Jim Shipway
Jim Shipway’s love of racing started at a young age. Born in Ailsa Craig in 1942, Jim remembers going to see races in St. Thomas with his father as a young boy. His father loved racing so much that he started his own track in Ailsa Craig, however he passed away before the track could really get up and running. Jim was only 10 years old when he lost his father, but the love of racing lived on in Jim and his brothers.
At the age of 19, Jim entered into a demolition derby at Delaware, and his love of racing cars was born. From there, he and his brother George became partners on a race car, and in 1962, he began racing at Delaware using car number 410. He changed cars in 1964, and along with the new car, he changed his number to 20, and that was the number he was known for until his retirement from racing in 1976.
In the early to mid 1960’s, Jim was a well known and well respected driver at Delaware, Nilestown, Bridgeport, and Flamboro. In 1966, Jim and George won the championships at both Delaware and Nilestown, and that year he won 15 feature races in a row at the two tracks, something he is still proud of to this day.
In 1968, Jim and George turned their sights to late model cars, and continued to race at Delaware, Flamboro and Cayuga. In 1968, Jim won 4 of 8 feature races at Delaware.
Jim married his high school sweetheart Diane in 1965 (a December wedding so that it wasn’t during racing season of course). Diane was a great supporter of his racing, and although she worried about his safety, she cheered him on from the stands regularly. In 1972, Jim and Diane welcomed their first child, Michelle, and in 1976, their son Brad was born. With a young family, Jim retired from driving shortly before Brad was born, but continued to attend races regularly.
In 1979, Jim began working on Steve Robblee’s pit crew. At Steve’s first race, Jim towed Steve’s car onto the track at Delaware with the trailer he had used for his own cars, and for that first race, he was the only member of Steve’s pit crew. From there, he attended hundreds of races working with Steve, and provided valuable input into every facet of Steve’s cars, from set up to driving. When asked for his thoughts on Jim, Steve said “Jim mentored me with pure honesty. Anyone that really knew Jim will agree, he doesn’t sugar coat life. He simply tells it like it is. We had many long talks about racing and our lives. He was a second father to me in that way. Jim had such strong passion and commitment to the sport of stock car racing. Thank you to Jim Shipway for being that stock car legend around the tracks of Ontario and beyond”!
Jim retired from his job at Air Liquide in 2002 after 33 years. In retirement, Jim and Diane traveled to many Nascar races in the U.S., and also traveled several times to their beloved Disney World. And of course he couldn’t keep himself from spending time at Delaware, and eventually began working on Steve Robblee’s son Matt’s car.
In 2017, Jim suffered a stroke, and the effect of this forced him to retire from being involved with racing. These days in between watching Nascar races and Blue Jays games, he loves to share stories from his past with his children and son-in-law, and they all love to hear the stories to helphim reminisce about his glory days.
