A pace car at Road America displays the specialty license plate, personalized with the message “GOFAST.”
Wisconsin lets fans display their love for the Milwaukee Brewers, Green Bay Packers and Milwaukee Bucks on their license plates.
So why not create a plate for car people who celebrate Road America’s motor sports traditions?
A “very dedicated season pass holder” and a few of their friends brought that idea to Michael Kertscher, the president and general manager of Road America. Next came a $15,500 fee to start the application for a new license plate, then season pass-holders got to work collecting the required 500 signatures.
“We literally had those in about a day,” Kertscher said. “People were just off-the-walls supportive of it, and the rest is history … Within the first few weeks of the plates actually being available, the state ran out of material for our plate. It was like a feeding frenzy.”
The Road America plate features an outline of its four-mile, 14-turn track. The course is in the rolling hillside of Kettle Moraine near Elkhart Lake. Over 500 events are hosted on the grounds each year, along with car clubs like BMW and Porsche. There are special perks for fans who have the license plates, like getting to drive at the front of the pack during Road America’s sunset cruise events.
Over 32,000 Road America plates were on the road in 2024 — even more than the Packers, Brewers and Bucks plates, according to a Journal Sentinel analysis. Despite debuting only three years ago, it’s already the most popular specialty plate available to the general public in Wisconsin.
More: These Wisconsin specialty license plates were the most popular in 2024
“We’ve been creeping up the leaderboard for a couple years,” Kertscher said. “It’s pretty cool to see where it’s gone. (It’s) truly a special honor.”
Simple ‘blackout’ plate design has surged in popularity elsewhere
One reason why the plate is so popular? The black background with white lettering matches any vehicle, Kertscher said. They had the color scheme in mind “from the get-go.”
“Especially for those that are immersed in car culture, the aesthetic of their vehicle is like an expression of who they are,” he said. “People here care very much about the look and feel of their particular automobiles, and we wanted to provide something that goes with anything.”
Elkhart Lake’s Road America specialty license plate debuted in 2021.
The universal appeal of the plate also helps Road America reach new demographics. Kertscher has heard stories of people who find Road America because they get the plate for its design, then decide to check out the facility.
Similar plates with a black background and simple white lettering — called “blackout” plates — have surged in popularity in other states. In Iowa, they generated nearly $2 million in just a few months and often went out of stock.
A bill that proposed creating blackout plates in Wisconsin got a public hearing last year, but time ran out to get it to a vote, said Rep. Paul Melotik, a Republican from Grafton. He first heard about the idea from a constituent, who saw the plates in Iowa.
Melotik reintroduced the bill in early 2025, asking lawmakers to co-sponsor it by Jan. 22. He doesn’t anticipate any concerns if the state offers a second black-and-white design, because the Road America plate would still be available. Road America officials say they don’t have any issues with a separate blackout plate, either.
“The assumption is that people that get (Road America plates) would still get them, that are Road America fans,” Melotik said. “This would be more for people that just like the plain design of the Iowa plates, the black-and-white design. It’s something that people would want, and it also would help the road budget.”
The state Department of Transportation generated an estimate based on Iowa’s numbers and predicted demand could reach 700,000 sets of plates over three years in Wisconsin. That would generate about $17.5 million in revenue for the state transportation fund.
The high demand would “create a significant new fiscal burden on (the Division of Motor Vehicles) to both manufacture and mail the plates,” the DOT said at the hearing. Producing black-and-white plates costs more, it said, because multiple coats of white paint are needed.
The bill authored by Melotik and Sen. Cory Tomczyk, a Republican from Mosinee, proposes putting the $25 fee toward the initial production costs — a “considerate approach to handling the financial aspects of the initiative,” the lawmakers said.
More: ‘Blackout’ license plates, popular in Iowa and Minnesota, could hit the road in Wisconsin
Road America considering new plate, but keeping original colors important
The DMV usually orders about 500 plates of a new design to get it started, said Monica Worzala, Special Plate Unit Supervisor at the DMV. She works with groups like Road America on new plate designs.
“That was one of the first times we went through an entire roll immediately. It was very, very popular,” Worzala said. That also happened recently with the Ice Age Trail Alliance plate, which debuted in 2023.
When material sold out for the plate, the DMV asked Road America to let fans know through social media there would be a delay to get the plate, Kertscher said.
“I really do enjoy the work that I do and seeing the plates out there,” Worzala said. “I’ve been very excited that some of the newer plates have been doing really well.”
Unlike most other specialty designs, Road America’s plate does not require a $25 annual donation to the organization. Kertscher said Road America is “actively looking” at trying to create a different plate or transition the current plate to include that donation and funnel it to nonprofits it supports through other events.
Worzala confirmed the DMV is exploring how that would work, because modifying a special plate has never been done before. New plate proposals are posted on the DMV’s website for 30 days, allowing the public to weigh in, and the current Road America plate has already gone through that approval process.
But fans shouldn’t worry too much about a massive overhaul of the popular black-and-white design.
“Any business, you develop that brand, that look and feel, it’s awfully hard to sway away from that. I think we’d want to keep that, if possible,” Kertscher said. “The plate is pretty iconic.”
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Why is the Road America license plate so popular in Wisconsin?