Randy Lewis
World's #1 Ranked Trackchaser
OZARK EMPIRE FAIRGROUNDS, SPRINGFIELD, MISSOURI
RANLAY RACING TRACKCHASER REPORT
DAY 1 – LET’S JUMP ALL OVER THE COUNTRY TRACKCHASING TOUR
NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC DIVERSITY RESULTS COMPLETE!
If you were a baseball manager which of these two baseball players would you want on your team? Would you want a power hitter who batted .350 and hit 50 home runs, but couldn’t catch a fly ball to save his life. On the other hand, would you want a shortstop that caught every ball in the gap and never made an error all season, but batted just .175.
You are probably saying to yourself, “But Randy, why couldn’t I have a player who hit 50 home runs, batted .350 and never made an error?” You would be well within your rights to have such a preference. It was with this thinking in mind that the National Geographic Diversity trackchasing program was developed.
Back in 2001 and 2002, I began to work on an idea that would recognize the best “all-around” trackchasers. At the time, I asked several trackchasers and fans what they thought should be considered when visualizing the ideal, maybe even the “best” trackchaser.
People told me the best trackchaser should see a lot of tracks, maybe even more tracks than anybody else. They also told me that to be considered at the highest echelon of trackchasing, that person had to see tracks all over the country. Remember, this was before we had any knowledge of folks outside of the
Based upon this input I went to work to develop a rating program that would balance a trackchaser’s quantity of tracks with where the trackchaser had to go to see them. My data came from the www.trackchaser.net website. Will White who operates www.trackchaser.net gets his data from the trackchasers themselves. I guess you could say the data was traveling full circle.
Of course, this is just one way of judging who the most valuable trackchaser might be. Pundits could say our overall trackchasing rules are just one person’s or one small group’s way of looking at the trackchasing hobby. Fans who talk to me can’t understand the rationale for not counting drag strips, motorcycle races or desert off-road races. I tell them that’s just the way the founders decided to do it. That would be the same response I provide when someone asks how the NGD rules came about.
Below you will see the explanation and background for the National Geographic Diversity Awards that appears on www.ranlayracing.com.
NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC DIVERSITY AWARD BACKGROUND
The National Geographic Diversity Award was first established in 2003. The NGDA is meant to recognize trackchasers who excel on two fronts. Points are awarded based upon a trackchaser's state ranking in all 50 of the
If a trackchaser has seen the most tracks of anyone as reported by www.trackchaser.net in an individual state, they will receive a score of "1" for that state. The second place finisher gets a "2", third place finisher gets a "3", etc. Anyone finishing outside of the top 10 in an individual state receives a score of 15 in that state. The National Geographic Diversity scoring scale is like golf. The low score wins.
Each year there are four National Geographic Diversity awards. Both men and women are recognized for lifetime results and for annual results. Since 2003 was the first year of this award, both the lifetime and 2003 (annual) results were the same. During 2003, the results were limited to the top 20 worldwide trackchasers. In subsequent years, any trackchaser listed in a state's top 10 will be eligible for the award.
All results are tabulated by the National Geographic Diversity Institute located in
This is the fifth year of the NGD contest. Last year, when Gordon Killian was the men’s and overall lifetime NGD leader I wrote the following. I stand by those words today.
“The NGD lifetime leader may hold the most prestigious position in all of trackchasing, at least in the
Special congratulations go out to John Moore, Bing Metz, Paul Weisel, Guy Smith, Pam Smith, Randy Lewis, Ed Esser, Gary Jacob, Allan Brown, Pappy Hough, Roger Ferrell, Rick Schneider, Jack Erdmann, Paul Weidman, and Norm Wagner. They all led the lifetime state standings in one state or more.
2007 National Geographic Award Winners
2007 Annual Men’s – Randy Lewis,
2007 Annual Women’s – Carol Lewis,
Lifetime Men’s – Randy Lewis, San Clemente, California
Lifetime Women’s – Nancy Brown, Comstock Park, Michigan
Previous National Geographic Award Winners
Annual Winners
2006 Annual Men’s – Randy Lewis,
2004-2005 Annual Men’s – Ed Esser,
2003 Annual Men’s – Allan Brown,
2005-2006 Annual Women’s – Carol Lewis,
2004 Annual Women’s – Nancy Brown,
Lifetime Winners
2004-2006 Lifetime Men’s – Gordon Killian,
2003 Lifetime Men’s – Allan Brown,
2006 Lifetime Woman’s – Pat Eckel,
2005 Lifetime Woman’s – Nancy Brown,
All of this year’s award winners will win a one-year subscription to the series sponsor, the National Geographic magazine.
Additional NGD results and detail can be found under the NGD tabs at www.ranlayracing.com.
TODAY’S HEADLINES
2007 National Geographic Results are now final. Use www.ranlayracing.com to click on either “NGD Lifetime Results” or “NGD Annual Results” to see who the winners are.
My seatmate on the flight to
Tonight’s track had one of the more unusual racing classes that I will see all season. …………..details in “Race Review”.
AND THE READERS RESPOND
From time to time interested readers write me about one thing or another. Many times, I feel that my other readers would be interested, informed and/or amused by the comments I get.
From
“Hi Randy.
Initially, I would have said you were good and lucky. However, after having thought about this a few minutes more I have to say that good beats lucky. My reasoning is that you engage folks on these trips. I like to engage strangers on trips as well and have learned a lot and saw things I might not have seen in my travels if I relied on luck.”
Click on this link or paste it in your browser to take you to today’s Trackchaser Report via my website at
http://www.ranlayracing.com/feb132008.htm
GREETINGS FROM
I WOKE UP IN
PEOPLE/STRATEGY/TRAVEL NEWS
The Objective
The objective is to see as many tracks as I can. If my airplanes fly as scheduled, I will get three tracks in three days in February. There probably have not been 10 such instances in the history of trackchasing.
The Trip
My flights were tighter than I expected but I made each of them. Somehow, I lost my boarding pass from the security area to the boarding gate, a distance of about 30 yards. A quick explanation regarding my incompetence remedied the situation.
My first flight took me from
As the flight attendant was arranging with several other passengers to check their bags, she asked me what my connection was going to be. I mentioned my standby status. The flight attendant motioned me over to the side and whispered in my ear, “go sitdown in your seat and we’ll take care of your bag”. With a nod of assurance from her, I knew my bad would travel with me and not have to be checked at the last minute. I’m planning some ice racing on Sunday and I wouldn’t want to venture up into Northern Minnesota with my long underwear ending up mysteriously in
The People
When I have time, I enjoy talking with my fellow passengers on the plane. Often, however, I will simply pop open my laptop and work without conversing with my seatmate. By the way, one of my more well-known fellow airline passengers was Republican front-runner John McCain. This must have been 15 years ago or so. We were both in a small first class cabin. I didn’t even know who he was until, the fellow sitting next to me explained it to me.
Today I was flying on a small plane. They sat a guy as big as me in the seat next to me. This made working on my laptop or doing just about anything, including breathing, nearly impossible. I took the opportunity to strike up a conversation.
The fellow was a manager for a large accounts receivable company. His company tried to get people to pay their bills to hospitals. He had some interesting things to say. First, people with higher credit scores are more of a credit risk than folks with lower scores. Apparently, people with high credit scores can get access to more credit and more credit does them in.
My new friend told me the average person owes about five $700 bills to a hospital. What was surprising to me was that with the people who miss a payment or more, the hospital ends up collecting only 20% of what is owed!!
I cringe when I hear those radio and TV commercials announcing “we can settle your credit card bills for pennies on the dollar”. Wouldn’t it be more accurate to have the announcer say, “Yes, you bought that new TV for $500. We can help you screw the store you bought it from so you won’t have to pay your bill at all. You’ll end up getting the TV for just the $50 down payment you made. Don’t worry! The store will just charge higher prices to the people who do pay their bills in full!”
STATE RANKINGS
This was my 38th lifetime track to see in the “Show Me” state. I am now tied with Max Allender for third place here. Ed Esser has a commanding lead in
I now rank third of better in a hobby leading 23 states and the
RACE REVIEW
OZARK EMPIRE FAIRGROUNDS,
Some might say tonight’s new track was a long walk for a short slide. They would be correct. I woke up at 4:30 a.m., then flew standby on two flights on a Friday, the busiest day of the week. I landed in
Tonight was the first night of a two-day indoor show at the Ozark Empire Fairgrounds. The better racing night was going to be Saturday night. However, it’s rare to be able to schedule a Friday night show in early February. Despite the fact that tonight’s program offered only one countable trackchasing class, strategically this was the better program to watch.
Tonight’s program was scheduled to begin at 7 p.m. However, with the fairgrounds less than five miles from the airport, I figured I would check out the building in the daylight, then check into my hotel, then come back to the track at around starting time. When I entered the building, I immediately ran into Jay Reynolds, the event’s promoter. I had corresponded with Jay in advance of the trip. He invited me in as the track’s guest and took me on a tour of the facility.
The entire program was being held in an indoor HEATED arena. Frequently, these fairgrounds shows are not heated. With the outside temperature at near freezing, it was a major win to have some heat. Jay is a young man of about 35 years of age. He runs a landscaping business in the summer and is just now getting into the race promotion business. He has more of these shows planned as well as a big monster truck show.
Jay had a good deal of the “marketing” elements of a good race promotion. On the other hand, the event had some significant drawbacks. I will tell you about both.
Jay Reynolds is a racing competitor in addition to being a racer. He drives in the 500cc outlaw kart division. I’ve seen him race at other venues. He seems to know everybody and spent time thanking each competitor for coming to the weekend event. The indoor pit area is a huge cavernous enclosed area that sits behind the main grandstand. There were more than 100 competitors pitted in this area.
Jay and his crew had taken care of a number of customer convenience and entertainment details. They had an event t-shirt concession. There was a clown (Ned Dirt) who entertained the crowd during down times. They threw t-shirts into the crowd from time to time. The concessions were good and probably provided by the event’s concessionaire staff. My cheeseburger ($4.50) was above average.
Hot laps started about six o’clock. I had already been at the track for more than an hour when practice started. There were a large number of classes racing tonight. The classes included, “Race Brother's Hillbilly Lawn Mowers, RE Cycle Flat Track Motorcycles, ENS Outlaw Blue plate young guns (ages 5-10), Outlaw Kart Modified young guns (ages 8-12), and the DC Cycle Modified Pit Bikes.” The lone countable class was the TRS Motorsports Outlaw Karts. There were 22 of them.
The announcer was a professional, but unfortunately, in buildings like this the P.A. system is rarely good. Tonight it was very poor. It was impossible to hear what the names of each class that appeared on the track actually were.
Hot lapping took more than one hour. Fortunately, the outlaw karts were the first class on the 1/6 mile flat dirt oval. There were a good number of spins during practice for the outlaw karts and kids kart divisions. This, along with an announced late start due to race teams arriving late delayed the first racing until 7:20 p.m.
Fortunately, I guess the only countable class, the outlaw karts raced first. Unfortunately, the racing wasn’t very good. There were three heat races. Each started 7-8 karts. Each of the races had multiple yellow flags. The first two heat races needed four tries at even getting their races started.
I heard several fans commenting that these karts were just too fast for such a small track. That may have been true. I think several of the drivers were running way over their head as well.
In addition to the yellow flag delays, the dust and exhaust made seeing even the opposite end of the track difficult. I wonder what EPA officials would have said about these air quality conditions. Carol would not have liked this show one bit.
There was a very large crowd on hand tonight. The arena offered seating around the entire oval except beyond turns one and two. The building was around 80% full. I would estimate there were about 1,000 people on hand. I can’t imagine that many of them were pleased with the dust and fumes from the outlaw kart group.
The remaining classes were much better for racing without all of the debris in the air. I really liked the flat track motorcycle division. They were loud and powerful. The racing lawnmowers were also a crowd favorite. There were a couple of small motorcycle/motorbike groups that ran on a road course layout with small jumps. There were also some kids kart divisions to round out the program.
I commend Jay Reynolds for putting many elements of an entertaining program together. He’s going to have to make a few changes and unfortunately, they focus on trackchasing’s one countable class that was on the program tonight. There is no way, in my opinion, he can allow that amount of dust and fumes to continue. If the crowd feedback doesn’t do him in, the local government officials just might. I wish him luck. He has all the enthusiasm in the world and a good deal of race promotion knowledge.
RENTAL CAR UPDATE
I drove the National Rental Car Racing
Thanks for reading about my trackchasing,
Randy Lewis
When Peter says something about Paul, it says more about Peter than it does Paul. TRAVEL DETAILS
AIRPLANE
Orange County, CA – Denver, CO – 845 miles
Denver, CO – Springfield, MO - 634 miles
RENTAL CAR –
Ozark Empire Fairgrounds – 4.5 miles
TRACK ADMSSION PRICES:
Ozark Empire Fairgrounds – Free
RANKINGS
LIFETIME TRACKCHASER STANDINGS UPDATE:
There are no trackchasers currently within 100 tracks of my lifetime total.
1. Randy Lewis,
Other notables
These worldwide trackchasers are within 10 tracks (plus or minus or more) of Carol’s current trackchaser total.
26. Mike Knappenberger,
27. Carol Lewis,
27. Ken Schrader,
28. Max Allender,
2008 TRACKCHASER STANDINGS
1. Randy Lewis,
2. Carol Lewis,
2. Mike Knappenberger,
4. Ed Esser,
5. Bruce Eckel,
5. Pat Eckel,
5. Guy Smith, Effort,
5. Paul Weisel,
Several trackchasers with one track.
Tracks have been reported by 16 different worldwide trackchasers this season.
LIFETIME NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC DIVERSITY STANDINGS
2007 NGD results are now posted at www.ranlayracing.com.
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
Tomorrow is going to be a huge day of trackchasing at a big name track.
RACETRACKS VISITED IN 2008 (** not the first time to visit this track)
1,299.
1,300. Bira Circuit,
1,301.
1,302.
1,303.
1,304.
1,305. Ozark Empire Fairgrounds,
