Greetings from Ewa Beach, Oahu, Hawaii
From the travels and adventures of the “World’s #1 Trackchaser”
Hawaii Raceway Park – oval – Track #144
Hawaii Raceway Park – road course – Track #533
Our first track in Hawaii.
The Hawaii Raceway Park is officially listed as my 144th lifetime racetrack to see. Carol and I first saw racing at HRP in 1984. It was the first track that either of us had ever seen race in Hawaii. However, this was not our first visit to Hawaii to see racing.
However this was not our first attempt at trackchasing in Hawaii.
Our very first attempt at trackchasing in Hawaii came in 1982. I was very excited about this visit. I didn’t know – anyone – who had seen racing in Hawaii. I’m estimating that Carol and I have vacationed some 60-80 times in our 50th state as of this writing. We were lucky enough to own several condos on Maui in the 80s and to this day still own three vacation timeshares. With all the travel I do, and with living in possibly the best climate in the world – San Clemente -, Hawaii is still the only place I am willing to go back for a week or more….again and again.
However, in 1982 we were just getting out feet wet so to speak with the islands. It was difficult in pre-internet days to get race schedule info especially for rural tracks and the Hawaii Raceway Park was a rural track.
Hurricane Iwa says ‘not this week’.
Once we did find a firm racing date, November 27, 1982, we booked our flights. Wouldn’t you know it! A few days before race day, November 23, Hurricane Iwa hit the islands. At the time it was the costliest hurricane ever to come to Hawaii. It was the 12th and final hurricane of the 1982 Pacific hurricane season. Hurricane Iwa was the first significant hurricane to hit the islands since Hawaii became a state in 1959. President Reagan declared the island of Oahu to be a federal disaster area. On the island of Kauai schools were closed indefinitely!
When we showed up at the track it was a sunny beautiful Hawaiian day, four days after the hurricane had struck. However, there would be no racing. The hurricane had knocked out the electricity to the racetrack and surrounding areas. Despite all of our planning Mother Nature had turned against us. We were not deterred only delayed. We would return.
We would return.
On August 18, 1984 we sandwiched a trip, to Hawaii and Hawaii Raceway Park, between visits to Rockford Speedway and Ascot Park. Mssrs. Dick Trickle and Bubby Jones won at those two famous tracks during our visits.
Honestly, I remember getting cancelled by the hurricane in 1982 much more than I do the racing in 1984. Why is that? I do know that places like Hawaii usually have small car counts. The Hawaii Raceway Park probably came closest of any of the five Hawaiian tracks I have seen race, to having anything resembling competitive racing. That’s no knock on Hawaii. It’s just that rural low population areas, especially in the Far West just don’t have much history with short track auto racing.
I did return in 2001 to the HRP property to see some racing on their road course. Carol and I were vacationing on the island of Kauai. I hopped a flight over to Oahu to see the afternoon – right and letters – do their thing. You can read all about that adventure behind the – HRP Road Course – tab.
Sadly, the grounds that were home to the Hawaii Raceway Park were closed to racing in 2006. Racing had taken place, off and on, there for more than 40 years. However, oval track racing did reappear at the Kalealoa Raceway Park in Barber Housing Point on Oahu in 2012. I’ve been there too. I’ll tell you all about it at the Kalealoa page.
You might have remembrances about the Hagerstown Speedway. If so, please feel free to share in the comments section below. If you have any photos from back in the day, send them to me at Ranlay@yahoo.com. I’ll try to include them here.
Reprinted from my November 4, 2001 Trackchaser Report
Aloha from Ewa Beach (Oahu), Hawaii
TRAVEL/PEOPLE NEWS
This trip to Kauai was supposed to be the vacation that celebrated my retirement at the end of September. But somewhere along the line my “out” date got extended to December 31, 2001. Then, just like in the Godfather movie, “when I thought I was finally out they grabbed me back in!” and now my final retirement date will be June 30, 2002. This date will not be extended. Now my official retirement trip will be to the North Dakota Modified Summer Tour in July 2002. This trip offers the chance to see 9 races in 9 days plus all of the highlights of North Dakota. How much better of a retirement trip could one expect?
Ardent readers of these “talk stories”, an old Hawaiian phrase, know that I’ve been on a steady diet of Super 8 Motels and fast food for most of my trackchasing endeavors this season. Since I’m entertaining Carol, no small feat indeed, I’ve chosen the Hyatt Resort in Kauai to spend eight glorious nights. This is, arguably, the finest Hyatt in the world. Our oceanfront room has a beautiful walkout patio and the requisite palm trees to create a beautiful setting.
The Hyatt has one of the best Italian restaurants I’ve ever visited (Mr. Sabo will attest to this). It’s a bit on the pricey side and a full dinner for two can get up to about $150 pretty easily. I had planned to take Carol to Donderos one time during the trip as a special treat. To my pleasant surprise when we checked in I learned that our “Dreamscape” Hyatt package not only included dinners for us each night in any hotel restaurant, including Donderos, but also free admittance to the $19.95 per person (Hawaii’s not cheap!) breakfast buffet everyday as well. That’s about $1,000 worth of restaurants. I felt like we’d won the “Survivor food challenge!”
The trip to Hawaii Raceway Park involved taking an inter island flight from Kauai to the Honolulu airport on the island of Oahu. The best deal with this type of airfare is to buy coupon books of 6 tickets for about $65 each. The coupons are good for 6 months. We’ll use all of these coupons during this trip doing one thing or another.
The trip started out with a 5:30 a.m. wakeup call. Hawaii does not observe daylight savings time so it is two hours behind California. This made it 7:30 a.m. on the time I was used too so no big deal. It doesn’t get light in Kauai until about 6:30 a.m. It also doesn’t surprise me that east coast people seem to prefer Florida to Hawaii. For half the year the East is 6 hours ahead of Hawaii. That means a 7 a.m. wakeup call is really one in the afternoon and a leisurely 7 p.m. dinner really is starting out at 1 a.m. Eastern time.
Nevertheless, the drive to the Lihue airport took about 30 minutes. The island has lots of 25 M.P.H. speed zones and they give speeding tickets. So I spent the early morning driving 25 M.P.H. in the dark to get to the airport. I’ve mentioned the various forms of airport security I’ve run into since 9/11. I saw a new one at the Lihue airport. When I pulled my rental car into the parking lot I was met by a gentlemen holding a six-foot pole with a mirror affixed to one end. He used this contraption to look underneath the car for bombs or whatever. Also when the passengers boarded the plane the pilot stood at the doorway personally greeting every passenger. He just wanted to, “see who was on my airplane”. Sounds like profiling to me.
The flight from Kauai to Honolulu on the island of Oahu is just 85 miles and takes about 20 minutes. The Hawaiian Airlines inter island service is frequent and efficient. I landed at about 8 a.m. and picked up my Priceline National rental car. I now had two National rental cars checked out at one time.
I had been told the races were to begin at 9:30 a.m. Since I was driving right past the Aloha Stadium (home of the Aloha Bowl and the NFL Pro Bowl) I decided to stop. On Sundays they have the largest flea market you’re likely to ever see. Admission is 50 cents. They offered a wide variety of stuff including 10 t-shirts for $20 but I passed on everything.
Editor’s note: Many of you may recall that about a year ago I requested $90,000 in sponsorship money from trackchasers and/or readers to fund my trackchasing exploits. Surprisingly (to me anyway) I have yet to receive any checks. The purpose of these funds was to provide the resources to catch #1 trackchaser Rick Schneider who is about 300 tracks ahead of me. Today’s event is my 533rd track and 67th new track for the season. With expenses averaging about $300 per day you can do the math. As a self funded trackchaser this hobby can be expensive. Ocean front Hyatts don’t come cheap, let alone renting two cars at a time and having airline expenses within airline expenses.
So here’s my proposal to my fellow ranked trackchasers. We all put in $10 per week into a trackchasing fund. As the fund builds, needy trackchasers (like me) submit requests for funds to support their needs. Trackchasers living furthest from their proposed trackchasing trip get first preference. Will, please let me know where to send my first $10 fund contribution. Mahalo!
RACING NEWS
Hawaii Raceway Park has an official web site. The site says their event for November 4 was to have races beginning at 9:30 a.m. I even phoned the web site contact to confirm. This gentleman did call me back and said they were racing but his message did not specifically state race times. Big mistake. I arrived at the track at 9:30 a.m. Here’s what the track schedule looked like:
8:00 a.m. Worker orientation
8:30 a.m. Worker meeting
9:00 a.m. Corner workers to corners. Mandatory drivers meeting in paddock area.
9:30 a.m. Ambulance arrives and is given track orientation.
9:45 a.m. 15 minute practice for Solo I and closed wheel racecars.
10:05 a.m. 15-minute practice for open wheel racecars.
10:25 a.m. 15 minute practice for Solo I and closed wheel racecars.
10:45 a.m. 15-minute practice for open wheel racecars.
11:05 a.m. 15 minute practice for and closed wheel racecars.
11:25 a.m. 15-minute practice for open wheel racecars.
11:45 a.m. Corner workers in for lunch break
12:45 p.m. Corner workers return to corners
1:00 p.m. 15 minute lapping session for Group A
1:20 p.m. 15 minute lapping session for Group B
1:40 p.m. 15 minute lapping session for Group C
2:00 p.m. 15 minute lapping session for Group A
2:20 p.m. 15 minute lapping session for Group B
2:40 p.m. 15 minute lapping session for Group C
3:00 p.m. Solo I timed laps
3:30 p.m. 25-minute race for closed wheel cars
4:00 p.m. 25-minute race for open wheeled cars
4:30 p.m. Release ambulance and clean-up
The astute trackchaser will immediately notice that there is no countable racing on this schedule until 3:30 p.m. That would be six hours from the time I arrived at the track. What does a trackchaser do when presented with this dilemma? They go shopping (in the corporate world this is called multi-tasking). Yes, even though I have a detailed packing list, I had forgotten to pack any golf shoes for the trip. I headed for a shopping center, got the shoes, had lunch at Subway and came back to the track at 1:30 p.m. They were still on their lunch break and nearly an hour behind schedule! I had a 5:20 p.m. flight and at this rate I’d never make it. I made an executive transportation decision and moved back my flight until 6:20 p.m. This should make things work.
Those who know me well are aware of the nine personal goals I set for myself at the beginning of the year. One of those goals relates to weight loss. Therefore in the pursuit of goal achievement it should be noted that I stopped in a bookstore with the intention of buying a Weightwatchers book. I opened the first page and the week 1, day 1 breakfast was a ½ cup of juice, one egg and one piece melba toast. Let’s see melba toast or Dondero’s each night this week. I’ll start that Weightwatcher’s stuff next week!
HRP has two road course configurations that overlap. The short course is 0.75 miles long and the long course is 1.32 miles long. There were five open wheel cars in attendance and six closed wheel cars. I don’t even want to compute my cost per racecar to see this event!
The event is sponsored by the SCCA which is the Sports Car Club of America. At today’s event they allowed spectators to drive their cars on the track. This was a lot different than my experience at Buttonwillow, California where spectators can just drive their cars at a leisurely pace during the lunch break.
At HRP about 15 drivers showed up to race their streetcars. Most of the cars were muscle cars including a Corvette, a few Porches and BMWs and some hot rod Hondas. The drivers were required to wear helmets. They did 15 minute lapping sessions in groups of five. The only place they were allowed to pass was on the track’s straightaway (which is also the ¼ mile straight for the Hawaii Raceway Park drag strip). They timed the Corvette, the fastest car, at 140 M.P.H. at the end of the straightaway. That’s pretty quick in a streetcar when you then need to downshift and lay on the brakes to make a 90 degree left turn. You could smell the brakes and tires from a long distance away. Suffice it to say these folks won’t be getting 40,000 miles from those sets of tires.
For a spectator to race they charge $50. It’s only $25 if the driver agrees to be a corner worker for the day when he’s not racing. That’s pretty reasonable to get to race your car for 30 minutes. I thought about taking the National Rental Car racing Pontiac Grand-Am for a spin but it looked a little too serious for me.
Earlier in the morning I had attended the driver orientation. The use of flags by the SCCA was a little different that what I was used to in oval track racing. They have a flag with red and yellow horizontal stripes. This is used to let the drivers know there is debris on the track. The white flag is used to signal there is a slow car that is off the pace immediately ahead. They also had a black flag with a large red circle to let the drivers know there is oil on the track.
The creature comforts are few and far between at Hawaii Raceway Park. They have a “clubhouse” type building that houses a few vending machines and a room for the driver’s meeting. This building has a front porch area where track officials sit and it provides shade. I, along with a father and son combo, was the only spectator at the track. Everyone else was either an official or connected with a racecar. The weather was nice with temps in the 75-80 degree range and sunny but it was very windy as can be the case in the afternoon in Hawaii.
There is no public address system and no concession stands. The track is located directly adjacent to the Hawaii Motor Speedway which is a ¼ mile dirt oval. I visited that track in 1984 after trying to see a race there in 1982 only to have it cancelled by a major hurricane. The oval looks to have been majorly upgraded since I was last there. They also have a very nice commercial go kart track on the property.
At 4:15 p.m. the first countable activity of the day took to the track. This was the 25-minute race for open wheel cars. Somehow they had leapfrogged the closed wheel cars on the schedule. The open wheelers raced on the long course whereas the spectator cars had run on the short course. I never did get to see the closed wheel racecars run.
Surprisingly, the field of just five open wheel cars was fun to watch. Maybe I was just happy to see some real racing! Nevertheless, I entertained myself by computing the intervals from one car to the next and trying to figure out how quickly one car might lap another. True to the schedule they did race for 25 minutes. A complete lap took the fastest car about 58 seconds to complete so I guess their event was about 25 laps. It was now time to head back to the airport and return to Kauai. When the checkered flag fell I became the only ranked trackchaser to see a race on the road course at Hawaii Raceway Park and I’m glad I’ve got it behind me.
Rental Car update: The Kauai rental car was secured from National Rental Car. My reservation was for a mid-sized car. When I arrived they upgraded me to a full sized car. When I went to pick it up in the lot the “low tire pressure” light was on. This prompted a further upgrade to a premium car that turned out to be a Buick LeSabre Custom car. The Honolulu car was also from National but was reserved through Priceline.com a service I fully endorse.
That’s all folks! Official end of the RLR – Randy Lewis Racing Trackchaser Report