On the eastern edge of the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course sits a red-roofed farmhouse. Built in 1901 and visible from the track itself, the horse farm and its out-buildings have quietly watched as 50-plus years of world-class racing screamed past its fields.

No doubt the owners of this tidy farm on Texter Road were thrilled – just downright overjoyed! – when, in 1962, some local businessmen decided to carve a racetrack out of this rolling farmland near Lexington, Ohio. So much for Midwestern serenity: weekends were now filled with Porsches and Lolas and MGAs screaming down the straightaways and around the curves just beyond the pasture.  Before long, Ken Miles and Skip Barber and Jim Hall were showing up, bringing with them crowds of racing fans drawn by the spectacle. In 1967, the farm’s residents couldn't help but hear as Mark Donohue took the checkered flag for Roger Penske Racing in a Lola T70 MkIIIB.

Roger Penske was back at Mid-Ohio for the umpteenth time in May, 2018, this time at the helm of a Penske Acura program tasked with campaigning a pair of ARX prototypes.

With American Honda Motor Company headquartered just down the road in Marysville, Mid-Ohio is home for the Penske Acura team and this familiarity payed off: Helio Castroneves and Ricky Taylor took first place overall, followed a close second by Juan Pablo Montoya and Dane Cameron. Alvaro Parente and Katherine Legge snagged second place in their GTD class in a Meyer Shank Racing NSX. 

Through all of this – through the noise and smoke and roars from the crowd – affairs at the farmhouse proceeded much as they had for the past 117 years, undisturbed by the commotion.

 

Photography by Shaik Ridzwan for The Mighty Motor