ELKHART LAKE, Wis. — In September 1956, recently-opened Road America hosted one of its first major events.
The Road America National Endurathon races featured a 300-mile support show won by Carroll Shelby and were capped by a timed six-hour endurance race that mandated two drivers.
The winning duo were John Kilbourn and Howard Hively in a Ferrari 375 MM, who crossed the line after completing 121 laps of the 4-mile course just six seconds ahead of a Jaguar D-Type shared by John Fitch and Briggs Cunningham.
Road America founder Clif Tufte realized that had the winners completed just four more laps, it would have worked out to 500 miles. Thus, was born the Road America 500 – billed as the first 500-mile race in the history of sports car racing – which ran from 1957 to 1968, in later years under USRRC sanction.
The IMSA Camel GT Championship (a predecessor of today’s IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship) revived the Road America 500 and brought top-level sports car racing back to the majestic Wisconsin circuit in 1979.
Since then, Road America’s annual endurance race cycled through several sanctioning bodies and race lengths before settling into a groove since 2014 as a jewel of the WeatherTech Championship’s 2-hour, 40-minute standard-length events.
For years, fans and participants have clamored for Road America’s race to become part of the IMSA Michelin Endurance Cup. Now they are getting their wish. The Motul SportsCar Endurance Grand Prix has been extended to six hours, matching the format of the original Road America National Endurathon on its 70th anniversary, and making it the fourth of five rounds in the Michelin Endurance Cup.
“It’s no secret that I have a personal passion for Road America, and when I was a kid, it was a 500-mile race for decades and decades,” IMSA President John Doonan noted when the 2026 schedule was announced. “What you’re seeing is newness and excitement for the audience, the fans, and tremendous flexibility with the promoter partners to say, ‘Let’s shuffle it up a little bit.’
“Road America has the infrastructure, and my hope would be that by putting on a 6-hour, we burst the seams of the space there like they have been the last several years,” he added. “I think that maybe we’ll make more than 500 miles in six hours.”
Using Road America’s 4.048-mile current official length, that would require 124 laps – or 501.952 miles to be exact. Last year’s two-hour, 40-minute race overall winner completed 66 laps. Since the 2014 unification, the greatest number of laps covered by an overall winner at Road America is 83 in 2019 by a Mazda DPi.
Road America president and general manager Mike Kertscher is also excited about the expansion of this year’s event, predicting the track’s bucolic grounds will be packed with campers.
“We haven’t done a long endurance race in quite some time, but we’re excited to get back to it and see what it does,” Kertscher said. “I know thus far our sales are really healthy and camping looks exceptional. It’s a match made in heaven and families are coming out to support it. We’re excited to hopefully kick it out of the park.”
The Motul SportsCar Endurance Grand Prix features an expanded field of 54 cars, spread fairly equally through the WeatherTech Championship’s four classes.
“I’m just going to say it…Road America is my favorite track in the States,” remarked Nicky Catsburg, co-driver with Tommy Milner of the No. 4 Corvette Racing by Pratt Miller Motorsports Corvette Z06 GT3.R competing in the Grand Touring Daytona (GTD) PRO class. “Doing six hours there is great…I wish it could be eight hours! So I am looking forward to it. We have so many good tracks over the calendar, but Road America is right up there.”
“It’s one of the great tracks of the season, I must say,” added defending Road America winner Dries Vanthoor, who shared the victory in that 2-hour, 40-minute contest with Philipp Eng in the No. 24 BMW M Hybrid V8 in a 1-2 finish for BMW M Team RLL. This year, BMW M Team WRT fields the No. 24 and 25 BMWs, and Vanthoor’s No. 24 car ranks sixth in the Grand Touring Prototype (GTP) team standings with his 2026 co-driver Sheldon van der Linde.
“We’ve been having good and bad weekends throughout the season so far this year,” he said.“Looking into last year, Road America can maybe bring us some luck and be the turning point in the season for us.”
Jack Aitken and the No. 31 Cadillac Whelen Cadillac V-Series.R lead the GTP standings and he is coming off two consecutive race wins. The No. 31 Cadillac has won four of the past eight WeatherTech Championship races and in fact, the last time the Whelen car failed to make the podium was last year at Road America when Aitken and Bamber finished fourth.
Aitken says it’s business as usual at Road America despite the more than doubling of the race length as he and his teammates chase their ninth consecutive podium.
“It doesn’t affect you as much as you might think,” he observed. “The 2-hour, 40-minute races are long enough that you get multiple stops, so it’s not a huge amount.”
Aaron Telitz, who shares the No. 12 Vasser Sullivan Lexus RC F GT3 with Benjamin Pedersen, is a native of Birchwood, Wisconsin and lucky enough to call Road America his home track. He’s actually celebrating a 10-year milestone of when he won both Pro Mazda (now called USF Pro 2000) races at Road America on the same day in June 2016.
A decade later, the No. 12 duo ranks second in the Grand Touring Daytona standings, while Vasser Sullivan’s No. 14 Lexus driven by Ben Barnicoat and Jack Hawksworth is coming off consecutive GTD PRO class wins at Watkins Glen and Canadian Tire Motorsport Park in the Chevrolet Grand Prix.
“It’s always fun to have all the support there, and Road America is a great track for the Lexus historically,” said Telitz. “We’ve won there before and been on the podium multiple times, so it’s a good track for us and we seem to do well in the 6-hour races. It should be wild – a really, really great time.”
