Randy Lewis
World's #1 Ranked Trackchaser
MANASSAS, VIRGINIA
Carol and I are thinking about giving up trackchasing
to buy a boat.
It was a beautiful spring drive along the roads of
The Old Dominion inner inner oval was my 1,029th
lifetime track. It was track #243 for
Carol.
There were five Senior Champ Karts racing today, the
only trackchaser countable class.
I saw this young woman trying to sneak into the pit
area.
This is the big asphalt oval at the Old Dominion
Talk about dedicated fans! Carol is the only person in the huge wooden
grandstand and we’re in the middle of the program. That's her way back there by the flags.
I don’t know what to say about this.
When Carol saw this photo of the men’s bathroom,
all she could say was “That’s cute.”
You’ve got to remember that woman don’t get this view very often.
We arrived at the track at 1:15 p.m. They were supposed to start practicing at 12
noon, then qualify and race.
I had plenty of time on my hands.
Could I count the track if I was lying in the
grandstands asleep when the only countable class ran their five minute race?
There was plenty of time to contemplate.
We’ve been here almost four hours. When are they going to race?
I don’t know how much more I can take. Who thought of this idea of counting only champ karts?
We want the champ karts! We want the champ karts! This is what I kept yelling until security
came to calm me down.
The flat karts ran all of their races on the “Middle”
oval.
Finally, at 5:08 p.m., the Senior Champ Karts took to the track and ran their 20-lap non-stop feature race. The race lasted about five minutes. We had been at the track for nearly four hours and this was the only countable race of the day. At least we got some sun.
These are turns one and two of the Old Dominion inner
inner oval.
This is the spectator parking lot. This is our rental car. It wasn’t very crowded.
This is Guapo’s.
We ate here twice during our two day stay. The restaurant serves Tex-Mex food and is
located on
This is Julia Child’s kitchen. She’s an old childhood friend of mine. No, she’s not. We saw this display in the
This is the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) building
in
We are about ready to enter the 3-D IMAX Theatre in the
The
I was standing on the lawn of the White House taking
this picture when the Secret Service came rushing toward me. I told them the photos were for readers of www.ranlayracing.com and they backed
off immediately.
The
Here we are back on the other side of the fence.
We were just in time for the “Immigrant rights”
demonstration in front of the White House.
You can read the sign.
You always hear about the Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA). This is where these folks
come to work everyday.
Isn’t this just like the eraser you had in school
when you were a kid. It’s at the
We liked the counters which told pedestrians how many
seconds they had to clear the crosswalk.
We only read the lower sign. At 4 p.m. we were viewing the White House
while they were towing our car away! I
was surprised it only cost $100 to get it back.
GREETINGS FROM CHARLES TOWN,
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
You can click on www.ranlayracing.com
to see photos from our visit to
Photos from the annual Delta Sigma Pi golf outing in
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
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
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 –
This was Carol’s first ever
trackchasing visit to
This was only my third track to see
in the coal-mining state. I’m mired back
in a tie for 25th place with Bing
OLD DOMINION
This was my 12th track to see in
RACE TRACK NEWS:
The Summit Point Raceway is located just a mile or two in
“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
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
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
Oh, my!! It was only about an
hour’s drive over from
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
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
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
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
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
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
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 –
2. Randy Lewis,
3.
Allan Brown,
4.
Guy Smith, Effort,
5.
Andy Sivi,
6.
Gordon Killian, Sinking Spring,
Other notables
These worldwide trackchasers are
within 10 tracks (plus or minus) of Carol’s current trackchaser total.
37.
Mike Knappenberger,
38.
Spike Rixon,
39.
Virginia Schuler,
40.
Steve Kinser,
41. Carol Lewis,
42.
Don McAuley,
43.
Andy Ritter,
2006
TRACKCHASER STANDINGS
1. Randy Lewis,
2.
Ed Esser,
3.
Roland Vanden Eynde,
3.
Mike Knappenberger,
5. Carol Lewis,
5.
Paul Weisel,
7.
Linda Thomas,
7.
Gordon Killian, Sinking Springs,
9.
Roger Ferrell,
10.
Rick Young,
10.
Guy Smith, Effort,
Thanks for reading about my
trackchasing,
Randy Lewis
That’s all the news that’s fit to
print from
CUMULATIVE TRAVEL DISTANCES:
AIRPLANE
Long Beach, CA – Washington, D.C. – 2,270
miles
RENTAL CAR
Rural Retreat, VA – 445 miles
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
Wythe
Summit Point Raceway - Free
Old Dominion
Total race admissions for the trip –
about $32
Past trackchasing stories are available at:
Official trackchaser standings can be viewed at:
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
993.
Cross Roads Motorplex (asphalt oval), Jasper,
994.
995.
Qualcomm Stadium,
996.
997.
998.
Thunderbowl Speedway of
999.
Cross Roads Motorplex (dirt oval), Jasper,
1,000. Auburndale Kartway,
1,001.
1,002. Speedworld Speedway,
Surprise,
1,003. Lowe’s Motor
1,004.
1,005.
1,006.
1,007.
1,008.
1,009.
1,010.
1,011.
1,012.
1,013. East
1,014. Margarettsville Speedway,
1,015. Sunny South Raceway,
1,016.
1,017. Coldwater Raceway,
1,018.
1,019. Ballymena Raceway,
1,020.