For years Mid-Ohio Sport Car Course has been a favorite track of riders on the AMA Superbike calendar. The Mid-Ohio event draws tens of thousands of enthusiastic fans every year, and riders find the 2.4-mile, 15-turn road course fun yet challenging, due in part to bumps, tall curbing and rough transitions onto and off of concrete patches in many of the corners. During the off-season, Mid-Ohio completely resurfaced the road course, removing the concrete patches from the corners, adding new curbing and even increasing the run-off area in fast turn one. The renovation work, however, was found to be less than a complete success by top AMA riders who tested at the Ohio racetrack earlier this summer. The feedback they gave Roadracingworld.com was the new surface was smooth and grippy when dry, resulting in much faster lap times, but the brand new pavement already had patches of sealer in corners, which did not provide the same level of dry grip and were extremely slippery when wet with rain or even morning dew. In addition, the new curbs were said to be unusually shaped, rising sharply from the track at an abrupt, almost vertical angle. And the curbs were said to be tall enough to contact the brake levers of bikes leaned over in the corners. At the request of the AMA riders, Mid-Ohio reshaped all of the curbs around the track within the last few weeks. The factory riders who tested at Mid-Ohio won’t get a second look at the track until Friday morning, but most non-factory riders got to experience the new Mid-Ohio surface for the first time during Thursday’s promoter practice. And most liked what they saw. “I like it. It’s good,” said Attack Kawasaki’s Damon Buckmaster after a stint on his Dunlop-equipped ZX-10R Superstock bike. “I think the sealer patches are fine. They have plenty of grip. It’s good to see they got the curbings graded down. They look a little course, but at least the grooves run with the grain (flow) of the track. The only thing is we don’t know what the sealer patches will be like in the wet.” “It’s great. The surface is awesome,” said Team M4 EMGO Suzuki’s Geoff May, who rode both a Supersport GSX-R600 and a Superstock GSX-R1000 on Pirelli tires Thursday. “Even with the sealer patches, when it’s clean and dry, the grip is consistent everywhere. I’m glad to see they brought the curbs down to a normal height, but they need to smooth them out. Right now they are like lava rock, and they grab at my knee pucks. I drag my elbows some times, and I’m worried about snagging them on the curbs.” “It’s perfectly smooth, but the sealer is the big problem,” said Leo Vince/Pegram Racing Honda’s Larry Pegram, after sampling the track on his Michelin-fitted CBR1000RR Superbike. “There’s no grip on the sealer patches, especially in the Keyhole and the Carousel. Anywhere there’s sealer it’s squirmy. It feels like a slick garage floor. And the curbs are a little rough and grab at your pucks. Overall, it’s way better than it used to be. I just wish they wouldn’t have put the sealer down.”