The Irish Hills: Lenawee's lake-dotted playground (with a superspeedway)

Northwest Lenawee County rumples into the Irish Hills — glacial knobs and kettle lakes that Irish settlers swore looked like home — and for a century Michiganders have agreed it looks like vacation. Dozens of lakes dot the hills, ringed with cottages and small resorts; US-12, one of America’s oldest roads, rolls through carrying its museum of vintage roadside attractions; and W.J. Hayes State Park keeps a public beach on Wamplers Lake for everyone who didn’t inherit a cottage.

Then, on more than 1,400 acres in Cambridge Township, the hills do something completely different: Michigan International Speedway, the two-mile superspeedway where NASCAR has thundered since 1968. Race weekends turn the countryside into one of Michigan’s largest cities for a few days — campers, cookouts, 180-mph afternoons — and then the hills go back to fishing. Quiet lakes most of the year, the fastest place in Michigan twice a summer: that’s a county with range.