DAY 3 – TO WHAT ENDS OF THE EARTH WILL I GO TRACKCHASING TOUR

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

TODAY’S HEADLINES

 

Why can’t I thank my East coast friends for helping me with this weekend’s trackchasing?..................more in “The Objective”.

 

You’ve heard me talk about some of those dreaded East coast trackchasers.  Today Carol and I sat with some of them.  Don’t miss my profiles on each………..details in “The People”.

 

Carol and I visited one of my all-time favorite Trackchasing Tourist Attractions during this trip…………..details in “Trackchasing Tourist Attraction”.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Click on this link or paste it in your browser to take you to today’s Trackchaser Report via my website at

 

www.ranlayracing.com

 

http://www.ranlayracing.com/february15262008.htm

 

 

 

 

GREETINGS FROM CLARENCE CREEK, ONTARIO, CANADA.

 

 

 

 

WE WOKE UP IN DRUMMONDVILLE, QUEBEC, CANADA THIS MORNING.  WE WENT TO SLEEP IN NEW YORK, NEW YORK.  THIS IS WHAT TRANSPIRED TODAY.

 

 

 

 

PEOPLE/STRATEGY/TRAVEL NEWS

 

 

 

 

The Objective 

 

I had already marked today down as a trackchasing “cancellation”.  My definition of a cancellation is the strictest in trackchasing.  When I left California, my plan was to see new tracks for three consecutive days (February 15-17).  I wasn’t sure where we would be going on Sunday, February 17.

 

We had at least three choices for Sunday that would tie into our Saturday night location in Greenville Junction, Maine.  We could possibly go ice race trackchasing in either Southern Maine, New Hampshire or New York.

 

However, with the advent of global warming or whatever you might like to call it, the Northeast has had a somewhat mild winter temperature-wise with lots of snow.  This is not a good combination for building up thick ice suitable for ice racing. 

 

It was with shock and chagrin that I learned one by one that none of these U.S. Northeastern choices would be racing on Sunday.  In some cases, they had enough ice, but there was so much snow on the ice, they could not plow a track.  We would not be seeing any racing on Sunday from the originally planned tracks.

 

I was ready to forget about any Sunday trackchasing and head for New York City to begin our romantic holiday.  However, as some might expect, Carol was not willing to give up as easily as I was.  She went to her new tracks trackchasing database (that would be me) in search of anything countable within driving distance of our starting point (Greenville Junction, Maine) and our ending point (New York, New York).

 

We definitely had time constraints on this potential trip.  We wouldn’t be leaving Greenville, Maine until 8 p.m. on Saturday night.  We had to be back in New York City by no later than 10:20 p.m. on Sunday night to return our rental car.  With everything cancelled in the U.S. that didn’t leave us much wiggle room.  However, I have the full faith and support of the staff and friends at RANLAY Racing.  They always come through for me.

 

One of the things I most enjoy doing in life is thanking people.  I love to see people’s faces light up when they are recognized for some act of kindness or job well done.  You will hear me thanking folks quite often in these pages.

 

However, I cannot thank my East coast friends who provided me so much help on this particular trip.   You know who you are.  Why can’t I thank them?  It has something to do with Anne Frank and the slaves of Africa.  You see there were people who hid Ms. Frank and her family in Amsterdam.  There were people who ran the “underground railroad” to help slaves escape to their freedom.

 

It is like that in trackchasing.  There are people, many people, who live on the East coast, who secretly slip me trackchasing tidbits of information.  Without this help, I could never do what I do in trackchasing in this region of the country.

 

However, there are people, who if they could would try to prevent this aid.  There were German soldiers who would have loved to know who helped Anne Frank hide.  There were slave owners who would have loved to know who was responsible for the Underground Railroad.

 

I could never “out” my friends.  I could never “blow their cover”.  I want to thank them publicly one by one, but I can’t.  I hope they understand and I hope you understand.

 

 

     

The Trip

 

Today’s racing was scheduled to begin at 12 noon.  We arrived 30 minutes early.  We had a self-imposed deadline at which point we would have to depart.  We had to leave by 1:30 p.m.  Depending upon how the show went, we might or might not be able to see a feature event.

 

There are a minority of trackchasers who think seeing a feature event is required to count a new track (it really isn’t) or should be required (most people don’t agree with that thought).  Still others think that a trackchaser’s mental state has something to do with leaving a track early and being able to count it.

 

To these folks, if you have a reason that is good enough (in their eyes) you can leave without seeing a feature event.  Of course, there are a myriad of reasons for leaving a track before the final checkered flag falls.  You might need to get home to feed the dog, take out the garbage, give your mother-in-law her meds or whatever.  You get the point.

 

Heck, you might even leave a show early because the show just stinks.  You might leave the show early because you want to go to another track where the racing might be better.  There are a million reasons why you might leave the show early.  I don’t think any one reason is better than any other reason.  What really makes my foot hurt is the trackchaser who bellyaches about one trackchaser leaving a track early and then leaves early himself.  I’ve seen that happen from the most vocal “you gotta see a feature race” trackchasers quite often.  What is good for the goose is good for the gander.

 

Today’s show wasn’t very efficient and the racing wasn’t very good.  By the time, it got to be about 1:15 p.m. they had run just four heat races.  They had started late, had several yellow and red flag periods and delays between races.  That’s O.K.  I wasn’t disappointed in any of that.

 

You see, I got what I came to see.  I had the fun of walking through the gate for the very first time.  This is always a thrill.  I was able to walk through the pit area, view the racing “action” from all over the property and on this occasion, enjoy the races with fellow trackchasers.

 

However, when it was time to go, it was time to go.  Carol and I had a deadline to meet.  We had to return our rental car by no later than 10:20 p.m. in New York City.  New York City is a cool 465 miles from Clarence Creek, Ontario, Canada.  We had already driven 400 miles since leaving our track last night at 8 p.m. in Maine in order to arrive at Clarence Creek today.  That would make our total driving distance some 865 miles in just over 24 hours.

 

There was also bad weather moving into the area.  Weather.com had predicted, snow, then snow and sleet and then rain for our drive back to New York City.  We also had to worry about getting delayed while crossing the border into the U.S. from Canada.  I didn’t tell Carol very much about my concerns.  I wanted her to have a carefree experience while I worried about the details.

 

My fellow trackchasing competitors had similar concerns.  They had long distances to drive as well.  They elected to leave at the same time we did.  I don’t blame them.

 

I do not travel with any paper maps at all.  I do have the Rand McNally electronic mapping system on my laptop.  I also have the indispensable “Dusty” our Garmin GPS system.  I will tell you this.  I had absolutely no idea what routes we would take to drive the next 465 miles.  I had no idea where we would cross into the U.S./Canadian border.  Rand McNally had initially selected somewhere near Montreal as the crossing point.  Rick Young had suggested somewhere near Cornwall as an alternative.

 

I am a trusting sole.  I would simply turn left when Dusty told me to turn left and turn right when she told me to turn right.  We ended up crossing at the Wellesley Island, New York border checkpoint.  There was no wait at all to cross into the United States.  We were home free on that point.

 

However, it rained the entire way home for almost 500 miles.  The temperature hovered around 32-37 degrees.  I worried about ice on the roads.  When we left Clarence Creek, Dusty told us our “ETA” was 8:50 p.m.  Of course, that ETA was without stops of any kind and assumed we could drive at the posted speed limits for the entire drive.  We did stop for one bathroom break, two gas stops and a stop for a sub at Subway.  Each time we stopped our ETA moved back and a little bit closer to our 10:20 p.m. time when we would turn into pumpkins.

 

As we got closer to New York, the traffic became heavier and our speeds became slower.  The plan was to drop Carol and our bags at the hotel first.  Then, I would leave the car at the National location in NYC about two miles from the hotel.

 

Without our GPS unit, we never would have made it.  I got Carol to the hotel at 9:49 p.m.  I made it over to the National drop-off point at 10:07 p.m.  After driving 465 miles over some very mountainous terrain along I-81, I had beaten the deadline by 13 minutes.  It was a white knuckle drive pretty much all the way.  However, this is what a trackchaser does to “make it happen”. 

 

There is absolutely no way I would be so heavily vested in the trackchasing hobby if it was only about seeing some front wheel drive racecars drive 40 M.P.H. around a quarter-mile ice track.  I’m in the hobby for the white knuckle 500 mile drives over icy roadways.  I’m in it for the adventure of spending a couple of extra days on the back end of the trip to see the innards of a place like New York City.  I don’t need to see a feature event in order to satisfy my thirst for racing.  I don’t need to see a feature event in an attempt to diminish another person’s love for the hobby of trackchasing.  You will have to look long and hard to every find me criticizing another individual’s trackchasing efforts.

 

 

 

 

The People

 

Today was a people day of the largest magnitude.  You see Carol and I could no longer avoid those “dreaded East coast trackchasers”.  I’m going to tell you about each of the people we met.  I think you might enjoy hearing about them.

 

I will say this.  I think everyone present had a good time.  I went out of my way to make certain that everyone sat together.  Often, I read from some of these folks on how they are having trouble enjoying the hobby.  “It used to be more fun” seems to be the most common thread.

 

I have never said the hobby used to be more fun.  I’ve had fun with it 20 years ago, ten years ago as well as today.  I see trackchasing as simply finding a racetrack, going to the racetrack and then getting the information to the Trackchaser Commissioner so it can be recorded for all posterity.  This is not rocket science.  We are not curing cancer.  We are simply enjoying a hobby.  What some other trackchaser does or does not do has no influence whatsoever on my enjoyment of the hobby.  Can it really be any simpler than that?

 

Today there were several leading trackchasers in the house.  I’ll tell you about each one in order of their overall ranking in the lifetime world rankings.  This was the largest gathering of trackchasers I have been around in some time.  Here we go:

 

 

Guy Smith, Effort, Pennsylvania – World ranking – 3^{rd –} 1,136 lifetime tracks

 

Guy is commonly referred to as the “father of trackchasing”.  Back in the late 90s, he gathered leading trackchasers and orchestrated the original trackchaser “guidelines” and rankings.  Guy writes articles for the Area Auto Racing News, one of the leading racing papers in the East.

 

During the course of our conversation today, Guy asked me “where’s your next foreign country visit going to be?”  I’m not sure if Guy had forgotten my policy on making public my future trip information or never knew it in the first place.  I had to remind everyone that for “security reasons” I do not reveal where I will be headed next.  There are several reasons for this policy.

 

First, it is never a good idea to let the wrong kind of people know when you are not going to be home.  Of course, I would not want to disappoint people who might show up at a track expecting me to be there if I had to change my plans at the last minute.

 

More than 1,000 people eagerly await their receipt of the Trackchaser Report after each track visit.  There are a growing number of people who read the Trackchaser Report from my website at www.ranlayracing.com.  I would not want to shortchange them by having some people and not others knowing in advance, where my trackchasing exploits have taken me. 

 

Finally, and probably most important of all, I believe in individual accountability and entrepreneurship.  I want trackchasers to be fully engaged in the hobby.  If I do the research, I do not want to artificially weaken my fellow competitors who might become dependent upon me for their trackchasing itinerary.  Following an event, I will put more time into sharing details about the event via words and pictures on my website at www.ranlayracing.com than any other trackchaser has ever done in the history of the hobby.

 

 

P.J. Hollebrand, World ranking – 9^th – 885 lifetime tracks

 

P.J. is the career trackchasing leader in the province of Ontario, here in Canada.  Of course, he had to make an appearance at today’s event to protect his interests.

 

P.J. is a letter carrier.  He expects to retire in the next year or so.  At that time, P.J. plans to pick up the pace of his trackchasing.  I hope he does.  He will likely be the next person to break the 1,000-track barrier.  If and when he does, he will be the eighth person in the world to see that many tracks.

Will White, Quakertown, Pennsylvania – World ranking – 13^th – 690 lifetime tracks

 

Mr. White is the unofficial Trackchaser Commissioner.  He keeps all of the trackchaser standings on his website at www.trackchaser.net.  His position should be compensated although it is not.  I suspect that most trackchasers are simply too cheap to make a contribution.  Some do not seem to fully understand that without the work that Will does the thrill of trackchasing would be severely diminished.

 

Back in 1999, I met Will on-line when we were both researching United Kingdom racetracks.  He invited me to be part of his “Trackchaser Forum” email group.  I was the third member to register for the group that now numbers about 100 people.  I was happy to become part of the group after having my initial trackchasing application rejected a few years earlier.

 

Will only trackchases periodically nowadays.  It’s simply too expensive for him in today’s world.  I can understand that.  There is no way to economically justify this hobby.  I am glad to see that Will still wants to add new country trackchasing visits to his resume.  I know he gets a big kick out of that.

Paul Weisel, Orefield, Pennsylvania – World ranking – 16^th – 582 lifetime tracks

 

I first met Paul in the most unlikely of places considering where we both live.  We met at a short track in Australia when Carol and I visited there in 2004-05.  I’ve run into Paul several times since then and also enjoy hearing his stories.

 

Paul is one of the few trackchasers who actively competed as a racer.  I don’t know all of his racing experiences, but I do know he raced open wheel, open cockpit cars all over the Northeast.  He even made a racing appearance in Jamaica.

 

Paul has one of the best understandings of trackchasing politics of anyone in the hobby.  I always enjoy hearing his take on the goings on.  Up to now, Paul has not been much of an ice racing trackchaser.  That appears to have changed.  That being the case I expect to see Paul sporting a more up-to-date piece of headgear!

 

 

Mike Knappenberger, Reading, Pennsylvania – World ranking – 26^th – 443 lifetime tracks

 

Mike is the most prolific trackchaser to come onto the circuit is recent memory.  Mike is a competitor.  I like that.  Some trackchasers seem to think that being “competitive” ranks right up there with stealing old ladies’ purses.  I don’t share that opinion at all.  Mike is a good example.  He used to coach youth baseball at a very competitive level.  Others could use Mike’s experience there so they could better put their arms around the competitiveness of trackchasing.  I’m going to suspect that the trackchasers who have so much heartburn over “competition” never played sports much as a kid or had kids who played sports.  I am certain Mike will attest he wanted his team to beat the competition in baseball very badly.  At the same time, he wouldn’t do anything unfairly against the other side.  When the game was finished, I’m sure Mike shook hands with the opposition and had a beer and a pizza with the other team if time permitted.

 

Mike seemed disappointed in my “security” policy as explained today.  He mentioned, “He couldn’t join me” because he wouldn’t know where I was headed with such a stringent information blocking policy.  I had to agree with Mike on this one.  No, he would not be able to join me.  In reality, that’s not such a big deal.  We rarely trackchase in the same locales anyway. 

 

Mike could be a championship contender for the 2008 season.  I asked Mike how many tracks he expected to see this year.  He told me he expected to cut back 10% from his 2007 total.  That would bring him in at about 85 tracks for the year.  Let me say this.  I do not believe Mike for a single minute! 

 

No, I do not think he is dishonest in anyway or would attempt to mislead me.  It’s just that trackchasers don’t even know where they will end up next weekend, let alone what their plans will be for an entire year.  Trackchasers are notorious for underestimating what their track totals will be.  I’ve even seen trackchasers go to some lengths to explain how they are cutting back during a certain period of time.  In reality, they really are not cutting back.  They are entering a time of the year when no tracks are racing in their area.  Actions like this have convinced me that trackchasers usually have no good idea about how much they will trackchase over a longer period of time.   

 

I was happy to give Mike one of my business cards today.  He has had some difficulty remembering who ranks where in the overall standings.  For anyone who can’t remember what the standings look like I always like to refer them to www.trackchaser.net.  That’s where the OFFICIAL standings are kept for any and all to see. 

Carol Lewis, San Clemente, California – World ranking – 27^th – 356 lifetime tracks

 

I think all of the trackchasers enjoy talking with Carol.  She is a pleasant person and can carry on an interesting conversation.  She’s also one of the least political trackchasers in the top 40, which is a good thing.  Carol enjoyed meeting and talking to everyone today.

Rick Young, Maxville, Ontario, Canada – World ranking – 52^nd – 169 lifetime tracks

 

I’ve met Rick several times now, mostly up in Canada.  Rick is a native son of Great Britain.  He relocated to Canada several years ago.  Of all the people at the track today, Rick is more of a racechaser than a trackchaser.  He’s also one of the nicest guys that I run into on the circuit.

 

I was happy to notice that Rick is getting closer and closer to that magic 200-track mark.  That has always been the milestone that most trackchasers must achieve in order to be “listed”.  I think Rick could hit that number easily if he put his mind and maybe his pocketbook to it.

 

 

 

 

 

TRACKCHASING TOURIST ATTRACTION

 

New York City, New York

 

I try to reserve the best trips for Carol.  We did a little more driving than I expected when we had to go to Ontario, Canada on Sunday.  Nevertheless, Carol hung in there like a real trooper and never complained.

 

The first three nights of this trip were spent overnight in Connecticut, Maine and Quebec.  The final two nights of our trip would be in the “Big Apple”, aka New York City.  We didn’t arrive until 10 p.m. on Sunday night.  It was a rainy night in the city as I dropped Carol and our bags at the front door of the Millennium Hilton near Wall Street in downtown Manhattan.  I drove off to return the rental car and took a cab back to the hotel.

 

Priceline.com came through with a great price on our hotel.  We ended up on the 47th floor of the 55-story building.  Our room was large and gorgeous, a rarity amongst Manhattan hotels.  Upon entering the room, I flung open the drapes.  What did I see?  Ground Zero!  Yes, we were overlooking the former site of the twin towers World Trade Center buildings that fell on September 11, 2001. 

 

This must have been one exciting and disturbing hotel room to be in on that fateful morning.  I don’t suspect our room’s window was anymore than 50-75 yards from where the twin towers stood.  Today, there is construction going on, but they haven’t really gotten “out of the ground” yet.  Check out my photos at www.ranlayracing.com.

 

On Monday morning, we slept in.  That felt good.  Our first stop upon getting out of the hotel was at the “TKTS” store.  That’s where they sell half-prize Broadway and off-Broadway show tickets.  We use them every time we come to New York.  Since it was a Monday not all of the theatres were operating.  Nevertheless, we scored two excellent tickets to “Avenue Q”, a highly rated production.

 

From there it was off to lunch at the Southside Seaport area on the southern tip of Manhattan.  After lunch, we hopped on the “A train” subway for a ride “uptown”.  One-way fares were just two dollars per person.  We exited at 59^th Street and took a short stroll through Central Park in a light rain.  From there it was off a F.A.O. Schwartz toy store and a visit to famous Donald Trump Plaza.  We continued our walk along Fifth Avenue with a stop at Tiffany’s.  We watched the ice skaters doing there thing at Rockefeller Plaza.  I love New York.  There is so much going on all the time.

 

Before long, it was time to eat again.  We stopped in a local New York deli for a yogurt shake.  Then we were off to Times Square and a visit to one our old haunts at the New York Marriott Marquis hotel.  We were lucky to find a great little Italian restaurant just up the street from our playhouse.  TKTS really came through with great seats for the play.  We were nearly center stage in the 12^th row in the sold-out venue.  If you get the chance to see “Avenue Q” please do it.  It’s a comedy with some very clever dialog.

 

Following the play, we hailed a cab for our downtown hotel.  The cab fare was $15 a substantial premium to the four dollars we paid to ride the subway a similar distance.  The next morning it was time to head out again.  Our time in New York City had been too brief. 

 

Another trackchasing trip was being put to bed for Carol.  We had a great five nights together.  Looking back, everything worked out perfectly.  I think we spent the right amount of time on everything we tried to do.  Once at JFK I saw that Carol was safely put on the plane toward California.  I was pleased to see she received a first class seat.  That’s what brings her back!

 

In the meantime, this five-day trip had simply been a “pre-staging” matter for me.  I was headed a long way from New York for the next six days.  You’ll learn more about that grand adventure in the very next edition of the Trackchaser Report.

 

 

 

PROVINCE RANKINGS

 

Ontario

 

Today I saw my 28th lifetime track in the province of Ontario.  This breaks a tie with Allan Brown and gives me sole possession of a sixth place ranking here.  This was Carol’s 14^th Ontario track.  She holds onto 15^th place in the province.  P.J. Hollebrand leads with a hefty 79 Ontario tracks.

 

To view the complete province ranking click on the link below or paste it in your browser.

 

http://trackchaser.net/statregion.asp?country=CAN&region=ON

 

 

 

 

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.

 

Today we saw an ice-racing track.  In trackchasing, we have a special category of rankings for ice tracks.  This was my 12th ice track (Carol’s 6th) of 2008.  On a lifetime basis, this was my 20th ice track (Carol’s 6th), giving me a fifth place ice track ranking (Carol’s rank – 16^th).  Surprisingly, Carol who just began her ice racing experience in late January leads trackchasing notables such as Allan Brown, Bruce Eckel and Andy Ritter in the cold weather rankings. 

 

Click on the link below or paste it in your browser to see the complete indoor and dirt oval 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

 

CLARENCE CREEK ICE TRACK (OVAL), CLARENCE CREEK, ONTARIO, CANADA

Today’s racing was done on land, not a frozen lake.  The track surface was covered with snow and ice.  Some racing on land counts as “ice-racing” and some does not.  If the only racing that is ever done on the land is the kind we saw today, then it counts as “ice-racing”.  However, if the track has races on the dirt surface during the warmer months in addition to having events in the winter on a snow-covered surface, then the track cannot be counted as an ice-racing event.  I was not aware of this distinction.  Mr. Smith explained it to me.

 

Since this was an ice-racing event for trackchasing purposes, I was able to add the Canadian province of Ontario to my resume.  I have now seen ice racing in three Canadian provinces, British Columbia, Ontario and Quebec.  No other trackchaser can match that total.

 

Today the ambient temperature was in the high 20s.  That’s pretty nice in the ice-racing world.  The Clarence Creek tracks races just one day a year.  That made coming here an even better idea, although it was a long drive coming and going.

 

The track organizers had some spectator bleachers erected.  Normally, with ice-racing being done on frozen lakes, there is no formal seating.  Initially, the two trackchaser groups had occupied two separate sections of this grandstand area.  In a peace gesture worthy of note, I recommended that all of us sit together.  Everyone seemed to think that was a good idea.

 

The language of this part of Ontario is French.  The track tried to establish a P.A. system, but after a few attempts to count 1-2-3 in French the effort failed and there was nothing further heard on the P.A. front.  There were probably 30 cars or so in the pit area.  They seemed to be mostly 4-cylinder cars.

 

At each end of the track, there were huge mounds of snow, some 15 feet tall.  Spectators could stand at the top of these snow piles and look down on the racing action.  The track was slick and at least one driver (a woman) ended up on her top.  There were numerous yellow flags and delays between races. 

 

They did not start on time.  After having been at the track for about an hour and a half, only four races had been held.  We were at a stage in the entertainment process, where there wasn’t much new happening.  Given the time constraints that we were all under, it seemed like a good time to exit stage left.  We did.

 

 

RENTAL CAR UPDATE

 

New York – Thursday/Sunday

 

We enjoyed driving our National Rental Car Racing Pontiac Grand Prix.  The car featured XM radio and heated leather seats.

 

We drove our rental car 1,413 miles in the three days we had it.  I paid an average price of $3.48 per gallon.  The Pontiac gave me 24.4 miles per gallon in fuel mileage at a cost of 14.2 cents (U.S.) per mile.  One of our four gas stops was in Canada.  Our per gallon Canadian fuel charge was $4.24.  In the U.S., we averaged $3.16 per gallon, which was high, but not nearly as high as what we paid north of the border.

 

 

This rental car was classified as a one-way rental.  We picked the car up at New York’s JFK airport and I dropped it off in downtown Manhattan.  The quoted rate for the three-day rental was $207.  One-way rentals are almost always higher than when the car is not returned to the same spot it is picked up.  To avoid our one-way rental being a budget buster, I used some of my National Rental Car “free days” to reduce our rental expense to ZERO.  Therefore, the car cost zero cents per mile to rent, all taxes included.

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks for reading about my trackchasing,

 

Randy Lewis

Alberta’s #1 Trackchaser

Walking is easy, when the road is flat.

 

 

 

 

 

 

TRAVEL DETAILS

 

 

AIRPLANE

 

Los Angeles, CA – New York, NY – 2,430 miles

 

 

RENTAL CAR – NEW YORK, NEW YORK

 

John F. Kennedy International Airport – trip begins

Windsor, CT – 133 miles

Greenville Junction, ME – 543 miles

Clarence Creek, Ontario, Canada – 939 miles

John F. Kennedy International Airport – 1,413 miles - trip ends

 

 

 

 

 

 

TRACK ADMSSION PRICES:

 

Mototown – $15

Moosehead Lake Ice Track - $10

Clarence Creek Ice Track - $5 (Canadian)

 

 

 

 

 

 

RANKINGS

 

 

LIFETIME TRACKCHASER STANDINGS UPDATE:

 

There are no trackchasers currently within 100 tracks of my lifetime total. 

 

1.  Randy Lewis, San Clemente, California – 1,314

 

 

 

 

Other notables

 

These worldwide trackchasers are within 10 tracks (plus or minus or more) of Carol’s current trackchaser total.

 

26.  Mike Knappenberger, Reading, Pennsylvania – 439

 

27.  Carol Lewis, San Clemente, California – 356

 

28.  Ken Schrader, Concord, North Carolina – 353

 

29.  Max Allender, Des Moines, Iowa – 349

 

 

 

 

 

2008 TRACKCHASER STANDINGS

 

1.  Randy Lewis, San Clemente, California – 16

 

2.  Carol Lewis, San Clemente, California – 7

 

3.  Mike Knappenberger, Reading, Pennsylvania – 4

 

3.  Ed Esser, Madison, Wisconsin – 4

 

5.  Bruce Eckel, Easton, Pennsylvania - 2

 

5.  Pat Eckel, Easton, Pennsylvania - 2

 

5.  Guy Smith, Effort, Pennsylvania - 2

 

5.  Paul Weisel, Orefield, Pennsylvania – 2

 

Several trackchasers with one track.

 

Tracks have been reported by 16 different worldwide trackchasers this season.

 

 

 

 

 

LIFETIME COUPLES TRACKCHASING STANDINGS

1.  Allan & Nancy Brown, Comstock Park, Michigan – 1,671

 

2.  Randy & Carol Lewis, San Clemente, California – 1,670

 

3.  Guy & Pam Smith, Effort, Pennsylvania – 1,658

 

 

LIFETIME NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC DIVERSITY STANDINGS

 

2007 NGD results are posted at www.ranlayracing.com

 

 

 

 

 

 

Past trackchasing reports are available at:

www.ranlayracing.com

 

 

Official trackchaser standings can be viewed at:

www.trackchaser.net

 

 

Some of the data in this report comes from www.trackchaser.net

and my Garmin GPS

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

UPCOMING TRACKCHASING PLANS

 

I think it’s time to add another foreign country to my trackchasing resume.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

RACETRACKS VISITED IN 2008 (** not the first time to visit this track)

 

 

1,299. Barnes Lake Ice Track, Ashcroft (road course), British Columbia, Canada - January 13

 

1,300. Bira Circuit, Pattaya (road course), Thailand - January 19

 

1,301. Cameron Lake Ice Track (oval), Erskine, Minnesota - January 26

 

1,302. Birch Lake Ice Track (oval), Hackensack, Minnesota - January 27

 

1,303. Mille Lacs Lake Ice Track (road course), Garrison, Minnesota - January 27

 

1,304. Mille Lacs Lake Ice Track (oval), Garrison, Minnesota - January 27

 

1,305. Ozark Empire Fairgrounds (oval), Springfield, Missouri – February 1

 

1,306. Atlanta Motor Speedway (road course), Hampton, Georgia – February 2

 

1,307. Brainerd International Raceway Ice Track (road course), Brainerd, Minnesota – February 3

 

1,308. Bay of Green Bay (road course), Marinette, Wisconsin – February 9

 

1,309. Lake Speed Ice Track (oval), Tilleda, Wisconsin – February 9

 

1,310. Shawano Lake – North Shore (oval), Shawano, Wisconsin – February 10

 

1,311. Cecil Bay Iceway (oval) – Cecil, Wisconsin – February 10

 

1,312. Mototown USA (oval) – Windsor, Connecticut – February 15

 

1,313. Moosehead Lake Ice Track (oval) – Greenville Junction, Maine – February 16

 

1,314. Clarence Creek Ice Track (oval) – Clarence Creek, Ontario, Canada – February 17