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I take my responsibilities as editor of the Trackchaser Report very
seriously. I’m always looking for ways
to entertain my readers with the latest in technology.
I hope you’ve been able to sample my website at www.ranlayracing.com by now. I have just added a new feature to the
site. Just click on the above address
and you will be directed to the home page of my website. If you have “QuickTime”,
you should be able to hear my interview with Jim Birkemeyer of radio station KRJB
(106.3) up in
GREETINGS FROM
It may take me a few days to get photos up for these tracks. Don’t worry, soon you can click on www.ranlayracing.com to see photos of
this week’s trip.
RAINOUT UPDATE
I’m unhappy to report that we were rained out on Saturday night in our
attempt to see racing at the
I chose to give
This is my third rained out day of 2006.
I have 69 successful days in 2006.
I do not fly planes out of
CAROL AND I WOKE UP IN
PEOPLE/STRATEGY/TRAVEL
NEWS
The Strategy
We were working and benefiting from several trackchasing strategies on
this trackchasing day. Here is the
outcome of these strategies:
1) This was Carol’s first ever trackchasing trip to
2) We saved $204 on our rental car by using National Rental Car Frequent
Renter points.
3) This was quite a trackchasing double.
It involved TWO countries! There
are very few of those.
4) I saw my 100th track of the season. I know I saw my 100th track of
2005 on July 23. That puts me 21 days
behind my 2005 record-breaking pace. Just
call me a slacker.
All of the above was achieved by the cumulative results of making the
right choices day in and day out for a long time.
The Trip
The main part of this trip was to get Carol her fourth
Canadian trackchasing province. Had we
elected to bypass
We travel internationally often. For trackchasing, this was my 93rd
international track and Carol’s 34th.
When we trackchase, or tour for that matter, we want to get
the fullest international experience that we can. That means no eating in American chain
restaurants, staying in American chain hotels, etc. Of course, we can’t always stick to this
mantra, but we try. I do recall eating
at the McDonalds in
We would be in
The drive from the border to
We drove around until we found what looked like a promising
Italian pizzeria restaurant. It was now
9 p.m. and we had driven more than 500 miles for the day. We were looking for a good meal. In reality, this was a combination
Italian/Greek restaurant. I don’t recall
ever seeing such a combo. They had several
pictures of the
Next on the agenda was finding a motel. The track’s location of Gimli is north of
Even though
We had to stop at a downtown bar and ask some revelers about
any nearby hotel locations. They stopped
partying long enough to give us three recommendations. The first place had no rooms. The second place had a note on the door
saying the proprietors had gone out for the evening and there were no rooms
available. We couldn’t find the third
place! All of these “Motels” were of the 5-10 room varieties
and built before I was born.
On our way out of town, we found a place. It was small and not very well lit. This was the Motel 9. I don’t know where it got its name. They only had six rooms and they cost $57
each, Canadian of course.
At first, we couldn’t find where the office was. The neighbor at the house next door was out
in his front yard and he gave me a head’s up.
I needed to go into the bar area of the Roadhouse Bar to inquire. The bar maid I met up with told me that all
of the rooms had been reserved. However,
the folks hadn’t shown up yet, and she agreed to rent me a room. If we hadn’t gotten that room, I don’t know
where we would have ended up. Heck, this
is just part of the “International” experience.
Our room did not have a phone and got terrible TV
reception. However, it was clean, had a
large bathroom and good shower and it was quiet. The bar maid had told me she would give us
the room on the far end as far away from the bar area as possible. “You’ll
have the best chance for a good night’s sleep down there,” she told me with a wink.
The next morning I took my morning power walk. I got some great pictures I’ll show you at www.ranlayracing.com soon. We had breakfast at the bar maid’s
recommended locale, Bonnie’s Restaurant.
It was so good I will not only give it a RANLAY
Racing Money Back Guarantee, but I will provide two
free breakfasts to the first two people submitting their receipt to me. It was excellent.
Crossing back into the
We were only in
The People
I hope everyone reading this has the opportunity to retire
to his or her pleasure someday. I also
hope you have someone to share that retirement with. I’m lucky to have a very accommodating wife.
Carol is willing to go on some of these wild trackchasing
trips with very few complaints. She
jumps right in and shows her interest.
She is even willing to do her share of driving when needed.
If you look at the last three full days of driving on this
trip (512, 559, 663), you can imagine it’s not always a
I came across a huge billboard in
RACE TRACK STATS:
This is my 2nd lifetime
track to see in
This was Carol’s first
This is my 36th lifetime
This was Carol’s fourth
RACE TRACK NEWS:
Countable road racing is held about five times each year at the
GMP. They race rain or shine on the 1.3-mile
flat road course. This weekend would
play host to the Classic Motor Works Vintage race. Just as we arrived, it began to sprinkle
lightly. At an oval, this would be
worrisome, but not here.
The first race was scheduled to begin at 11:15 a.m. We were 20 minutes early. We ran into a gentleman named Keith at the
track sign-in location. Since there
wasn’t much happening, I struck up a conversation with him. This conversation resulted in us being
admitted free. I don’t know if there was
an admission charge or not, but we signed the liability release, got our
wristbands and entered the track.
The first race actually started 10 minutes early. That was surprising. There were about 13 Honda Civic type racecars
in this first race. The cars race down a
long straight that is the track’s drag strip on drag racing days. They then race out into some fields, all on
paved surfaces, before returning to the starting line. All in all, not very entertaining for the
spectator.
The next race up was an event for formula open wheel cars. There were just five or six of them. The track announcer stood on the back of a
pickup truck with two large speakers sitting in the pickup truck’s bed. If you were standing directly in front of
those speakers, you had best schedule a Monday morning appointment with your
audiologist. If you were standing
anywhere else, you would have a hard time hearing any announcements.
The track schedule called for three different race groups for the
day. Each group would have three races,
creatively named, “Race 1, Race 2 and Race 3.” For some reason (lack of cars?), they ran
only two groups and then went to lunch.
The two races we had seen lasted about 25 minutes. Our plan had been to watch the three races,
and all the racecars, on the morning agenda.
We spent a few minutes walking around the facility and taking several pictures. With everyone enjoying burgers cooked on an
open grill in the rain, we headed for the exits. I would say the racing action was about 5% of
our total experience and the restaurants/hotels/walk was 95%. I have no problem with that whatsoever.
CAROL’S
COMMENTS
What can I say about this
track? At least we got it in! These little towns were so quiet with nearly
no one about, I thought we were in the Twilight Zone and/or everyone had been
nuked. We were lucky to find a place to
sleep. (Editor’s note: Carol forgets that on a RANLAY Racing
trackchasing trip, she always gets housed and fed.) I was looking forward to having my apple on
the ride back to the airport. I hope the
The
Fortunately, we had a backup
plan. Bemidji Speedway located in
Bemidji,
The
There were five classes running this
evening. This included mini stocks (3),
pure stocks (7), mod-4s (12), super stocks (11) and
Adult admission was $8. Seniors (60 and over) were admitted for
$5. Since I’m only 57, I paid the full
rate. It’s rare at racetracks where the
senior rate age limit is revealed.
Recently, I read a post about a
trackchaser who was given more change that he was entitled too when he
purchased his ticket. He didn’t tell the
cashier about the error. I would never
do that. What would you do?
It was 62 degrees when we entered
the track. That’s 40 degrees less than
when Kristy and I visited the
The wind blew nearly into the
grandstand. That was bad because the
track was dusty, even though they watered twice. The track was also slick and became dry slick
during the
The announcer remembered me from my
visit earlier this year to the
CAROL’S
COMMENTS
The track was smart to combine the
mini-stocks and pure stocks into one feature with 10 cars. This place looks pretty rundown, although the
track is good. They have a cool looking
bright yellow pace truck.
WEATHER
CONDITIONS
Two weeks ago, when we were in this
part of the country it was 102 degrees at the 6 p.m. race time and 91 degrees
at 9 p.m. Today it was 62 degrees at 6
p.m. and 59 degrees at 9 p.m. That’s
quite a change but much more comfortable.
RENTAL CAR
UPDATE:
I was surprised the
Wednesday total driving miles – 288
miles (corrected)
Thursday total driving miles – 119
miles
Friday total driving miles – 512 miles
Saturday total driving miles – 559
miles (that’s a lot of miles to get zero racetracks!)
Sunday total driving miles – 663
miles
Monday total driving miles – 7 miles
The driving portion of this trip
covered 2,148 miles. We stopped for gas five
times. I paid an average price of $3.03
per gallon. The Chevy Impala gave us 28.0
M.P.G. in fuel mileage at an average cost of 10.8 cents per mile. The car cost 1.5 cents per mile to rent, all
taxes included.
LIFETIME
TRACKCHASER STANDINGS UPDATE:
These worldwide trackchasers are
within 100 tracks (plus or minus) of my current trackchaser total.
1. Randy Lewis,
2.
Guy Smith, Effort,
3.
Rick Schneider –
4.
Allan Brown,
5.
Gordon Killian, Sinking Spring,
6.
Andy Sivi,
7.
Ed Esser,
* Warning, you are within 50 tracks
of being removed from this list.
** Special exemption.
Other notables
These worldwide trackchasers are
within 10 tracks (plus or minus) of Carol’s current trackchaser total.
34.
Sammy Swindell,
36. Carol Lewis,
37.
Dale Danielski,
38.
Bob Schafer,
2006
TRACKCHASER STANDINGS
1. Randy Lewis,
2.
Ed Esser,
3.
Paul Weisel,
4.
Roland Vanden Eynde,
5.
Mike Knappenberger,
6. Carol Lewis,
7.
Guy Smith, Effort,
8.
Roger Ferrell,
9. Allan Brown,
10. Gordon Killian, Sinking Springs,
10. Pam Smith, Effort,
Thanks for reading about my
trackchasing,
Randy Lewis
#1 Trackchaser Living West of the
I’m very good with figures and wish
people asked me to multiply things more often.
CUMULATIVE TRAVEL DISTANCES:
AIRPLANE
Los Angeles, CA - Minneapolis, MN – 1,530 miles
RENTAL CAR
Lindbergh International Airport –
trip begins
Miller,
AIRPLANE
Minneapolis, MN – Los Angeles,
CA -1,530 miles
Total air miles – 3,060 miles
Total auto and air miles traveled on
this trip – 5,208 miles
TRACK ADMSSION
PRICES:
Miller
Total race admissions for the trip –
about $41
Some of my standings data comes from
trackchaser.com
Tomorrow is Monday. Carol and I will test the
Carol is headed back to
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.
1,021.
1,022. Mendips Raceway,
1,023. Oval Raceway,
1,024.
1,025. Southside Speedway,
1,026. Motor Mile
1,027. Wythe
1,028. Summit Point Raceway, Summit
Point Circuit, Summit Point, West Virginia - April 30
1,029. Old Dominion
1,030. Shenandoah Speedway,
1,031.
1,032. Empty Jug,
1,033.
1,034.
1,035. Motocross 338,
1,036.
1,037.
1,038.
1,039. Blackhawk Farms Raceway,
1,040. The
** Angell Park Speedway, Sun
Prairie,
1,041. Park Jefferson
1,042. Superior
1,043. Brainerd International
Raceway,
1,044. Canby
1,045.
1,046. Tri-State
1,047.
1,048.
1,049. The Bullring at
1,050.
1,051. Buena Vista Raceway,
1,052.
1,053. Rocky Top Raceway,
1,054. Midvale
1,055. Midvale
1,056. Spring Valley Raceway,
1,057.
1,058. Lawrenceburg Speedway (figure
8),
1,059. Lawrenceburg Speedway
(temporary oval),
1,060.
1,061. State Park
1,062.
1,063. Lucas Oil
1,064. Lucas Oil
1,065. Tri-City
1,066.
1,067.
1,068.