Mid-Ohio - The Track

Last weekend, I trekked north to the wilds of Ohio's Irish Hills (Ohio also has a Welsh Bypass - go figure) to enjoy a big weekend of racing at Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course. My brother and his son joined me midday on Saturday to take in racing from the American LeMans Series, Speed World Challenge, and the Indy Racing League. The weather was beautiful (I have the sun burn to prove it!), the crowd huge (see the apology/thanks for patience on the track's website), and the racing intense and fairly clean.

I did a two-day driving school at Mid-Ohio a couple of years ago. It's a wonderful circuit, the very definition of an honest-to-gods road course. It's serpentine layout covers 2.25 miles, undulating with the terrain to produce one of the most challenging race tracks in North America. I took lots of pictures over the weekend and tried to put together a decent collection here to show folks what it's like (click here for a nifty little map).

Turn 1 is a fast 90-degree left hander that leads down to a tricky 180-degree right hander called The Keyhole. Here's a view of the straight leading out of Turn 1 into The Keyhole:


On the inside of the straight there is a chicane that doesn't get used for pro races. Here's the rest of The Keyhole:


It's hard to tell from those pictures, but The Keyhole is actually downhill, which means as you are turning right, the car is trying to fall off the edge of the Earth to the left. It's a critical corner, as it sets up a run down the long back straight and into Turn 5, the best overtaking area. Unfortunately, I don't have a picture of Turn 5. Sorry.

The next pic is what happens after Turn 5, a 90-degree right-hander. The track then begins a series of corners that charge up and down hills, known collectively as Madness. It was my favorite part of the track and a great place to watch a race. Here is a view from the bottom of that first hill, as a couple of GT3 Porsches climb over the hill:


Again, the natural terrain fights what you want the car to do - as you crest the hill and try and head left to get the correct line for the right-hander at the bottom of the hill, the car pushes relentlessly to the right and wants to go off track. Fun stuff.

Next we see that right-hander at the bottom of the hill, which leads up under the Honda/Acura bridge and back uphill. Here with a pair of ALMS P2 cars at full chat:


Here's a reverse angle, with the rise up under the bridge (conveniently enough with a Speed WC Touring Acura in flight):


At the top of that hill is another off-camber corner, this one a right-hander, that dumps into Thunder Valley, a sweeping uphill run. Here we see an the ALMS Flying Lizard GT2 Porsche pounding away (and some slack jawed yokel spotting a UFO):


Thunder Valley comes to a end with a much quicker than it looks left-hander. In the school cars, a quick blip on the brakes to settle the front end was all the braking you needed before getting back on the throttle. Get it wrong, however, and it's off in the gravel trap. It was amazing to watch the IRL cars flit through that corner. Here it is during the IRL support race practice session:


After a little crest in the track, things settle down for a long right-hander, The Carousel, that leads back onto the front straight. Getting The Carousel right is critical to getting down the front stretch with as much speed a possible. My golden lap at the school included knowing that I got The Carousel right because I ran out of gear by Turn 1. Here's one of the ALMS Porsche RS Spyder P2 cars during the race:


That, in a nutshell, is Mid-Ohio. Keep in mind that the IRL cars and ALMS prototypes were getting around there in between 65 and 70 seconds and you get a sense of how fast it is.

That's the scene. Next - the combatants.