San Cobble / Van Isle drag strip pics BC Canada

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Found it! Well I guess I know what I'll be doing for the next week or so...

 

Rats! Are these really small for everyone else, or just me? I get thumbnail size, and if I click on them, they dont get any bigger. maybe my browser???

 

Drag racing history on Vancouver Island! There are some Arlington Drag Strip photos in there also. I remember seeing a lot of those cars at other tracks also. Had Jim Green tell me once the final "end" of the Van Isle strip was a bluff or cliff! Better have had good brakes there if the hill did't help to stop you. Some of the former and current owners of some of those cars have been to my place. Great pics! Thanks, Butch/56sedandelivery.

 

This is pretty badass.

 

Awesome! Now I know how to spend my evening. Vintage Canadian hotrods


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WOW! What an incredible wealth of racing history. Thanks so much for posting these.

 

Wow! Holy Chit, those are killer!

Thank You so much for posting these.

I need to spend some time digesting all this history....... Damn I wish I was just a little bit older and had not missed this time period.

 

I Really cannot believe that there is a Pic of our Dragster in here, I have a great Pic at Home, Framed, that Mr. Rich Carlson took from Van Isle Drag way back in the Day.
Our King Rat Chevrolet Powered Top Fuel Car had been Converted to a Chrysler, something that I was not aware of until I saw Rich's Pic.
I was told by Rich that the Kniss/Garrison Team had a disappointing weekend with the Dragster at Van Isle and had blown the "Basement" out of the Engine on there lone try Burnout. This new Pic would suggest that they did make it down the Track at least once.
If anyone remembers this weekend and the "King Rat" I would love to her about their memories of it.

Thanks in advance!

 

Awesome collection of photos! Thanks for posting them.

 

Thats Jim Greens (of Green Elephant Vega/Monza fame) Model A tudor.

 

WOW! I moved to Victoria in 1976 and Van Isle Dragway had close down by then. I wish I had seen some drag racing there.

Thanks for posting!!!

 

where are the videos going to be ? can you give us a link?

 

I cant get ANY of these to get any bigger than 1"x1 1/4". Is that what everyone else is getting? I think theres sort of compatility issue with my browser or something??

 

When you click on the photo, it'll open in a new window. You should see a little magnifying glass with a '+' in it in the lower right corner of the picture. That should open it up bigger.

These pics aren't massive full screen pictures (at least for me), but most are showing about 4"x6" for me. Looks like they were scanned from regular film pictures.

 

Thanks Canuck. Yup then theres an issue with my browser, when I click on them, nothing happens. At least now I know theres a problem, so I'll try to figure it out. Thanks.

 

Exactly where was the Van Isle track located? Why did it close, and what's in it's place now? I always say, "just to have been born a few years earlier". Butch/56sedandelivery.

I'm told it was in the Mill Bay area.

 

I'm right in Cobble Hill and would like to know where it was also.

 

What a great thread! Nice to see this Canadian drag racing history!
Jay

 

I'll try that. I think theres some sort of compatibility issue with photobucket, I think maybe I need to update my browser.

 

Very cool photos. Thank you for sharing!!


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I know it was in the Mill Bay area, but I would like to know exactly where it was as well, and if anything remains of the track. I suspect some other development is there now

 

To enlarge those small pictures, trying clicking Ctrl Shift +
Control, shift and plus sign.
It worked for me.

 

I understand the last Van Isle reunion was in 2003...I think there should be a reunion in 2014 at Western Speedway's 1/8 mile drags in Victoria. Nostalgia drag racing with lots of the original Van Isle cars racing/and or on display!

 

Van Isle was on the south side of the hiway as you come up the hill out of Mill Bay, as I recall the road was Killmalo. Houses are there now. If you stopped on West Saanich road right at the old Boeing hangar in Pat Bay looked across the inlet at the top of one of the hills you can see a clearing in the trees-that is the top of what was the shut down hill. And as someone said, yes the strip ended quite abruptly at a cliff.

 

Goolemaps.com again; I wonder IF it could have been where what is now known as Sangster Rd.? If there was a topographical type map that w0ould show the uphill shutdown area that would help. Just a guess. Butch/56sedandelivery.

Or, how about this? Coming off Canada HWY-1, and taking Kilmalu Rd. towards the east, as Kilmalu Rd. makes a 90 degree bend to the south, there is a long "clearcut" to the left, but not really any close residences. It IS directly across from the Pat Bay sea plane base, and ends at a bluff type area. Just curious.

 

I thought they only had about 300+ feet of drag strip at the oval track? Would't it be better to have a reunion at the annual Port Alberni Drags event at the airport? Or even at the Sechelt Airport event, if they still have that? Butch/56sedandelivery.

 

Butch there is a clearing in the trees just off of Telegraph rd, The name Sangster doesn't ring a bell, but then it has been forty odd years since. If I still lived on the Island I could drive up there.
Out of curiousity do you remember Butch Thuney(sp?) raced a red white and blue 55 Chev gasser?

 

Trust me it is highly unlikely that any Van Isle reunion would be at Western Speedway there is WAY WAY tomuch bad blood there forty five years wouldn't even begin to heal those wounds.

 

I actually looked at, and tried to buy, the blue side windows that were in that 55 of Butch Thuney; they were in the garage rafters. I wound up using 1/4" red Acrylite in my white, 56 Chevrolet, 150 Bus Coupe, Bracket Car. Sangster Rd. is south of the area I mentioned previously, and I don't think that's the site now anyway. I think it is the site just off of the 90 degree corner of Kilmalu Rd; do a GoogleMaps.Com search. The area ends in a large, cleared area of the bluff. And, Sechelt Airport is on the mainland; I remember reading about that in an old NW drag racing magazine Flyin' Phil Elliot put out. What's the "bad blood" with Western Speedway? Seems to me there was another
"circle track" on the island at one time also. Saratoga Speedway?
Butch/56sedandelivery.