


























GREETINGS FROM
During tonight’s event I was interviewed by reporter John Curtis of the
I also had an interview with the track announcer at the front of the
grandstand. I will tell you more about
that in the “Race Track News” section.
ALL PICTURES HAVE BEEN UPDATED, UP TOO AND
INCLUDING THIS TRACK AT WWW.RANLAYRACING.COM
WE WOKE UP IN
TRACKCHASING TOURIST ATTRACTION #1
We woke up in our Microtel Motel in
I really like these types of stores.
I don’t get in them much, but wish I did. They offer a wide variety of items that you
might not find in most places. Today’s
store sold saddles, rat traps, sump pumps and cowboy boots.
They even had a Trail Wagon (pictured at www.ranlayracing.com, click on “Trackchaser Reports”, then click on “1,109”, the
I asked Carol to get in the thing so I could take her picture. She asked, “What
is it, a golf cart?” As Larry the
cable guy is fond of saying, “I don’t car who you
are, that’s funny right there!”
No, we don’t hang around farms very much, except when it’s part of a
trackchasing tourist attraction.
PEOPLE/STRATEGY/TRAVEL
NEWS
The Strategy
It may seem like we are high-rolling trackchasers with a nearly
unlimited budget and not a financial care in the world. However, nothing could be further from the
truth. Carol is a very cost-conscious
young woman and I try to do my part as well.
A couple of years ago, McDonalds came out with their “Dollar menu.”
I’m sure this business strategy was designed to build store
traffic. At the time, I wondered who
would buy any of the regularly priced sandwiches when they could get several
others for just one dollar. I really
didn’t expect the Dollar Menu to last long.
I was wrong. It’s still with us.
We stopped at the McDonalds in
The double cheeseburger was on the menu, but it was not priced at one
dollar. The price was $2.80! However……I am not easily deterred. I noticed that a single cheeseburger was
priced at $1.00. I simply ordered two
single cheeseburgers, threw the bread away from one of them and presto,
change-o, I had a double cheeseburger. Yes,
I had paid two dollars for it, not one dollar, but I had beaten the menu price
of $2.80. These guys who figure out
pricing in large and modern corporate boardrooms are pretty cagey. Of course, that is what their shareholders
want them to be!
Next, up was getting a good value on our drinks. Only after placing a small drink order for
Carol and a medium drink order for me did we discover a very unusual pricing
strategy here as well. These were the
prices on the three sizes of drinks available:
Small drink $0.99 (16 oz.)
Medium drink $1.00 (22 oz.)
Large drink $1.40 (32 oz)
It doesn’t look to me like the small drink is a very good value. This entire exercise just goes to show you
that managing your money can be a daunting task. You might imagine it is even more difficult
and much more costly to buy the major items in your life (cars/houses) in the
most efficient manner. I wish everyone
luck in this endeavor and hope that you can retire to a financially worry-free
lifestyle as soon as you want too.
The Trip
I get a sense that the wind blows strongly in
I think the Super 8 Motel chain is a good value for the money. I am somewhat disappointed that I continue to
find a price difference when I call their “800”
reservations number and when I call the hotel directly. Until they resolve this discrepancy, if they
even want too, I will continue to call both locations and go with the lowest
price.
Today, the central reservations number has a price for two of
$67.50. Calling the hotel directly,
yielded a price of $70.00. I know this
is not much of a difference. However,
with me it is a matter of principle.
When I talked to the hotel directly, I asked the person I was speaking
too if he had a “Manager’s special.” His reply was, “I’m
not the manager.” O.K. “Do you have a
front desk clerk’s special?” I asked.
“No, I don’t,” he replied dryly.
I was looking forward to meeting this guy. You might think that the front desk clerk,
acting as the main point of contact for the hotel with the public, would have a
socially acceptable appearance. That was
not the case at the Super 8 in
This gentleman had all kinds of piercings that made it look like his orthodontist
might have been drunk when the braces were applied. The metal on his face was only overshadowed
by his tattoos. On the outside of his
four fingers on right hand, he had “N V E R”
in crude blue ink. On the outside of the
four fingers on his left hand, he had “4 G E T”
tattooed. I thought it was pretty cool
that the letters faced toward me the reader rather that toward him. That made it so that I could never forget.
He really didn’t seem like a bad guy.
I couldn’t resist asking what NVER 4GET meant. He told me.
I can’t share his answer with you here, but it seemed to make sense. He admitted that his upbringing was pretty
rough. It made me sad to see the outcome
of that upbringing.
The People
I was surprised by one thing after driving around
The predominant type of restaurant was Mexican. I suspect you can get some very good and very
authentic Mexican food in town. We ended
up going to
RACE TRACK STATS:
These were my 16th and 17th
lifetime tracks to see in
I have moved from an out of the top
10
This was also my fourth “Same location” double of the season. I had eleven of these in both 2004 and
2005. It’s getting harder and harder to
find “Same location” doubles.
These were Carol’s fourth and fifth
She has been slowly and steadily
working her way up the worldwide lifetime trackchasing standings. She now stands in 35th
position. If she were in NASCAR, she
would have a guaranteed starting spot in all future events with that point
standings ranking. Johnny Gibson from
somewhere called Grand Island,
RACE TRACK NEWS:
Tonight was a “Same location”
trackchasing double. This type of double
happens when I see two countable tracks at the same location during the same
visit. In trackchasing, we count three
types of tracks: ovals, road courses and figure 8s. Tonight’s “Same
location” double was because the DCRP has both an inner oval and an
outer oval. What makes their situation
unique is that the inner oval has an asphalt racing surface and the outer oval
is dirt. I’m not sure but I don’t think
I’ve ever seen such a thing.
We drove out to the track at about 4 p.m. The racing didn’t start until 7 p.m., so
there was very little activity going on.
We did take the occasion to scope out our surroundings. We walked into the grandstand, took some
pictures and discussed where we might sit to avoid the omnipresent wind.
Considering the rural location and state of decay in
The track accepts credit cards. I
like that. It means fewer trips to the
ATM. The admission price tonight was $8. That seemed low to me. I am rarely surprised by low ticket
prices. Normally, it’s the other way
around. I was in for another shock.
I asked for two adult tickets.
The ticket taker shoved one ticket toward me. “Here, someone
left this free ticket and never showed up.
It’s yours.” She charged
me for just one adult ticket. Could that
free ticket have been waiting for Elvis?
I will remember her generosity for a long time to come.
Our motel was just two miles from the track. We went back to the track for the second time
today and before the national anthem was sung.
The large steel and aluminum grandstand is top of the line. There was a surprisingly large crowd on hand
for such a cold and windy night. I even
had to switch from my surfer shorts to blue jeans, which I rarely do.
The lights were good and the announcer and P.A. system were as
well. The pit grandstand was better than
99.44% of other track’s main grandstands.
We didn’t try any refreshments accept their hot chocolate. It wasn’t that great.
Tonight was the final points night of the year. They were running street stocks, super
stocks, pure stocks and modifieds on the outer oval. There were three classes of hornets running
on the inner oval. One hornet class was
for “Youths”, one a powder puff class and
the regular hornet group.
The hornets were the most entertaining.
They had a good deal of crashing and banging. The outer oval racing wasn’t very
dynamic. There was little real action
and the car counts were small.
During intermission, I was asked to come to the front of the grandstand
for an interview with the track announcer.
We spent a few minutes discussing the trackchasing hobby. I made a SoCal boy comment about the
I did manage to sneak one very important topic into tonight’s at the
track interview. When Carol saw the
first hornet heat race, it was her 280th lifetime track. This moved her past sprint car star Sammy
Swindell into sole possession of 35th place in the worldwide
trackchasing standings. This stellar
achievement seemed to quiet down the heckler in the fifth row.
Following my interview, we were just getting ready to watch the track’s
intermission entertainment. You can
imagine that I have sat through my share of intermissions and seen about
everything there is to see. Until,
tonight of course. They were having “Paintball shooting matches.” I’ve never seen those before and I didn’t see
much of them tonight.
Just before the paintballers started firing a long gun toward a moving
pink school bus with a bulls eye on it, I heard my name being called. It was the
I never like to turn down an interview.
It’s the main way of educating the public on the hobby of
trackchasing. Can you imagine the
thousands of people who have heard these interviews at the track and read about
them in general interest newspapers? If even
a fraction tells their husband, wife, friend, or co-worker, the number of
people exposed to trackchasing in this fashion is probably approaching a
million by now.
John directed Carol and me to the enclosed lobby of the press box
tower. It was warm in there. Carol was wearing her 1994 UCLA NCAA Championship
hat. That was the year the Bruins beat
John, like many reporters, uses a tape recorder for his interviews. He asked me several questions and even asked
Carol a few. That was a first for
her. She is a trainee in trackchaser
media relations and is doing a fine job.
Soon we were wrapped up. Now, it
was back into the cold of the night.
The final paintball pellet had been fired. We watched the 15-lap 11-car street stocks
feature. We followed that with three
hornet features on the inner oval. It
was now past 9 p.m. We had spent more
than two hours sitting out in some very uncomfortable weather.
I didn’t coax Carol to 280 lifetime tracks by having her catch
pneumonia. It was time to exit, before
we both caught a cold. Remember, we are
senior citizens and need to catch a break from those who advocate staying for
each and every race no matter how entertaining or what the conditions. We were outta there.
CAROL’S
COMMENTS
These
WEATHER
CONDITIONS
How do you spell
Wiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiindy!
RENTAL CAR
UPDATE:
We are happy to report we’ve driven
less than 200 miles in the National Rental Car Racing
Friday total driving miles – 89
Saturday total driving miles – 163
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.
Gordon Killian, Sinking Spring,
5.
Andy Sivi,
6.
Allan Brown,
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.
Johnny Gibson,
35. Carol Lewis,
36.
Sammy Swindell,
2006
TRACKCHASER STANDINGS
1. Randy Lewis,
2.
Mike Knappenberger,
3.
Ed Esser,
4.
Paul Weisel,
5.
Roland Vanden Eynde,
6.
Guy Smith, Effort,
7.
Allan Brown,
8.
Roger Ferrell,
9. Carol Lewis,
10. Pam Smith, Effort,
Thanks for reading about my
trackchasing,
Randy Lewis
#1 Trackchaser Living West of the
Never slap a man who’s chewing
tobacco.
CUMULATIVE TRAVEL DISTANCES:
AIRPLANE
Los Angeles, CA – Dallas, TX – 1,256
miles
Dallas, TX – Wichita, KS – 346 miles
RENTAL CAR -
TRACK ADMSSION
PRICES:
Some of my standings data comes from
trackchaser.com
Tomorrow, Carol will visit her 45th
lifetime trackchasing state –
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.
1,069.
1,070.
** Windy Hollow
1,071.
1,072. Thunderhill Speedway,
1,073. Little Valley
**
1,074.
1,075. Canaan
**
1,076.
1,077. Legion
1,078. Devil’s Bowl
1,079. Stafford Motor
1,080. Little Log House
** Elko Speedway (outer oval),
** Elko Speedway (inner oval),
** Elko Speedway (figure 8),
1,081. Chickasaw Big
1,082.
1,083.
1,084. Atomic Motor Raceway, Atomic
City,
1,085.
1,086. Rock Creek Race Track,
1,087.
1,088.
1,089. Miller
1,090.
1,091.
1,092.
1,093.
1,094.