Randy Lewis
World's #1 Ranked Trackchaser
LAURENS COUNTY SPEEDWAY, LAURENS, SOUTH CAROLINA
By the time I got to the Laurens County Speedway, it was nearly 10:45 p.m. I was in time for the sprint car and stock car features. This is a bullring of a track where the fans sit very close to the track.
TODAY’S HEADLINES
Trackchaser named ‘Celebrity Grand
Marshal’ …….details in “The People.”
Randy sleeps it off in an interstate
rest area..........details in the “The Trip.”
Should trackchasers being counting
flat karts?.................details in the “Race
Track News –
GREETINGS FROM
IF YOU WOULD PREFER TO READ THIS TRACKCHASER REPORT DIRECTLY FROM WWW.RANLAYRACING.COM AND SEE THE PICTURES FROM THIS TRIP SIMPLY CLICK ON THIS LINK OR COPY AND PASTE IT IN YOUR BROWSER:
http://www.ranlayracing.com/may18192007.htm
I WOKE UP IN
PEOPLE/STRATEGY/TRAVEL NEWS
The Strategy
I enjoy telling people about
trackchasing. If you’ve ever met me, I
suspect I’ve probably told you more about the hobby than you wanted to
hear! I love it when I can expose large
groups of folks to this unique and interesting hobby.
I was able to do that today. I found a very receptive audience from a
group of 2,000 people or more, most of which I suspect had never heard of
trackchasing.
Several folks up in the scoring
tower asked me how I found my way to
“I was in
The Trip
Saturday morning
It would a pretty simple trip
today. I had overnighted in
The drive up to the
Early Saturday night
I left the
I had hoped the Senior Champ Kart
race would have been run off earlier in the program. It wasn’t.
Now, it was going to be touch and go getting to the
Did you know that I no longer carry
any paper maps or atlases with me whatsoever?
That’s how confident I am in my Garmin GPS unit. I don’t know of any trackchaser out there who
travels without some form of paper map.
Come on, boys step up that technology.
The GPS told me it was 29.9 miles to
the
The GPS took me down some of the
most rural and narrow two-lane country roads you might imagine. All of the driving was in nearly pitch-black
darkness. I must admit that the GPS unit
is not always absolutely perfect, but it is close.
The unit has the capability to
direct me to all kinds of specific locations in categories like lodging, gas
stations, rest areas, recreational locations and on and on. Tonight, I plugged in “
However, when the machine told me “I was here” I wasn’t. I was in Laurens but I wasn’t at the
track. It was dark. Time was running out. What would I do? Of course, any good trackchaser worth his
salt must have a backup plan or two. I
had two.
I had the track’s street address in
two locations. The first was in my
computer. For any track that I plan to
visit in advance, (Laurens data was entered last night while planning the trip)
I copy the pertinent data from the track’s website into a Microsoft Word file. I also had a tattered and torn copy of the
National
Late Saturday night
I left the
Yes, I was going to attempt to drive
through most of the night, then board a jet plane back for the Golden state
where the Championship Off-Road Racing sanctioning group, aka CORR was holding
an afternoon race in
My GPS unit, dubbed “Dusty” by “Trackchasing’s
First Mother” told me it was going to be a 188-mile drive to the
I could drive straight to the
airport without stopping and then catch some sleep there. Or, I could drive to somewhere near the
airport along the interstate and catch some sleep. How much sleep could I get? How could I calculate how much sleep I could
get and still not miss my plane?
For me the equation was simple. I would simply subtract the time (2:44 a.m.)
that marked my arrival without stops from the time (5:30 a.m.) that was needed
to take care of my airline trip housekeeping.
The result from that subtraction meant I could sleep for two hours and
forty-six minutes.
I didn’t know if it would be
worthwhile to arrive at the airport at 2:44 a.m. Would the National Rental Car bus be
operating at three o’clock in the morning?
Sleeping in airports would probably not be as quite as sleeping in an
interstate rest area.
Therefore, I opted for the last rest
area on Interstate 85, about 40 miles east of the airport. Over time and even today, several of our best-known
trackchasers routinely pass up motels in favor of sleeping overnight in their
cars. I guess, like me, they have to
operate on a budget as well. I only do
it in the rarest of circumstances and only when I need to be somewhere early
the next morning.
Heck, my rest stop stay wasn’t even
three hours long, so I can’t even compare myself to the chasers who do this all
the time. I will say this. Three hours was more than I cared to do
it. My body doesn’t seem to fit that
well in a
I set two alarms, so I wouldn’t miss
my departure time. The cell phone alarm
and portable alarm clock were set for 4:30 a.m. Eastern time (1:30 a.m.
When I reached the gate, I learned I
was 33rd on the standby list of some 40 people trying to get on this
plane. Not to worry, there were more
than 80 open seats on the
I would land at 8:50 a.m.
The drive to
Editor’s note: By the way, if I “never
make it” on one of these trips, please don’t worry about me. I am so far ahead in life’s game that I owe
it. Life does not owe me. I’ve led such a privileged life in so many
ways, for so long that I’m miles ahead.
That doesn’t mean I don’t want to keep enjoying my adventure lifestyles
for as long as my joints and the man above will allow. I just don’t want anyone worrying about me.
Once in awhile, I think what it
would be like if one of my planes ever goes down. You should know that if that ever happens, I
will be planning like crazy all the way down how I’m going to write about such
an occasion in a Trackchaser Report. If
I make it, you’ll be the first to hear about the experience. If I don’t, you won’t.
The People
I’ve met some really nice people as
I travel the world trackchasing. Today’s
visit to the
Once at the track, I ran into a
fellow named Jim of Video Jim’s (www.videojim.com.) He was a lifelong racing fan who used to have
his own cable TV racing show. Now, he
does the video work at local tracks and sells his stuff as a living. Jim had heard about “trackchasers.” He knew what we were about and was impressed
with the hobby. If you’d like a video or
DVD of today’s action, check him out.
Jim insisted on taking me “up to the tower” to meet the track’s announcer,
Bill, and the track owner, Greg. Bill,
the announcer, had also heard about trackchasers. He told me he’s received several calls over
the years from trackchasers asking questions about the tracks down this way.
Bill and I got to talking and soon I
was being named the “Celebrity Grand Marshall”
for today’s Tri-State All Star racing event.
There were several responsibilities I was assigned in order to earn such
a lofty designation. First, I would be
giving the command, “Gentlemen, start your engines”
for the first race of the event. My
command followed the track prayer and the National Anthem.
My next assignment was to throw the
green flag to start the first race. The
Following an at the track interview,
I was given a very nice gift for my efforts.
Each class’s fast qualifier had been given a beautiful medallion with
the words, “Fast Qualifier – Tri-State All Star
Series 2007 –
By the way, I mentioned to Bill the
announcer, that in trackchasing we only count senior champ karts from a normal
class of go-karts. His reply was
interesting. “Wow!”
he said. “Over
the years, I’ve gotten several calls from trackchasers and they always asked me
if we would be running senior champ karts.
I just thought they liked that class.
Now, I know why they were asking!”
RACE TRACK STATS:
LAURENS
These were
my 17th and 18th lifetime tracks to see in
RACE TRACK NEWS:
The
Today’s event drew more go-karters
than I have ever seen at the 50+ “go-kart”
tracks I have visited. They had just
over 500 racers today! I’m not sure if
I’ve ever been to an event with this many entries.
Today’s racing was sanctioned by the
Tri-State All Star Series. Some of the
races paid $1,000 to win. In the world
of go karting that is HUGE prize money.
I’m glad to see my $20 admission fee was being passed along to the
racers. They deserve it.
The facility easily handles the
crowd of competitors they had today. The
P.A. system is as good as any. The track
announcer is easily one of the top five or so I’ve heard in the 49 tracks I’ve
already attended this year. Fans could
watch the action from the comfort of their air-conditioned automobiles (it was
89 degrees!). Or, if they prefer, from a
few small aluminum grandstands sprinkled around the high-banked nearly
quarter-mile long dirt oval.
The track’s P.A. was broadcast over
FM channel 88.7 I listened to the
track’s internal communication on my race scanner on the 469.500
frequency. The program was slightly
delayed when transponders had to be transferred from racers who had just
finished their event to racers who were just getting ready to hit the track.
I cannot for the life of me
understand why most leading trackchasers do not want to count most go karting
for trackchasing purposes. The racing I
saw this winter at the “King of the concrete”
show in
Most of today’s feature only races
had 20-25 karts or more. From a
racechasing view, that’s great. However,
from a trackchasing point of view, it wasn’t that great.
The information sheet I was given
identified some 24-25 different classes that would be racing today. Some of the classes had so many karts there
were multiple “features” in those classes. As it turns out, there were only two
trackchaser countable classes. Those
were the Senior Champ Lites and the Senior Champ Heavies. Where do you think those classes were put in
the overall order of the 24+ plus features?
How about 16th and 22nd respectively. I was going to see my share of flat karts
before I could legally count this track.
If you thought it might take some
time to run 25 feature events with an average of 25 karts to a race for 15 laps
you would be correct. The track’s Grand
Marshall threw the first green flag at about 5:40 p.m. The
About midway through the program,
there was a bad accident. A female racer
was t-boned in turns one and two.
According to the track’s radio transmission, her helmet was cracked
badly. This caused a delay in the
program of 15-20 minutes. The injured
driver was placed on a backboard and transported to a local hospital.
When a track ambulance is forced to
leave the track for the hospital, a significant delay often occurs while the
track waits for another ambulance to arrive at the track. Although the primary ambulance was no longer
at the track, the racing resumed. Maybe
they had another ambulance, but I didn’t see it.
It began to cross my mind that the
second half of my trackchasing double might be jeopardy. At 9:15 p.m. we were on the 14th
feature. My countable class was coming
up in feature #16. The second half of my
trackchasing double, the Laurens County Speedway, was 29.9 miles away according
to my Garmin GPS unit. The GPS told me
it would take 40 minutes to get there. I
figured if I was on the road by 10 p.m., I would probably make it for the last
couple of races in Laurens, but there was no guarantee.
The track also sensed they were
running short on time. Have you ever
tried to put 10 pounds of potatoes in a 5-pound bag? I think that is what the Possum King Super
Speedway was trying to do today. They
did make one positive change in order to speed up the program. They went to single file starts, as opposed
to two abreast for the start of each race.
I’m not sure I’ve ever seen that before.
At just about 9:50 p.m., thirteen
senior champ karts took to the track. Of
all the classes I had seen up to this point this car count was the
smallest. They ran an entertaining (lots
of passing) 15-lap feature event. Now it
was time for me to depart.
I had arrived at the track today at
3 p.m. or so. I was leaving at 10
p.m. In between I had met several nice
folks that I hope I have the pleasure of meeting again. For the first time ever (according to my
fading memory) I had been named the “celebrity
grand marshal” for a racing event.
That was fun.
LAURENS
Custard pie and chocolate cake! I love ‘em both, but they sure are
different. That’s how I would compare
go-kart racing at
I arrived at the second half of my
trackchasing double at 10:45 p.m. The
sprint car feature was just taking to the track. I was in luck, I would be seeing countable
racing. On the other hand, those buggers
at
I glumly paid my $15 after a
half-hearted attempt to talk the ticket lady into a late arrival price
reduction. I quickly climbed into the
concrete seating of the very old grandstands.
This was a bullring. One of the
officials at
There was a large crowd in the stands. Most of them had one thing in common. They all wore clear plastic goggles of one
sort or another. These people were
regulars! They knew they were in for a
night of dust and grit and they were prepared.
There were very few pretenders who could be identified by the dark
sunglasses they wore to fend off the filth.
I jumped right in and joined my fellow racechasers with my own pair of
World 100 certified racing goggles. Just
think, only hours ago I was a “celebrity grand
marshal” sitting in the comfort of the track’s scoring tower and now I
was “out among ‘em” breathing heavy doses of
grit and grime. I loved it both ways!
This track is a small quarter-mile
high-banked dirt, dust and grit oval.
The cars are pitted in the track’s infield and they do block some of the
track’s view. Nevertheless, these racers
are on the gas. The sprint car feature
had just nine cars but they were ferocious.
The racing reminded me of the World
of Outlaws when they used to race on these kinds of tracks back in the 80s. The cars race within 10 feet of so of the
first row of the grandstand. I made
certain I sat as high in the grandstand as I could so I didn’t catch a sprinter
in my front teeth.
One sprint car did completely flip
out of the park over the four-foot high crash wall in turns three and
four. I missed the wreck but saw the
plume of dust that resembled a nuclear bomb cloud. He was O.K. and racing resumed quickly.
The P.A. was good, but the announcer
wasn’t that great. His idea of
identifying the lineup went something like this. “We have the 5,
the 9, the 325, the 6 and the 45 in this race.” Gee, I could have done that. He didn’t add much value.
I did stop briefly at the concession
stand. I fooled myself into ordering a
cheeseburger under the guise that I needed to sample the track’s food
fare. I must say the lady who served me
was WAY OVER HER HEAD when it came to serving the public. I couldn’t fully describe what a dull monetary
bulb was flickering in her head.
Nevertheless, she was a nice person and the cheeseburger was one of the
best I’ve eaten at a track this year.
Following the sprint car feature I
hung in for the 10-car stock car feature race.
They had several spins on the high-banked dirt track. The cars were fast. I never caught the class name of this group,
but they looked like either street stocks or limited late models. It was now 11:45 p.m. Yes, folks in this part of the country folks appear
to be night owls.
I had a 188-mile drive facing me and
my plane left in just over seven hours.
The next feature event on tap was a four-cylinder stock car feature
race. I liked this track, but logistical
circumstances told me it was time to boogie.
WEATHER CONDITIONS
Today’s weather provided a full blue
sky with a warmer than expected 89 degrees.
I guess it was a good move to bag a rain-swollen
RENTAL CAR UPDATE
–
I was somewhat disappointed in my
I drove
the car 553 miles. That’s not very far considering I picked up three new
tracks. I paid an average
price of $3.14 per gallon. The Grand
Prix gave me 22.8 M.P.G. in fuel mileage at an average cost of 13.8 cents per
mile. The car cost 12.4 cents per mile
to rent, all taxes included.
Thursday total driving miles – 2.4
Friday total driving miles – 2.5 (
Friday total driving miles – 189
Saturday and early Sunday morning total
driving miles – 364
LIFETIME TRACKCHASER STANDINGS UPDATE:
These worldwide trackchasers are within 100 tracks (plus or minus) of my current trackchaser total.
1. Randy Lewis,
2. Allan Brown,
3. Guy Smith, Effort,
7. Ed Esser,
* Warning, you are within 50 tracks of being removed from this list.
** Special exemption.
LIFETIME NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC DIVERSITY STANDINGS
2007 (current thru 5/14/07)**
1. Randy Lewis,
2. Gordon Killian, Sinking Springs,
3. Allan Brown,
**Until the end of the year, NGD rankings are unofficial. Rankings are affected not only by the leader’s activities but also by other trackchasers impact on the leader’s position in each state.
Other notables
These worldwide trackchasers are within 10 tracks (plus or minus) of Carol’s current trackchaser total.
31. Carol Lewis,
There are no trackchasers within 10 tracks (either above or below) of Carol’s current total.
2007 TRACKCHASER STANDINGS
1. Randy Lewis,
2. Ed Esser,
3. Roland Vanden Eynde,
3. Mike Knappenberger,
5. Carol Lewis,
6. Guy Smith, Effort,
7. Gordon Killian, Sinking
Springs,
8. Roger Ferrell,
9. Rick Young,
10. Paul Weisel,
10. Pam Smith, Effort,
Tracks have been reported by 34 different worldwide trackchasers this season.
Thanks for reading about my trackchasing,
Randy Lewis
That’s all the news that’s fit to
print from
CUMULATIVE TRAVEL DISTANCES:
AIRPLANE
Los Angeles, CA – Albuquerque, NM – 676 miles
RENTAL CAR –
AIRPLANE
Albuquerque, NM – Atlanta, GA – 1,269 miles
RENTAL CAR –
Modoc,
Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta – 553
miles - trip ends
AIRPLANE
Atlanta, GA – Los Angeles, CA – 1,940 miles
Total Air miles – 3,885 miles
Total auto and air miles traveled on this trip – 4,442.9 miles
TRACK ADMSSION PRICES:
Modoc
Total racetrack admissions for the trip – $45
Past trackchasing reports are available at:
Official trackchaser standings can be viewed at:
Some of the data in this report comes from www.trackchaser.net
and my Garmin GPS
UPCOMING TRACKCHASING PLANS
It’s time to go back to
RACETRACKS VISITED IN 2007 (** not the first time to visit this track)
1,139. Meremere Dirt Track
Club,
1,140. Meeanee Speedway,
1,141. Top of the South
Speedway,
1,142. Woodford Glen Speedway,
1,143. Robertson Holden
International
1,144.
1,145.
1,146. Angels Stadium of
1,147. Angels Stadium of
1,148.
1,149.
1,150. Grand Prix De
Lanaudiere,
1,151. Ste-Eulalie Ice Track,
1,152. St Guillaume, St
1,153.
1,154.
1,155. Northeast Pond Ice
Track,
1,156. Lee Pond Ice Track,
1,157. New Hendry Country
1,158.
1,159. Honeoye Lake Ice Track –
Road Course,
1,160.
1,161.
1,162. Dawgwood Speedway,
1,163. Toccoa Speedway,
1,164. Tazewell Speedway,
1,165.
1,166. Dacosa Speedway,
1,167. Swinging Bridge Raceway,
1,168.
1,169. Foothills Raceway,
1,170. Mileback Speedway,
1,171. Grand Prix of
1,172. Vegas Grand Prix,
1,173.
1,174. Low Country Kartway,
1,175. Dillon Motor
1,176. Valley Dirt Riders,
1,177.
1,178. Sertoma Speedway,
1,179.
1,180.
1,181. Hollywood Hills
1,182. Meridian
1,183.
1,184. Rocky Mountain Raceways
(oval),
1,185. Rocky Mountain Raceways
(figure 8),
1,186. Modoc
1,187.
1,188.
