Racing Through Canada's Past Episode 2: Way Out West!
- Jon Morrison
- Jan 16
- 2 min read
Welcome back to a brand new episode of Racing Through Canada's Past. This week on the show we travel to the beautiful province of British Columbia and learn about the rich history. While researching this episode and even after recording there was so much more information I came across that I didn't have when I set out to record. We will be going back and revisiting British Columbia at a later date.
In this episode we looked at the earliest forms of motorsports where in 1909 the first ever event took place on the streets of Vancouver. By 1912, racing was taking place regularly at Willow Fairgrounds tearing up a 1/2 mile dirt oval. By 1937, Langford Speedway had opened it's doors to the public and exciting racing took place at the 3/8 mile oval. Sadly it closed in 1950 to make way for a new elementary school. For four years, there was not many places to race on Vancouver Island until Western Speedway opened in 1954. It stood the test of time but unfortunately closed it's doors at the end of the 2022 season to make way for housing developments.
Jon then introduced us to a couple of British Columbias earliest racing super stars from the province. Billy Foster who was the first Canadian to compete in the Indianapolis 500. Sadly, Billy lost his life during a practice at Riverside International Raceway in a NASCAR Cup car. Our second driver we looked at was Bob Mclean, though not born in B.C. His family moved from Australia and laid down family roots. He would go on and driver during the Ford vs. Ferrari battle with Bob also losing his life but during the 12 hours of Sebring in for Ford GT40.
Thank you for listening or watching this weeks episode of Racing Through Canada's Past. Make sure to watch for new episodes each Thursday airing at 12pm.
Racing Through Canada's Past is available on..
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