If you listen closely, you can already hear Johnsonville meatpackers preparing brats, Sargento cheesemongers packaging curds, and New Glarus brewers bottling plenty of Spotted Cow in preparation for the April 13-14, 2024, Tire Rack SCCA® Time Trials National Tour Powered by Hagerty (TTNT) taking place in Wisconsin. This gathering will take place at Road America and also includes non-competitive, untimed Track Event (TE) sessions, making this #funwithcars for all.
This will be the inaugural visit for TTNT and its TE component to the famed – and recently resurfaced – 4.048-mile circuit sometimes referred to as America’s National Park of Speed. The 14-turn icon of U.S. motorsports is located just outside of Elkhart Lake, which is where you’ll also find the legendary Siebkens Stop-Inn Tavern – a “must visit” for motorsport fans.
But Wait...
Making this TTNT stop even more incredible is the fact that it’ll be a season opener for the North American Time Attack Championship (NATA), a challenge that combines SCCA, GRIDLIFE, and Global Time Attack drivers into a unified series.
Come season’s end, the top three NATA Championship finishers in each class earn a free entry to any organization they didn’t run with that year. If the driver competed in SCCA, GRIDLIFE, and Global Time Attack events in 2024, they get their pick of an entry. The top three finishers will also be featured in Grassroots Motorsports magazine. More about the NATA Championship can be learned by clicking here.
What’s most important right now is that this ludicrously awesome event will have an entry cap, and the window for registration is closing. Want to secure your spot? There’s a button for that...
The Playing Field
In the early 1950s, sports car races were run on streets in and around Elkhart Lake. When the state legislature banned racing on public roads, Clif Tufte pulled together a group of influential local citizens and SCCA Chicago Region leaders to foster plans for a permanent racecourse developed nearby on 525 acres of farmland.
The area’s naturally occurring Kettle Moraine topography was embraced, producing a course that swept around rolling hills and plunged through ravines. By Sept. 10, 1955, the track’s first SCCA National race weekend was held. To this very day, the circuit is virtually the same as it was back then and remains one of the world’s finest and most challenging road courses that has hosted top-tier professional racing series events for decades.
That said, since the Time Trials National Tour has never visited Road America before, there are no official TTNT lap records for the venue. However, some fast SCCA road racers have turned laps at Road America for more than half a century, and perhaps those lap times can let you imagine what’s possible.
GT-1 driver Ernie Francis Jr. turned a lap of 2:05.282 around Road America driving a tube-frame Ford Mustang during the 2020 SCCA National Championship Runoffs®. Touring 4 driver Chi Ho posted a lap of 2:37.881 around the circuit in a BMW 320i at the same event. And just last year, Spec Miata’s Charles Mactutus peeled off a lap of 2:41.571 on the track’s new surface.
Take A Lap
If you’re unfamiliar with Road America, or need a refresher, do we have a video for you: an onboard, wickedly fast “Lap Around Road America Presented by Hagerty” narrated by superstar driver Bill Auberlen. Extra kudos goes to Auberlen for recognizing Road America’s beauty along the way.
Playtime @ Road America
Saturday Track Event drivers will get four separate 25-minute sessions on course, which is an insane opportunity to absorb an amazing trip around an incredible circuit.
Time Trials National Tour competitors will open their day with two 25-minute practice sessions, followed by the first scored 25-minute TrackAttack segment after lunch. On-track action Saturday then concludes with a second round of 25-minute TrackAttack sessions for TTNT drivers prior to the evening’s Hagerty Social Dinner Party cookout.
On Sunday, TE drivers will again see four separate 25-minute sessions on the very long course. For TTNT competitors, there will be two 25-minute TrackAttack sessions, followed by another set of 25-minute TrackAttack sessions to complete scoring.
The KONI Podium Celebration then closes out what will have been an incredible experience. Review the entire TTNT and TE Road America event schedule by clicking the button below.
Photo by Jon Krolewicz
