Randy Lewis

LAKE COUNTY LEADER


Chasing the Race

World's number one trackchaser visits Mission Valley Speedway

By Nate Traylor

Leader Staff

You’d think Randy Lewis would be sick of anything having to do with transportation.

So far this year Lewis has made 25 trips, 22 of which have involved flying.  He has totaled about 30,000 miles in a rental
car and about 8,000 in his personal car.  He has been in a hotel every week since the beginning of the year.  He
drives an average of 200-400 miles a day.  Last year, the California man spent 142 nights on the road.  "There is no
one to blame but myself," he laughed.
 

In the world of trackchasing, Lews is number one.  He travels the world taking in as many auto races as he can in order to
hold the top spot.  By the time this article is in print, he'll have seen more than 1,082 racetracks.  He is only one of six
peope who have seen racetracks in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.  He has also seen racing in Australia,
Canada, Belgium, France, Germany, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. 

In 2005, he established an all-time trackchasing record by seeing 182 tracks in 27 states and seven foreign countries.
Since retiring from Procter and Gamble about six years ago he has seen about 500 or 600 tracks.

The logistics of planning these trips is tricky, he said.  Some people brag about the number of golf courses they've
played.  But traveling the U.S. to rack up the amount of courses you've visited is easy comparted to trackchasing, 
Lewis explained.

"Golf courses are open from sun up to sun down," he said - whereas trackchasing requires that everything be
intricately calculated.  Racetracks are only open several hours, usually during the evening.  He looks at about 1,200 to
1,300 racetrack web sites for time and dates in order to establish an itinerary.  From there, it's a matter of scheduling
flights, arranging for rental cars and connecting the dots.  Last Saturday, he made a visit to the Mission Valley Speedway.
After the race, he and his wife sped to Idaho for another race before driving to Utah where they'd take in a race in
Salt Lake City.  Getting his wife - also a track enthusiast - up to speed was the primary motivation for this trip, he explained.
At the time of the interview, she has seen racing in 40 states.  "My wife comes nearly half the time.  She was the leading
trackchasing woman last year with 63 tracks," he said.

So far, Lewis has yet to visit about 1,250 tracks, but it's only a matter of time before he chips away at that number.  At
the beginning of the season, Lewis was sitting in fifth place, but his dedication and efficiency on the road propelled
him to the top spot.  Now it's a matter of staying the course while younger opponents nip at his heels.  "There are
some guys that are younger than me and if I quit, they'll pass me," he said.  "It's a question of 'Can I get far enough
ahead that if I quit they won't be able to catch me.'  That's one of the things that motivates me.

When he first started this unusual hobby, trackchasing was an obscure sport, and it still is, but he is finding more
and more people are becoming interested.  "The funny thing about this is a lot of people have never heard anything
about this, but the more interviews I do, the more the word in getting out," he said.  "The reaction I get from a lot of people 
is 'Boy, that sounds like a lot of fun.  I'd like to do that."' 

Like any competition, trackchasing has rules.  Drag racing and motorcycles don't count.  If you visit a speedway with
more than one track, those individual tracks counts.

Lewis' love of auto racing began as a child.  His favorite type of track is the quarter mile high bank dirt oval.  It's the 
kind of track he grew up on in Peoria, Illinois.  In the Midwest, people race sevens nights a week, he said.

After seeing more than 1,000 tracks, you'd think they'd all start to look the same.  But Lewis said each track is unique.
"In a way they're all different," he said.  "When I visit a track I look for something different that's never happened
before."  For example, one time at the Buffalo River Speedway in Minnesota he was invited by the flagman to throw the 
starting flag.  "In 1,082 tracks, that's never happened before," he said.

Lewis admits he may have had an advantage over his competitors.  While working at Procter and Gamble, he was
required to do a lot of traveling and much of his trackchasing was done on the job.  Between trackchasing and his career, 
he has accumulated six million frequent flyer miles for American Airlines.

NASCAR driver Ken Schrader and Sprint Car stars Steve Kinser and Sammy Swindell rank in the top 50 worldwide
trackchasers.  While Lewis can be proud of surpassing those racing stars on his way to becoming the top
trackchaser, he insists that the hobby encompasses more than just visiting more tracks than the next guy.  "A lot of
people think this hobby is just about the races, but it's about travel and people," he said.

To keep track of Lewis' progress visit trackchaser.com or you can visit his personal web page ranlayracing.com where
he posts photos from his trips.