miracle mile fatality

This morning's News Journal: "The miracle mile has been a trouble spot for city police for years because of people cruising."
That's true because the city administration has flip-flopped on enforcement over the years, and the police have been caught in the middle. In the early 1990s cruising, primarily in cars, not only involved the miracle mile, but extended all along Park Avenue West in the city. At some point in time after the drag racing fatality in 1993 police cracked down on trespassing in the parking lots lining the miracle mile.
I think the cruising started to come back with the advent of the bike race weekend at Mid-Ohio. That annual event has drawn increasing numbers of motorcyclists and administration policy shifted toward trying to keep a lid on the miracle mile insanity without discouraging it. There's been a police presence and a lot of tickets written, but no effort to shut it down.
The extent of what is tolerated is evident each year after the bike weekend by the condition of the pavement on the mile; not just burned rubber, but even melted pavement.
Coinciding with the increase number of high performance bikes and the advent of the bike weekend phenomenon, has been a shift toward "celebrating the automobile" by businesses on the mile as a way to bring people and business back to the stretch. This shift has helped drive the administrations approach. The trouble is, the old cruising problem...kids in cars making the loop, gathering in parking lots, occasional fights...was tame compared to the problem the high performance motorcycles have brought to the strip.