>>> WOSU's Curious Cbus answers your questions about our region, its history, and its people.

Columbus may not be the first city that comes to mind when you think of auto racing, but it has a rich motorsports history.

One curious viewer wrote in to ask about this high-octane heritage.

From the high-speed thrills of the Columbus 500 to the legendary Columbus Motor Speedway, this city has played an important role in the shaping of American racing.

To learn more we spoke with racing legend, Bobby Rahal.

>>> The history of motor racing in the state of Ohio goes way back, you know, really probably as far back as Indiana and Indianapolis in itself.

That's only because there was a lot of public interest in any kind of racing.

Ohio might have had maybe six, eight dirt tracks of varying types for that kind of racing.

Then you had sports car racing Mid-Ohio.

I think its first year was 1962 or 63.

You know, you had the Put-in-Bay races.

They raced in the late 50s.

Now that was more of a road circuit, as was Mid-Ohio, but, you know, there were a lot of, there was a lot of racing activity.

I also think in part because you had in Akron, the tire companies who were heavily involved in motorsport pre-World War II.

You know, they used to race, for example, on the airports in the 1950s.

Prior to that, they would race on the public road.

But after a number of incidents at various places around the country, that was banned.

And so now permanent circuits like Mid-Ohio had to be built.

You had National Trail Raceway on the east side, you know, out near Newark with drag racing.

You had, of course, the Columbus Speedway.

Every car dealer had a team or somebody who was associated with that car dealership.

Every auto parts store had a car or was involved in it.

I mean, it was, it truly was grassroots and so you had a lot of participation, whether it was people who were actually doing the driving or working on the cars or it was just people that were just there to watch the cars, you know, be entertained.

And racing is very much entertainment.

As a result, it was able to write a great story of, even though it was more of a local racetrack, where you didn't have really what I would call major league races there, but being local, it had such a huge impact on the community as a whole.

And so consequently it had a long run.

The Columbus 500 was a significant race because it brought IMSA European-style racing.

Into the streets of Columbus, Ohio.

And it, over the course of five years, managed to attract drivers from all over the world.

Some of the best drivers in the world came to the streets in Columbus and competed for a trophy that was highly sought after.

Unfortunately, of course, its time was due, but for five years it put Columbus on the map internationally.

And of course for me personally, winning that race in 1987, being a Dublin resident, that was a big deal.

There were a number of drivers that were in central Ohio who achieved a fair amount of real professional success in many years.

There was a fellow named Bob Johnson.

Bob Johnson drove for the Cobra team that began in the early 60s.

Bob Johnson was a major league racer in sports car racing.

Don Sessler, Porsche driver, a lot of success.

A guy named Chuck Dietrich, came up in Sandusky, very, very successful driver for many, many years.

It wasn't just the tracks, there were named drivers that lived in Ohio as a result of that, that generated a lot of interest aside from the tracks and aside from cars.

The passion for motor racing, I think is as strong today in the Columbus area as it's ever been.

It's just that people have to go elsewhere to satisfy that passion.

You know even, even when National Trail Raceways was shut down, which I was surprised because that was such a popular event for drag racing.

I was surprised, but Mid-Ohio is kind of the survivor in all of this.

And I know they've invested a lot of money over this last off-season to make it even better for everybody involved.

So I think that the passion, the fervor for racing is as strong today in the Columbus area that ever was and I don't see that going away.

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