When you drive down a two lane road did you ever think whose idea it was to put white lines down the center of the road? Well it was invented right here in Michigan by Edward Hines in 1911 who at the time was a Wayne County road commissioner. The first road it was used on was Trenton’s River Road to keep two directions of traffic separate.

Where did the idea come from? The Michigan Department of Transportation said he got the idea from watching a leaky milk wagon leave a white trail down a dusty road.

Not only is Michigan home to the automobile industry but now you know it is home to the white center road line.

This article written by Mike Brudenell appeared in The Detroit Free Press on Friday October 28th.

The next person who tells you Detroit stinks and Michigan is irrelevant, please slap them.
Better yet, remind them of the baseball playoffs, a Monday night football victory, Hockeytown and two schools contending for the Big Ten football championship.

I’ve had enough of the trash-talking about Motown and the state, and I’m sure you have, too.
Next summer, southeast Michigan will have another reason to feel good.
Detroit, along with Brooklyn in the rolling Irish Hills, will host a “triple crown” of motor sports that would be the envy of almost any other community.

In June, Michigan International Speedway will hold the first of its two NASCAR Sprint Cup weekends, and the IZOD Indy Car Series will return to Detroit for the Grand Prix on Belle Isle.

In July, the APBA Gold Cup unlimited hydroplane event will be held on the Detroit River.
I’ve done some checking — and feel free to correct me if I’m wrong — and I don’t know of any region but Indiana that features a Cup race, an Indy Car event and an Air National Guard H1 Unlimited Hydroplane date within a distance of 80 miles or so of each other.

It’s something everyone should embrace around here, even if your favorite sport may be basketball, hockey, baseball or football.

It’s also something for the travel industry to promote, for Lansing to back and for Detroit and its businesses, including GM, to use as a marketing tool.

It could be “three for the price of one” if MIS, the Detroit River Regatta Association and the Detroit Grand Prix Association were to offer a special ticket or incentives to our very own triple crown.

Hosting three world-class motor sports events in a little over a month in 2012 is a wonderful opportunity for the residents of metro Detroit and the state to celebrate racing history and have a bunch of fun.

Racing is in Michigan’s DNA, from Henry Ford in his race car “Sweepstakes” at Grosse Pointe in 1901 to Rochester Hills’ Brad Keselowski in the hunt for a Sprint Cup championship this year in his Dodge Charger for Penske Racing.

We’ve hosted a Super Bowl, baseball’s All-Star Game, the World Series and the men’s basketball Final Four in the past six years — not too shabby.

Now we have three premier racing events within weeks of each other next year — and another Cup race at MIS in August.

That’s more than New York, Chicago, Miami and Los Angeles can boast.

We have a rare triple crown — let’s enjoy and celebrate the jewels.
• CONTACT MIKE BRUDENELL: 313-222-2115 OR MBRUDENELL@FREEPRESS.COM 
www.freep.com

What a great time for the state of Michigan. It started with the Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore this summer voted number one as the Most Beautiful Place in America by the viewers of “ABC’s Good Morning America”.

Then the opening weekend of college football nationally televised the University of Michigan vs. Notre Dame Game on prime time Saturday night featuring great footage of Ann Arbor and the surrounding area.

The American League division series between the New York Yankees and the Detroit Tigers was next. The television views of downtown Detroit and the surrounding area were excellent. Now the national stage gets bigger. Our Tigers will now play the Texas Rangers on national television promising even more excellent footage of Detroit.
Now let’s talk about the scrappy and reinvented Detroit Lions on Monday Night Football. Again more great views of Detroit and the surrounding areas are for the world to see. So next week Detroit will be nationally televised, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.

Two new films were just released with the State of Michigan prominently featured. “The Ideas of March” starring George Clooney and Ryan Gosling featured locations including Cliff Bell’s jazz club and restaurant in downtown Detroit , Christ Church Cranbrook in Bloomfield Hills and sites on the University of Michigan Ann Arbor campus . The second film “Real Steel” starring Hugh Jackman includes footage of The GM Renaissance Center, the Detroit Fire Department headquarters, the historic Highland Park Ford Plant.

Prime time Michigan is ready for the nation to see what Michigan, its people and its natural beauty are all about. The nation over the next couple of week’s will see why we “Stay and Play in Michigan”