Kohler Drag Strip/Super Boss Dragway/Cayuga 1320 Dragway/Toronto Motorsports Park Dragway

History

Bruce Mehlenbacher bought an abandoned WWII airstrip in 1948, and in 1954 he let several car clubs drag race on it. Racers shared it on Sundays with airplanes, since it was still a licensed airfield. The clubs formed the Ontario Timing Association to run the races, setting up the strip each time and taking everything down afterward. It was called Kohler Drag Strip from 1954 to 1963. All three sides of the airstrip triangle were used: one for racing, one as the return road and one for the pits. Larry Rook and Don Douglas held the lease until 1963, when Jerry Hamond joined them. In 1960 the strip moved to its present location.

The names kept changing. It was Super Boss Dragway from 1964 to 1966 and Kohler Super Boss Dragway from 1967 to 1969, under NHRA sanction from then until 1991. George Foote ran it from 1968 to 1970. It was 1320 Dragway in 1970 and Dragway Park from 1971 to 1982, and Mehlenbacher decided to run it himself in 1971. It was Cayuga Dragway Park from 1982 to 1990. Mehlenbacher sold it in late 1983 to John Fletcher, Bill Vanni and Vince Vanni, and Fletcher bought out his partners in 1984. An investor group bought the track in May 1990 and renamed it Cayuga Motorsports Park in 1991, later going back to Cayuga Dragway Park sometime before 2001. It was IHRA from 1992 to 1997. In 1993 police seized the track, saying the investors were part of a Toronto money-laundering ring that had paid $1.2 million for it with cocaine profits. It was NHRA sanctioned from 1998 to 2000 and returned to IHRA in 2001. It became Toronto Motorsports Park and rejoined NHRA as a member track in 2011.