Greetings from first Summit Point, West Virginia and then Middleburg, Pennsylvania
From the travels and adventures of the
“World’s #1 Trackchaser”
Summit Point Motorsports Park – Shenandoah Circuit
Lifetime Track #1,968 (2014)
Summit Point Motorsports Park – Summit Point Circuit
Lifetime Track #1,029 (2006)
Later in the day of the 2014 trip….
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Penns Creek Raceway Park – dirt oval
Lifetime Track #1,969
I take lots of flights. . I always bring Carol a treat. We weren’t in California anymore. . Ard’s Farm Market saved the day. I don’t get to West Virginia often. I like to challenge folks when I talk to them. A special bonus for Carol? . It’s better to ask for forgiveness than permission. Our youthful euphoria was tempered, no muted, no smothered. . Chump cars are fun to watch. Summit Point….a very unique racing property. Busted! East coast tracks have the best food. This was a most unique and entertaining fan option. . It was obvious. We ‘weren’t from around here’. I take lots of flights. I woke up this morning in Dearborn, Michigan. Carol woke up in Alexandria, Virginia. We both went to bed in Arlington, Virginia. This is what the day looked like. The first item on this morning’s agenda was to grab an early morning flight (6:10 a.m. Eastern time – that would be 3:10 a.m. Pacific time) from Detroit to Washington’s Ronald Reagan National Airport. Does that sound like “early morning” to you? As you can see if you’ve read my reports for very long….I take lots of very early flights and lots of very late flights. I take lots of flights. I wanted Carol to be comfortable. Once I landed I needed to head over to toney Alexandria, Virginia. That’s where the rich people live. That’s where Carol was housed. She had stayed at the most upscale Lorian Hotel & Spa in this Washington, D.C. suburb last evening. With my race in Michigan last night I could not make it to D.C. until this morning. Since I couldn’t be with Carol I wanted her to be comfortable. I always bring Carol a treat. There would not be time for a formal breakfast. We had to get moving. However, I had thought to bring Carol some of those famous “soft sugar cookies”, about 6” in diameter from Heyerly’s the famous bakery in Ossian, Indiana. Today’s racing plan. The first track on today’s agenda would be at the Summit Point Raceway in Summit Point, West Virginia. West Virginia has always been one of my most underpenetrated trackchasing states. Even after today I have only seen seven tracks there. Check it all out in “The Race” section. ONE CANNOT LIVE WELL OR SLEEP WELL IF ONE HAS NOT DINED WELL Ard’s Farm Market, Mifflinburg, Pennsylvania We weren’t in California anymore. Living in California we are accustomed to conveniences of all kinds and at all times. It was a culture shock when we moved from Southern California to Connecticut back in the late 70s. In Connecticut the closest McDonalds was 45 minutes away. NOTHING was open on Sundays. In California everything is open pretty much 24/7 and has been for decades. There are probably 100 restaurants within a 5-mile radius of our house. This is not the case in rural Pennsylvania. Don’t get me wrong. I don’t WANT Pennsylvania to be like California. If it were why would I want to come to Pennsylvania on a “travel and adventure” trip? However I don’t want to encounter major inconveniences when I don’t have time for them. There was plenty of time for dinner or so I thought. We had arrived early for the races this evening in Middleburg, Pennsylvania. I figured we had plenty of time to scout out some dinner near the track. However, we kept driving and driving until we thought we would NEVER find a place to eat. We weren’t passing up places we didn’t like. There were just NO places. Ard’s Farm Market saved the day. Finally, we stumbled across Ard’s Farm Market. This was essentially a farmer’s market and gift shop of sorts. They advertised “Fresh produce and more”. Their slogan was “Where town meets country”. I didn’t fancy chowing down on raw carrots and celery for dinner. However, we were in for a most pleasant surprise. They had a BBQ restaurant attached to the farmer’s market. The restaurant offered seating both indoors and outdoors. We had some great BBQ and baked beans here. In the gift shop we bought lots of souvenirs. I couldn’t pass up the “Homemade whoopie pies” (think moon pies). Our stop at Ard’s was a fantastic experience. THE RACE. Summit Point Raceway – Summit Point, West Virginia – Shenandoah Circuit I don’t get to West Virginia often. I have just a few states where I’ve seen less than 10 tracks. Those would be Delaware (5), District of Columbia (1), Hawaii (6), Maryland (4) Rhode Island (3), Vermont (8) and now West Virginia (7). Several of these states don’t even HAVE ten tracks for me to see! Is it logical that I don’t remember every track I’ve seen? I had been to the Summit Point Raceway back in 2006. On that date, April 30, 2006 I saw an SCCA (Sports Car Club of America) racing event on the Summit Point course. Frankly I remember very little about that outing. I did make a note that read “1st of three countable courses”. It’s not too unusual that I don’t remember much about that day. The Summit Point Circuit was track #1,028. That’s almost 1,000 tracks ago! I like to challenge folks when I talk to them. Carol and I paid our $15 admission price. I asked the ticket seller if that price was worth it. That was a good question to ask. It put the seller on the defensive. He felt he had to “defend” his position. Two tracks? That was a surprise. “They’re racing on the Summit Point course as well as the Shenandoah Circuit today” he told us. “They have Chump Car racing on Shenandoah and SCCA on the Summit Point layout. I think you can just drive over for the SCCA racing and won’t have to buy another ticket. I don’t think they’re checking” he added. That was great information. This is what the Summit Point website has to say about their three different racing configurations: “The Summit Point Circuit circuit opened in 1969. This 10-turn, 2.0-mile (3.2 km) road course that features a 2,900-foot (880 m) main straight. The Shenandoah Circuit is a 2.2-mile (3.5 km) road course that first opened in 2005. It is a no holds barred technical challenge that will take years for drivers to master. The track contains a dimensional replica of the Nürburgring-Nordschleife’s famous banked Karussell turn complete with 20 degrees of banking. The Jefferson Circuit opened in 1996 as a 1.1 mile road course designed by Bill Scott for high performance, accident avoidance, and emergency driver training. The track expansion to 1.7 miles has just been completed and now includes a skid pad. The track features challenging turns and elevation changes that reward smooth driver inputs and can be driven in either the original or expanded layout. This circuit hosts time trials, motorcycle events, and numerous performance driving events, as well as, driver training courses.” As far as I can tell each of these tracks is separate from the other two. There is no overlap. We had come to see racing on the Shenandoah Circuit. The first actual racing we saw was on the Shenandoah Circuit. Then we immediately drove over to the Summit Point Circuit to see what the SCCA boys and girts were doing. A special bonus for Carol? Carol and I were high fiving all the way. I had seen racing on the Summit Point track previously but she hadn’t. We showed up today for one reason, to support my trackchasing at the Shenandoah Circuit. Now was Carol going to sneak away with two tracks? It’s better to ask for forgiveness than permission. I knew that our wristbands were a different color for the Chump Car group that what the SCCA was using. I figured if they didn’t like that arrangement they could simply ask us to get back where we had a purchased wristband. By the way there is one grandstand where you can actually see racing on both of these tracks. Our youthful euphoria was tempered, no muted, no smothered. Editor’s note: I must add that some of our youthful euphoria was tempered, no muted, no smothered when I learned later that Carol had been with me at Summit Point back in ’06. I told you I didn’t remember much about that day. It was Carol’s 242nd lifetime track. Later that day in 2006 we saw racing at the Old Dominion Speedway. Nevertheless, we walked and drove all around the Summit Point Circuit. It was damp with a few sprinkles but I don’t think we missed much. I took a lot of pictures so don’t miss those. We hopped back in our rental car and drove to the other countable track at Summit Point, Jefferson Circuit. There was nothing happening at all at the Jefferson Circuit. Chump cars are fun to watch. The Chump Car group is fun to watch. They have a rule designed to keep costs down. The Chump Car sanctioning body can buy any competitor’s car for $500. It is this type of “claiming” price that keeps racers from putting too much money in the class. From what I could see the Shenandoah Circuit is much more unique than the other tracks. Maybe that’s why they don’t have that much wheel-to-wheel automobile racing. One of the turns has a high-banked oval type turn. It’s made of concrete whereas most of the rest of the track’s surface is asphalt. The car’s come off that bank just like they do at Salem or Bristol. We stood for several minutes on one of the overpass bridges. It was fun to see and hear the cars race under the bridge and then appear out of nowhere to race past it. Summit Point….a very unique racing property. The Summit Point Raceway is quite the complex. It must cover a lot of land. One might think it to be a rural track given its West Virginia location. However, it’s really just an hour or so from Washington, D.C. and that urban population. After spending a few hours at this facility it was time to head on up the road for some evening trackchasing. Penns Creek Raceway Park – Middleburg, Pennsylvania Can this be? It would be a three-hour drive from West Virginia up to the Penns Creek Raceway. I liked heading north because the weather looked better. However, I really wanted to be going south to a track in Virginia. The weather there wasn’t very good. That forced us into a northern path to avoid a potential cancellation. Waffle House. Most of our driving was along I-81. They have a lot of Waffle Houses along that interstate. I didn’t think WH was that popular this far north. We did there for a late lunch. I love WH. Carol likes WH. That makes for a good combination. My iPhone GPS unit took us directly to the front door of the Penns Creek Raceway Park. The place is located on a farm and bordered by heavy woods. We were early for the racing so we decided to go back into “town” to get something to eat. Yelp! told us about Ard’s Farm Market in somewhat nearby Mifflinburg. It was an 8-mile drive. Check out this unique place in the “Attractions” section of this Trackchaser Report. The “Pennsylvania Wings” brought us to Penns Creek. We paid just $3 to enter the grandstand at Penns Creek. You can’t beat that. The star attraction for the evening would be a visiting group called the “Pennsylvania Wings”. This group featured winged outlaw karts with adult drivers. That meets the current trackchasing rules. I’m not sure any of the regularly scheduled racing classes at Penns Creek meet the rules. They have a lot of flat kart divisions. They do have a caged adult class but it appears those are bolt on roll cages for flat karts. I believe a class like that should count. Busted! However, former trackchasing commissioner Will White did not agree with me when I tried to count something similar at a track in Maine. He called me on it and I cheerfully removed the track from my list. There are some other caged karts at Penns Creek but kids race them. East coast tracks have the best food. The concessions looked good even if we had eaten a large dinner just before coming to the track. I couldn’t resist the “fresh cut” French Fries nearly a staple at Eastern based tracks. I have said it a million times. Eastern tracks offer the best food. I bought a serving for Carol and me to share. I tried to salt it down heavily. I know that for some people salt raises their blood pressure. I have always had abnormally low blood pressure. I’ll keep salting things until that changes. Unfortunately, I didn’t get as much salt on those fries as I hoped I had. That made them much less appetizing. This was a most unique and entertaining fan option. At intermission drivers, crews and fans were allowed to “walk” the track. I joined in. I think you will like the photos from my one walking circuit around this banked dirt tri-oval surface. Also at intermission I ran into the track announcer. We chatted for several minutes while waiting in line at the Porta-potty! He told me his history with karting and announcing. He was a very friendly guy. I gave him my trackchasing business card. It was obvious. We ‘weren’t from around here’. Several fans learned we “weren’t from around here”. This prompted lots of questions from some very congenial people. Pennsylvania is a different place as regards racing than just about any place I have visited. These folks take this stuff seriously! I just go for a relaxing evening out. Think of the folks who live in the Bible Belt and go to church four times a week. The Pennsy folks use racing as their bible. They live and breath this stuff. I don’t think I’ve seen anything like it. That scares me just a bit but to each his own. When we saw the Pennsylvania Wings run their features we headed for the exits. It was getting late and we had a three-hour drive to tackle. After starting this trip with a red-eye flight I hadn’t been getting that much sleep. It had been a good day of racing. Anytime I get a trackchasing double (this one was a day/night double) I’m happy. In three days I had seen racing in four states. Tomorrow I’ll see a track in the District of Columbia. However, our MAIN reason for showing up in D.C. was for Carol to add that location to her trackchasing resume. STATE COMPARISONS West Virginia The Mountain State This evening I saw my 7th lifetime track in the Mountain state, yes the Mountain state. I come here so infrequently I had to look up the nickname for West Virginia! Pennsylvania The Keystone State This evening I saw my 86th lifetime track in the Keystone state, yes the Keystone state. I am not anywhere close to the trackchasing top ten here….and never will be. 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 West Virginia sayings: She’s about to find pups (pregnant) Pennsylvania sayings: Potholes….Shmotpoles! QUICK FACTS AIRPLANE Los Angeles, CA (LAX) – Cleveland, OH (LCE) – 2,050 miles RENTAL CAR #1 Hopkins (Cleveland) International Airport – trip begins Croswell, MI Detroit Metropolitan Airport – trip ends – 151 miles RENTAL CAR #2 Detroit Metropolitan International Airport – trip begins Hoagland, IN Detroit Metropolitan International Airport – trip ends – 571 miles AIRPLANE Detroit, MI (DTW) – Washington, D.C. (DCA) – 409 miles RENTAL CAR #3 Ronald Reagan National Airport – trip begins Summit Point, WV Middleburg, PA TRACK ADMISSION PRICES: Croswell County Fairgrounds – $8 ($2 fair admission) Hoagland Figure 8 Track – $8 Summit Point Raceway – $15 Penns Creek Raceway – $3 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 400 tracks of my lifetime total. Don’t blame me. Total Trackchasing Countries There are no trackchasers currently within 10 countries of my lifetime total. Current lifetime National Geographic Diversity results That’s all folks! Official end of the RLR – Randy Lewis Racing Trackchaser Report Reprinted with permission from my April 30, 2006 Trackchaser Report GREETINGS FROM CHARLES TOWN, WEST VIRGINIA AND THEN MANASSAS, VIRGINIA EDITOR’S NOTE Last year I established an all-time record of 182 tracks seen in a single season. On April 30 of last year, I had seen 29 tracks. So far, in 2006, I have seen 38 tracks by the same date, April 30. Could I break my record of 182 tracks seen in one season? You’ll have to stay tuned to find out. TRAVELOR’S NOTE The final two day’s of this trip were spent touring Washington, D.C. Although this is a Trackchaser Report about the overall trackchasing experience, I have included a few words about our Washington, D.C. experience (including getting the car towed while we were at the White House). If you would like to read about it, the story is at the bottom of this Trackchaser Report. AND THE READERS RESPOND Rather than identifying my readers by name in the “And The Readers Respond” section, I will identify them by their geographical region. This will allow some to offer more direct points of view. From a reader who lives near the Rockie Mountains You must have to take the 100 MG dosage of Lippitur with that diet of yours! Wish I could keep up. Hey, your strategy is to be #1 in the world and your other stuff is the tactics. Forgot that PG training already! HA. PEOPLE/STRATEGY/TRAVEL NEWS The Strategy Getting doubles (two countable tracks in one day) is an excellent way to pad one’s trackchasing total. Of course, this requires some planning. Today was a very unusual double. It was a morning/afternoon double. We arrived at 9:30 a.m. to catch races #2, #3 and #4 before the Summit Point Raceway went to their 12 noon lunch break. The afternoon part of the double did not go to the green flag until 5:08 p.m. even though we arrived at the track at 1:15 p.m. Had we known our afternoon portion of the double would start so late we could have made the entire day an exclusive afternoon double and slept about three hours longer. The People I have to give a shout out to the people of Washington, D.C. Their city, at least the part we saw, was clean and beautiful. The people we dealt with while trying to find and then retrieve our rental car could not have been more cooperative. The Trip We didn’t get to bed until about 1 a.m. on Sunday morning. It was a three hour drive from the Wythe Raceway to our hotel in Waynesboro, Virginia. In order to make it to the Summit Point Raceway by 9:30 a.m. we had to get up at 6:50 a.m. (3:50 a.m. California time) and then make a two hour drive to Summit Point. This meant that we left the Wythe Raceway at 10 p.m., drove three hours, slept a little less than six hours, and then drove two more hours to Sunday morning’s track. We did this because we wanted to catch the morning session of road racing at Summit Point, leave at the lunch break and then catch the afternoon Senior Champ Kart racing at Old Dominion. We chose to not go anywhere on Sunday night. Were we simply abstaining from trackchasing? No! I didn’t know of anyone racing on Sunday night. If I did, we would have been there despite the fact that we were whipped. RACE TRACK STATS: SUMMIT POINT RACEWAY – SUMMIT POINT COURSE, CHARLES TOWN, WEST VIRGINIA – TRACK #1,028 – 4/30/06 This was Carol’s first ever trackchasing visit to West Virginia!! She’s now up to 37 states. Rhode Island might be her most difficult state to see for the first time. They have only one known active track and that track does not run consistently. This was only my third track to see in the coal-mining state. I’m mired back in a tie for 25th place with Bing Metz and Tom Sivi. I’m a long way from cashing in on any National Geographic Diversity bonus points as I currently need nine tracks to crack the top 10. Rick Schneider and Guy Smith lead the state with 16 tracks. OLD DOMINION SPEEDWAY – INNER INNER OVAL, MANASSAS, VIRGINA – TRACK #1,029 – 4/30/06 This was my 12th track to see in Virginia. I now hold undisputed 19th place in the state. Paul Weidman is in 10th with 20 tracks. Therefore, it’s nearly fruitless to put much effort into Virginia from a NGD standpoint. This was Carol’s 5th Cavalier state track. Guy Smith leads the state with 43 tracks. RACE TRACK NEWS: SUMMIT POINT RACEWAY – SUMMIT POINT COURSE The Summit Point Raceway is located just a mile or two in West Virginia from the Virginia state line. The really cool thing about this facility is they have three separate countable tracks. They are all road courses. Here is what trackchaser rules say about this situation: “Multiple tracks of the same type (types being divided into ovals, road courses and figure eights), located at the same facility, are countable under the following conditions: ……all tracks falling under the road course category are only separately countable if they are not connected or if they meet the change of surface rule, with the following exception, one permanent and one temporary road course which share a minority of common surface may be counted twice.” Today we saw the “Summit Point” course. Some day I’ll be back for the Jefferson and Shenandoah Circuits. The SCCA was sanctioning today’s races. They always have a well run show that stays on time. Today was no exception. We arrived at 9:30 a.m. They were about to begin race #2 for the day. They would end up running four races in total before the lunch break. We had breakfast at the track cafeteria. We then walked the entire circuit. This is a very rural track. It’s nothing like the Taj Mahal of the Barber Motorsports Park. There are some very isolated parts of the infield of the track. It’s probably not a good place to be walking at night in West Virginia if you remember the movie, Deliverance. Nevertheless, it was a nice walk on a refreshingly cool weather day. Like most road racing, we couldn’t see much of the racing, but it really didn’t matter. We were enjoying our commune with nature. We did have one narrow escape. Carol and I stood near a turn where there was only a small rubber tire fence to protect us from the racing cars. Carol asked me if we were safe. I assured her we were. I had just gotten those words of assurance out of my mouth when a car came spinning out of control directly toward us. We both ran for cover with me yelling, “Oh #$%^$! Carol looked at me as she always does in these circumstances and we continued our walk in the woods. OLD DOMINION SPEEDWAY – INNER INNER OVAL Oh, my!! It was only about an hour’s drive over from Summit Point, West Virginia. I had been told that the racing action began at noon with two rounds of practice, qualifying and then the race. My track contact told me the program would end around fiveish. Although that prediction turned out to be correct, we were still surprised and somewhat disappointed. We would be seeing the Senior Champ Karts this afternoon. With only one countable race happening for trackchasing purposes, we didn’t want to be late. We arrived at the track at 1:15 p.m. We had a minor scare with our directions. I use my Microsoft Streets and Trips software program for all of my on the road traveling directions. If I don’t have a physical address, I put in the city name and am directed to the center of town. Sometimes the Microsoft program will accept just the name of the racetrack. In that case, my job is easy and I can simply follow route by route directions to the track’s doorstep. Today I was using the track’s physical location address obtained from their website. We zeroed in on the address and a huge fairgrounds appeared at the appointed spot. We entered the fairgrounds and found absolutely no one there! I could say I was shocked but I would have to admit this has happened before…….several times. A little further investigation solved our potential problem. The Old Dominion Speedway was across the road from the fairgrounds. We entered the speedway property and there still wasn’t much going on on this side of the property. We entered the old wooden grandstand with no admission charge whatsoever. The grandstand is huge and will make one great bonfire if it ever catches fire. There were seven people in the stands. For most of the afternoon, Carol and I would be the only people in the stands at all! The sun was shining. We had our chicken Caesar salads from McDonalds and we were glad to be able to relax after our very early start in Waynesboro, Virginia this morning. By the way, we only used McDonalds because it was fast and we needed to get to the track and the calories were low which were needed after yesterday’s gluttoness foray. After we finished our lunch, we decided to wander into the go-kart pit area. This was located in the infield of the half-mile Old Dominion Speedway oval. We were just standing on the edge of the pits when a nearby driver essentially told us to pay for a pit pass or move on. I’ve never run into this before, but then I was trying to get something I had not paid for and didn’t really have a problem with the driver’s request. We declined the opportunity to pay $10 each and walk around the haulers of 32 go-karting race teams. On the way out of the pits, I asked a Senior Champ Kart crew member when he thought their race would be. He told me the other kart classes would run heat races and a feature. The champs would time trial and then run a feature only. He estimated they would run the Senior Champ Kart feature somewhere between 2:30 and 3 p.m. That would have been great if that had happened. It didn’t! At 2:30 p.m., the champ karts entered the track, not for their feature race, but for practice. At 3:40 p.m., they entered the track not for their feature race, but for their time trials. At 5:08 p.m., the five Senior Champ Karts in attendance entered the track for their feature event, which lasted all of about 5 minutes. We had been at the track for almost four hours for one five minute race. The first hour in the sun was pleasant. The last three were not. There are actually two inner ovals inside the half-mile asphalt oval racetrack known as the Old Dominion Speedway. The two inner ovals do not touch the half-mile track at all. The two inner ovals are identical except that the inner inner oval’s turn three and four are inside the turns three and four of the middle Old Dominion oval. The Senior Champ Karts raced on the most inner oval that I am calling the inner inner oval. The middle oval would be countable if the right cars were racing on it. This was a pathetic go-kart program today. There were only 32 competitors racing in five divisions. It should not take more than five hours for this amount of competitors to practice, qualify and race. It’s just wrong. The biggest offenders of my time were the kid’s classes. There were two of those. Either these children had a weekend pass from their attention deficit disorder classroom or their father’s had had a frontal lobotomy or both. The kid’s couldn’t follow the simplest of directions. If they told them to line up side by side, they stayed 50 yards apart. If they told them to stop, they sped up and ran into the back of the kart in front of them. When kids don’t get it or can’t behave, I blame the parents. Just about every kid I’ve ever seen that’s screwed up came from a bad home life. Carol said they need to “Go to boot camp for race drivers.” I think they need to go to juvenile delinquency school and when they turn 18 to prison. Just my opinion. The program was for the most part devoid of any real entertainment. There was no announcer or use of the P.A. at all. The flagman was terrible. He continually gave the racers the “One more lap” sign. The racing was caution filled except for the 20-lap Senior Champ Kart race. We’ll be back some day for the half-mile oval. Heck, we may be back someday for the middle inner oval. I’m just happy to get the inner inner oval in our rearview mirror. For a while there, I was concerned they might never get to the Senior Champ Karts which was the last race of the day. CAROL’S COMMENTS SUMMIT POINT RACEWAY – SUMMIT POINT COURSE This track wasn’t nearly as upscale as most road courses I’ve visited especially the Barber Motorsports Park in Leeds, Alabama where we were a few weeks ago. It’s great there are three countable racecourses here. The announcer was good, loud and spoke without an accent (having an announcer of any kind at a road course is somewhat unusual). The cars weren’t waxed and shiny and they had dirty wheels. OLD DOMINION SPEEDWAY – INNER INNER OVAL I was very concerned when we pulled into the fairgrounds and no one was there. The sun felt good this afternoon (now, she’s in the hotel with a sunburn). It was amazing that all of the champ karts racing today were Senior Champ Karts. This was a giant facility to be hosting such a mini-racing program. The grandstands were nice, but they’ve definitely been here awhile and getting very weathered. WEATHER CONDITIONS The weather was delightful. It was a sunny blue sky except for some intermittent wispy white clouds. The temperatures were in the high 60s. The rain forecast for today was 0%. We actually got a bit of a sunburn after sitting in the Old Dominion grandstands for nearly four hours. RENTAL CAR UPDATE: The National Rental Car Racing Chevy Impala did its job. I’m glad I’m racking up all these miles with somebody else’s car! This trip covered a very manageable 920 miles. Carol helped a good deal with the driving. We stopped for gas three times, the last just a top off before I returned the car. We paid an average price of $2.92 per gallon. This is a record for us in the U.S. The Chevy gave us 26.5 M.P.G. in fuel mileage at an average cost of 11.0 cents per mile. LIFETIME TRACKCHASER STANDINGS UPDATE: These worldwide trackchasers are within 100 tracks (plus or minus) of my current trackchaser total. Other notables These worldwide trackchasers are within 10 tracks (plus or minus) of Carol’s current trackchaser total. 2006 TRACKCHASER STANDINGS Thanks for reading about my trackchasing, Randy Lewis America’s #1 European Trackchaser That’s all the news that’s fit to print from San Clemente where the women are strong, the men are good-looking, all of the children are above average and the real estate prices are way above average. CUMULATIVE TRAVEL DISTANCES: AIRPLANE Long Beach, CA – Washington, D.C. – 2,270 miles RENTAL CAR Washington, D.C. Dulles Airport – trip begins Midlothian, VA – 135 miles Radford, VA – 395 miles Rural Retreat, VA – 445 miles Summit Point, West Virginia – 744 miles Manassas, Virginia – 808 miles Washington, D.C. Dulles Airport – 920 miles – trip ends AIRPLANE Washington, D.C. – Long Beach, CA – 2,270 miles Total air miles – 4,540 miles Total auto and air miles traveled on this trip – 5,460 miles TRACK ADMSSION PRICES: Southside Speedway – $10 Motor Mile Speedway – $15 Wythe Speedway – $7 Summit Point Raceway – Free Old Dominion Speedway – Free Total race admissions for the trip – about $32 It’s about time to begin my trackchasing migration northward. 1,000. Auburndale Kartway, Auburndale, Florida – February 10 1,001. Ocala Speedway (asphalt oval), Ocala, Florida – February 12 1,002. Speedworld Speedway, Surprise, Arizona – February 19 1,003. Lowe’s Motor Speedway (1/5 mile asphalt oval), Concord, North Carolina – February 25 1,004. Concord Raceway, Concord, North Carolina – February 25 1,005. Antioch Speedway, Antioch, North Carolina – February 25 1,006. Green Valley Speedway, Gadsden, Alabama – February 26 1,007. East Bay Raceway (inner oval), Gibsonton, Florida – March 17 1,008. Volusia Speedway Park West (1/6M oval), Barberville, Florida – March 18 1,009. Speedway Park, Fruitland Park, Florida – March 18 1,010. Sand Mountain Speedway (road course), Fort Meade, Florida – March 19 1,011. Anderson Motor Speedway, Anderson, South Carolina – March 31 1,012. Westminster Speedway, Westminster, South Carolina – March 31 1,013. East Lincoln Motor Speedway, Stanley, North Carolina – April 1 1,014. Margarettsville Speedway, Margarettsville, North Carolina – April 2 1,015. Sunny South Raceway, Grand Bay, Alabama – April 7 1,016. Barber Motorsports Park, Leeds, Alabama – April 8 1,017. Coldwater Raceway, Coldwater, Alabama – April 8 1,018. Talladega Short Track, Talladega, Alabama – April 8 1,019. Ballymena Raceway, Ballymena, Northern Ireland – April 14 1,020. Oulton Park, Little Budworth, England – April 15 1,021. Somerset Rebels Banger Raceway, Rooks Bridge, England – April 16 1,022. Mendips Raceway, Shipham, England – April 16 1,023. Oval Raceway, Angmering, England – April 17 1,024. Arlington Stadium, Eastbourne, England – April 17 1,025. Southside Speedway, Midlothian, Virginia – April 28 1,026. Motor Mile Speedway, Radford, Virginia – April 29 1,027. Wythe Speedway, Wytheville, Virginia – April 29 1,028. Summit Point Raceway, Summit Point Circuit, Summit Point, West Virginia – April 30 1,029. Old Dominion Speedway – inner inner oval, Manassas, Virginia – April 30 WASHINGTON D.C. NOTES We stayed in Manassas, Virginia on Sunday and Monday nights. Our hotel was about 25 miles from downtown D.C. Hotels were running $200-$300 per night in Washington, D.C. and I didn’t feel like competing with corporate expense accounts. We were pretty well raced out by Sunday night. Nevertheless, we stumbled across an excellent Tex-Mex restaurant in Guapo’s Rotisserie & Tex-Mex Grill (www.guaposrestaurant.com 703-393-9449). Spanish is the primary language spoken here. The restaurant was so good, I’m giving it a RANLAY Racing Money Back Guarantee. If you visit the Old Dominion Speedway, it’s only 3-4 miles away. Their food was so good; we stopped there again on our way out of town on Tuesday. Monday morning found us headed into our nation’s capital. It’s trips like this that really add a great touch to the trackchasing hobby. The weather was glorious. The morning traffic at 9:30 a.m. wasn’t too bad. However, it was very difficult to park downtown. After several minutes of searching, I made an illegal u-turn and found a metered spot. We would have to feed the meter to the tune of a dollar an hour every two hours but we were thankful to have found the spot. We even found the meter with an hour’s worth of time left on it, so we considered ourselves lucky. Our first stop was at the National Museum of History. This museum houses so many pieces of popular culture. They have created Julia Child’s kitchen. They featured Judy Garland’s red slippers from the Wizard of Oz and Jerry Seinfeld’s “Puffy shirt” from his popular sitcom. There were dozens of other exhibits. Our next stop was next door at the National Museum of Natural History. This museum had some extensive gem and rock exhibits including the Hope diamond, a 55-carat diamond. We then made a stop at the IMAX Theater to view the film ‘Aliens of the Deep. The afternoon was spent on some of Washington’s most popular attractions. We got a great view of the Washington Monument, the IRS building and the EPA buildings! Probably the biggest highlight was our view of the White House. I was surprised at how close we could get. Just as we were leaving the White House, we heard the chants of a large demonstration. The folks in favor of illegal immigrant rights were marching up the street. They had a couple thousand people waving Mexican, El Salvador and U.S. flags. They were well behaved and the D.C. police kept a close eye on things. We had had a long day at this point and wanted to find a nice place for dinner. We ended up in the Ronald Reagan Building for some Chinese food. We relaxed and kicked back after having walked a good deal during the day. We were starting to drag a bit and still had a 10-block walk back to the car. As we got nearer our parking spot, I began to look for the car. I couldn’t remember exactly where we parked but had an uneasy feeling our car wasn’t where we left it. It turned out that the metered parking was good from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. From 4 p.m. to 6:30 p.m., there was no parking at the curb because of rush hour. Anyone parked there would be (and was) towed away. That was a bummer after a hard day of being a tourist! Now we had to track down the car. We’ve had our car towed one other time at Anaheim Stadium. That was both a major hassle to retrieve and it was expensive. I feared the worst. I called the phone number on the sign to find out how we could get the car back. It was nearly 7 p.m. and all I could get was a recording. They said all customer service agents had gone home at 5 p.m. and I should check out their website for info on getting the car. Of course, I had no computer and there weren’t many people around at this hour. I stumbled across a local security guard. He let us in the security office of the Natural History Museum. The guards in there were very helpful as was the live person I spoke with about my car. It turns out they had towed the car just a few blocks away and parked it on the street. We could simply walk over and pick it up. Of course, there was a fee to be paid within 30 days for the trouble. How much? One hundred bucks! Actually, I was a bit relieved. I thought it might be two or three times more than that. I used Carol as my barometer on things like this. I am easily confused because I don’t take the time to read the fine print. If she is confused then I know the instructions weren’t clear. Overall, we might have been a bit disappointed in the museums. We were last in D.C. for this type of activity many years ago. The museums seemed a bit dated. We have toured the inside of the White House previously. Seeing it again was fun especially in light of the fact it was a potential 9/11 terrorist target. It was interesting seeing the Immigrant rights demonstration. Of course, the car-towing incident added a little local color to the day. Based upon the above, we decided to catch an earlier flight home after a long four-day trip. It was fun and trackchasingly productive. Carol is a real trooper and I appreciate her support. Racing from the Summit Point Raceway Racing from Penns Creek Raceway Park Click on the link below to view the photo album: All kinds of racing from the Summit Point Motorsports Park Click on the link below to view the photo album from the Penns Creek Raceway Park: Take a tour of the rural Pennsylvania countryside with racing to boot! 
UPCOMING TRACKCHASING PLANS
RACETRACKS VISITED IN 2006 (** not the first time to visit this track)