The Grand Am racing series returned this week to the Road America course in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin, after a ten year absence. Both the Continental Tire Challenge and Rolex sports car series will run on the 4-mile permanent road course there this weekend.

Road America was carved out of 525 acres of Wisconsin farmland, with the historic circuit remaining largely unchanged since it opened in 1955. Similar to Watkins Glen International, races were held on the streets of the village of Elkhart Lake from 1950 through 1952 before the permanent circuit was built.

The Wisconsin weather has been less than welcoming so far, with rain on Wednesday and Thursday, as well as cool and misty conditions today. Several off course excursions have been recorded in all classes, so when Alex Gurney was asked to take a few laps for Grand Am’s video crew, he chose to use the Camaro SS Pace Car.

Even with that, the Thursday conditions were enough that Gurney got loose at least once during the session. Son of legendary racer Dan Gurney, who was first driver to win races in NASCAR, Formula One and IndyCars Series in their career, Alex is a two-time Champion in the Daytona Prototype class of Rolex series racing.

When the green flag falls on Saturday at noon, Banner Racing, Stevenson Motorsports and Autohaus Motorsports will all be running Camaro GT.R entries in the GT-class. John Heinricy, a former lead engineer at GM, will join Eric Curran in the #31 Marsh Racing Corvette for this event. The Rolex series race will be televised live on SPEED.