Operating
Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course
Lexington, OH
2.258
Pro miles
13
Pro turns
40 ft
Min width
1962
Opened
Photo sources
Track photos only. Credits stay with the shooters.
Open files (Wikimedia Commons)
- 2024 Honda Indy 200 — YellowstoneTrinity, CC0
- Honda Indy 200, 2012 — redlegsfan21, CC BY-SA 2.0
- 2007 ALMS / Sports Car Challenge
- Rick Dikeman CART / Keyhole stills (Fittipaldi 1994, Villeneuve 1995, Rahal 1996) — CC0, files in MidOhio_Free_Photos
- All Commons files for this track
Do not use Pitt Race Commons files on this page.
“It’s really been like my home track.”
Bobby Rahal · IndyCar media conference, July 1, 2025
How to read this record
- Status — Operating / Closed / For sale describes the venue’s public state, not a campaign.
- Category — Road courses live under Road Courses. Dirt ovals and clay plants live under Dirt Courses.
- Three desks — Operator runs race days. Landowner holds the deed or lease. Land-use body is the city or township that zones the parcel. They are often three different names.
- Postal city ≠ government — Mailing brands (Clarkston, Rossburg, New Weston, etc.) are not always the zoning desk. Trust the town box on this page.
- Specs — When club figures and reviews disagree (turns, mileage), we print both. We do not invent a single number.
- Gifts — A donation to Save Tracks Dot Org Foundation funds this cited record. It does not buy land and is not a gift to the operator or landowner. (Example: OCSC at Waterford is a 501(c)(4) — gifts there are not 501(c)(3) deductible.)
- Corrections — Tip or source fix → Contact (topic: Correction / source).
Why this track matters
Ohio just lost Pitt Race. That leaves two purpose-built public road courses that regular people can actually get on: Nelson Ledges up near Garrettsville, and this hill. Nelson is two miles and seven turns of club pavement. Mid-Ohio is the national one. FIA Grade 2. IndyCar on the Fourth of July. A school that has put more than ninety thousand people through a Honda. You do not replace that with a parking lot in Delaware County.
Next places that rhyme with it: Road America, Watkins Glen, VIR, the Indianapolis road course. Fine tracks. Different Saturday. This one sits in the middle of the state so Cleveland and Columbus can both make it home. Geography again. Not a slogan.
Donations fund heritage education, not data-centers
What they built
Griebling wanted a course that kept you busy. He followed the land instead of flattening it. Original 1962 layout had sixteen turns and a left in what became Thunder Valley. Drivers said it was slow. 1963: Oak Tree Bend comes out, Thunder Valley goes in. Fifteen turns, 2.4 miles, clockwise. That line is still the club and motorcycle course.
1990. Michelle Trueman’s crew resurfaces and widens the ribbon to 40 feet, and cuts a path through the chicane between Turn 1 and the Keyhole. New option: 2.258 miles, 13 turns. IndyCar, IMSA, and NASCAR take the short way. Bikes and club racers take the long way. Both are still there.
2006. Full resurface. Concrete patches out. Kerbs standardized. New links at the Keyhole so you can run three configs, two at once. Short course 1.75 miles. Half-mile oval for bikes and autocross.
October 2023. Full racing-surface repave.
2024. Turn 4 rebuilt. Banking cut from 4 degrees to 2. China Beach runoff graded level with the track. New access roads. Catch basins. Green Savoree paid for it with Kokosing, Arcadis, Dallara, and the National Bank of Indianapolis. This is not a plant they are letting rot.
The numbers
- Property: about 380 acres
- Pro course: 2.258 miles / 13 turns
- Club and bike course: 2.400 miles / 15 turns
- Also: 1.75-mile short course, 0.5-mile oval, 0.7-mile rallycross (2019)
- Width: 40 feet minimum
- Pit lane: 1,001 feet by 60 feet, 28 pits
- Elevation change: published figures run 136–180 feet
- Capacity: 12,000 bleachers, mounds past 75,000
- FIA Grade 2
- IndyCar record: Will Power, 1:05.260 (2016)
Named corners people actually talk about: Turn 1, the chicane, the Keyhole, Thunder Valley, Madness, the Carousel.
Three owners in sixty-four years. The gates still open.
The school
The Mid-Ohio School opened in 1993 so the place was not only a weekend circus. Honda came on in 1994. Teen defensive driving is the cornerstone. High-performance, racing, and motorcycle track-riding sit on the same hill.
2026 numbers from the track: 90,160 graduates. 25,988 of them teenagers. 24,934 motorcyclists.
Local racing scene
This is Ohio’s national road course. Club weekends still fill the calendar, more than twenty of them from April to October, on top of the spectator weekends. SCCA parked the Runoffs here from 1994 through 2005, then again in 2016. NASA has run championships here. When Pitt Race closed, this is the place those calendars lean on.
Who uses the place
2026 spectator weekends
- IMSA — June 5–7
- SVRA — June 12–14
- IndyCar Honda Indy 200 — July 3–5
- AMA Vintage Motorcycle Days — July 24–26
- MotoAmerica — July 31–Aug. 2
The résumé
- CART 1980, 1983–2003 — first winner Johnny Rutherford, 1980
- IndyCar 2007–present — Scott Dixon has seven wins here
- SCCA Runoffs 1994–2005, 2016
- Trans-Am through 2025
History
1962. Les Griebling opens Mid-Ohio.
1981. Jim Trueman buys it.
1985–86. Bobby Rahal wins here. Trueman dies in 1986. Barbara and Michelle take the keys.
1993. The school. Honda in 1994.
2011. Green and Savoree buy it.
2023–24. Full repave. Turn 4 rebuilt.
2026. Sixty-fifth season. Gates still open.
What’s next
Nothing is for sale that we can see. Green Savoree is still pouring asphalt. Honda is still on the school cars and the IndyCar weekend. Pitt Race taught the sequence. Mid-Ohio is the track you document before that letter arrives.
The town that hosts it
Land-use decisions for Mid-Ohio sit with Troy Township, Morrow County, not with the Village of Lexington and not with SaveTheTracks. Troy runs its own zoning. No public township events RSS exists yet — use the set meeting date and contacts below.
Land-use body & zoning
Troy Township · Morrow County, Ohio
Township Hall · 7608 County Road 37, Lexington, OH
Zoning Inspector / Fiscal Officer — Ron Timmons
419-564-4815
troytwp.morrow@gmail.com
Trustees: Tim Raney · Michael W. Heston · David A. Baker
- Morrow County zoning contacts
- Township trustee roster
- County zoning desk · 419-946-1911 · 80 N Walnut St, Suite C, Mount Gilead, OH
- Official gate — midohio.com
- The Mid-Ohio School
Set meetings & calendar
Trustees: first Monday each month, 7:00 PM
Township Hall · 7608 County Road 37, Lexington, OH
Confirm the next date with Ron Timmons before you drive. Troy Township does not publish a public events calendar or RSS feed.
- Ask the zoning inspector for hearing notices and variance calendars
- County zoning office can confirm which body covers a parcel if the map is unclear
We publish the public record. We do not lobby the board.
Help keep this record public
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