to discuss them at the next business meeting (January 7th also the night of the election).
Elections – very important ….. a bad president and executive could break the club, just as good
presidents and executives have made it. We are a club of mature, responsible adults and should
be represented as such. Our president represents our club more than any other member – choose
carefully. Probably the president puts in as much or more time on behalf of the club than anyone
else – or should. Unless the man you choose has capabilities and is prepared to use them, a
great number of people will lose interest in the resultant disorganization. Perhaps those
observations are unnecessary, and you are fully aware of the importance of the elections – but
just let it serve as a reminder to give it thought before January 7th, 1960.
The Ballantynes hope you and your families have a very Merry Christmas, and experience one of
your best years in 1960.
Did you get one of those cards? Trust Miller!!
FUN STUFF AT THE NEXT CLUB MEETING
Our next board meeting will be held on Thursday, January 2, 7pm at the clubhouse (4215 – 80
Avenue NE). We’ll have the usual business discussion followed by the treat of viewing film
taken at the 1978 Rocky Mountain Rally. These are provided courtesy of Barry Milaney. Come
on out and enjoy all this with us!
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.
The end of this event-filled year is upon us. It is the hope of the executive board of the Calgary
Sports Car Club that everyone will have a safe, restful, joyous time with family and friends. It’s
not too soon to have a look at fast-car events coming up, so keep your ears open for the various
modes of information that will let you know of ice-racing of all sorts.
Get the studded tires on and GO.
Jamie
President, Calgary Sports Car Club
Fill-In/Part-Time Editor, The Broken Spoke
jamie.gray@cscc.ab.ca
(from the December, 1959 issue of The Broken Spoke)
