It was a beautiful day while camping on the shores of Lake Superior when we hit the open road to do some exploring. There were several targets on our list this fine day, but this was a chance find on Google Maps.
I was initially thrown off. From the satellite photos, it seemed obvious that it was a race track. Street View, however, showed a Young Drivers of Canada sign over the gate. Apparently it was a driver training facility. But there were grandstands... Clearly this place had had at least two lives.
The track opened in 1965 as the Fifth Line Speedway as a dirt track, but was paved very soon afterward. It didn't remain open long, closing only two years later as it was unable to compete with another nearby track.
It reopened in 1971 when the competing track closed, and ran successfully until 1987. It featured a 1/4 mile oval, a 1/4 mile drag-strip, and a figure-8 built into the oval. Grandstands were on the west side of the tracks, and the pit area was on the east.
The starter's stand is still present, although it has apparently moved from its original location between the oval and the drag strip, to a place close to the grandstand.
The grandstand, is still present, but almost all of the wooden bench seating is gone, and the frame is almost completely overgrown.
The tracks are in surprisingly good condition for their decades of neglect and the oval looks as though it could host an event with very little work.
