Randy Lewis
World's #1 Ranked Trackchaser
ELK CITY SPEEDWAY (INNER OVAL) - ELK CITY, OKLAHOMA
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RANLAY Racing Trackchaser Report
DAY 1 – THE JUST BUILDING MY TRACK COUNT TRACKCHASING TOUR
EDITOR’S NOTE!
I am working on resuming my race-DRIVING career. As veteran readers of the Trackchaser Report know, I have not raced in competition since 2000, when I appeared at the Hilltop Raceway in Turley, England. If all of this comes off, I will get back behind the wheel of a racecar early this fall. However, this time I will be racing in my home country. Stay tuned to see if this deal can be finalized.
TODAY’S HEADLINES
I need your opinion on some hypothetical double chocolate chip cookies as soon as possible…………..details in “The Objective”.
Who will be “Trackchasing’s First Grandmother?”...................more in “The People”.
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. Here is what a Nebraska reader had to say about my comments on the subject of sharing trackchasing information and experiences:
“My wife and I go to church every Sunday. Once a month the church has a potluck dinner. Everyone is expected to bring something to the dinner. We’ve never had anyone who didn’t bring anything at all. Even the poorest of our members seem to find a way to bring some food to the dinner for everyone to enjoy.”
Click on or paste this link in your browser to see the photos from this trip.
http://picasaweb.google.com/Ranlay8/080530ElkCitySpeedway
Reader Questions for Randy
Q. I really like reading your Trackchaser Reports, but one thing puzzles me. Your 2008 track totals go up one by one each time you write a new report. But, your competitor’s totals seem to stay the same for several reports and then jump up by a lot more than one track all at once. Why is that?
A. Obviously, it’s easy for me to add up my own track totals. However, in order to get the totals for my fellow competitors I normally rely on the results posted at www.trackchaser.net. This is the “official/unofficial” source for all trackchaser standings. Our trackchaser “statistician” updates his website about once each month. After each Trackchaser Report is written and before I press the “send” button on my computer, I check the latest track totals at Trackchaser.net. If there has been a change since the last Trackchaser Report, I update the totals.
This means there can be times when my fellow trackchaser’s totals can be understated. However, my totals can be lower than actual as well. As this is being written, I have several tracks that have not been reported. This is partially due to my strict policy of not sending more than one Trackchaser Report to you in a single day. Additionally, the late reporting of my own tracks can also be caused by the equally strict quality and creative controls required to complete each Trackchaser Report. In the long run, it should all even out.
Remember, if you have a question of your own, please send it along.
GREETINGS FROM ELK CITY, OKLAHOMA.
I WOKE UP THIS MORNING IN SAN CLEMENTE, CALIFORNIA. I WENT TO SLEEP IN EL RENO, OKLAHOMA. THIS IS WHAT TRANSPIRED TODAY.
PEOPLE/STRATEGY/TRAVEL NEWS
The Objective
I have a dilemma. I need the help of all you loyal and steadfast Trackchaser Report readers. Yes, I need your advice. What would you do in this situation?
I’m going to lay out a hypothetical collection of facts for you. I would like you to analyze the circumstances. There’s just one caveat. You can’t change the givens. Here goes:
Let’s say you really like double chocolate chip cookies. No. I mean you REALLY like double chocolate chip cookies. They are your favorite food by far. If given the chance you might eat them for every meal.
Additionally, these chocolate chip cookies cost so little that you don’t even notice the expense. If you want, you can go down to Mrs. Fields (do they still have Mrs. Fields?) and get all of the double chocolate chip cookies you want for free. You can get them at home. When you go to work, they’re waiting for you in the vending machine at a penny a piece.
Also, the chocolate chip cookies don’t have any calories at all. They have no negative effect on your overall health whatsoever. The amount of double chocolate chips cookies you eat has no effect whatsoever on you or your family.
There you have it. What would you do? Would you eat double chocolate chip cookies for every meal? How do you feel about double chocolate chip cookies under these circumstances? Please keep your responses to 270 words or less. I’ll gather feedback for a couple of days from each of you. Then I will tell you why I needed your advice.
Remember, you can’t change any of the parameters listed above.
The Trip
Would you like to have a hobby that would send you off each weekend to some exotic locale? What if the day before you left each week, you knew that your destination could, and often would change on an hour’s notice? If that sounds appealing to you, then you should be a trackchaser.
My two primary and desired destinations this week were in the Northeast and the North Central parts of the United States. However, www.weather.com could not give me a good dry forecast for all three days of my trip.
I was just telling a friend down at the donut shop that three things have to happen in order for me to select a destination. If all three items are not present, I’m not likely to make the trip to that spot. Those three requirements are:
1. Good weather forecast
2. Airline seat availability
3. New tracks for me to see
Yes, I need all three of the above. Most tracks in the U.S. won’t run in the rain or won’t run if it has rained too much just before the scheduled race. I’m more than 1,000 miles from 98% of the tracks I have not seen. In order to cover such long distances I must fly. In order to fly, there must be available airline seats from my airline sponsorship partners. Finally, even if the weather was great and the plane was wide open, I wouldn’t go somewhere that didn’t have any new tracks for me to see.
Since the weather put a nix on my preferred two destinations, I ended up in Oklahoma to begin my trip. I have nothing against Oklahoma. It’s just that I wouldn’t be getting as big of a bang for my buck as I would have preferred. There would be no NGD advantage. There would be no “Far West” advantage. However, I could add up to four new tracks in just three days of trackchasing. Therefore, I decided to go where I knew the weather would be good. I’ll work on those NGD points and Far West rankings later this year.
The People
I hope everyone is as proud of their family as I am. For some reason, we have three very bright and responsible children. If we didn’t then Carol wouldn’t be “Trackchasing’s First Mother” would she. As you know, Carol is soon going to be “Trackchasing’s First Grandmother”. I’m not sure she likes the sound of that title, but she is very slow to read my reports, so I won’t hear about it for some time.
By the way, I will not be “Trackchasing’s First Grandfather”. I can’t even garner a “podium” finish in this category! I’m looking forward to being a grandfather. I lived next door to my maternal grandparents for the first 15 years of my life. They were really a second set of parents to me. I called my grandfather, “Gramps” and that’s what I want to be called by my grandchildren.
Of course, in order to have grandkids, you have to have some kids. Yesterday, Carol and I spent the day with daughter, Kristy. She’s just completed 33 weeks of her pregnancy. It won’t be long now. Carol and I enjoy time with our kids as much today as when they were little. I think they like spending time with us as well. That’s about all a parent can ask for.
I wish each and every one of you could experience the unique restaurants offered in the different neighborhoods of Los Angeles. I grew up in a small town in Central Illinois. We didn’t have all of these choices. Maybe, that’s why I continue to be impressed with the ethnic and culinary diversity of SoCal.
By the way, if you are a movie goer, you might like to see the movie, “Bigger, Faster, Stronger” as we did yesterday. It’s a documentary style flick about the impact of steroids in today’s sporting world. I really enjoyed this independent film.
Kristy is the biggest race fan of our three children. She and I have traveled together to several faraway spots for the purpose of trackchasing. Kristy informed us that she expects the Toyota Speedway of Irwindale to be the likely first track for the twins. That seems like a good initial stop for a couple of rookies.
She’s also interested in seeing her husband, James, expand his auto racing diversity. Currently, he’s on a European strategy. One hundred per cent of the tracks he has seen have been road courses. However, the sample is small. He had only been to the Willow Springs road course north of Los Angeles. Kristy is anxious for him to see his first oval track.
RACE REVIEW
ELK CITY SPEEDWAY, ELK CITY, OKLAHOMA
Despite being delayed at LAX for two hours, I still made it to the track right on the dot for the 8 p.m. start time. At least my sponsors saw fit to fly me to OKC in first class. I was somewhat surprised to encounter a very nice looking facility. I was equally taken back when I learned there would be no admission charge.
The inner oval “kart” track races every other Friday night at the Elk City Speedway. The 3/8-mile outer oval here is used for the stock car program every Saturday night during the warm weather months. Overall, the kart track has 13 dates on their schedule. At the last minute, I passed up another Friday night track in Oklahoma that races nearly twice as many dates as tonight’s Elk City inner oval. It is trackchasing strategic moves like this that continues to leave me with the same NUMBER of tracks to see in the future, but with a significantly larger number of future race DATES.
When I entered the track, it was 92 degrees. However, with low humidity and a 10-15 M.P.H. breeze it was very comfortable. Probably the most significant bummer with tonight’s races was the total lack of an announcer. They did not have a bad announcer. They did not have any announcer.
Therefore, I was somewhat clueless as to how exactly the race program would play out. I did search for the track radio frequency on the Ponte Vedre Beach based Jim Sabo sponsored Uniden Bearcat scanner but couldn’t find it. I spent a good deal of the evening listening to the scanner weather channel and a Fox TV program about a woman plotting to kill her husband on channel 493.
I had called the promoter in advance to insure there would be “trackchasing countable” cars racing tonight. In a nutshell, I needed to see some form of caged karts that were open to drivers 18 years of age and older. The promoter assured me the 125 cc caged karts (aka micro-sprints, aka modified midgets, aka outlaw karts) would be on hand with about six entrants.
Promoters are notoriously optimistic about three things. This would include their starting time, the weather forecast and their car counts. It doesn’t matter how optimistic they are. I always believe them. I guess I’m just gullible when it comes to my faith in people. The promoter had said they would likely have six countable competitors. They had four. I didn’t care as long as they had two, the minimum needed under most circumstances for a track to count.
There was a crowd of about 100 people on hand. I suspect that nearly all of them were either friends or family of the racers. They had the option of sitting at picnic tables or in the 10-row high aluminum grandstands.
The track itself was a finely manicured 1/6-mile oval or so on the inside of the large track. This is a permanent inner oval. There were five classes racing tonight with an average car count of 6-7 in each class.
The starts were varied. Some races were started with all of the cars in single file. Others were started from a standing start. The 125 cc winged karts had a flying start.
Without an announcer, it was nearly impossible to figure out which class was running and what type of race they were having. Another caged kart class, the animals, closely resembled senior champ karts. Some of their drivers approached the size of our largest trackchasers. Nevertheless, I would later learn that these drivers were “just big kids”. Yep, the OU Sooners won’t have to look far for their next offensive tackles.
I sat through three sets of races for each of the five classes. I didn’t know if I had seen one trophy dash, a heat and a feature or two heats and a feature. When all of those races were finished at about 9:20 p.m., everyone seemed to head to the pit area or the parking lot as folks do at the completion of a race night.
I stored my electronics gear in the car and headed to the pit area. I wanted to talk to the 125cc drivers and find out about any potential new tracks they might be currently racing at. There were a few drivers going out on the track for a lap or two of practice. I assumed this was just for fun after the program had been concluded.
I cornered one fellow who was setting up some scales to weigh the karts. We started a conversation and I learned he was the Vice President of the organization. He had the typical concerns of a man in his position. He wanted my advice on how they might get more karts. All of the racers in every class tonight raced with a roll cage.
I mentioned that most kart tracks race flat karts. Flat kart racers probably make up 90% of the entries at the kart tracks I visit. The V.P. informed me their insurance does not allow for flat karts. Therefore, despite having a very nice track, I think they are destined to have small car counts.
There were a couple of accidents during tonight’s racing. One young driver spun, was t-boned and may have suffered a broken hand. One of the drivers did an easy flip in the 125cc race. I talked with that racer’s car owner and he told me the flip did $500 worth of damage. None of these racers is running for money, only trophies.
As I continued to talk with the V.P. of the group, I learned that the program was not over. They were actually at intermission. They still had the feature events to run. That meant I was in the pits without a pit pass talking to the V.P. of the entire group. Luckily, this oversight was not acknowledged!
I had more than 500 miles ahead of me before I reached tomorrow night’s destination. I had already seen the four countable cars race three races. I didn’t think I would see much new stuff with the same four cars racing in yet a fourth race. It was time to depart and I did.
This was a nice low-key racing event tonight. As a race fan, I never would have come out for a show like this. As a trackchaser, I was happy to do it once. I have Ed Esser and his trackchaser report to thank for alerting me to this opportunity. Ed discovered this track on his own, did not advertise in advance he was going to the Elk City Speedway and then told the trackchasing crowd about the track. I believe that’s the way it should be done in the sport of trackchasing. Ed did all the work to find the track and he should get first shot at seeing a race there. Then all of the followers (like me in this case) can take advantage of Ed’s “due diligence” and go there at their convenience.
STATE RANKINGS
Oklahoma
Tonight I saw my 17th lifetime track in the Sooner state. A surprising number of 43 trackchasers have come to the state to pursuit their sport. However, not many people come to Oklahoma to trackchase anymore. Out of 966 official trackchasing visits in the United States in 2007, only six of those were in Oklahoma!
Tonight’s new Oklahoma track breaks my tie with Wisconsin’s Jack Erdmann. I now hold onto second place here by myself. That doesn’t help me gain any lifetime NGD points as I entered the night tied for second. However, it does add a NGD position point to Jack’s total as he slips into third spot. Ed Esser leads in the “OK” state with 29 tracks.
Now you can see the entire up to date trackchaser rankings for the state. Just click on this link or paste it in your browser:
http://trackchaser.net/statregion.asp?country=USA®ion=OK
RENTAL CAR UPDATE
Oklahoma City – Friday/Monday
None of the Executive Selection cars in the National Rental Car lot had an XM satellite radio. That’s a bummer, as I will be traveling about 1,200 miles in rural country. I’ll probably end up wearing out the “seek” button on the radio before I’m finished. I did get a white Chevy Malibu with a light tan leather interior. That should serve me well in the 90+ degree temperatures forecast for the weekend.
Thanks for reading about my trackchasing,
Randy Lewis
Alberta’s #1 Trackchaser
It’s O.K. if you have to feel bad to make yourself feel good….just don’t blame it on me.
TRAVEL DETAILS
AIRPLANE
Los Angeles, CA – Oklahoma City, OK – 1,167 miles
RENTAL CAR
Will Rogers International Airport – trip begins
Elk City, OK – 115 miles
TRACK ADMSSION PRICES:
Elk City Speedway – Free
RANKINGS
LIFETIME TRACKCHASER STANDINGS UPDATE:
There are no trackchasers currently within 100 tracks of my lifetime total.
1. Randy Lewis, San Clemente, California – 1,346
Full Lifetime World Rankings
http://trackchaser.net/trackchasers.asp
Other notables
These worldwide trackchasers are within 10 tracks (plus or minus or more) of Carol’s current trackchaser total.
26. Kevin Eckert, Indianapolis, Indiana – 450
27. Carol Lewis, San Clemente, California – 366
28. Ken Schrader, Concord, North Carolina – 365
2008 TRACKCHASER STANDINGS
1. Randy Lewis, San Clemente, California – 48
2. Mike Knappenberger, Reading, Pennsylvania – 32
3. Ed Esser, Madison, Wisconsin – 23
4. Carol Lewis, San Clemente, California – 17
5. Guy Smith, Effort, Pennsylvania - 11
Tracks have been reported by 28 different worldwide trackchasers this season.
Complete 2008 Trackchasing Standings
http://trackchaser.net/statyear.asp?year=2008
LIFETIME COUPLES TRACKCHASING STANDINGS
1. Randy & Carol Lewis, San Clemente, California – 1,712
2. Allan & Nancy Brown,
3. Guy & Pam Smith, Effort, Pennsylvania – 1,668
LIFETIME NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC DIVERSITY STANDINGS
2007 NGD results are posted at www.ranlayracing.com
COMPLETE TRACK TYPE CATEGORY RANKINGS OF NOTE:
Dirt Track Standings
http://trackchaser.net/statsurface.asp?surface=Dirt
Paved Track Standings
http://trackchaser.net/statsurface.asp?surface=Paved
Ice Track Standings
http://trackchaser.net/statsurface.asp?surface=Ice
Mixed Track Standings
http://trackchaser.net/statsurface.asp?surface=Mixed
Oval Track Standings
http://trackchaser.net/statoval.asp
Circuit (road course) Track Standings
http://trackchaser.net/statcircuit.asp
Figure 8 Track Standings
http://trackchaser.net/statf8.asp
Indoor Track Standings
http://trackchaser.net/statindoor.asp
Official Trackchaser Rules
http://trackchaser.net/rules.asp
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 aka “Dusty”
UPCOMING TRACKCHASING PLANS
Coming into this weekend I never expected to be trackchasing in this part of the world. Now that I’m here, I might as well make the most of it.
RACETRACKS VISITED IN 2008 (** not the first time to visit this track)
1,299.
1,300. Bira Circuit, Pattaya (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. Shawano Lake Ice Track –
1,311.
1,312. Mototown USA (oval) –
1,313. Moosehead Lake Ice Track (oval) –
1,314.
1,315.
1,316.
1,317.
1,318.
1,319. Autodromo Hermanos Rodriquez (road course), Mexico City, Mexico – March 16
1,320. Hartwell Motor Speedway (oval), Hartwell, Georgia – March 22
1,321. Lavonia Speedway, Lavonia (oval), Georgia – March 22
1,322. Dover Raceway (road course), Brown’s Town, St. Ann, Jamaica – March 24
1,323. Lake Country Speedway (oval), Ardmore, Oklahoma – March 29
1,324. Swainsboro Raceway (oval), Swainsboro, Georgia – April 3
1,325. Screven Motor (oval), Sylvania, Georgia – April 4
1,326. Centerville Super Speedway (oval), Centerville, Arkansas – April 5
1,327. Central Arkansas Speedway (oval), Plumerville, Arkansas – April 5
1,328. Clinton Country Speedway (oval), Alpha, Kentucky – April 6
1,329. Pleasant Valley Raceway (oval), Boise, Idaho – April 20
1,330. Bremerton Raceway (road course), Bremerton, Washington – April 26
1,331. Port Angeles Speedway (oval), Port Angeles, Washington – April 26
1,332. Evergreen Speedway (1/5-mile oval), Monroe, Washington – April 27
1,333. Virginia Motor Speedway (oval), Jamaica, Virginia – May 1
1,334. Natural Bridge Speedway (oval), Natural Bridge, Virginia – May 2
1,335. Sturup Raceway, Malmo (road course), Sweden – May 10
1,336. Ring Djursland, Tirstrup (road course), Denmark – May 11
1,337. Nisseringen, Naestved (road course), Denmark – May 12
1,338. Valentine Speedway (oval), Glenrock, Wyoming – May 17
1,339. Gillette Thunder Speedway (oval), Gillette, Wyoming – May 17
1,340. Phillips County Speedway (oval), Holyoke, Colorado – May 18
1,341. North Pole Speedway (oval), North Pole, Alaska, – May 22
1,342. Tanacross Airport (road course), Tok, Alaska, – May 24
1,343. Robert Mitchell Memorial Raceway (oval), Fairbanks, Alaska, – May 24
1,344. North Star Speedway (oval), Wasilla, Alaska, – May 25
1,345. Capitol Speedway (oval), Willow, Alaska, – May 25
1,346. Elk City Speedway (inner oval), Elk City, Oklahoma, – May 30
