Sprint Cup Series At Road America?

By Paul Gohde
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Updated: August 24, 2012

New Berlin, WI – It was two seasons ago that the NASCAR Nationwide Series made its debut at Road America’s four-mile road course which winds through the Kettle Moraine hills and valleys in Elkhart Lake, WI. A large crowd watched an exciting race that was captured by Sprint Cup Series star Carl Edwards. But it’s what the second-place finisher had to say as he entered the media center that may prove to be prophetic.

“Sprint Cup.” That’s all that veteran Canadian road race champion Ron Fellows had to say as he sat down to be interviewed by the assembled media.

“Sprint Cup” as in: This was a great NNS race, but we need to bring the Cup series here. The place is ready for it.

Fellows, the LeMans Corvette legend who has won in Europe and at Sebring, is a road course ringer for JR Motorsports in Sprint Cup races at Watkins Glen and Sonoma.

Right on Fellows’ bumper at the finish that day at Road America was Brendan Gaughan, a driver who had more than just a couple words to say about the Wisconsin track.

“This is a professional road course right here, guys. There’s no making a different course out of it, short-cutting it, making it shorter. This is a man’s man road course,” bubbled Gaughan. “The kink takes some guts getting through there. This is a fun track, man. I would love to see the Cup guys here. There is no way NASCAR says no.”

After recent NASCAR road races at Watkins Glen and Montreal, exciting races that caused water cooler talk on Monday morning, there has been buzz on the internet and in the media about NASCAR scheduling more.

Through its history, the sanctioning body has run Cup-level events on 12 different road race circuits ranging from the Linden, NJ airport runways to season-opening and closing races at the now-closed Riverside (CA) Raceway.

Augusta, GA; Bridgehampton, NY; Bremerton, WA and the Daytona beach/road course also had events. Only Watkins Glen (NY) and Sonoma (CA) remain on the oval-dominated Cup schedule.

But with many fans complaining about the “boring sameness” of some of the 1.5-mile cookie-cutter tracks, and NASCAR always on the lookout for races in new markets, many feel it’s time to add at least one more road course to the list.

So where to go?

Road Atlanta would work as an excellent facility, but the Atlanta Motor Speedway is nearby.

The new Circuit of the Americas in Austin, TX will run its first Formula 1 U.S. Grand Prix in November, but NASCAR already has two Cup dates in Fort Worth. Mid-Ohio? Too small. Laguna Seca? Too close to Sonoma. Lime Rock, Portland, Virginia Int., Mosport, Canada? Maybe.

But with Road America already in the Nationwide Series fold, and drivers giving the track an emphatic OK, why not add it now?

NASCAR Sprint Cup road races are held on both coasts, so why not have a third one in the heartland – Wisconsin?

Several observers (including this writer), have thought a rotating schedule of tracks could satisfy fans in various parts of the country.

Give Road America a Sprint Cup event once every two years and let it have a Nationwide and/or Truck race on the opposite year. Alternate the date with Portland or Mosport and you’d satisfy two sets of fans and open up two new marketing areas.

It’s probably too late to make this addition in 2013, but sometime soon this needs to happen.

Remember what Ron Fellows said: “Sprint Cup.”

Paul Gohde

Paul Gohde heard the sound of race cars early in his life.

Growing up in suburban Milwaukee, just north of Wisconsin State Fair Park in the 1950’s, Paul had no idea what “that noise” was all about that he heard several times a year. Finally, through prodding by friends of his parents, he was taken to several Thursday night modified stock car races on the old quarter-mile dirt track that was in the infield of the one-mile oval -and he was hooked.

The first Milwaukee Mile event that he attended was the 1959 Rex Mays Classic won by Johnny Thomson in the pink Racing Associates lay-down Offy built by the legendary Lujie Lesovsky. After the 100-miler Gohde got the winner’s autograph in the pits, something he couldn’t do when he saw Hank Aaron hit a home run at County Stadium, and, again, he was hooked.

Paul began attending the Indianapolis 500 in 1961, and saw A. J. Foyt’s first Indy win. He began covering races in 1965 for Racing Wheels newspaper in Vancouver, WA as a reporter/photographer and his first credentialed race was Jim Clark’s historic Indy win.Paul has also done reporting, columns and photography for Midwest Racing News since the mid-sixties, with the 1967 Hoosier 100 being his first big race to report for them.

He is a retired middle-grade teacher, an avid collector of vintage racing memorabilia, and a tour guide at Miller Park. Paul loves to explore abandoned race tracks both here and in Europe, with the Brooklands track in Weybridge England being his favorite. Married to Paula, they have three adult children and two cats.

Paul loves the diversity of all types of racing, “a factor that got me hooked in the first place.”

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