Nelson Ledges Race Course
The Nelson Ledges Race Course is a fast-to-drive, 2-mile (3.21-km) raceway located at Garrettsville, Ohio, an hour drive east of Cleveland and Akron, two of the most populated cities in the Buckeye State. The track stands from the 1950s in the middle of a rural landscape, when local farmers and motor enthusiasts from the surroundings started racing on a 1-mile dirt track, with a different layout that turned right at four and connected directly into turn 11. The owner of the land, Marvin Drucker, paved the race track in 1964 and extended the layout to the one in use nowadays in 1970. Nelson Ledges was the first road course that implemented tire barriers as a safety measure, bringing them to the site from the nearby Goodyear manufacturing plant in Akron.
There are 13 turns in the Nelson Ledges 2-miler, almost all of them easy to take sweepers, a feature that stimulates drivers to push the gas pedal as much as they can. Only the Oak Tree and the Carousel, a pair of closed-angle turns coming one after the other, and turn number 13, at the end of the circuit, require heavy maneuvering from the racers. The Nelson Ledges Race Course is one of the fastest circuits in America, with an average speed of 97 mph (156 km/h), so lapping around it on open days is a must for all the speed lovers around the area.
