New viewing areas, a new weekend, and what about NASCAR? Q&A with Road America's president

ELKHART LAKE – A year ago, concerns about a fresh racing surface and excitement about a couple of new viewing areas were on the minds of Road America fans.

As the 2024 season gains traction, numerous offseason projects for competitors and attendees have been completed or are in their final stages at the sprawling, world-class racing facility in rural Sheboygan County.

Another spring tradition is a wide-ranging interview for the track’s president and general manager with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Over 40 minutes recently, Mike Kertscher talked about the latest upgrades, ideas for the future, the signature events, a new weekend and the possible return of NASCAR.

Here are highlights.

More: An early look at key Wisconsin auto racing events for the 2024 season

Q: On the competition side, the repave was the big change for last year. Anything this year that’ll affect the racing?

Kertscher: From a competition standpoint, we’ve been really happy with the repave and how it all went. Just a few little things out on track. Some rumble strip work. The normal upkeep, the maintenance that goes into a 4-mile course.

Servicing the competitors in the paddock, we have a new fuel station and we’ll be able to carry more grades of fuel and more volume. Because some of our events, some of our club events and stuff, we’ve had to call in fuel trucks during the weekend. Looking forward to that.

Just a lot of little things. More power in various areas. Better lighting. The move-in/move-outs are more, so a lot of that especially in the spring and fall is taking place at night, and to do it safely you’ve got to have some light. We’ll continue to develop in those areas to make the park safer and better for all.

Q: From a fan perspective, last year brought the Beach and road outside the Carousel. How about 2024?

Kertscher: From a fan perspective there’s a lot. The team has really taken some huge steps, improving the park from a fan perspective.

The bathroom and shower facility in Turn 1 I think is a game-changer and long time coming. We didn’t have water in that area of the park and now we do.

The other fan amenities … providing fan access. We know that’s a big deal for our guests.

Allowing people to go inside the Carousel to an area we’ve never had access before. We don’t have a catchy name yet.

We’ve been asking some fans. Someone suggested the ghost cat lookout to maybe honor Brian Redman’s cat. We’re still entertaining some possible names. But the viewing area inside the Carousel, we hope that will be well received.

And then also we did expand the trail in Turn 12. The Turn 12 trail will now actually go up and behind the Motorplex parking lot. That’ll be an improved area. Some people will notice that.

We’re pretty excited about Turn 11. We were able to create a new area called the Bluffs. A proper overlook over Turn 11, getting people really up close and personal, looking right down at Turn 11.

I’ve already heard from some of the drivers that were out, “Geez, we didn’t need any more pressure, any more eyes on us, because we’re going through the toughest turn, Turn 11.” They were joking of course, but we think that area will be very well received.

Then the Beach, we created the Beach last year. This year we did some work down there as well, expanded it a little more, added some sand. We have a new partner we’re pretty excited to share with the group here shortly. We’ll be branding that area and they’ll be making it their own. So it’ll have an official name before long.

Q: The areas you’ve done that you’ve talked about are in places you can’t see a whole lot. What you see is great, but then you also miss 3.95 miles that you don’t see. Do you have video boards coming?

Kertscher: Part of the allure of coming to Road America is the exploration factor. The adventure-seeker's dream, right? You’re not going to see it all in one spot. It’s not possible. We aren’t planning to put in any additional boards.

We are upgrading one of our boards. The Turn 7 board will be here sometime this spring, and it’ll be much larger than the one that’s currently there. We’re pretty content with the number we have.

Obviously those things, they don’t operate by themselves and they require maintenance. Just like a TV that you buy, they only get so many hours on, and there’s a lot of parts and a lot of things that you have to have in stock to make these things operate.

Hopefully the technology catches up that we can live stream through our app or something like that that would be available. Once 5G comes to this area it could be a real possibility for sure.

Q: IndyCar’s the big ticket. Last year’s race was a huge surprise with all the passing and no catastrophes related to the repave after a ragged qualifying day. How do you top that?

Kertscher: If I remember back, we did have some issues in qualifying. The cars are going faster. They were between 3 and 8 miles an hour faster through each corner. They were running off track at spots where they hadn’t previously. Well, they were going faster. A few found that out.

We were really pleased with the surface and how it held up. As it seasons, it’s progressively getting grippier in places that it hadn’t been. That’s a natural progression of seasoned asphalt, seasoned racetracks. Hopefully there’ll be a bit more passing this year.

(Kertscher also showed off less aggressive curbing in Turn 1, where Scott McLaughlin went airborne in an IndyCar test, and smoother area track side where Will Power complained of problems after he went off track.)

Q: Every year we talk about the tradeoff between keeping the character of Road America and enhancing or updating the fan experience. Have there been suggestions that are just totally off limits, things that have come up but you go, no, we just can’t do that?

Kertscher: There’s always these things. We get letters and emails and season passholders stop by and visit. Everybody’s got an idea. The fun part for our team is take those ideas, and some of them have been really valid and we’ve acted on them. The (specialty) license plate is one of those ideas. That came from a season passholder.

I would say there’s no bad idea. We want to hear all the ideas. But we’re probably not going to build a waterpark inside of Turn 14. It’s maybe not in the cards.

We know what we are. Our identity is the national park of speed. Everyone here has come to appreciate that. When some of those ideas come up, it’s like, does that really embody our mission? Does that resemble the national park of speed? Is that what we should do? A lot of times that flushes some of those things out quite easily, the waterpark being one of them.

What’s next?

Kertscher: We continue to evolve. We’re working on a project this fall. We’re going to be replacing and really reimagining the front straightaway bridge. That’s a big deal for us because it’s one of the original bridges on the property. It serves as one of the main entry points (to the paddock) for many of our fans. So if we get that right, which I think we will, it’ll help ease the congestion in the start/finish tunnel.

Back when it was built it maybe was adequate. But in today’s world, with as many spectators as we have and golf carts and things, it’s just too congested. Building a road from the VIP (building) to the north and over that new bridge will be essential for fans, especially people with golf carts. That’ll be the big one.

We’re going to start in the fall, hopefully right after the (SCCA National Championship) Runoffs. I hope the weather cooperates so we can work all winter long, because that thing’s got to be done by about April 10 in 2025.

Q: The other huge change for last year was NASCAR going away (the Cup Series before 2023 and Xfinity after one addition race last season). You’ve said you want them and the ball’s in their court. The company is fine either way but how important is it from a prestige standpoint and fan perception for NASCAR to be here in some form?

Kertscher: Having Cup here for two years did exactly what we wanted it to do. We were found by many fans that hadn’t previously been here. We saw last year, even without Cup last year, our ticket sales almost mirrored those of ’22 even without that key, signature event on our schedule.

That really tells us that the fans that found us in ’21-22, they came back. We saw significant growth at all of our events, all year long. It was really great to see them return. They clearly like the Road America experience and they found another event to come to with family and friends.

We hope it comes back. It’s definitely for us, it’s nice to have. It’s not necessarily a need to have. Our success is not defined by whether NASCAR races on the track, but man, it looks better with them here.

But it’s a decision they’ve got to make. They’ve got a lot of decisions they’ve had to make in recent times and we hope that some day we’re part of those decisions again.

Q: Given what we’ve seen with the Chicago street race doing well, nothing’s apparently off the table now. Realistically, what’s the likelihood that’s going to happen again in my time or yours?

Kertscher: Hey, they’re not afraid to try things. If there’s anything they’ve been successful at, it’s trying to do new things, good or bad. There’s a few that have worked well and a few they wish would have been better. From us, we’re happy to be part of it if we can.

We thought the cars raced well here, especially the Xfinity cars. They put on a lot of great races here. This year with the Olympics and other conflicts, we weren’t able to get an Xfinity race for 2024. We hope that comes back.

But we’d like to get a Cup race back here. There’s no doubt. Just the excitement. And having a Cup race in Wisconsin makes a hell of a lot of sense.

There’s few venues if any that could do it, and we worked awfully hard to make this place suitable and it was successful.

You know, we can never look back and say it didn’t work because that was the furthest thing from what happened. Anyone that was here really saw what we could do. The place showed well. I was so pleased with our team for knocking it out of the park with that.

Q: A year ago you launched the Road America Drivers’ Club for enthusiasts that, if I understood, went above and beyond track days but because of availability wasn’t on the level of country club tracks like Thermal and Autobahn. How has that gone?

Kertscher: It’s small. There’s a small contingent of people that like it. It’s a personalized service. The issue we have is space. We don’t have any open dates. If you look at any other tracks that employ a club atmosphere, they have open dates or they have two tracks and one is dedicated just to club members.

Mid-April to November, this place is busy. There’s four open dates now on the racetrack right now. So we just don’t have the inventory. The club aspect for us will always be something … that’s just not who we are. But we can offer it for those that want the special treatment and really come to our test days and our track days. It’s a nice little touch for them. But it is what it is. It’s never probably going to be bigger than that.

We embrace it. It’s good to be busy. I wish our season was longer. Some tracks have a much longer growing season of sorts. We have to condense everything into a relatively short timeframe, which is a good problem to have.

Q: Oh, yeah, I’m sure you really need a couple months added to each end of the season.

Kertscher: It’s important we have the downtime because it allows us to really get a lot of our work done. As you saw today, there are lot of improvements that if we were running 10 months a year, some of those wouldn't be possible. We’d have to shut the place down. We’re able to get a lot of the work done in the winter, especially the winters of recent times. They've been so mild. Spring was tougher this year than winter in some respects. So it allows us to get a lot of our construction done.

Q: I saw a Facebook ad for the off-road experience. The disc golf got some attention a few years back. Are there other hidden-gem types of things that ought to be getting more notice?

Kertscher: We do tons of corporate entertaining here. Groups are here; this week alone I think there are five corporate groups here throughout the week with varying activities. The off-road program is one. For a smaller group it’s fabulous. You can take your team with our guides and experience the off-road trails.

But we do go-karting and geocaching, and the list goes on and on. A lot of corporates have found a place to entertain here and you don’t have to know a lot about racing. It’s a very open environment. We love to teach people about racing, to educate people.

One thing that’s really been going for us is our Briggs & Stratton Motorplex down there. The amount of activities on that track every single weekend, it continues to grow. It’s pretty cool to see.

This past weekend we introduced 150 people to the sport of go-karting. They turned up to learn about competitive karting and for most that’s their first time they dipped their toe in the pool of motorsports. Whether they stay here as a racer or whether they go to a dirt track or whatever, we don’t care. We want to introduce people to motorsports, and we’re finding success in doing that through karting.

Our karting club has grown massively. We have a Tuesday series and a weekend series, and it’s especially rewarding to see some of our karting kids go out on the national scale, different national events, and really do well. It’s pretty darn cool to know they got their start at the motorplex.

So that track continues to grow. We have a supermotard club that continues to grow down there. They have four events down there.

We’re doing our own autocross series down there. In the winter we do autocross series. We very much love to see people come here that have a competitive spirit that actually want to participate. The karting club is one area. The autocross. Heck, we’re doing drag nights, street drags on the front straightaway. To see a couple hundred people come out here on a random Tuesday to do that, they’re motorsports people, they’re family.

Doesn’t matter to us if they know anything about road racing. As far as they’re concerned, Road America is a street drag facility, and we’re OK with that.

That’s the cool thing about Road America. There’s a little something for everybody. You can come here and find your niche.

Four Miles of Fitness is another one. We support the community, bringing people out here on Mondays and Wednesdays, and there’s people that only come out to that all year long.

I hear it in the community. They’re like, “We just love the place. We love Four Miles of Fitness.” And I ask them, “Have you ever been here for a race?” “No, we’re content not going. We just love it. Don’t ever end Four Miles of Fitness; that means so much to us.”

That’s pretty special to know there’s little segments, there’s a little something for everybody depending what you’re into.

Disc golf is one. We do this disc golf tournament in January. It’s windy. It’s always miserable. And (we’re) typically getting 80 people to come out here and throw discs around in the middle of January. Pretty remarkable.

Q: The 150 you mentioned for discovering karting … kids? Older?

Kertscher: If I would put a percentage on it, I would say that 80% of them are probably 15 or younger. A high percentage of kids. Not all kids though. There were plenty of moms and dads that were interested as well. It’s pretty cool to see.

Our biggest class in our karting club is our kid karts, the 5- to 7-year-olds. Back when I started racing karts, way back, at the Karting Kettle here in Elkhart Lake, we didn’t have a class for 5- and 7-year-olds. I think I was 14 or 15 before I could actually drive a go-kart, and that all changed years ago.

Seeing these 5- and 7-year-olds out there competing is pretty darn special. Whether you have kids or not, you’ve got to love the pureness of what they’re doing out there, the fun they’re having.

And they’re learning various aspects of life, just as a competitor. They’re learning sportsmanship, mechanics, marketing. Is Grandpa’s name on the kart? Is he a sponsor? All that stuff. It’s pretty special.

Q: Gridlife (July 26-28) is new and seems pretty different from your typical weekend. How did you come to do that, and how do you explain it?

Kertscher: It’s kind of been a long time coming. We’ve had Gridlife here as a track rental client for a bit.

They‘ve done some track activities. Over the years we’ve had conversations about bringing the music, their festival, here and we were kind of waiting to see how they grew, how they developed as a company.

They’ve been around long enough. They’ve done plenty of events.

We’ve seen what they’ve done at other facilities, other tracks, and this year we’re going to try something new in putting the whole festival here. The organizers at Gridlife, we know them. It’s not like they’re strangers to us.

If you remember, a couple of years ago they ran as a support series for us for one of our NASCAR races. And they were highly organized and it was very well done. We’re curious how it’ll work out. We know they’re soon going to be making an announcement on a music act that’s going to be a pretty big surprise to most.

We’re excited. It’ll draw a new crowd, without question, a new demographic. They’re going to do time attack and some racing and some drifting, so yeah, it’s new for us for sure.

We’re excited for what the future holds, because to keep growing we have to keep bringing new people here. Back to the point of having a little something for everybody, now we’ll have something for the folks that are into the tuner cars and drifting and things like that. We’re excited to see how it works out.

Q: Explain it to me.

Kertscher: The short course is they have a time attack; basically it’s on the track but they’re racing against the clock with multiple cars on the track at the same time. There’s a track attack element in various class formats. And then they do autocross, they do drifting. It’s a whole weekend long of activity.

So is there a big race? Are they going to turn 40 cars loose? It’s not like that, no. It’s more like of the time attack and track records and things like that on track.

There’ll be more info coming out on that. They’re very experienced.

For us it’s a track rental but a partnership with them to see how it does here. They’ve been running an event – I think it’s at Gingerman (in South Haven, Michigan) – that’s their signature event, the first one they ever ran. That event has grown massive, to the point of they don’t have enough space. We’ll see what happens. If it’s successful here, we have plenty of room to grow it.

Q: Do you expect this to be an entirely customer base, or does it cross over?

Kertscher: I think it’s going to be new. I think it’s going to be a new customer base. They did one at Laguna Seca last year. I followed along with that and talked to them out there, the operators, and it was definitely some new fans, a lot of new fans.

The music element, they bring in a music element, a top-tier act to play on a Saturday night. So it’s a combination of cars and music. It’s social. It’s just as much social as it is competition. It’s a lifestyle event. We're excited to see what it does here in Elkhart Lake.

Q: Do you think you can sell that new audience on a traditional event like IndyCar or IMSA or MotoAmerica?

Kertscher: Anytime we get people here to the park, whether they’re coming for a disc golf tournament, they’re coming here for any reason, there’s a percentage of people that are going to come back.

We saw that with Cup. New people come here and they fall in love with the place. Once you’re here, you understand it. It becomes a piece of you.

Gridlife, a lot of these guys and gals, they’re already into cars. They just haven’t found us. But I think once they come and see what we have here, if they’re in Chicago or Minneapolis or wherever they might reside, they’re going to come back. I’m confident in the product we have here. The team takes care of people and the place shows really well.

Q: Your two biggest weekends are IndyCar and IMSA. What do you make of the different approaches they’ve taken to technology in recent years?

Kertscher: It’s interesting. You have one that’s focused on technology for quite some time. This isn’t something that just came up. There’s – what? – 18 different manufacturers that participate within IMSA. And the other is focused maybe a little more on the competition side over the years, being very competitive and having great races. It’s a different fan, for sure.

There’s some crossover, no question. But just to see the growth ... IMSA far and away has been growing here pretty massively. It started pretty small. The lower hanging fruit is easier to catch. But in today’s day and age, they’re head to head.

When I look at size of events, activation in the paddock, what does the fan get for their buck. They’re pretty close in today’s day and age.

But you hit it. You said it.

On the technology side, our younger fans are into that more so than maybe some of our more tenured fans. Still, the technology still brings something new. Every car is cutting edge. We saw it last year with the electrification stuff, and it’s cool. IndyCar’s going there; it’s just not there yet. It’s coming. We hear about it. I know they’ll be doing some testing here before long. It’s exciting to see.

Q: So it does matter to your ticket-buyers?

Kertscher: People appreciate it. Technology is a bonus. If the racing’s good, it’s awesome to see the technological advances and see the brakes and the list goes on and on. I think it is important. People like it. There’s no question. We hear about it. But people want to see a good race.

Years ago they used to race coaster wagons down the front straightaway, down the pit lane hill. People showed up to watch that. There’s not a lot of technology in a coaster wagon. As long as the racing is good, people will come out and watch.

Q: From a promoter/fan perspective – either realistically or in a total fantasy world – is there anything IndyCar can take from IMSA’s approach (to technology) or you’d like to see IndyCar take?

Kertscher: I don’t think so. I think they both could probably teach our stock car friends a little bit about fan engagement.

They both do some things well. The autograph sessions, the drivers are very approachable. Hell, last year I saw IndyCar guys down in the campground having dinner with random fans. That’s awesome. Those are stories that those people will tell forever.

They both do those things really well. Bring the fans in. The grid walk that IMSA does is spectacular. People come. They sell tickets. I mean, where else can you get that close to a cutting-edge vehicle like that?

I don’t think there’s any one thing that either one is far and away above the other. They do do some things differently. The grid walk is pretty spectacular. It’s a huge hit every weekend IMSA does that.

Q: IMSA has its 2025 schedule out already. There are always Road America fans who want a 4- or 6-hour race. Is an endurance race a non-starter?

Kertscher: I don’t think so. Three or four years ago we did a four-hour race.

It just comes down to the series does a really good job of protecting the teams from themselves. And by that I mean everyone’s got a big appetite, they want to eat the big steak and it’s going to taste great, but at the end of the meal somebody’s going to have to pay for it.

If IMSA gets to the end of their season and they do a bunch of these races at the end of the year, pretty soon there’s a few less teams standing at the podium at the end of the year at the banquet.

I totally get that. I think it comes down to dollars and cents. If these teams have allotted so much budget for endurance races, it’s really hard to grow that by 10 or 20%. It’s going to come from somewhere, because the tires and fuel and the wear and tear on the equipment is costly for endurance races. I don’t know the intricacies and equations, but I do know there’s a significant cost for the teams to run a 4- or a 6-hour endurance race.

We’ll keep doing what we’re doing and see what happens. Our front straight is pretty much all lit now, so if the knock ever comes, we’ll certainly open the door.

Q: What do you want to tell me about that I haven’t thought about?

Kertscher: Runoffs. The (SCCA National Championship) Runoffs are coming back this year, this year and next year.

That helps all of our events grow, June Sprints included. (June Sprints) had a record entry last year. I believe it was bigger than the Runoffs last year or right about the same size. So this year we’re looking forward to the Runoffs in October.

Some of the best racing that anyone will see on our track. They go for it. It’s very, very competitive.

Q: It that all competitors and families? Does it draw anybody else?

Kertscher: It’s the lifeblood of motorsports. It is the families. It’s the moms and the dads and the kids. Everybody’s involved in some shape or form. It reminds me of how I grew up going to the racetrack. Motorsports is one of the only sports your entire family can participate in, and Runoffs is that. These people live and breath this stuff and work hard all year long to qualify, and then they get here. It means a lot to them. It’s a big deal.

Having it in Elkhart Lake, in the Midwest, we hear a lot it’s easier for them to travel here, depending on where they’re coming from. We’re kind of in the middle. And there’s a lot to do here. Because the event is 11 days long. You could be here all week, and there’s stuff to do here for your family when you’re not on track. If you want to go to the resort or the lake or whatever it may be, it’s just a nice area to have it in. There’s plenty of opportunities for families to enjoy it for a few days away from the racetrack too.

Q: But it is pretty much a (participant) crowd?

Kertscher: We sell a few tickets. Our season passholders love it because it’s some of the best racing we see. But it’s not a huge spectator draw by any means. But it’ll definitely have close to 700 competitors. So if you think about how many cars are in the paddock for a national race, even short-track racing, you get to a couple hundred and you say that’s a big one. Here it’ll be 500 to 700. It’s a big deal.

And it isn’t one class. There’s over 20 classes within SCCA.

You think about how Road America was born, it was through the help of SCCA. They helped create this place. They shared in the vision. So for us to be able to pay homage to that and bring that back, I get excited about it because this place wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for some of these people’s fathers and grandfathers and great grandfathers. It means so much to us that they continue to come back.

Q: Anything else?

Kertscher: The license plates are going good. Over 19,000 plates in the state of Wisconsin now. Anytime you live in Wisconsin and you can beat the Green Bay Packers at anything, we get pretty damn excited. They have 14,000 plates, and we’re up to 19,000 in circulation in the state. And we’re just excited about it. You see them all around. It’s really taken off.

It’s helping us organically for sure. Some people who have gotten them, they’ve never been to Road America before. They like the look of the plate. We heard that a couple of times last year. People showed up and bought tickets and said, we got these plates and we love them but we’ve never been here before. And it’s like, hey, I’ll give you a tour. It’s pretty cool to see the success of that. We worked at it. The team’s worked hard to promote it and it’s taken off.

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Road America president talks improvement, IndyCar, IMSA, NASCAR, karts