50 Years of Road Racing

by Ann Hattes

When Peter Laun was a kid, racing cars roared past his house, maneuvering the tight turns and speeding down the winding roads through his normally tranquil hometown.

“Our house was right on Lake Street, where the races went past,” recalls Laun, 66, author of The History of the Elkhart Lake Road Races 1950-1952. “One of my favorite pastimes was asking all the owners if they could take me for a ride in their sports cars.”

After World War II, small imported cars such as the British MG emphasized maneuverability. These cars, with their speed and cornering capabilities, were not designed for oval tracks but were more suited for roads, thus creating a new type of racing that soon caught on in Elkhart Lake, Wis. (pop. 1,021).

But after a crowd—estimated at 130,000—attended the 1952 races through the streets of Elkhart Lake, the state of Wisconsin banned the closing of public thoroughfares for private purposes.

Laun’s mother and other townspeople, however, such as Ollie Siebken Moeller, a second-generation resort owner, and Clif Tufte, a civil engineer, wanted the races to continue. Laun and Moeller sold stock to raise money for construction of a private race- course, and Tufte invited civil engineering students from the Wisconsin Institute of Technology to help survey and lay out the course. The track opened for its first races in 1955.

Today, Road America, a world-class racecourse two miles south of town, continues to test the skills of the world’s best amateur and professional drivers. On weekends between June and August, the four-mile course—the longest in North America—hosts five major events and more than a dozen other races featuring sports cars, stock cars, muscle cars, and motorcycles. The track also serves as a training course, tire testing site, and studio for films and television commercials.

“Road America did not suddenly magically appear,” says Laun, a longtime Elkhart Lake resident who now lives in nearby Sheboygan. “It grew out of the 1950, 1951, and 1952 street races through Elkhart Lake.”

The town’s racing tradition also inspired some local drivers to follow in the tracks of their childhood heroes.

“Road America was a big influence on my involvement in racing,” explains Jeff R. Miller, who was born in nearby Plymouth. “As a kid, I’d go over there and watch all the big international drivers do their brake tests in the county garage.”

Driver Brian French, who grew up in Sheboygan, says: “I’ve probably been around the Road America track thousands of times on bikes (motorcycles) and cars over the last 19 years.

“Road America is best suited for the kind of cars that I drive because the straightaways are real long and accommodate the high-speed car pretty well,” says French, who drives a Ferrari Formula One car and has reached a speed of 191 miles per hour.

Drivers and race fans who come to town continue to patronize Siebkens Resort, which once was along the original racing route in Elkhart Lake. “Our restaurant is the place where the teams and drivers are seen,” says Laurie Kussow, a fourth-generation owner of Siebkens along with her sister, Lisa Sadiq, and their husbands Gary Kussow and Richard Sadiq. Through the years, celebrities at this historic, Victorian-era inn have included Paul Newman, who stayed in Room 11 while filming the 1969 movie Winning, about professional car racing.

“This little tourist village needed an infusion of something,” says Cheryl Barnes, a Road America spokeswoman. “With incredible tenacity and will-power, the people rolled up their sleeves to put on a race.”

Laun adds: “If we hadn’t had the races and built Road America, Elkhart Lake would be just another sleepy village.”

Ann Hattes is a freelance writer in Hartland, Wis.

first appeared: 6/2/2002