GREETINGS FROM CHARLES TOWN, WEST VIRGINIA AND THEN MANASSAS, VIRGINIA

EDITOR’S NOTE

Last year I established an all-time record of 182 tracks seen in a single season.  On April 30 of last year, I had seen 29 tracks.  So far, in 2006, I have seen 38 tracks by the same date, April 30.  Could I break my record of 182 tracks seen in one season?  You’ll have to stay tuned to find out.

TRAVELOR’S NOTE

The final two day’s of this trip were spent touring Washington, D.C.    Although this is a Trackchaser Report about the overall trackchasing experience, I have included a few words about our Washington, D.C. experience (including getting the car towed while we were at the White House).  If you would like to read about it, the story is at the bottom of this Trackchaser Report.

 

 

You can click on www.ranlayracing.com to see photos from our visit to Virginia and West Virginia for trackchasing.  I also have several shots of our tours of Virginia Tech and Washington, D.C.

 

 

Photos from the annual Delta Sigma Pi golf outing in Palm Springs, California have been posted.  Click on www.ranlayracing.com and then click on the “DSP Golf” tab.

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.

 

 

From a reader who lives near the Rockie Mountains

 

You must have to take the 100 MG dosage of Lippitur with that diet of yours!  Wish I could keep up.  Hey, your strategy is to be #1 in the world and your other stuff is the tactics.  Forgot that PG training already! HA.

PEOPLE/STRATEGY/TRAVEL NEWS

 

The Strategy

 

Getting doubles (two countable tracks in one day) is an excellent way to pad one’s trackchasing total.  Of course, this requires some planning.  Today was a very unusual double.  It was a morning/afternoon double.  We arrived at 9:30 a.m. to catch races #2, #3 and #4 before the Summit Point Raceway went to their 12 noon lunch break. 

 

The afternoon part of the double did not go to the green flag until 5:08 p.m. even though we arrived at the track at 1:15 p.m.  Had we known our afternoon portion of the double would start so late we could have made the entire day an exclusive afternoon double and slept about three hours longer.

 

 

The People

 

I have to give a shout out to the people of Washington, D.C.  Their city, at least the part we saw, was clean and beautiful.  The people we dealt with while trying to find and then retrieve our rental car could not have been more cooperative.

 

 

The trip

 

We didn’t get to bed until about 1 a.m. on Sunday morning.  It was a three hour drive from the Wythe Raceway to our hotel in Waynesboro, Virginia.  In order to make it to the Summit Point Raceway by 9:30 a.m. we had to get up at 6:50 a.m. (3:50 a.m. California time) and then make a two hour drive to Summit Point. 

 

This meant that we left the Wythe Raceway at 10 p.m., drove three hours, slept a little less than six hours, and then drove two more hours to Sunday morning’s track.  We did this because we wanted to catch the morning session of road racing at Summit Point, leave at the lunch break and then catch the afternoon Senior Champ Kart racing at Old Dominion.

 

We chose to not go anywhere on Sunday night.  Were we simply abstaining from trackchasing?  No!  I didn’t know of anyone racing on Sunday night.  If I did, we would have been there despite the fact that we were whipped. 

 

RACE TRACK STATS:

SUMMIT POINT RACEWAY – SUMMIT POINT COURSE, CHARLES TOWN, WEST VIRGINIA - TRACK #1,028 – 4/30/06

 

This was Carol’s first ever trackchasing visit to West Virginia!!  She’s now up to 37 states.  Rhode Island might be her most difficult state to see for the first time.  They have only one known active track and that track does not run consistently.

 

This was only my third track to see in the coal-mining state.  I’m mired back in a tie for 25^th place with Bing Metz and Tom Sivi.  I’m a long way from cashing in on any National Geographic Diversity bonus points as I currently need nine tracks to crack the top 10.  Rick Schneider and Guy Smith lead the state with 16 tracks.

 

 

OLD DOMINION SPEEDWAY – INNER INNER OVAL, MANASSAS, VIRGINA - TRACK #1,029 – 4/30/06

 

 

This was my 12th track to see in Virginia.  I now hold undisputed 19^th place in the state.  Paul Weidman is in 10^th with 20 tracks.  Therefore, it’s nearly fruitless to put much effort into Virginia from a NGD standpoint.  This was Carol’s 5^th Cavalier state track.  Guy Smith leads the state with 43 tracks. 

 

 

 

RACE TRACK NEWS:

 

SUMMIT POINT RACEWAY – SUMMIT POINT COURSE

 

The Summit Point Raceway is located just a mile or two in West Virginia from the Virginia state line.  The really cool thing about this facility is they have three separate countable tracks.  They are all road courses.  Here is what trackchaser rules say about this situation:

“Multiple tracks of the same type (types being divided into ovals, road courses and figure eights), located at the same facility, are countable under the following conditions: ……all tracks falling under the road course category are only separately countable if they are not connected or if they meet the change of surface rule, with the following exception, one permanent and one temporary road course which share a minority of common surface may be counted twice.”

Today we saw the “Summit Point” course.  Some day I’ll be back for the Jefferson and Shenandoah Circuits.  The SCCA was sanctioning today’s races.  They always have a well run show that stays on time.  Today was no exception.

 

We arrived at 9:30 a.m.  They were about to begin race #2 for the day.  They would end up running four races in total before the lunch break.  We had breakfast at the track cafeteria.  We then walked the entire circuit.  This is a very rural track.  It’s nothing like the Taj Mahal of the Barber Motorsports Park.

 

There are some very isolated parts of the infield of the track.  It’s probably not a good place to be walking at night in West Virginia if you remember the movie, Deliverance.  Nevertheless, it was a nice walk on a refreshingly cool weather day.  Like most road racing, we couldn’t see much of the racing, but it really didn’t matter.  We were enjoying our commune with nature.

 

We did have one narrow escape.  Carol and I stood near a turn where there was only a small rubber tire fence to protect us from the racing cars.  Carol asked me if we were safe.  I assured her we were.

 

I had just gotten those words of assurance out of my mouth when a car came spinning out of control directly toward us.  We both ran for cover with me yelling, “Oh #$%^$!  Carol looked at me as she always does in these circumstances and we continued our walk in the woods.

OLD DOMINION SPEEDWAY – INNER INNER OVAL

Oh, my!!  It was only about an hour’s drive over from Summit Point, West Virginia.  I had been told that the racing action began at noon with two rounds of practice, qualifying and then the race.  My track contact told me the program would end around fiveish.  Although that prediction turned out to be correct, we were still surprised and somewhat disappointed.

 

We would be seeing the Senior Champ Karts this afternoon.  With only one countable race happening for trackchasing purposes, we didn’t want to be late.  We arrived at the track at 1:15 p.m. 

 

We had a minor scare with our directions.  I use my Microsoft Streets and Trips software program for all of my on the road traveling directions.  If I don’t have a physical address, I put in the city name and am directed to the center of town.  Sometimes the Microsoft program will accept just the name of the racetrack.  In that case, my job is easy and I can simply follow route by route directions to the track’s doorstep.

 

Today I was using the track’s physical location address obtained from their website.  We zeroed in on the address and a huge fairgrounds appeared at the appointed spot.  We entered the fairgrounds and found absolutely no one there!  I could say I was shocked but I would have to admit this has happened before…….several times. 

 

A little further investigation solved our potential problem.  The Old Dominion Speedway was across the road from the fairgrounds.  We entered the speedway property and there still wasn’t much going on on this side of the property.

 

We entered the old wooden grandstand with no admission charge whatsoever.  The grandstand is huge and will make one great bonfire if it ever catches fire.  There were seven people in the stands.  For most of the afternoon, Carol and I would be the only people in the stands at all!

 

The sun was shining.  We had our chicken Caesar salads from McDonalds and we were glad to be able to relax after our very early start in Waynesboro, Virginia this morning.  By the way, we only used McDonalds because it was fast and we needed to get to the track and the calories were low which were needed after yesterday’s gluttoness foray.

 

After we finished our lunch, we decided to wander into the go-kart pit area.  This was located in the infield of the half-mile Old Dominion Speedway oval.  We were just standing on the edge of the pits when a nearby driver essentially told us to pay for a pit pass or move on.  I’ve never run into this before, but then I was trying to get something I had not paid for and didn’t really have a problem with the driver’s request.  We declined the opportunity to pay $10 each and walk around the haulers of 32 go-karting race teams.

 

On the way out of the pits, I asked a Senior Champ Kart crew member when he thought their race would be.  He told me the other kart classes would run heat races and a feature.  The champs would time trial and then run a feature only.  He estimated they would run the Senior Champ Kart feature somewhere between 2:30 and 3 p.m.  That would have been great if that had happened.  It didn’t!

 

At 2:30 p.m., the champ karts entered the track, not for their feature race, but for practice.  At 3:40 p.m., they entered the track not for their feature race, but for their time trials.  At 5:08 p.m., the five Senior Champ Karts in attendance entered the track for their feature event, which lasted all of about 5 minutes.  We had been at the track for almost four hours for one five minute race.  The first hour in the sun was pleasant.  The last three were not.

 

There are actually two inner ovals inside the half-mile asphalt oval racetrack known as the Old Dominion Speedway.  The two inner ovals do not touch the half-mile track at all.  The two inner ovals are identical except that the inner inner oval’s turn three and four are inside the turns three and four of the middle Old Dominion oval.  The Senior Champ Karts raced on the most inner oval that I am calling the inner inner oval.  The middle oval would be countable if the right cars were racing on it.

 

This was a pathetic go-kart program today.  There were only 32 competitors racing in five divisions.  It should not take more than five hours for this amount of competitors to practice, qualify and race.  It’s just wrong.

 

The biggest offenders of my time were the kid’s classes.  There were two of those.  Either these children had a weekend pass from their attention deficit disorder classroom or their father’s had had a frontal lobotomy or both.  The kid’s couldn’t follow the simplest of directions.  If they told them to line up side by side, they stayed 50 yards apart.  If they told them to stop, they sped up and ran into the back of the kart in front of them.  When kids don’t get it or can’t behave, I blame the parents.  Just about every kid I’ve ever seen that’s screwed up came from a bad home life.

 

Carol said they need to “Go to boot camp for race drivers.”  I think they need to go to juvenile delinquency school and when they turn 18 to prison.  Just my opinion.

 

The program was for the most part devoid of any real entertainment.  There was no announcer or use of the P.A. at all.  The flagman was terrible.  He continually gave the racers the “One more lap” sign.  The racing was caution filled except for the  20-lap Senior Champ Kart race. 

 

We’ll be back some day for the half-mile oval.  Heck, we may be back someday for the middle inner oval.  I’m just happy to get the inner inner oval in our rearview mirror.  For a while there, I was concerned they might never get to the Senior Champ Karts which was the last race of the day.

CAROL’S COMMENTS

SUMMIT POINT RACEWAY – SUMMIT POINT COURSE

 

This track wasn’t nearly as upscale as most road courses I’ve visited especially the Barber Motorsports Park in Leeds, Alabama where we were a few weeks ago.  It’s great there are three countable racecourses here.  The announcer was good, loud and spoke without an accent (having an announcer of any kind at a road course is somewhat unusual).  The cars weren’t waxed and shiny and they had dirty wheels. 

OLD DOMINION SPEEDWAY – INNER INNER OVAL

 

I was very concerned when we pulled into the fairgrounds and no one was there.  The sun felt good this afternoon (now, she’s in the hotel with a sunburn).  It was amazing that all of the champ karts racing today were Senior Champ Karts.  This was a giant facility to be hosting such a mini-racing program.  The grandstands were nice, but they’ve definitely been here awhile and getting very weathered.

 

 

WEATHER CONDITIONS

 

The weather was delightful.  It was a sunny blue sky except for some intermittent wispy white clouds.  The temperatures were in the high 60s.  The rain forecast for today was 0%.  We actually got a bit of a sunburn after sitting in the Old Dominion grandstands for nearly four hours.

RENTAL CAR UPDATE:

 

The National Rental Car Racing Chevy Impala did its job.  I’m glad I’m racking up all these miles with somebody else’s car!

 

 

This trip covered a very manageable 920 miles.  Carol helped a good deal with the driving.  We stopped for gas three times, the last just a top off before I returned the car.  We paid an average price of $2.92 per gallon.  This is a record for us in the U.S.  The Chevy gave us 26.5 M.P.G. in fuel mileage at an average cost of 11.0 cents per mile. 

 

 

 

 

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 - 1,039 (+10)

2.  Randy Lewis, San Clemente, California – 1,029

3.  Allan Brown, Comstock Park, Michigan – 1,021 (-8)

4.  Guy Smith, Effort, Pennsylvania – 1,014 (-15)

5.  Andy Sivi, Clairton, Pennsylvania – 1,007 (-22)

6.  Gordon Killian, Sinking Spring, Pennsylvania – 997 (-32)

 

 

 

Other notables

 

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

 

37.  Mike Knappenberger, Reading, Pennsylvania - 252 (+9)

38.  Spike Rixon, Watford, England - 251 (+8)

39.  Virginia Schuler, Allentown, Pennsylvania - 248 (+5)

40.  Steve Kinser, Bloomington, Indiana – 246 (+3)

41.  Carol Lewis, San Clemente, California - 243

42.  Don McAuley, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada - 235 (- 8)

43.  Andy Ritter, Mansfield, Pennsylvania - 235 (- 8)

 

 

 

 

2006 TRACKCHASER STANDINGS

 

1.  Randy Lewis, San Clemente, California - 38

2.  Ed Esser, Madison, Wisconsin – 26

3.  Roland Vanden Eynde, Vilvoorde, Belgium – 18

3.  Mike Knappenberger, Reading, Pennsylvania - 18

5.  Carol Lewis, San Clemente, California – 13

5.  Paul Weisel, Orefield, Pennsylvania – 13

7.  Linda Thomas, Watford, England - 12

7.  Gordon Killian, Sinking Springs, Pennsylvania – 12

9.  Roger Ferrell, Majenica, Indiana – 11

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

10.  Guy Smith, Effort, Pennsylvania - 9

 

 

 

Thanks for reading about my trackchasing,

Randy Lewis

America’s #1 European Trackchaser

 

That’s all the news that’s fit to print from San Clemente where the women are strong, the men are good-looking, all of the children are above average and the real estate prices are way above average.

 

 

 

 

 

CUMULATIVE TRAVEL DISTANCES:

 

AIRPLANE

 

Long Beach, CA – Washington, D.C. – 2,270 miles

RENTAL CAR

 

Washington, D.C. Dulles Airport – trip begins

Midlothian, VA – 135 miles

Radford, VA – 395 miles

Rural Retreat, VA – 445 miles

Summit Point, West Virginia – 744 miles

Manassas, Virginia – 808 miles

Washington, D.C. Dulles Airport – 920 miles - trip ends

AIRPLANE

 

Washington, D.C. – Long Beach, CA - 2,270 miles

Total air miles – 4,540 miles

Total auto and air miles traveled on this trip – 5,460 miles

 

 

 

 

 

TRACK ADMSSION PRICES:

 

Southside Speedway – $10

Motor Mile Speedway - $15

Wythe Speedway - $7

Summit Point Raceway - Free

Old Dominion Speedway - Free

 

Total race admissions for the trip – about $32

 

 

 

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

 

It’s about time to begin my trackchasing migration northward.

 

 

 

 

 

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

 

1,016. Barber Motorsports Park, Leeds, Alabama – April 8

 

1,017. Coldwater Raceway, Coldwater, Alabama – April 8

 

1,018. Talladega Short Track, Talladega, Alabama – April 8

 

1,019. Ballymena Raceway, Ballymena, Northern Ireland - April 14

 

1,020. Oulton Park, Little Budworth, England - April 15

 

1,021. Somerset Rebels Banger Raceway, Rooks Bridge, England - April 16

 

1,022. Mendips Raceway, Shipham, England - April 16

 

1,023. Oval Raceway, Angmering, England - April 17

 

1,024. Arlington Stadium, Eastbourne, England - April 17

 

1,025. Southside Speedway, Midlothian, Virginia - April 28

 

1,026. Motor Mile Speedway, Radford, Virginia - April 29

 

1,027. Wythe Speedway, Wytheville, Virginia - April 29

 

1,028. Summit Point Raceway, Summit Point Circuit, Summit Point, West Virginia - April 30

 

1,029. Old Dominion Speedway – inner inner oval, Manassas, Virginia - April 30

 

 

WASHINGTON D.C. NOTES

We stayed in Manassas, Virginia on Sunday and Monday nights.  Our hotel was about 25 miles from downtown D.C.  Hotels were running $200-$300 per night in Washington, D.C. and I didn’t feel like competing with corporate expense accounts.

 

We were pretty well raced out by Sunday night.  Nevertheless, we stumbled across an excellent Tex-Mex restaurant in Guapo’s Rotisserie & Tex-Mex Grill (www.guaposrestaurant.com  703-393-9449).  Spanish is the primary language spoken here.  The restaurant was so good, I’m giving it a RANLAY Racing Money Back Guarantee.  If you visit the Old Dominion Speedway, it’s only 3-4 miles away.  Their food was so good; we stopped there again on our way out of town on Tuesday.

 

Monday morning found us headed into our nation’s capital.  It’s trips like this that really add a great touch to the trackchasing hobby.  The weather was glorious.  The morning traffic at 9:30 a.m. wasn’t too bad.  However, it was very difficult to park downtown.

 

After several minutes of searching, I made an illegal u-turn and found a metered spot.  We would have to feed the meter to the tune of a dollar an hour every two hours but we were thankful to have found the spot.  We even found the meter with an hour’s worth of time left on it, so we considered ourselves lucky.

 

Our first stop was at the National Museum of History.  This museum houses so many pieces of popular culture.  They have created Julia Child’s kitchen.  They featured Judy Garland’s red slippers from the Wizard of Oz and Jerry Seinfeld’s “Puffy shirt” from his popular sitcom.  There were dozens of other exhibits.

 

Our next stop was next door at the National Museum of Natural History.  This museum had some extensive gem and rock exhibits including the Hope diamond, a 55-carat diamond.  We then made a stop at the IMAX Theater to view the film ‘Aliens of the Deep.

 

The afternoon was spent on some of Washington’s most popular attractions.  We got a great view of the Washington Monument, the IRS building and the EPA buildings! 

 

Probably the biggest highlight was our view of the White House.  I was surprised at how close we could get.  Check out www.ranlayracing.com for some pictures of this visit.  Just as we were leaving the White House, we heard the chants of a large demonstration.  The folks in favor of illegal immigrant rights were marching up the street.  They had a couple thousand people waving Mexican, El Salvador and U.S. flags.  They were well behaved and the D.C. police kept a close eye on things.

 

We had had a long day at this point and wanted to find a nice place for dinner.  We ended up in the Ronald Reagan Building for some Chinese food.  We relaxed and kicked back after having walked a good deal during the day.

 

We were starting to drag a bit and still had a 10-block walk back to the car.  As we got nearer our parking spot, I began to look for the car.  I couldn’t remember exactly where we parked but had an uneasy feeling our car wasn’t where we left it.

 

It turned out that the metered parking was good from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.  From 4 p.m. to 6:30 p.m., there was no parking at the curb because of rush hour.  Anyone parked there would be (and was) towed away.  That was a bummer after a hard day of being a tourist!

 

Now we had to track down the car.  We’ve had our car towed one other time at Anaheim Stadium.  That was both a major hassle to retrieve and it was expensive.  I feared the worst.  I called the phone number on the sign to find out how we could get the car back.

 

It was nearly 7 p.m. and all I could get was a recording.  They said all customer service agents had gone home at 5 p.m. and I should check out their website for info on getting the car.  Of course, I had no computer and there weren’t many people around at this hour.  I stumbled across a local security guard.   He let us in the security office of the Natural History Museum.  The guards in there were very helpful as was the live person I spoke with about my car.

 

It turns out they had towed the car just a few blocks away and parked it on the street.  We could simply walk over and pick it up.  Of course, there was a fee to be paid within 30 days for the trouble.  How much?  One hundred bucks!  Actually, I was a bit relieved.  I thought it might be two or three times more than that.  You can check out the parking signs at www.ranlayracing.com to see if you might have been as confused as we were.  I used Carol as my barometer on things like this.  I am easily confused because I don’t take the time to read the fine print.  If she is confused then I know the instructions weren’t clear.