Sicamous has received a green light on hosting the burnout competition for the Sturgis North Motorcycle Rally, but is giving a red light to a suggested bikini contest.
Mayor Malcolm MacLeod confirmed Monday that, apart from insurance matters relating to the district (Sturgis will have its own insurance for the burnout), the event will proceed on Main Street throughout the afternoon of Friday, July 15.
What definitely won’t be happening, however, is a bikini competition mentioned at an April 27 Sicamous Chamber of Commerce meeting (reported in the May 4 Eagle Valley News).
“Absolutely not,” says MacLeod, explaining he’s recently been bombarded with emails on the matter, as well as being contacted by Sturgis organizer Ray Sasseville.
“They don’t want to be associated with that,” says MacLeod.
The suggestion that Sicamous host a bikini contest as part of the local Sturgis event was brought forward by chamber president Corrinne Cross at the April meeting, during a presentation with Sturgis spokesperson Steve Hammer.
“So… The Lions Club will do a pancake break in the morning, and the legion will start their beer gardens with their music and entertainment. They have suggested a bikini contest, they have suggested a female, under 40,” said Cross.
* See below for a longer transcript of Cross’ comments from the meeting.
Cross contacted the News on Monday to explain that her comment about the contest was intended in jest, and was just one of many silly suggestions made to the chamber.
“Some of the silly ideas that have been thrown out are seniors’ scooter races around the block and that when we used to hold bikini contests at Moose Mouse days years ago they went over very well in the beer gardens, but that we would have to contain it to women, under 40, and that we probably wouldn’t be able to pull off a bikini contest now with all of us sooooo much older now than we were 30 years ago,” Cross said in an email.
In a follow-up telephone call, Cross stated that Sturgis had nothing to do with any of the ideas put forward at the meeting, and that, at the time, there was no formal agreement in place between Sturgis and the district.
Now, with Sturgis formally onboard, Cross says the chamber can begin work on putting together Sicamous’ side of the event. The chamber, she says, is already in the process of contacting local non-profit organizations to explore opportunities for their involvement. However, one of the key intended benefactors will be the Sicamous legion.
“We really want to make sure that we’re able to keep the legion in the community, that’s why we’ll be using that area as a hub and getting the local bands in and whatnot, and after the event, we anticipate all the participants from Sturgis will make their way back to Salmon Arm… and then the locals will stay and contribute their evening to the legion. And hopefully then, in that day, the legion will make enough to continue for another year.”
And while the suggestion of a bikini contest has fallen flat, the chamber is still interested in ideas from the community on what could be done locally to best utilize the opportunity Sturgis brings.
“The whole community knows obviously Sturgis North is going on, and they’re like, what are we going to be doing, we should get on-board with this…,” says Cross. “There’s been 1001 ideas thrown out there, right, some of them good, some of them not so good.”
* "What I’ll do is tell you a little bit about some of my ideas that have been passed around for the burnout competition. Some of which Ray (Sasseville) turned down right away. Because I thought it would be really cool to play off the whole burnout competition with our seniors and their scooters. Ray said, four hours later when they make it around the loop, and that was just wrong.
So what they did suggest is the legion is going to do a beer gardens, with a couple of bands. Now, maybe if we can go that whole time, we may grab some of those other opportunities there.
With them showing up in town around 12:30, the event will probably start around one. We want to capitalize on the people that are still in Salmon Arm. So the LA ladies are going to do a pancake breakfast – the Lions Club will do a pancake break in the morning, then the legion will start their beer gardens with their music and entertainment. They have suggested a bikini contest, they have suggested a female, under 40.
And so… they want to do some T-shirts. Some of the items that were thrown out was a houseboat doing a burnout as a logo, and then Ray said, you know we could do the Sturgis North/ Sicamous burnout competitions that day, and go that route. Apparently, Merritt has already registered the mouse on the motorbike, so we can’t do the Moose Mouse on the motorbike. Up and down the street we want to sort of go as far as we can.
We’re thinking, on our block we’re thinking all the different vendors up and down there. Basically, probably everything will be hubbed around the legion because the beer gardens and the music will be there. The (Canadian Motorcycle Drag Association), they’re bringing in this big truck that’s already going to be in Ashcroft, and it has the ramp, it has some dragsters on it. And so, there’s an opportunity there for everybody to get their pictures taken with that. And they’ll be doing the whole competition. We don’t need to worry about the competition itself. Basically, all our vendors, all our businesses that everybody wants to open up, do a sidewalk sale, the only thing that Ray has asked is – because basically this whole thing started as a charity and has remained a charity – so Ray has said that any vendors or businesses, all it’s going to cost them is whatever percentage, a percentage, any percentage, to any charity…”
Editor's note: Sturgis North is a for-profit enterprise, that will be donating proceeds to charity.