GREETINGS FROM GRAND BAY, ALABAMA

 

AND THE READERS RESPOND

 

Rather than identifying my readers by name in the “And The Readers Respond” section, I will identify them by their geographical region.  This will allow some to offer more direct points of view.

 

Regarding my comment about seeing a race in South Carolina – from the Southeast

 

“There is no such thing as a "Gamecock " state only the Palmetto state.”

 

 

 

 

PEOPLE/STRATEGY/TRAVEL NEWS

 

The Strategy

 

There are several elements of trackchasing strategy that allows a trackchaser to see as many new tracks as possible while still managing travel and cost factors.  To the degree that the trackchaser can manage all of these moving parts, they and the folks around them will be that much happier.

 

Last Monday’s NCAA championship game, threw my long-term trackchasing plan off kilter a bit.  I had planned to return from my Charlotte trip on Monday, have three plus days at home and then leave for this Memphis trackchasing trip.

 

The NCAA game left me with just 12 hours at home.  This cut down on the preparation time I had scheduled for the Memphis trip.  That preparation was intended to include final racetrack website updates, hotel reservations, map planning and local entertainment information since Carol was joining me on this trip.  My 12 hours at home included sleep time so there wasn’t much time for anything else.

 

 

By they way, trackchasing trips with Carol are a bit different.  I feel the need to upgrade our hotel selections, stop for a few sit-down meals and schedule trips, which require a little less driving when she joins me.  Carol has never asked me to do any of this.  I guess it’s just the gentleman in me!

 

I maintain a database of racetracks that I have not yet seen.  Each time I see a new track, it is removed from that database.  Currently, there are 1,234 tracks in that file.  They are all located in the United States or Canada.

 

Our first planned racetrack event of the trip was a race at the Barber Motorsports Park near Birmingham, Alabama.  This road course race was set to begin at 3 p.m. on Friday.  Leaving California on Friday would not allow us to get to that track on time.  Therefore, we had to leave on Thursday in order to make a late afternoon race on Friday in Birmingham.

 

I had a great trackchasing double planned for later Friday evening at the North Alabama Speedway in Tuscumbia.  It was only 2.5 hours up the road.  This would have been an outstanding double.  On the plane ride home from Charlotte, I discovered a disturbing fact.  I had ALREADY SEEN the North Alabama Speedway.  I had forgotten to delete it from my future tracks database.

 

I had seen that track back on March 24, 2002.  It was my 548^th track at the time.  I guess it’s easy to forget a track that I saw nearly 500 tracks ago.  This oversight on my part as well as some very shaky weather required a complete overhaul of the weekend’s trackchasing plan at the last minute.  Nevertheless, we were off to “Elvis” town.

 

After a night on the town in downtown Memphis, Carol and I returned to our hotel room.  The next 1-2 hours were then spent trying to develop a new plan.  Friday races in early April are somewhat hard to come by. 

 

I checked Louisiana, Missouri, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia and Arkansas.  I found only one reachable track in Missouri, one in Georgia and three in Alabama to choose from.  I did follow-up with a couple of other Friday tracks that are not open yet for the 2006 season.  That’s not much choice within a six state area and an eight-hour driving radius of Memphis.

 

I have added a new element to my trackchasing arsenal.  I now have Doppler weather radar software that gives me the most current weather radar.  All I need is an internet connection.  My new Doppler capabilities added to www.weather.com give me state of the art trackchasing weather prognosticating capabilities.

 

The use of this technology is meant to lead me in the direction of a track that might be racing.  I can’t control the weather but I can control what direction I head.  If I have enough lead-time, I can alter the plan and get to a track that might be racing.  I estimate my weather technology equipment will add 5-10 new tracks to my annual total that would have been missed without the capability.

 

At first, my best weather opportunity seemed to be in southeast Missouri.  The rain forecast was only 40% there.  A 9 a.m. call to that track told me they had already cancelled with their phone message said, “We are not racing tonight because of expected strong thunderstorms.”  It’s somewhat unusual to cancel races on the EXPECTATION that it’s going to rain.  I guess they are extra skittish given the deadly tornadoes that struck Kentucky and Tennessee last week.

 

A possible track contact in Northern Alabama told me, “They’re already turning schools out (Northern translation:  canceling school) and we are not racing.”  A track in Georgia cancelled and told me, “It’s coming our way.”  A track in Southern Alabama told me they wouldn’t be racing because “We don’t have all the dirt spread out.”  I asked what type of cars they raced at this promoter’s track.  His answer, “Just about all of them!”  None of my above quotes can communicate the heavy Southern accents I encountered.  I must give some credit to the Talladega Short Track promoter who offered this, “I’m not going to lie to you.  The weather forecast for Friday night is terrible.” (Editor’s note:  A post race check of Birmingham weather shows the city did not get a drop of rain on Friday, April 7 even though the rain forecast was 80%.  Had we gone to the Talladega Short Track we could have saved ourselves 7-8 hours of driving.)

 

I expanded my search to Grand Bay, Alabama.  This track is just a few miles from the Alabama/Mississippi border and the Gulf of Mexico.  They were racing pending another phone call at 2 p.m. to the U.S. weather service.  My weather research showed a maximum of 30% chance of showers.  That was our best shot, our only shot.

 

There is no way without the databases I have, as well as the weather forecasting information or internet capabilities, that we would have even had a shot today.  This is all part of a trackchaser’s toolbox needed to get the most out of each trackchasing day.

 

The People

 

We flew Delta Airlines from Orange County into Memphis.  Delta Airlines is currently in bankruptcy.  We rarely fly them.  Carol was very happy with her flying experience.  She liked the idea they offered snacks, stopped the video when the captain needed to make an announcement and didn’t have their flight attendants staying in the aisles too long with their drink cart.  I never would have noticed these things but she did.  We saw golfer Monte Yoder in the Orange County airport.  He was bound for Washington, D.C.  We also saw Melanie Robertson (George’s wife).  She flew with us to Cincinnati on her way back to visit relatives in North Carolina. 

 

Coming to Memphis today, reminded me that we nearly moved here some 35 years ago.  During my business career, I was located and relocated to eight separate locations.  I had a direct influence over three of those locations.  In 1973, I was offered my first ever job promotion relocation from Peoria, Illinois to Memphis, Tennessee.  At age 24, I turned it down.  A month later, we accepted a relocation to Cincinnati, Ohio.

 

In 1974, our company was creating an entirely new division.  We needed about 50 salespeople to move to 50 different locations across the country.  I was offered Salt Lake City, Utah.  I told my boss I didn’t really want to move there.  He asked me why.  I told him, “Because they don’t have much racing out there.”  Although he was puzzled and probably didn’t appreciate the comment, he did agree to move the Lewis family to Phoenix, Arizona instead of Utah.  Heck, I could have been a Mormon by now but as it turned out Manzanita Speedway became our new home track.

 

Later, in 1983, after having moved from Mission Viejo, California to Ridgefield, Connecticut (1979 – following the Knoxville Nationals won by Ronnie Shuman) and then to Inverness (near Chicago), Illinois (1980), I was fed up with bad weather. 

 

I was ready to accept a position with another company that would move us to Dallas.  I mentioned this to our personnel director.  She told me to give her 24 hours and she might be able to move us back to California without my leaving the company.  She came through!  We were back in Laguna Niguel, California in time for me to watch, from my Lazy Boy, Bill Elliott win his first ever NASCAR Winston Cup race in November, 1983.  We’ve been in California ever sense.  We have no interest in permanently moving anywhere else.

 

In people news at the Sunny South Raceway……. I was asked to join the announcer on the flag stand at intermission.  The ladder to the stand stood at a 90-degree angle to the ground and went up in the air some 20 feet.  Carol assumed her responsibilities as videographer and for the next 10 minutes, the announcer and I proceeded to promote the sport of trackchasing.

 

He asked me how long I had been doing this.  I told him for a long time but that I had really picked up the pace during the last five years when I had seen 500-600 new tracks.  He then said, “You must have retired five years ago.”  I told him, “No, I retired three years ago.”  He then replied, “Now in Alabama we have to go to work to get a paycheck.  How is it you’ve been retired only THREE years, but been so heavily into trackchasing for the last FIVE years?”  Ladies and gentlemen, we had a very perceptive announcer at the Sunny South Raceway.  With the crowd eagerly awaiting my answer, I came up with this, “During the last two years I was heavily PRACTICING retirement in anticipation of the real thing!”  The crowd seemed to understand.  I hope that my fellow P&Gers who read the Trackchaser Report will as well.

 

The final question the track announcer asked me was if there was anyone special, I wanted to say hello too.  I guess this question comes from him interviewing drivers and ending his interviews with that question so drivers can thank their sponsors and crew.

 

I squinted off into the distance and said that “Yes, I’d like to thank my wife, Carol, for coming along on the trip.”  I could see her dutifully operating the video camera.  When I left to go up into the flag stand, she was sitting all by herself.  Now a man in a blue jacket was sitting next to her.  Did he have his arm around her?  Who was this man?

 

It was none other than trackchaser Ed Esser of Madison, Wisconsin!  We end up on our fifth trackchasing choice of the day just a mile or two from the Gulf of Mexico and Mr. Esser shows up from Wisconsin!  He was 1,054 miles from home.

 

Ed’s only comment when I returned to our seating area was “I saw Carol and you were up in the flag stand so I thought she was fair game!”  Ed’s been up in the Wisconsin woods too long.  The three of us had a nice conversation like we always do until we bid Ed farewell and left the track with just one five-car feature remaining.

 

Ed told me that he had “No plans for Sunday.”  He then mentioned something about NASCAR running at Texas on Sunday.  I reminded him, like all fellow competitors should, that the Texas Motor Speedway races on their inner oval following each of the two NASCAR Nextel Cup races each year.  Ed said that he knew that and he had not been to either of those tracks.  I’m betting a dollar to a donut that Ed will be reporting his trackchasing double to the group very shortly.  As Carol always says, “You’ve got to keep an eye out on that Ed.”

 

Frequently when I do trackchaser interviews, folks in the crowd will come up to chat.  Tonight a woman came up and introduced herself.  This also happens quite often.  Fortunately, Carol was here to supervise the event from very close proximity.

 

Although she and her family are Americans, they were the last owners of the North Bay Speedway in North Bay, Ontario, Canada.  She and her husband were stationed with the U.S. military and they bought the track.  They promoted it for just one year but she said, “We had a lot of fun and it was a lot of work.”

 

I asked her why they didn’t keep the track.  She told me the Canadian government wanted $10,000 for her family of five to become Canadian citizens.  She also mentioned that if you were not approved for citizenship you didn’t get all of your money back.  We had fun chatting with this woman whose son was racing in the stinger division.

 

The trip

 

I left my hotel in Charlotte at 4:30 a.m. Pacific Daylight time on Wednesday headed for California.  Carol and I left our house at 4:30 a.m. Pacific Daylight time on Thursday headed for Memphis.  I was in San Clemente for about 12 hours before it was time to leave again.  If you want to trackchase at a championship level that’s what you have to do at times.

 

Getting into Memphis on a Thursday night without a track to see or any great distance to travel was great.  We headed downtown.  I had done some internet research on Memphis.  This helped us find Peabody Place.  This is a huge entertainment complex/shopping mall located adjacent to the only five star hotel in Memphis, The Peabody.

 

The Memphis downtown area is relatively small.  Peabody Place is within a block of a beautiful minor league baseball stadium home to the Memphis Redbirds.  The FedEx Arena, which houses the NBA Memphis Grizzlies, is also within a block.

 

Memphis is famous for BBQ ribs.  The internet told me that a restaurant called Rendezvous might be the best ribs place in town.  After a tour of the ornate lobby of the Peabody Hotel, we walked across the street to the Rendezvous for their ribs.  The restaurant features a honky-tonk style atmosphere with red and white checkered table clothes, cloth napkins and PLASTIC knives and forks. 

 

The ribs were served “Dry” and, as our waiter instructed us, we needed to “Slather” them up with BBQ sauce ourselves.  We very much enjoyed our meal.  We followed dinner with a movie at the 22-screen movie Cineplex at Peabody Place.  We saw Denzel Washington and Jody Foster in “Inside Man” (Carol rating: C-, Randy rating B-).  We didn’t understand the ending!

 

Carol described downtown Memphis as a “Little Oasis.”  When Carol travels with me I pick out trips where we have less driving and more entertainment options.  It’s fun to have her out on the trackchasing trail with me from time to time.

 

She also helps with driving when she comes along.  When we left our Memphis hotel after being awakened to tornado sirens, the weather conditions were dark skies and very threatening weather.  Soon it was hailing!  Then an emergency announcement came over the car radio saying there was a tornado warning in effect in the area of the hotel we had just left.

 

Fortunately, we were headed south into Mississippi at this point and the weather looked somewhat better.  We weren’t down the road 30 miles, with Carol driving and me in the passenger seat typing details of this report when a major accident happened just 300 yards in front of us.

 

An 18-wheel trucker had pulled over to the right shoulder of the road.  Apparently a young woman driving by herself did not notice the truck.  She plowed into the stopped truck while she was traveling some 60 M.P.H.  This wiped out the right side of her car and sent her into a series of 360-degree spins as we rapidly approached.  Carol slowed while the wrecking car came to a stop right in the center of the two southbound lanes of I-55.

 

As we drove slowly by the disabled vehicle we could see the young woman moving around inside her car.  Some other motorists had stopped to help.  We continued on, but a little shaken.  Trackchasers drive hundreds of thousands of miles each year.  I’m surprised we don’t have more incidents than we do.

 

 

RACE TRACK STATS:

SUNNY SOUTH RACEWAY, GRAND BAY, ALABAMA - TRACK #1,015 – 4/7/06

 

This track was my 14th to see in Alabama.  This moves me into a 3^rd place tie with Jack Erdmann in the Crimson Tide state.  The track breaks a tie with Rick Schneider’s 13 tracks.  John Moore leads in Alabama with 25 tracks.

 

The Sunny South Raceway website offered this description of the track, "The South's Finest, 1/4 Mile, High-banked, Asphalt Oval, Sunny South Raceway in Grand Bay, Alabama.  Converted to asphalt in 2000, the track, once run under the name J&J Speedway (also a fine dirt track in it's day), now sports 18° corner banking, with 12° banking on the back straight and 6° banking on the front straight.  The pit area is also a fine feature of Sunny South's appeal, with ample parking and pit stall area. The pits are located directly behind the grandstand area.  Sunny South currently features Outlaw Modifieds, Legends, Bandeleros, Stingers (a four-cylinder front-wheel drive stock class), and Minstocks on a weekly basis. Legends are divided into Pro and Semi-Pro Classes.”

This was Carol’s first ever visit to Alabama for trackchasing.  Tonight was her 235^th lifetime track.  She moves into a tie with Don McAuley of Winnipeg, Ontario Canada for 41^st in the career world rankings.  She is only nine tracks behind Mike Knappenberger for a coveted top 40 ranking.

 

 

RACE TRACK NEWS:

 

SUNNY SOUTH RACEWAY

 

The Sunny South Raceway has a “Seniors” section.  This area features nice tables and chairs under the tower where the older set has a place to eat or drink and enjoy the race.  Concession workers also visit the section to accommodate those that may not be able to make the trip to the concession stand.

 

I noticed this rule for the Stingers division:

EXCHANGE RULE
1- Any car with three feature wins in a season can be exchanged with the purchase of an Exchange Card ($25.00) for the price of four hundred dollars ($400. 00) less seat and belts during the remainder of the season (the three feature wins do not have to be consecutive).

 

This means you can trade your racecar for anyone else’s in the division for just $425.  This rule is meant to make certain that drivers do not put too much money in their cars and that the division remains as competitive as possible.

 

This track is a first class track from a facilities point of view.  There has been a ton of money put into this place to convert it from a dirt track to an asphalt oval.  Even the huge pit area has been paved, although the spectator entrance to the track nearly requires a four-wheel drive to navigate.  Go figure!

 

Under threatening weather conditions, the track started on time at 8 p.m.  With mini-stocks (3), bandeleros (4), stingers (13), modifieds (4), semi-pro legends (9) and pro legends (5), the stingers were the only class that ran two heats.

 

All of the heats were finished by 8:41 p.m.  I thought with the weather forecast the way it was, they would immediately jump into feature racing and then we would be on our way for the 4 ½ hour drive up to Birmingham.  Nope!

 

When the first round of heats was finished, they immediately jumped into……the SECOND round of heats!  Those races also took about 40 minutes and then they went to intermission.  During intermission, they had bicycle races for the kids.  The program was further delayed when they interviewed some trackchaser from California.

 

We bid trackchaser Ed Esser farewell, made a stop to check out the track’s restrooms and left the facility when the checkered flag flew on the four car modified feature.  There was one five-car class yet to run their feature race.  Ed will have to tell you about that one.

CAROL’S COMMENTS

We were so lucky with the weather.  We should have been rained out.  I liked the little track, it was wide, the lights were good, but the P.A. left a lot to be desired.  There were lots of different kinds of cars.  The flagman was quick with the yellow, but they ran race after race efficiently.  The track gave Randy a nice trackchaser interview.  I almost had heart failure when Ed Esser sat down beside me!

 

WEATHER CONDITIONS

 

This weekend’s weather forecast is the worst for any trip I’ve taken in 2006.  So far this year I’ve had 18 successful days of trackchasing with just one rained out day.

 

A few days ago, the rain forecast for Friday of this trip was 40%.  That increased to 60-80% depending upon the location on the day before our trip.  That’s not good.  The details above show how hard we worked to get a countable Friday track on a spring storm tornado-warning day.

 

The Sunny South Raceway (not a good name for today’s conditions) was seven driving hours out of our way.  The weather was fine until we got within 30 minutes of the track.  At that point, the skies turned as dark and threatening as you can possibly imagine.  It looked like we would not get our track tonight.  We held our collective breaths until the first mini-stock heat race ran off right on time at 8 p.m.  Whew!

 

RENTAL CAR UPDATE:

 

We’re back to a National Rental Car Racing Pontiac Grand Prix for this trip.  The car had only 3,500 miles on it when we picked it up. 

 

 

LIFETIME TRACKCHASER STANDINGS UPDATE:

 

These worldwide trackchasers are within 100 tracks (plus or minus) of my current trackchaser total.

 

1.  Rick Schneider – Bay Shore, New York - 1,038 (+23)

2.  Allan Brown, Comstock Park, Michigan – 1,021 (+6)

3.  Randy Lewis, San Clemente, California – 1,015

4.  Guy Smith, Effort, Pennsylvania – 1,011 (-4)

5.  Andy Sivi, Clairton, Pennsylvania – 1,007 (-8)

6.  Gordon Killian, Sinking Spring, Pennsylvania – 996 (-19)

 

 

 

Other notables

 

These worldwide trackchasers are within 10 tracks (plus or minus) of Carol’s current trackchaser total.

 

40.  Mike Knappenberger, Reading, Pennsylvania - 244 (+9)

41.  Don McAuley, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada - 235 (+/- 0)

41.  Carol Lewis, San Clemente, California - 235

43.  Andy Ritter, Mansfield, Pennsylvania - 234 (- 1)

44.  Colin Casserly, Stevenage, England 232 (-3)

45.  Bernie Harlen, Goshen, Indiana - 229 (-6)

 

 

 

 

 

2006 TRACKCHASER STANDINGS

 

1.  Randy Lewis, San Clemente, California - 24

2.  Ed Esser, Madison, Wisconsin – 19

3.  Mike Knappenberger, Reading, Pennsylvania - 10

3.  Paul Weisel, Orefield, Pennsylvania – 10

3.  Gordon Killian, Sinking Springs, Pennsylvania – 10

6.  Rick Young, Maxville, Ontario, Canada - 9

6.  Roland Vanden Eynde, Vilvoorde, Belgium – 9

8.  Roger Ferrell, Majenica, Indiana – 8

9.  Guy Smith, Effort, Pennsylvania – 6

9.  Will White, Quakertown, Pennsylvania – 6

9.  Bob Schafer, Oshkosh, Wisconsin – 6

 

12.  Carol Lewis, San Clemente, California – 5

 

 

 

 

Thanks for reading about my trackchasing,

Randy Lewis

Trackchasing’s #1 trackchaser of the 21^st century

 

Trackchasing doesn’t have to be fun to be fun.

 

 

 

 

 

CUMULATIVE TRAVEL DISTANCES:

 

AIRPLANE

 

Santa Ana, CA – Cincinnati, OH – 1,901 miles

Cincinnati, OH – Memphis, TN – 424 miles

RENTAL CAR

 

Memphis International Airport, Memphis, TN – trip begins

Grand Bay, Alabama – 465 miles

 

 

 

 

 

TRACK ADMSSION PRICES:

 

Sunny South Raceway – $10

 

 

 

 

Past trackchasing stories are available at:

www.ranlayracing.com

 

Official trackchaser standings can be viewed at:

www.trackchaser.com  

 

Some of my standings data comes from trackchaser.com

 

 

 

 

 

UPCOMING TRACKCHASING PLANS

 

Barber Motorsports Park, Leeds, Alabama – April 8

Talladega Short Track, Talladega, Alabama – April 8

Ballymena Raceway, Ballymena, Northern Ireland – April 14

 

 

 

 

 

RACETRACKS VISITED IN 2006 (** not the first time to visit this track)

 

992.  Watermelon Capital Speedway, Cordele, Georgia - January 14

 

993.  Cross Roads Motorplex (asphalt oval), Jasper, Florida - January 15

 

994.  Norfolk Scope Arena, Norfolk, Virginia - January 20

 

995.  Qualcomm Stadium, San Diego, California - January 21

 

996.  Oregon State Fair & Expo Center, Forster Livestock Arena, Salem, Oregon - January 28

 

997.  Morosso Motorsports Park, Jupiter, Florida – February 4

 

998.  Thunderbowl Speedway of Ocala, Ocala, Florida - February 4

 

999.  Cross Roads Motorplex (dirt oval), Jasper, Florida - February 5

 

1,000.  Auburndale Kartway, Auburndale, Florida - February 10

 

1,001.  Ocala Speedway (asphalt oval), Ocala, Florida - February 12

 

1,002. Speedworld Speedway, Surprise, Arizona - February 19

 

1,003. Lowe’s Motor Speedway (1/5 mile asphalt oval), Concord, North Carolina - February 25

 

1,004. Concord Raceway, Concord, North Carolina - February 25

 

1,005. Antioch Speedway, Antioch, North Carolina - February 25

 

1,006. Green Valley Speedway, Gadsden, Alabama - February 26

 

1,007. East Bay Raceway (inner oval), Gibsonton, Florida – March 17

 

1,008. Volusia Speedway Park West (1/6M oval), Barberville, Florida – March 18

 

1,009. Speedway Park, Fruitland Park, Florida – March 18

 

1,010. Sand Mountain Speedway (road course), Fort Meade, Florida – March 19

 

1,011. Anderson Motor Speedway, Anderson, South Carolina – March 31

 

1,012. Westminster Speedway, Westminster, South Carolina – March 31

 

1,013. East Lincoln Motor Speedway, Stanley, North Carolina – April 1

 

1,014. Margarettsville Speedway, Margarettsville, North Carolina – April 2

 

1,015. Sunny South Raceway, Grand Bay, Alabama – April 7