Madras Speedway

 

 

 

THE EVENT

 

 

 

ON THE WAY TO THE RACES

 

Home of Madras.

I woke up this morning at home in the “little city by the sea” San Clemente, California. I went to sleep at the Red Lion Inn in Portland, Oregon. Tonight I would trackchase in Madras, Oregon. This is how the day turned out.

 

 

Madras is a town of just 6,046 people. Here’s what Wikipedia had to say about the origin of the town’s name, “Originally called “The Basin” after the circular valley the city is located in, it is unclear as to whether Madras was named in 1903 for the cotton fabric called “Madras” that originated in the Madras (now Chennai) area in India, or from the city of Chennai, then known as “Madras”.

 

 

When I was in junior high school “Madras” shirts were the rage. I didn’t have much money in junior high school. I do remember buying a Madras shirt for $8 USD to wear at a special party. Eight bucks was a big number to me back then.

 

 

Is marriage on the decline?

Madras is home to a significant Hispanic or Latino population – 38.5%. Just 42% of the city’s residents were “married couples living together”. That’s down from 49% just ten years earlier. The actor River Phoenix was born in Madras. Madras has one sister city, Tomi, Nogano, Japan.

 

 

Oregon is a great place.

I enjoy coming to Oregon. Carol and I have made many trips here during the fall and winter. Of course, Oregon is home to the University of Oregon and Oregon State University. Their respective locations, Eugene and Corvallis, are just 47 miles from each other. We’ve seen UCLA play both basketball and football against their Pac-12 fellow competitors.

 

I love Jake’s.

Downtown Portland is special too. To me it’s a mini-San Francisco. During my working days I spent a lot of time in Portland. If you make it up here don’t miss “Jake’s Seafood”. It is over the top!

 

 

The ‘California penalty’.

Today I had a leisurely timed 11 a.m. departing flight. Most of my flights leave at 6-7 a.m. However, today I would be trackchasing in the Pacific time zone. I love trackchasing in my own time zone. Let’s consider every trackchaser who has ever seen 500 tracks or more. I’m going to bet you a donut to a dollar they have seen the majority of their tracks in their local time zone. There is just one who has not. Me! I have seen the vast majority (more than 75%) of my tracks outside of the Pacific time zone. It’s called the “California penalty”.

 

 

After a relaxing time in the Alaska Board Room at PDX it was time to get in my rental car and head to Madras. It would be a short 117-mile drive over the mountain to the track.

 

Mount Hood was painted on my front windshield.

What I did not realize in advance is that the famous Mount Hood snow-capped mountain would be straight ahead for most of the drive. Mount Hood’s elevation runs to 11,249 feet. It truly is a majestic site.

 

 

Diversity comes in all forms.

One of the most fun things about trackchasing is meeting people who are not exactly like me. Lots of people don’t get the chance to meet people who might have an appearance, or a geographical background or a gender difference or an ethnic difference than their own. I always consider it a gift when I have that experience.

 

 

Let’s think back.

Let’s think about this for a moment. Remember those junior high school dances (like the one I needed a Madras shirt for). Was yours like mine? All the girls were on one side of the room and the boys on the other?

 

How about segregation by age? Ever seen many teen-agers hanging out at an old folks home? Not many seniors at the high school football game are there?

 

 

Of course segregation by race is still with us today. Often times it is by choice. How many times do you see a group of five teen-agers that include some whites, some blacks and some Hispanics? More often you will see five white kids or five black kids or five Hispanic kids hanging together. Why? Probably personal preference.

 

 

The folks I see tend to hang out with others who look like them. Have a hard time believing that? Go to your local shopping mall. Do the old men with short hair cuts and glasses hang with the “skaters” who might be wearing black shoes and black socks and wide-billed surfer hats? Not likely.

 

 

 

It must be some form of human nature for people to want to hang out with people they feel most comfortable with. Remember don’t criticize the messenger. I’m just reporting on what I see. I suspect you see the same thing.

 

 

Not a diverse audience in many ways.

Short track auto racing attracts a decidedly Caucasian crowd. Maybe it’s because auto racing started out with the red neck crowd. Nevertheless, it is most unlikely that I will see a black racing fan at a local short track. That’s too bad. The promoter must be missing out on lots of revenue opportunities from the fans of color.

 

My personal appearance demographic.

I have my own personal appearance demographic. I am an older white man. I don’t have any tattoos. I don’t wear any earrings. That’s a fairly stereotypical appearance for someone who looks like me.

 

 

Tonight I had a top row seat in the grandstand. There was a seat open next to me just before the racing would begin. As luck (good luck for me) would have it a young man came up and sat down next to me.

 

 

I didn’t look much like this fellow and he didn’t look much like me.

That’s right. The fellow who sat next to me didn’t look like me at all. He had long wiry black hair tied in a ponytail that fell down to the middle of his back. He wore earrings. His ethnicity was not Caucasian. You would be hard-pressed to go ANYWHERE and see a person with his physical appearance hanging with a guy with MY physical appearance. How was this going to work out?

 

Listen and learn.

I was listening to an interview with comedian Jerry Seinfeld recently. He mentioned that the best way to start up a conversation with someone is to ask a question where the answer is a number. I like that idea and have used it successfully many times.

 

 

I leaned over to my soon to be friend and asked, “Any idea how many years this track has been here?” My fellow race fan didn’t know for sure but this opener soon started up a conversation between the two of us.

 

 

What a treat.

For the next two plus hours we each engaged with the other person “who didn’t look like us”. This fellow was the nicest guy. He had moved up to rural Oregon five years ago from the Long Beach, California area.

 

 

He was now working in the home health care business. That meant he went into the homes of the sick and elderly and helped with their personal health needs. He told me he earned “about a quarter” of what he made in California but was much happier living the simple lifestyle that comes with living in Bend, Oregon.

 

 

My friend had come to the races to watch his brother-in-law race in the modified division. When he told me which car to watch in the mod feature it made the race more interesting.

 

 

I’m guessing my friend was in his early 30s. He had married an Oregonian woman about five years ago. As the night wore on he showed me texts his wife was sending wishing him a good night and telling him she was getting ready for bed. He smiled when he talked about his family life with wife and kids.

 

 

You know, if I don’t initiate the conversation or my friend doesn’t there’s a good chance we simply sit next to each other all night without a word being said. If you are or know someone who has this fellow’s personal appearance how often do you spend a couple of hours talking to someone with my personal appearance? Or vice versa? My guess: not often.

 

How would my review go?

My buddy was most interested in my hobby of trackchasing. He wanted to know about my website and how my “review” of the night was going to go.

 

 

Of course I wanted to know what his living experience was like in Oregon. What did he do in his job? We had a great conversation because we each had an interest in what the other was doing.

 

 

I gave my friend my trackchasing business card. He told me he would look up my Trackchaser Report from the Madras Speedway. I hope he does. Great meeting you my friend I would love it if our paths met again.

 

 

THE RACING

Madras Speedway – Madras, Oregon

 

 

Not many oval pins on the map.

I don’t have all that many weekly racing oval tracks left to see in all of the U.S. and Canada. Any track I see now has probably been on my radar screen for years. Usually weather and/or remote logistics has kept me from seeing these tracks.

 

 

My expectations were low.

Truth be told, as it always is, I wasn’t expecting much from the Madras Speedway. I’ve been to several Far West rurally located tracks where the cars counts are small, the facilities are lacking and the racing isn’t that great. That was what I expected from the Madras Speedway.

 

 

Surprised!

Boy, was I in for a surprise. Racing was scheduled to begin at 7 p.m. This was a Friday night. That seemed like an early starting time for Friday racing. People needed to get off work, get the S$%^ together and head to the track. For all that to happen maybe a 7:30 p.m. or 8 p.m. start time would have been better. By the way the Madras Speedway is normally a Saturday night track. The was the only night of the year they would race on Friday.

 

 

What time did they start? 7 p.m. on the dot. Good on them! I will still in my National Car Rental Racing Chrysler 300 changing from shorts to long pants. The temperature was falling and shorts would not cut it.

 

The promoters were on top of their game.

I suspect the promoters had done their homework and then some. The track’s ticket admission pricing sign offered a hefty 40% discount for seniors and military. They had a special package for four fans that included four tickets, four hot dogs and four medium sodas for $40 USD. That was a discount of sixteen dollars off the regular price. One of the family offers allowed two adults and four kids in for $35, a $10 savings. Fans could show their Bi-Mart cards (sort of like Wal-Mart) for a seven-dollar discount for families of four.

 

 

There were about five classes racing tonight. I was surprised to see 30 modified stock cars on hand in a single class. If I see 100 new tracks this year there might not be ANY that have 30 modifieds racing.

 

They got the little things right and the big things too.

The P.A. was good. The announcer was informative and entertaining. The concession stand had a wide selection of food and drinks. I always look at the pricing of a hot dog and a bottle of water for comparison purposes from one track to the next. Tonight a hot dog sold for $2 and a bottle of water for a dollar “fitty”. They also had some large signs with the entire menu printed with prices for everyone to see before they ordered. Good idea.

 

 

One of the racing highlights was how quickly the cars from the NEXT race hit the track after the cars from the LAST race finished. Some tracks lose a lot of time from one race to the next. The Madras Speedway doesn’t lose a second.

 

 

The only downside I saw happened during intermission. They took some time to water the track and then took a few minutes longer than I thought were needed to pack in the track with the racecars. Frankly, I wasn’t sure the track needed any work at intermission.

 

A great feature race.

The feature racing, especially the last race of the night, was excellent. You will not want to miss my YouTube racing video of the modified feature. These guys raced hard!

 

 

Overall, the racing program at Madras exceeded my expectations by a good deal. I suspect this will be one of the better programs I will see all year. Good job Madras Speedway.

 

 

 

AFTER THE RACES

 

It was a long drive back to the hotel.

I wasn’t exactly looking forward to the two hour and twenty minute drive back over the mountains to Portland. My friend told me that deer were a problem on local highways but not so much on the route I planned to take.

 

 

I had hoped to have time for a sandwich from Burgerville (the In N Out Burgers of the Northwest) but that did not work out.

 

 

I didn’t get back to the hotel until after 1 a.m. I had to be up and at ‘em by 7:30 a.m. to make my flight to Salt Lake City. I made it. I always do.

 

 

It had taken me a long time to make it to the Madras Speedway. I met a new friend. I saw some good racing. Folks, that is much of what my trackchasing hobby is all about. 

 

 

Oregon name

 

 

The Beaver state

This evening I saw my 21st lifetime track in the Beaver state, yes the Beaver state. I’ve still got some more trackchasing to do in Oregon. I suspect Carol and I will see UCLA play up here some more. When I come back I won’t miss Burgerville.

 

 

 

 

 

Thanks for reading about my trackchasing,

 

Randy Lewis

World’s #1 Trackchaser

Peoria Old Timers Racing Club (P.O.R.C.) Hall of Fame Member

Oregon sayings: As pretty as California but not as weird

 

 

 

 

QUICK FACTS

 

 

AIRPLANE

Los Angeles, CA (LAX) – Portland, OR (PDX) – 834 miles

 

RENTAL CAR #1

Portland International Airport – trip begins

Madras, OR

 

 

 

 

TRACK ADMISSION PRICES:

Madras Speedway – $6 ($4 senior savings)

Terrace Speedway – $8 Canadian (complimentary pit pass)

 

Total racetrack admissions for the trip – $12

 

 

 

LIFETIME TRACKCHASER COMPARISONS 

The three most important trackchasing comparisons to me are:

 

Total lifetime tracks seen

Total “trackchasing countries” seen

Lifetime National Geographic Diversity results

 

 

Total Lifetime Tracks

There are no trackchasers currently within 450 tracks of my lifetime total. Don’t blame me.

 

1. Randy Lewis, San Clemente, California – 2,080

 

 

 

Total Trackchasing Countries

There are no trackchasers currently within 10 countries of my lifetime total.

 

1. Randy Lewis, San Clemente, California – 70

 

 

 

Current lifetime National Geographic Diversity results

 

1. Randy Lewis, San Clemente, California – 4.88

 

 

 

That’s all folks! Official end of the RLR – Randy Lewis Racing Trackchaser Report

 

 

Madras Speedway…the one-minute movie trailer

 

Madras Speedway – feature racing action!

 

 

 

Click on the link below for a photo album from today’s trackchasing day: 

 

 

A fun night of Oregon scenery and excellent racing from the Madras Speedway