Race day! Learning from the mistakes of the previous day, we cleverly left the car in the hotel parking lot, and walked over to the lakeside area. First stop, the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
There's not much to say about the R&RHOF - it's exactly what you'd expect. Lots of old music-related crap, in display cases. Not a glowing recommendation, to be sure, but it wasn't that bad. The big exhibit was 'The Psychedelic Era: 1966-1969', so the place was chock-full of San Francisco memorabilia. There was more to see than we had time (3 1/2 hrs) to see it in, so that's a good thing.
Basically, what I'm saying here is "If you're in Cleveland - leave! If that's not possible, then you might as well see the R&RHOF, 'cause what else are you going to do in Cleveland? But I wouldn't go out of my way to get to either of 'em."
The R&R thing would up taking away all of the pre-race free-time, so once again we didn't get to tour the pit & paddock area. Pity, as it's a pretty keen place to be. As it was, we were barely able to get to our seats before the main race started. To summarize the race: This guy (Alex Zanardi) started on pole, got pushed to the back of the pack on a penalty, then passed everyone to regain the lead and win. If he hadn't been penalized, it would've been a boring race, as he would've just run away from the rest of the field. As it was, it was quite exciting.
Race Note: Should you find yourself wanting to go to see a race live, go see a race at an oval track. At most road courses you won't be able to see the whole track from any one place. Also, there's a lot to be said for having a permanent facility - the seats are better, and you can get closer to the action (due to more serious fencing and such).
Once the race was over, we walked back to the hotel, hopped in the car, said "That's enough of you, Cleveland!", and headed south for Dayton.
We got to Dayton around 8pm, and while you wouldn't expect most cities to be 'hopping' at 8pm on a Sunday night, it was painfully clear that Dayton never hops. It's a dump - not run-down in a Chicago (or North Philly) sense, more sort of abandoned out of boredom. Tons of vacant storefronts. The nicest building we saw was a U.S. Bankruptcy Courthouse, which was slightly ominous, and probably not a mere coincidence.
The less-than-happening nature of Dayton was particularly distressing, because John had become fixated on going to Skyline Chili (a chain in southern Ohio) and getting some "5-way". Our trusty Roadfood book told us that this would be a good thing, and it's rarely wrong about such matters. Unfortunately, this was not to be, as everything in Dayton was already closed. Like so many travelers before us, we were Bob Evans-bound...
After an adequate meal (though John would probably describe it as 'non-fatal'), we stopped at the oddly named Deja Brew1 sports bar, but it was so not-happening that we immediately left, retiring to the local Days Inn.
1. Not bad, but I would've called it Brew Ha Ha...