Our annual trip to Road America for the XPEL Grand Prix IndyCar racing weekend is behind us and once again, it was a memorable weekend! We start planning in September every year and it seems like it takes forever to get here and then all of a sudden it’s over! 🥹 My husband and I have been long time racing fans, in fact, we spent our honeymoon at Road America for an IndyCar race back in 2000. Never did we think our children would love the track as much as we do but are so thankful that they joined us again this year!
The event runs Thursday through Sunday, but we usually like to drive out on Wednesday and stay off track that night so that the next morning we can get to the track, nice and early. The last couple of years we’ve rented an RV, which was delivered to our campsite, making it convenient for both set up purposes and just being able to be on-track nonstop the entire weekend. However, camping comes with its own set of challenges, and after our second year of attempting it, I think we’ve all decided that we are just not camping people. So next year, we are going to try to get a rental at one of the resorts in Elkhart Lake, which is the small town about 10 minutes from the track.
Road America is about five and a half hours from the Twin Cities. Much of Wednesday was spent driving, with our usual lunchtime stop at a Culver’s along the way. We spent Wednesday evening in Sheboygan and stayed at the Harbor Winds Hotel which is right on the river that leads out to Lake Michigan. We had dinner at Harry’s Prohibition Bistro, which has excellent food and pasta. We enjoyed a couple of pizzas and pastas, and splurged on a bottle of Barolo and saved room for Limoncello shots to finish off our meal. Afterwards, we walked to the ice cream shop a bit further down for dessert, stopped for another drink (more Limoncello shots and Lambrusco) and walked out on the pier a bit before heading back for a nightcap at the hotel. It’s kinda fun having adult kids to enjoy dinner & drinks with!
The next morning, the kids packed up early and headed to the track to wait in line to be one of the first to get in. Mark and I headed to Aldi to buy some supplies for the weekend and then join them. Last year we had the RV delivered around 10 AM on Thursday but this year (for whatever reason-still unknown to us) that did not happen. Our RV did not show up until late afternoon (after many calls, texts and emails) and that was a big frustration for us all. However, one of the highlights and probably one thing we will always do is renting a golf cart for the weekend. When you purchase tickets for the weekend, you can also reserve a golf cart for Friday through Sunday. If you want to add on Thursday, it’s an additional cost and it’s kind of ridiculous to think of how much we spent renting that thing but honestly, we use it constantly and it’s truly worth every penny (or in today’s terms dollar). 🤑
Racing events start right away on Thursday and continue into the evening on Sunday, even after the big race. We spent most of our time on the golf cart driving around the track. Road America has 640 acres of land and the track is 4.048 miles long, so you can imagine how fun it is to traverse in a golf cart! It is also rated as one of the best tracks in the United States and honestly, I haven’t been to any others and I am afraid I am ruined because of it. 🤩 It truly is a spectators track, as there are so many different turns you can watch racing at along with food stands, shopping and other fun things to participate in throughout the weekend.
After spending most of the day Thursday at the track, driving around to all our favorite spots, and waiting for the RV to arrive, which when it finally did, and we were able to unload our car, we headed into Elkhart Lake to the welcome party hosted by Siebken’s. This was the first time we had gone for this event and it was actually pretty fun. They have a little car show, a band playing and then later a few drivers show up for “celebrity bartending”. We were all pretty tired and ready to sit down and enjoy a nice dinner so we skipped out on that and went into Pam’s for dinner on their screened in porch. We ordered the maple glazed carrots and a caesar salad to share before our entrees. I had the Lasagna which seems strange to eat on a Summer evening, but the server talked it up with having their braised short ribs in it and it did not disappoint. Mark found a bottle of wine from the Andretti Winery on the wine list (to which he used to have a delivery subscription for-sadly it no longer exists) and we all enjoyed that. The night ended a bit early as a good old fashioned summer storm rolled in. We enjoyed watching it from the safety of the screened in porch, however we did move inside for dessert.
A couple of our favorite spots to watch racing….turn five and this little known spot at the top of the hill as the cars can either come into pit or continue down the main straight. One of the spots you can get pretty close to the cars going by at 100+ miles an hour! This year we spent a lot of time down in Canada corner, along with watching the race on Sunday from the “north pole” which is across the track from Canada corner. If you watched the race, you’ll remember the final lap where one of the drivers went off the track in a crash and we were in the bleachers just above that. It was exciting to say the least! Here’s a video someone next to us took:
Once back at the track that first night, we gave Dominic the golf cart to take to his campsite for the night, which is something we did every night. He has always chosen to camp instead of staying with us in the RV. The kids had wanted to decorate the golf cart this year and Gabby having done her senior thesis with a racing them, had this fun “mirror-ball” helmet so that was the inspiration for this years design. The lights at night were the best part! Although other campers thought we were the police 😂 Please enjoy this video as much as we did in real life! 🪩✨💖
The next morning, we headed down to the Paddock area and ordered breakfast from The Gear Box. An “Egger” is a longtime favorite and mine with bacon was perfect! We also had their BB Egger (brisket) and the Brat Egger (brat) along with french toast sticks, hamburgers and other items throughout the weekend. This is a favorite spot to stop because it’s at the beginning of the main road that leads into the Paddock area.
One of the best parts of Road America is how you can pretty much go everywhere. Walking pit lane is one of our most favorite things to do and we always manage to run into drivers etc. along the way! It’s incredible how up close and personal you can get with the cars, drivers and teams here at Road America. These pictures are from this and last year…😎
Last year we packed so much food and drink and barely touched any of it, that this year we packed just some basics, planning on hitting up as many food stands as we could. But as the days went on, our meal timing’s were always off a bit so we didn’t get to eat as many things as we had wanted to. However we were happy to be able to have s’mores one night!
Another favorite part of the weekend is the Vintage Indy events. They have a static display where you can view the vintage cars up close and then a couple times over the weekend, usually at the end of the day, they get a few of them out on the track.
🏎️ Probably our favorite part of this years trip was surprising Mark with a ride along in a two-seater IndyCar. He should have been a race car driver and he loved every second of his two minute ride around the track! I set up myself at the start/finish of where he went out and then the kids positioned themselves at favorite spots on the track; Gabby was at turn 9 in the Carousel area, Dom hit both turns 5 and then once he passed there, drove over to the top of the hill just past Canada corner. The following video is from Gabby, who actually recorded the first two-seater crashing out. It was wild…the text she sent me was “failure on my end…car crashed, not Dad’s”. ❤️
😍 Much of my weekend was spent sitting in the golf cart, watching my family like this. I love seeing the excitement in their eyes, watching them take it all in. Having adult kids is such a wonderful thing…having ones who love doing the same things together is priceless!
And that is a wrap on the 2026 IndyCar race weekend at Road America! As we pulled away from our site this year, looking back at the RV and the golf cart, we thought “maybe we should do the RV thing again next year…”
💖 Shawn
Who Eats Like This?! 