I had heard of Glenwood, Iowa's Mid America Motorplex since it opened several years ago and had sworn to get over the it some day since it's less than two hours away. MAM (as it's referred to) is a racing complex ploughed out of a corn field. It includes a 2.23 mile road course, a quarter-mile drag strip and a planned karting track. Check out their Web site at http://www.midamericamotorplex.com.

A fellow "band parent" tuned me into the SCCA's Regional/National qualifiers held in the middle of August. The family and I loaded up the van and set out on a surprising adventure.

The first surprise was the facility. I had no idea what to expect of MAM, but couldn't have asked for anything better. The large paddock area was full of hardcore SCCA drivers with their motorhomes and trailers. Some obviously had friends and family in tow to act as crews. This was not set up as a spectator event, so the price ($0) was right.

We headed to the grandstands for our next surprises. First, we passed by the concession and restroom area. For being the in middle of a dusty cornfield, the concessions were nice and neat. We later found the restrooms amazing clean. Someone really worked at making this place nice.

We climbed the grandstands that run along the pits. They happen to be just before the main straight, and are situated so that you can see most of the entire 2+ miles of track. The course has a great variety of turns, 15 in all. There are a couple challenging esses, a long, sweeping 180, and a couple sharper, tighter turns. The main straight is over 2,000 feet, so the car's really have a chance to get up and go.

We got in just in time for the last two of six practice sessions. I won't even pretend to be an SCCA class expert here. These last two practices features a number of "spec" cars, as well as a few vintage racers. A Datsun 510 was among the classics. It's driver was parked next to our van in the paddock area, so we spent the lunch break watching him reassemble his wheels.

The first race was held right before a scheduled lunch break. About 40 cars took to the track (no, really 40), including a slug of 25 or so Mazda Miatas, a Viper, a couple 'Vettes, 'Stangs and a Camaro.

The Miatas kept the race interesting because they ran pretty much in packs, even dukin' it out on the esses right in front of us. They'd get a couple wide right in front of us, and even more daring on other parts of the track.

The Viper provided the most excitement as it rolled in the pits billowing smoke from under the driver. The safety crew quickly pulled the driver away and doused the flames. Apparently, the exhaust had ignited something on along the side of the car.

We had planned ahead enough to take a picnic, so we sat by the van for the hour-and-a-half lunch break. Following lunch, we caught the three remaining class groups that we hadn't seen in practice. The first was light in drivers, but the second included a number of smaller Formula cars (Vee, Ford and others). The last race we watched was great since it included larger Formula Mazda and Atlantic vehicles. Knowing that these are the cars that feed CART and IRL made them exciting to watch.

While there were a couple tense moments during some of the races, it was clear that these guys had their lives wrapped up in their cars. They raced hard, but carefully. You could see them push their noses under other drivers when they saw their openings, but rarely enough to trade paint.

One of the Formula drivers snapped an axle. I saw him in the little boys room after the race and all he said was, "F^@&!". No owner or sponsor was going to pick up the tab for this one.

One added bonus was the Offutt AFB air show. The grandstands faced directly the the airfield that was about 10 miles away. We saw a B-17 flyover, a B-2 display, what I believe to be an A-10 and the Air Force's Thunderbirds. It's awesome seeing their vertical bomb-burst maneuver from that far down range.