Randy Lewis
World's #1 Ranked Trackchaser
CECIL BAY ICEWAY (OVAL), CECIL, WISCONSIN
RANLAY RACING TRACKCHASER REPORT
DAY 2 – HOW COLD WILL IT GET TRACKCHASING TOUR
IN MEMORY
This week was a tough week for many members of the Pacific Golf Club. We lost our friend and former club president, Dana Condello to cancer. Dana was a good guy. Although I wasn’t as close to Dana as some others, his passing hit me hard. Dana and I, through the luck of our team’s draw, would ride together in a golf cart from time to time. When you spend four hours with someone every couple of months, you can get to know them pretty well. Dana was from the
TODAY’S HEADLINES
There comes a time when you need to change the plan when a better idea comes up. ..................more in “The Objective”.
Stuck in the snow! I was saved by the compassion of Wisconsinites …………..details in “The Trip”.
Just stop it!! To the people of
If you think the race for the Democratic presidential nomination is tight, check out the “Lifetime Couples Trackchasing Rankings”. After more than 60 years for some of the folks and nearly 5,000 tracks seen, the top three couples are all within spitting (interesting choice of words) distance of each other.…………..details in “The Rankings”.
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/february9102008.htm
GREETINGS FROM
I WOKE UP IN
PEOPLE/STRATEGY/TRAVEL NEWS
The Objective
I hope you know that trackchasing mirrors life. The same things that make sense in your everyday life make good sense in trackchasing. In everyday life, you want to make decisions on a daily basis that support your overall life plans. Sometimes, you have to have a very flexible frame of mind in order to take advantage of new opportunities that come up on the spur of the moment. Some of the people who are the most fixed in their thinking believe they are the most flexible. I have never understood why that works that way.
As an example, in the area of money, a person’s life objectives might include proper household budgeting to support your goal of buying a house, putting your children through college or planning your retirement. In the area of good health, it might include eating the right foods and exercising. If you have goals in these areas, you wouldn’t want to do anything that sabotages your attempts to reach your long-term goals. If some worthwhile financial or health idea came up that was exactly opposite of what you had planned on doing, it might be best to change your thinking.
The same thinking applies to trackchasing. My overall goal is to see more racetracks that anyone else in the world while having a “kick-ass” time doing it. I have other trackchasing goals, but this is the primary one.
Today’s original goal was to see a new track in
“But Randy, how do we know that you’re not just making up the idea of seeing an ice race in
I guess anyone who is skeptical on the above point could call the Super 8 in Grand
Then my next new great idea came along!
Late on Saturday afternoon (yesterday), when I was at my second ice-racing track of the day, I ran into a local race fan. I had only been at the
However, as in life, going with a new good idea is not without its inconveniences. What about the $94 hotel room up in
The customer service rep informed me that even though I had made my reservation just two hours ago for tonight, the hotel had a three-day advance cancellation policy. When I made my reservation, I had already passed the cancellation deadline! He told me that I could call the Super 8 “customer service” phone line and they might be able to help me.
I did just that. However, the woman in this department could not help me either. Her only idea was for me to call the hotel and ask for the manager. I did just that. However, I was told the manager “would not be in until February 12”. That was three days from now. I decided to take a chance with the person I was speaking with who I would come to find out was “Igor”. I was fully prepared for Igor to plead “lack of authority”. I would not have blamed him if he did. That was exactly the way we were trained in corporate negotiating classes. If we didn’t want to make a decision because it was not in our best interests, we would simply tell the client, “I don’t have the authority to make that decision”. However, maybe Igor had not attended that class yet. He let me skate on my reservation. Now, I was free to change my plan.
“But Randy, what makes you so dad blamed certain that your new idea was better than the idea of going to
My overall trip would end at the
There would be significant timesavings from not having to drive all those extra miles. My incremental gasoline expense driving to
If I went with the new plan, I would be giving up a $94 hotel up near
The wind chill temperature at race time in
So there you have it, or most of it anyway. By avoiding
There was one more reason for staying in
The Trip
My attempts at “always being prepared” almost backfired today. My plan was to see two new ice racing tracks today. The first,
I showed up at the
After some discussion with the folks running the
The
I returned to the
Nevertheless, the right front of my National Rental Car Racing Chevy Impala began to sink down. My Chevy is a rear-wheel drive car. Front-wheel drive cars are better for traction in the snow. I did my best to get unstuck, but the harder I tried, the less traction I got. For lack of a better description, I was stuck!
This provided a good degree of personal dissatisfaction. However, I am trained to overcome adversity. It was just approaching 12 noon. I wasn’t very far from my first new track of day. It was probably less than a mile from where I was to where the oval ice track was located out on the lake. I could have left the car and walked to the track. However, in -35 degree wind chill temps, that option didn’t seem very attractive. I would have to get my car unstuck sooner or later. Sooner seemed like a good idea since I had a second track to visit less than seven miles away. I didn’t want to blow a trackchasing double when I could literally reach out and touch it.
I decided my best option was to call AAA. There wasn’t much traffic on this two-lane lake road. A single car would come by about every minute. As I was on the phone to AAA, a young man passing by stopped to see if he could help. He told me he had a friend in town who could tow me out of my predicament. I thanked him, but said I would call AAA. Since I’m a member, their services would be free. The Good Samaritan understood and went on his way.
When I did make contact with AAA, there was a bit of a run around. I was finally transferred to the “
While I was on hold with AAA, an older gentleman stopped in a beat up old
I was still on hold with AAA. It was now approaching 12:30 p.m. I was really starting to worry about getting to the
I looked out the front window and saw a truck approaching with a snow plow attachment. I waved my hand to get the driver’s attention. The truck slowed and the driver lowered the window. It was a woman. As she glided past me she yelled, “I’ll go get my husband”. Dang! These Wisconsinites are nice.
In less than five minutes, the snow plow pickup truck reappeared. True to the woman’s word, her husband had showed up to help. While I stood around like a “suburban slicker”, he got down on his back and slid underneath the rear of my car in the snow and grit. “If you want to attach my tow rope, to your car, I’ll pull you out. I don’t want to damage your car”, he told me. I informed him that it was a rental car. I didn’t expect and wasn’t worried about any damage.
With that, he made the attachment, got back in his truck and pulled my car out of the snow. I was saved! I told him that I wanted to pay him for his services. He said, “I don’t want anything. Just go ahead and help someone else when you can.” That was a nice gesture on his part. Nevertheless, I slipped him some compensation for his great work. I ended up taking his picture (see www.ranlayracing.com, click “trackchaser reports”, then click “#1,310”. I told him what I was in town for and told him to “Google” the word “trackchasing”. He said that he would.
I can’t say enough about how nice and helpful these folks in
Had I encountered this problem along the
The People
The people in the
My original plan this weekend was to see two new tracks. On Saturday, I would see the track in
However, as the events of the weekend unfolded, it was necessary to throw the
You can imagine my surprise, on Sunday morning, when I was trying to get up the courage to get out of bed, my cell phone rang. Who could be calling me? By the way, I have a policy of never answering my phone unless, I know who it is. I could see a “715” area code, so I knew it was somebody local to the Wisconsin/Minnesota area. I suspected the call has something to do with this weekend’s trackchasing visit. I answered the phone.
It was the
***************************************************************************************
After the
“Wait just a minute”, she said. “I’ll open a bag of ice and give you a cup so you can pour your soft drink into it”. As my good buddy Gil Travis is fond of saying, “Just stop it!” Stop being so gull-darned nice and helpful.
***************************************************************************************
Why can’t everybody be as nice as the people I encounter in the
Today I saw my 53rd and 54th lifetime tracks in the Badger state home of the most serious beer drinkers in the country. I’m closing in on fourth place, which is currently held by Dale O’Brien. He has seen 60
To view the complete state ranking click on the link below or paste it in your browser.
http://trackchaser.net/statregion.asp?country=USA®ion=WI
TRACK TYPE
In the world of trackchasing, we have three types of tracks that are considered countable. These include ovals, road courses (circuits) and figure 8 tracks. Generally, a road course includes both left and right turns. Figure 8 tracks cross over themselves.
Four different track surfaces are counted. These include dirt, asphalt, ice and mixed. Any other surface you can think of i.e., concrete, steel, board, etc are included in one of the first four track surfaces.
For the second consecutive day I saw two new ice tracks. That gives me four new ice tracks for the weekend and ten new ice tracks for 2008. This brings my ice surface lifetime trackchasing total to 18. I now must try to track down the four most serious ice trackchasers of all time. Will White ranks just ahead of me in fourth place in the worldwide trackchaser standing with 27 ice tracks. I won’t match that total in 2008.
Click on the link below or paste it in your browser to see the complete ice track rankings at www.trackchaser.net. Please note my totals are always the most accurate as posted in this Trackchaser Report.
http://trackchaser.net/statsurface.asp?surface=Ice
RACE REVIEW
Can you say “cold”? Can you say “bitter cold”? It was both! I was 45 minutes early for the 12 noon racing program. When I arrived there were just 4-5 cars in the pit area. No one was outside tinkering with their cars. I couldn’t imagine that -35 degree wind chill temps had anything to do with the inactivity.
The only sign of life appeared to be coming from a very old dark green camper trailer. A sign told me to stop in before entering the pit area. I opened the door and was greeted by an attractive young woman named Janet Pericak. Yes, she told me the car count was down, but they were going to race. I paid my five dollars for a pit pass and received a green wristband. I told Janet I would be back at noon.
Because of my snow drift problems, I didn’t get back to the track until 12:35 p.m. Luckily, they had not started the program yet. I attended the driver’s meeting that was officiated by Janet. Then Al Danielson brought out three large American flags. Three different cars then took slow parade laps with the flags around the ice oval to commemorate their love and affection for our country. You’ve got to be pretty patriotic to show such symbolism in this God awful weather.
In the meantime, I spent some time in the pit shack. It was warm and toasty in there. I talked with several folks about their racing and the racing nearby. This was the N.E.W. I.C.E. Racing Club (www.newiceclub.9k.com). This is their first year of operation.
I was handed a points standing sheet that was current through their first five weeks of racing. They showed three classes including 1) rear-wheel drive non-studded, 2) Front-wheel drive studded and 3) Front-wheel drive non-studded.
Today there were only ten cars in total in the pit area. However, from 11-16 drivers had earned points in each of the three divisions up to this week. I’m sure the cold weather had a lot to do with their car counts. I watched the races from the comfort of my car.
Actually, I could probably wear shorts and a t-shirt to these races if I wanted to stay in my car the entire time. However, it’s important to get out and mingle with the locals at events like this. I learn a lot about their local culture and pickup new track information as well.
The first heat ran off at 12:48 p.m. on the 3/8-mile flat ice oval. The flagman stood out in the wind on the inside apron of the track. That was a thankless job handled by Bob Schmidt, the Tilleda (yesterday’s track) promoter. I met Bob earlier in the day. He told me “I recognized your jacket (blue and yellow UCLA jacket) from yesterday.” I told him why I was in town. “You must be pretty wealthy,” he said. “Well, I used to be….until I started doing this,” I told him. He smiled.
There were just three heats for the ten cars today. Following the first feature event, I headed for shore. By the way, it’s fun to look at my GPS unit when I’m out on a frozen lake. As you might imagine, it shows me as being in the middle of the blue lake on the screen!
I’ve got to give one more shoutout to Janet Pericak, who ran the ticket sales and pit meeting. She also drove the orange #22r in the front-wheel drive non-studded events. She didn’t have much luck and needed some wrecker assistance during her race.
During the feature event, Janet pulled into the pits with a flat tire. She got out of her car, ran over to her open-wheeled trailer and grabbed a full-sized NASCAR style jack. She then proceeded to RUN across the glare ice frozen pit surface to her car to make the necessary repair. Remember the wind in gusting at more than 30 M.P.H. and the temperature is -6 degrees! A few minutes later when the feature race was finished, I began to drive away. Janet had her car on the trailer by now and was rummaging around underneath the car and trailer making adjustments to get her car home.
Wow! This is one
CECIL BAY ICEWAY (OVAL),
I arrived at the
For some reason two of the full-sized ice racers were slowly driving around turns three and four up in the highest groove. This part of the track was where the spectators parked their cars to watch the races. I had no idea what these two race drivers were doing.
It wasn’t long before a woman came up to my car soliciting donations from today’s spectators. I dropped five dollars in her bucket. At the same time she gave me a 5-page handout that recapped last week’s results and the current point standings. There was also an entry blank for the “best looking car award”. That’s what those two cars were doing when they paraded slowly in front of the spectators. They were competing for that best-looking car award.
I will say this. The woman collecting the donations probably spent one minute at each car. There were about 30 spectator cars. It was deathly cold outside and the wind blew at gale forces. This was one dedicated woman!
Today’s oval ice track was approximately one-half mile in distance. The track was extremely wide. I estimate the width all the way around to be about 50 yards. For the most part, the cars hugged the inside of the track during the racing.
When intermission ended, I was treated to four feature events. The racing classes included; 1) front-wheel drive studded, 2), front-wheel drive non-studded, 3) outlaw (looked like local dirt stock cars) and 4) rear wheel drive.
One of the highlights of today’s racing was that the races were broadcast over a local FM station at the 97.1 frequency. This allowed spectators to watch from the comfort of their warm cars while listening to a full description of the races. The announcer mainly kept to just the “names and numbers” but it was nice have this feature.
The racing was actually very good at the
The last feature event wrapped up by about 3 p.m. I was aware of one other track that was racing today that was located about 30 minutes from the
When I got within 10 minutes of the track, I saw racecars being towed back to their homes. That pretty much confirmed that I would not be seeing my third ice racing triple in the past two weeks. When I arrived at the track’s entrance, I saw the portable pit shack building being towed away. I continued on to the track itself only to find about five stragglers still loading up. I’ll catch the track sometime down the road.
RENTAL CAR UPDATE
I’ve got a fire engine red National Rental Car Racing Chevy Impala. If I was interested in a domestic car, I would certainly consider this model. On a cold weekend like this, the heated seats are great.
I drove the National Rental Car Racing Chevy Impala 755 miles in the three days that I had it. I paid an average price of $2.97 per gallon for gas. The Chevy gave me just 21.4 miles per gallon in fuel mileage at a cost of 13.9 cents (
Thanks for reading about my trackchasing,
Randy Lewis
That’s all the news that’s fit to print from
TRAVEL DETAILS
AIRPLANE
Orange County, CA – Denver, CO – 845 miles
Denver, CO – Minneapolis, MN - 679 miles
RENTAL CAR –
AIRPLANE
Minneapolis, MN – Denver, CO - 679 miles
Denver, CO – Orange County, CA - 845 miles
Total Air miles – 3,048 miles (4 flights)
Total auto and air miles traveled on this trip – 3,803 miles
TRACK ADMSSION PRICES:
Total racetrack admissions for the trip – $15
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,
2. 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 COUPLES TRACKCHASING STANDINGS
1. Allan & Nancy Brown,
2. Randy & Carol Lewis,
3. Guy & Pam Smith, Effort,
LIFETIME NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC DIVERSITY STANDINGS
2007 NGD results are 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
The ice-racing season in North America is short. It runs pretty much during January and February only. This means there are only 3-4 more weekends for ice racing. Most of the ice racing in the Northeast has been canceled due to lack of ice in the Northeast. That situation has forced me to search for Hardwater in the upper Midwest and Canada
I have completed my vaccinations. Of course, ice racing does not normally require getting special shots. That must mean some more exotic locations are coming up on the trackchasing schedule.
RACETRACKS VISITED IN 2008 (** not the first time to visit this track)
1,299.
1,300. Bira Circuit (road course),
1,301.
1,302.
1,303.
1,304.
1,305. Ozark Empire Fairgrounds (oval),
1,306.
1,307. Brainerd International Raceway Ice Track (road course),
1,308.
1,309.
1,310.
1,311.
