Road Racers converge on Put-in-Bay to relive history

PUT-IN-BAY — Both fans and racers themselves got the chance to relive history in exhilarating fashion during the past several days for the seventh annual Put-in-Bay Road Races Reunion.

Rich Hahn, a Put-in-Bay resident, told spectators that the event has been so embraced by the community that it just keeps growing to the point it could even reach a logistical limit for the small, humble island of South Bass.

“It’s humbling to see the embrace that has happened to this event,” Hahn said.

Hahn raced his 1972 Triumph Spitfire this year, and though he ran into some engine problems, it was a minor price to pay for the chance to be a part of such rich history.

Although the Road Races Reunion in its seventh year, the event is a celebration and re-creation of the famous historical road races held on the island back in the mid- to late 1950s.

It is one of few places where many of the same roads used as tracks for the races from more than half a century ago are still around and available for drivers, albeit at much slower speeds nowadays.

“There are still enough people that their parents remembered it,” Hahn said. “Then they come up here and they see some of the history that’s been relived.”

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