Maritime racer John Chisholm was also a visionary
Nova Scotia native travelled across the country to learn about sport from all angles
The late John Chisholm, who will be inducted into the Canadian Motorsport Hall of Fame (CMHF) Saturday night, did a great deal for oval track racing, not just in his native Nova Scotia but across the country.
He was a racer and a builder, but he was also a visionary and presented some of the top shows in Canadian stock car racing, providing fans an opportunity to see the best in the business at a showcase facility.
Chisholm will be honoured during the CMHF’s annual induction gala, which will be held Saturday night at the Glenn Gould Theatre in the CBC Building on Front St. in downtown Toronto.
Also being inducted is IndyCar star Alex Tagliani, stock car champion Don Thomson Jr. and racer-turned administrator and builder, Ralph Luciw. Formula One champion and broadcaster Sir Jackie Stewart will also be honoured as the CMHF’s International Inductee.
With good equipment, some of it purchased in the U.S. from Holman and Moody, NASCAR racer Bobby Allison and Michigan’s ace builder Ed Howe, Chisholm was a determined racer who took many a checkered flag at tracks throughout the Maritimes.
He also travelled across Canada, not just to race but to learn everything he could about the unique sport from various angles. As a result, and in addition to race-driving, he built the Riverside Speedway near Antigonish — a clone of Bristol Motor Speedway in Tennessee, albeit slightly smaller — in 1968.
One weekend in1973, he won five of six races he entered — three at Riverside on the Saturday night and two more the next day at Halifax’s Atlantic Speedway.
In the mid-1970s, he left the driver’s seat to focus on son Donald Chis- holm’s career. This met with success in the Maritime Pro Stock Tour and more recently the NASCAR Canadian Tire Series.
But as the heart and soul of Riverside Speedway, Chisholm gave the fans an opportunity to see their racing heroes, men such as Junior Han- ley, Earl Ross, Brad Keselowski, Marcos Ambrose and Joey Logano.
He ran Riverside until 1989 when he sold it, only to buy it back in 2006 and renovate it. The state-of-the-art facility has continued to attract the biggest names and events. Riverside’s association with NASCAR has been a lengthy one, and the track has the longest affiliation with that sanctioning body of any track in Canada.
Chisholm was inducted into the Maritime Motorsports Hall of Fame in 2008.
Not only did Chisholm bring the world of motorsports to northeastern Nova Scotia, his charitable and philanthropic ventures were vast and diversified. He did all this while heading up one of the most successful construction firms in the province.
For his contributions to the community, Chisholm received an honorary degree from Saint Francis Xavier University in 2011, three years before he died. And part of his convocation speech to the Dalhousie University engineering class of 2013 provides an insight into the man who left his community and province richer as the result of his vision and generosity.
“Don’t ever allow yourself to become a can’t-er,” he told the assembly. “A can’t-er is someone who spends all their time thinking of why things can’t be done. Instead, think about how much fun you will have thinking and dreaming how things can be done.”