Randy Lewis

Peoria Journal Star

Motorsports Section

Thursday, June 21, 2007

 

 

 

Race tracks are thrill of this chase

 

Belgium track chaser, who has visited 551 tracks worldwide, will see Peoria bullring Monday

 

 

BY DON BAKER

OF THE JOURNAL STAR

 

Many interesting stores exist about how different people get hooked on motorsports.

 

For Roland Vanden Eynde of Vilvoorde, Belgium, it happened when he was 12 years old.

 

That moment came while he was watching a televised broadcast of the 1966 French Grand Prix.

 

Fast forward to June 3 of this year and he has now watched racing events at 551 different tracks around the world.  On Monday, he will add his first visit to the Peoria Speedway to that impressive list.

 

Eynde is currently ranked 16^th in the world as an official track chaser in number of tracks visited for a racing event and is the highest ranking European track chaser.

 

Eynde speaks five different languages and understands three others.

 

“No other members of my family have any interest in racing,” Eynde said, “so I didn’t watch my first live racing event until 1971.”

 

“I didn’t know about track chasers until I did an internet search in 2002.  By then I had already watched thousands of races on close to 200 tracks.”

 

Becoming an official track chaser got him interested in visiting other tracks.

 

“Once I became a member of track chasers, I started diversifying my race visits,” Eynde said.  “I have now watched races in 35 different countries on all inhabited continents.”

 

His visits include tracks in New Zealand, Tunisia, Malaysia, Finland, Poland, Estonia and Ireland among others.

 

“Nowadays, I go to between 80 to 90 new tracks a year, most of them in my native country and its neighboring ones.”

 

Eynde does take extended racing trips, such as the one he has now embarked upon.

 

Since, according to Eynde, half of all the race tracks in the world are in the United States, he is concentrating on some of those.  Weather permitting, Eynde hopes to see at least one track per day from June 14 through July 1 in the United States.

 

He normally takes 15 to 20-day trips during which he visits as many tracks and sees as many races as he can in a short period of time.

 

“If I can successfully execute my plan,” Eynde said.  “I will add at least 30 countable tracks.”

 

Eynde chose the UMP Summer Nationals at the Peoria Speedway on Monday for two reasons.

 

“I chose the Peoria Speedway first because the race in on a Monday and there aren’t many choices for that date and because Randy Lewis raves about his former hometown track,” Eynde said.

 

Lewis, formerly of East Peoria, resides in San Clemente, Calif.  He is the No. 1 track chaser in the world, having visited 1,201 tracks as of June 3.

 

Eynde says he has no long-term goals as far as track chasing goes.

 

“I like all kinds of motor racing and I think variety is the spice of life,” Eynde said.  Being from a very small country, I like to get acquainted with different cultures and use my language skills.  My other hobbies are photography and travel.  By going to different tracks, I’ve discovered parts of countries I would have never stopped at otherwise.”

 

Add Peoria to that list soon.