Road America fans eagerly snap up another piece of track history
Road America offered up the final pieces of the green guardrail that once outlined the track. Fans wasted no time. Here's how the idea came about.
ELKHART LAKE – Where’s the line between history and kitsch? Between a quirky impulse purchase and “You bought what!?!? ” Road America management isn’t sure, but one lesson learned the past few years is to err on the side of offering.
To paraphrase the classic movie line, if you sell it, they will buy. After the 4-mile course was resurfaced , the track offered cores pulled from the old asphalt two years ago. They were snapped up by corner workers, track history buffs and ticketholders.
When a bigger frontstretch bridge was built for 2025 , pieces of the treads from the old one sold briskly. More: Key Wisconsin motor sports events for the 2026 racing season So when the “false grid” staging area was rebuilt, sections of the green guardrail from that area – the type that had flanked the entire track in a day before concrete became the safety standard – were offered up at $130 apiece. Buyers will pick them up during spring vintage weekend, which runs May 15-17.
The guardrail sale was one of the myriad topics Mike Kertscher, the track’s president and general manager, discussed in his annual preseason interview with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel in April. Question: Why was that still lying around? And the second, where does that land on the nostalgia vs.