Summer drag racing returns to Port Alberni

Drag racing will return this summer to Port Alberni, on central Vancouver Island, after a six-year absence.

The Alberni Valley Drag Racing Association and City of Port Alberni have reached an agreement for the drag racers to hold an event on the Somass Lands from Aug. 8 to 10.

“Our association is very excited. It’s been six years since we held an event,” said Roger Haggerty, president of the AVDRA. “We’re very thankful both the city and ACRD are working with us; they’re helping us.”

The event will start with a car show hosted by Valley Street Rods on Friday, Aug. 8 at Tyee Landing. An “Aussie-style” burnout contest will take place on the Somass Lands, with space for participants to do doughnuts and figure eights, Haggerty said.

Racing will take place Saturday and Sunday on a 330-foot drag strip, “which is about what they run at Saratoga Speedway,” he said.

Bracket racing will take place on each day, and racers will likely get 10 to 12 runs per day. Haggerty anticipates at least 150 cars from across the Island will race.

The course will run in a direction from the water toward the industrial road. All spectators will be at Tyee Landing, above the site. No members of the public will be permitted on the Somass Lands themselves due to liability.

“It’s something that’s better than nothing,” he said.

There isn’t too much work that needs to be done to make the area suitable for racing, Haggerty said. They may have to do a little bit of paving, and some brushing of the site, but it’s fairly level. The AVDRA will be conducting some test and tunes leading up to the August event.

The AVDRA’s agreement with the city is for up to three years on the Somass Lands. “If this goes good there’s opportunity to hold more than one event.”

The AVDRA has an online fundraiser to help support this August’s event as well as the group’s plans to build a permanent drag strip somewhere in the Alberni Valley. The organization has held fundraising car cruises in the past few years, but donated the money to the West Coast General Hospital’s emergency department expansion program as well as to the Tseshaht First Nation for a residential school survivor memorial.

The group is in discussions with the ACRD to find land suitable to build a permanent drag strip. They are two or three years away from being able to afford such a project, Haggerty added.

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