My new best friend, even if he doesn't know it, is Mike Kertscher. He is the VP of Business Development at Road America. That's right, Road Freakin' America! My personal history with Road America dates back to the 1980’s. As a kid, I devoured car magazines, and they all used Road America at one time or another to beat on performance machinery. While Laguna Seca has "The Corkscrew", and Watkins Glen "The Boot", neither has the speed or size of Road America. It is a power course where most cars could reach top speed on the massive front straight. In fact, Road America is basically a bunch of massive straights tied together with a little more than a dozen diabolical corners spread over a scenic 640 acres in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin. The size is what separated Road America from all the other tracks car magazines used. High-speed corners reveal spooky chassis dynamics simply unnoticed on shorter, slower tracks, allowing the reviewers to form more complete opinions of the machinery. At parking lot speeds a Lotus and a Lincoln are indistinguishable. As speed increases, the differences become obvious. And at Road America, it is indeed possible to find the differences between very high-performance machinery.
In addition, Elkhart Lake sounded like a magical place to The Young Cam Follower. Jags, Porsches, Ferraris, LeMans prototypes, and cheese. That's all bases covered as far as I could tell. Modern Road America represents even more, with historic races, club events, IMSA, Indy Car, AMA, driving schools, Lemons, Chump Car, carting, athletic events, and even a zip line. And the biggest surprise to me is that no matter the event, from a local SCCA time trial to the NASCAR race, it will not be sold out. The place is so big there is simply no capacity limit. I can't think of any other entertainment venue, let alone sporting event, that has a guarantee of attendance. Want to see the Cowboys? Better plan ahead. And know a guy. And be a senator or the Pope or something. Want to see the Historics at Road America? Come on down! My friend Juls will even set you up with a golf cart to make getting around the more than half a thousand acres easier. After spending a little time with Mike and Juls it became clear to me that they actually care about the racing, the community, and the people that show up day after day to watch the cars go ‘round. It's more than just a (dream) job to them. Road America represents the very best in independent racing facilities because of the efforts of the staff. It was an honor to have met Mike and Juls. They didn’t even seem to notice my geeking out over the Corvair. Next time you are anywhere near Chicago, drop in on them. I promise you will not only get through the gate, you will enjoy whatever you find inside.
The only disappointment is that it's not really shaped like a huge "RA" like the logo would lead you to believe. Nothing is perfect, I suppose...
