Race City Speedway/Motorsport Park (Calgary)

Construction began in 1985 on a $3 million racing complex with a quarter-mile drag strip, a half-mile oval and a 2.1-mile road course. Cape Oil financed it and Ben Docktor built it on 160 acres of city-leased land at 114 Avenue and 68 Street SE, near Shepard. The drag strip grandstands were expected to hold 12,000. Testing began in early June 1986, and the first major event, the Jet Car Nationals on June 15, 1986, drew 7,338 people. The NHRA-sanctioned track usually ran four or five big drag races a year plus frequent bracket races, and it generally hosted an NHRA divisional race each June. At Nitro Thunder on July 24, 1988, Terry Capp drove the Calgary-based Royal Canadian top fueler to a track record of 5.73 seconds at 256.25 mph. Gordie Bonin lowered it to 5.38 at 266.27 mph on August 26, 1989. At the 1990 divisional, Cruz Pedregon set the alcohol funny car track record at 6.29 and 229.59 mph.

NHRA had been pressing Docktor for improvements it felt were too slow in coming, and the two sides agreed to skip the divisional race in 1992 and resume in 1993. Rain in mid-August 1993 washed out most of the NHRA Canadian National Open, including a match race between Don Prudhomme and Shirley Muldowney. The Canadian National Open was the track’s big race every year from 1993 through 2002. Art MacKenzie bought Race City from Docktor in 1995, and it became Race City Motorsport Park in 1997. Rising insurance costs required by NHRA led the track to drop NHRA in 2003 and run that year without sanction. In September 2003 it joined IHRA, which promised a future national event if the track made capital improvements. Vern Christy became director of drag strip operations in 2006. The track hosted a three-day IHRA Ironman Open in August 2007 and again in 2008. Race City was due to close in 2009 but didn’t officially close until 2011.