Randy Lewis

DODGE CITY DAILY GLOBE

No. 1 “trackchaser” sees DCRP

 

By John Curtis

Californian Randy Lewis has loved the sport of auto racing ever since the first time he saw a race in Illinois more than 50 years ago.

But instead of traveling to race, Lewis does what is called "trackchasing," which means he just travels to different venues to watch races.

"I retired from Proctor & Gamble about four years ago and I had seen about 50 or 60 tracks in a season," Lewis said. "But since I stopped working, I've been to 420 tracks in the last three years; and I plan on doing this a lot in the future."

Lewis recently became the top trackchaser and his visit to Dodge City Raceway Park was his 1,109th and 1,110th visit to a track. The chaser said the reason why DCRP counts as two is because they had racing on both the 3/8-mile dirt track and the 1/4-asphalt track.

His wife, Carol, who is also a trackchaser (with the tracks she’s visited up to 280 with her trip to DCRP), accompanies Lewis on this trip. She accompanies her husband to about half of the tracks he visits and recently passed World of Outlaws legend Sammy Swindell on the chaser list.

Lewis said it takes a lot of planning to go from one track to another, with drives of 600 miles between tracks. This weekend was more of a relaxing time considering all he had to do was drive from Wichita to Hutchinson to Dodge City. He and his wife spent Sunday night at Enid, Okla., and then went back to Wichita (a 600-mile round trip).

"We started this year in Georgia. I've already been to 119 tracks this season and will be at another 20 to 30, then we'll be getting ready to go to New Zealand over the Christmas Holiday," Lewis said. "I've been to Canada, England and to 33 different states this year. We'll spend about 150 nights a year doing this.

"What I'll do is that I have about 800 track Web sites of tracks where I've never been and about 500 sanctioning bodies, like the World of Outlaws, and I scour those Web sites, and then make a plan. I've already been on 25 round-trip airplane rides and traveled about 130,000 miles."

But it leads to the question: Why do this?

"I just want to see as many tracks as I can," Lewis said. "I've got some time, it's a fun hobby and I enjoy the travel all the time. I get to see places I'd never see if it weren’t for this. It's just a love of racing ever since that first time I saw a race when I was five."