![]() ![]() The success of the 1950 races spurred the organisers to think bigger for the following year. Appropriately the main feature race fell to Jim Kimberley in a Ferrari 166M, watched by an estimated 5,000 spectators. The first road race was a 'trial event' organised and conducted by the newly formed Chicago and Milwaukee SCCA Regions and featuring a high-calibre list of drivers, including John Fitch, Briggs Cunningham, Phil Hill and a young Carroll Shelby. The first course was to the north of the lake, combining Highways X, P and J into a roughly-triangular 3.35-miles course. Planning quickly got under way for the very first Elkhart Lake races on July 23, 1950. With the local economy in a sticky patch thanks to the recent closure of a canning factory, support was quickly gleaned for a road race, which could do much to revive the flagging fortunes of the area. A group of sports car enthusiasts from the Chicago Region and Milwaukee Region of the Sports Car Club of America (SCCA) began looking for public roads that could make a suitable circuit and, at the suggestion of member Jim Kimberly who had grown up in Wisconsin, flew out for a closer inspection.įrom the air, the roads around Elkhart Lake looked most promising and, upon landing, the delegation headed off to meet village leaders. In the late 1940s, sports car racing was on the rise, but there was a distinct lack of courses on which the sport of road racing could flourish. The story of Road America actually begins a few miles to the north in the village of Elkhart Lake. ![]()
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