Northwest Regional Airport Raceway/Terrace Drags

History

The Terrace Drag Race Association held its first drag race as part of the town’s Riverboat Days celebration, and the races generally ran each year in early August. For the first four years they used an eighth-mile closed section of Highway 16 East in front of the Lomac Transit yard, and by the third year they drew about 100 entries and 1,000 spectators. The association hoped to get a strip of its own and in early 1997 asked the regional district planning committee about leasing land near Onion Lake, which didn’t work out. In 1999 racing moved to the Terrace-Kitimat Airport for two days in late July. That went so well that another two-day race followed on Labor Day weekend, and the association talked about four race dates at the airport the next year. A semi-truck class was added in 2001. In early August 2003 the races were again tied to Riverboat Days, now at the airport, though a paving project there wiped out two events that year. The association still races at the airport.