I love Road America.
When I was a kid, I used to go to Elkhart Lake three or four times a year for races at Road America. My friend’s dad was RE of the Chicago Region of the SCCA, and my friend and I would work timing and scoring at the races. We worked everything from SCCA regional races to the June Sprints to Formula 5000, Can-Am, and Trans-Am. It was a fantastic experience.
One of the perks of working the races was, with our credentials, we could go anywhere at the track. We’d go to all of the corners that were accessible (not as many as are accessible now), we’d hang out on the grid before races, we’d hang out with the race stewards, and we even found a private, air-conditioned box at the start-finish line that was our own, temperature controlled, private suite.
During my days of working timing and scoring, I met people like Paul Newman, Brian Redman, David Hobbs, George Follmer, Elliot Forbes Robinson, Jackie Oliver, and the great, Mario Andretti. On one occasion, my friend and I stood around in awe as the adults drank wine from Dixie cups with Andretti, and Newman. It was the experience of a lifetime.
Located in the Kettle Moraine region of Wisconsin, the area surrounding the track is beautiful, with undulating hills, glaciated landforms, and lots of trees. It truly is like racing in a national park. Just being in the area is awe inspiring. Being at the track is icing on the cake.
As you can imagine, Road America is my favorite track. However, I’ve never raced there in real life. It’s always been a dream of mine to race there, and I still hope to do it, but so far, I haven’t.
Having said all of this, I’m not looking forward to racing the Honda Civic Type R at Road America. The track is long (a little over four miles), with long straights and fast corners. I don’t expect the Type R to be particularly competitive against all of the higher horsepower cars I’m competing against. Naturally, I’ll do my best, but I’m not hopeful.
Who cares? This is Road America. Even virtually, it’s great!
Here’s a look at the track:
