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Shannonville Motorsport Park Season in Full Gear
By Jeff Gard / Total Sports Quinte With an appreciation for the history of Shannonville Motorsport Park, John Bondar was also excited for its future back in the fall of 2019. That’s when it was announced Bondar and Steve Gidman had purchased the racing venue east of Belleville. Bondar’s fascination with motorsports dates back more than 45 years. “It started as a hobby – I had a passion for it when I was younger and then I progressed through a number of steps or phases. In the beginning I was waving flags and putting out fires as a trackside marshal,” Bondar said. “I started to race small cars and I did that for a number of years and then I got into the administration of the sport. I was president of amateur motorsports in Ontario. That led me to build a network of motorsport contacts across the country and North America.” He also started a professional racing series – the Canadian Touring Car Championship (CTCC) – that ran strong for 14 years.
Bondar was inducted into the Canadian Motorsport Hall of Fame in May, which he considers “quite an honour after over 45 years in the sport.”
In 2014, Bondar was informed by the previous Shannonville owner that the track was up for sale. “For me and for us it was just the next evolution of motorsports,” Bondar said. “The race track is now our next project.” It certainly hasn’t been easy given the timeline of the past two years and Bondar, the president of Shannonville Motorsport Park, certainly couldn’t have envisioned what was on the horizon in the coming months with the emergence of COVID-19. In fact there’s been mixed feelings, or more like a “contradiction of feelings” as Bondar put it, starting in the spring of 2020. “We were certainly frustrated that we couldn’t open our doors at the beginning of the season, which for us means April,” he recalled. “Uncertainty, frustration and then when we opened the doors, we were busy. It was a case of it was summer and many people wanted to get out just to breathe some air so we found our motorcycle lapping days were very busy and also our car lapping days were very busy. It meant for a crazy year to try and stay on top of it. So it was scary, nerve-wracking and then it got to be very busy.” A year later, the situation was similar, perhaps worse as Shannonville’s opening was delayed even further due to provincial restrictions.
“The list of inductees is a who’s who of motorsports in Canada,” he added.
“We thought we had gotten through year one and we were optimistic for year two, then we ran into more barriers and it was almost the same thing and then it did get busy again and it stayed busy right until the end of October,” Bondar said. “We made it through, is the short answer. Now, it’s a new year.” A new year, indeed.
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