Greetings from Roseville, California
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From the travels and adventures of the
“World’s #1 Trackchaser”
All American Speedway Inner Dirt oval Lifetime Track #2,690 THE EVENT Editor’s note: Can’t any of these trips just be simple? Tonight Carol and I ended up being within four minutes of missing the main race of this trackchasing trip. Then on the way home, we got the very last two seats on our airplane taking us home. We were flying standby. If we had arrived at the All-American Speedway just four minutes later and two more people had decided not to sleep in we might still be in Northern California without ever having seen a race. Welcome to trackchasing. That’s what makes it so much fun. I AM A TRACKCHASER. My name is Randy Lewis (above with Bob Brown, John Simpson and Carol on one of our many ice trackchasing adventures). I live out in San Clemente, California. We’re only 74 miles north of the Mexican border. I’m not sure a person could pick a more inconvenient location in the continental United States if they wanted to be a world-class trackchaser. My residential location virtually assures the idea that I must fly to virtually every track I visit. I am a “trackchaser”. I trackchase. Have you ever in your life heard of “trackchasing”? I didn’t think so. Trackchasing for me is all about three things. First, I enjoy auto racing. Secondly, my hobby requires a good deal of overnight travel. When I venture out to see a race at a track I’ve never seen before I do not want my trip limited to racing only. The very last thing I want when I’m done trackchasing is to have memories of only racing. I want to take some time to see the local attractions of wherever I might be visiting. Those visits in many cases will provide more long-lasting memories than whatever I saw on the track. Finally, I want to create a logistical plan that allows me to accomplish the two points mentioned above without depleting my retirement account. That’s trackchasing for me. Hundreds of trackchasers have stopped for a moment to create their own personal trackchasing list. I think that is great. However, I will tell you that no one has ever taken trackchasing more seriously than I have. Do I have any data to back up that assertion? I do. To date, I have seen auto racing in 85 countries at more than 2,680 different tracks. Does that sound serious to you? I’ve been able to see the world doing this. If you’re interested in exactly what I’ve been able to experience all around the U.S. and the world I recommend you click on this link. Trackchasing Tourist Attractions After each and every event that I attend I post a YouTube video, a SmugMug photo album and a very detailed Trackchaser Report about the experience on my website at www.randylewis.org. My trackchasing contributions generate a good deal of interest in what I am doing. My YouTube channel (ranlay) has more than 1.3 million views. My website gets more than 20,000 views every month. Because I have seen racing in 85 countries at this point I am considered the World’s #1 Trackchaser. That’s good enough for me. Now I encourage you to drop down a few spaces and read about today’s trackchasing adventure. As you discover what went on at this track just think about the idea that I’ve done this nearly 2,700 times. I don’t mind admitting I am addicted to the hobby of trackchasing. It’s just fun! If you’re interested in looking back and seeing where I’ve been the following link is for you. If you’ve got a question, comment or whatever please leave it at the bottom of this report. It’s very easy to do. Or you can visit me on Facebook. Thanks! FOREWORD Saturday, April 10, 2021. There’s no doubt about it. Every one of my trackchasing trips is unique. Our trip to Northern California certainly was. That’s what makes the hobby so much fun. Last weekend was Easter weekend. I spent most of the week in Indianapolis with our son J.J. watching UCLA play in the NCAA basketball tournament. Then this past week my sister Becky and her husband Bob (above) came to San Clemente from Illinois for five days to visit. It was nice to have each of our three children in town to join up with their aunt and uncle. Yesterday we put Becky and Bob on an airplane back to Illinois. Next, I was able to convince Carol to hop on an airplane with me to fly up to Northern California for a quick 24-hour trackchasing trip. We were headed to the All-American Speedway in Roseville, California. Carol had never been there. I first went to the All-American Speedway back in the 1970s. At the time the track was my 63rd lifetime track to see! Then in 2019, after about a 50-year layoff I returned to see racing on a temporary mixed-surface oval track in Roseville. You can see my review of that trip right HERE. The trip to Roseville, a suburb of Sacramento, was initially planned to be a solo trip for me. I would drive up to the racetrack from our modest seaside cottage in San Clemente. If I had done that it would’ve been a seven-hour one-way drive. I would have rented a car. I would have wanted to limit that car rental to just one 24-hour period. I like to spend money I just don’t like to waste money. That’s what I did during my trip to the All-American Speedway in 2019. However, when you have 14 hours of driving in a 24-hour day and another three or four hours at the track and another hour on each end as a safety buffer that doesn’t leave much time for sleep. In 2019 I grabbed just a couple of hours of sleep in a highway rest area and made it back to Southern California in time to return the car. That’s when I came up with the idea that I would invite Carol on this trip. I decided that 14 hours of driving for a single UTV race wasn’t a good choice. What was the alternative? We would fly from Los Angeles to Sacramento. That would be a little bit more expensive than renting a car but not all that much. I’m capable of getting some pretty good travel deals. What was the clincher in getting Carol to come along on the trip? I told her that she could add two new track visits to her lifetime trackchasing totals. She told me that that sealed the deal. If she could get two tracks, she would think it would be a good use of her time to go. If she would have only been able to see one new track she might not have come along. Yep. Carol is a trackchaser in her own way! I was heading to Roseville, California with the intention of adding one new track to my lifetime resume. That one new track was supposed to be on a temporary dirt road course configuration inside the permanently paved oval. Carol would get to add the dirt road course as well as racing on their permanent oval track. Our one-hour and three-minute flight from Los Angeles International Airport to Sacramento was uneventful. I used to work quite a bit up in Sacramento before I retired in 2002. By the way, I’m only about three months shy of beginning my 20th year of retirement. How time flies! During the past few years, Sacramento has built and opened a brand-new airport terminal. It’s beautiful. It’s one of the best in the nation for its size. For this trip, I rented a Nissan Maxima automobile from the National Car Rental Company. When we landed, I used my Priceline smartphone app to reserve a Courtyard by Marriott hotel at a special price. I almost never reserve a hotel until I’ve landed in the city that I’m flying to. There are just too many chances that I won’t make the flight and be stuck with a nonrefundable Priceline hotel albeit at a good price. A well-priced hotel isn’t of much value if you don’t get to use it, right? The All-American Speedway had not raced in front of fans since November 2019 because of Covid. That means it’s been nearly a year and a half since the fairgrounds track had raced in front of spectators. That’s a long time. The Placer County Fairgrounds, which is home to the All-American Speedway, is located in a heavily residential area. By the way, most California racetracks are located at fairgrounds. California probably has more of its tracks on fairgrounds property than any other state. Actually, it’s not that easy to get to the track using GPS. I had a hard time finding the parking lot when I came in in 2019. On the way from our hotel to the track, we stopped at a Yelp recommended Mexican restaurant. Four stars and above for me…only. It was decent, not great. I use Yelp almost exclusively to guide me to restaurants when I’m visiting areas that I’m not familiar with. I went with the shrimp tacos and we shared an order of flan for dessert. It was all good. Racing was scheduled to begin tonight at 6 p.m. That’s early but that was actually good because the start time meant we would be finished at a reasonable time. I had to order our tickets online in advance of tonight’s event. That was the requirement for all fans. Ticket prices were $20 a piece plus about four dollars in fees which I thought was a little pricey. But… the promoter hadn’t been able to get any income from spectators for nearly 18 months so I guess that works. Our GPS showed that we would arrive at the All-American Speedway at 5:45 p.m. That would be just perfect. However, when we cruised by the pit area of the track there weren’t any available parking spaces on the street. In order to get to the main parking lot, we had to go through about nearly 10 minutes of a residential area. When we finally did find the parking lot, I took a couple of extra minutes to make sure my computer was locked and secured in the car’s trunk. We organized all of our stuff (seat cushions, jackets and the like) thinking we had plenty of time. Like I said racing was scheduled to begin at 6 p.m. I would say that probably less than 10% of the tracks I visit actually start on time. Some start a little bit late and some start a lot late. I have found that with racetracks, just like with going to the movies, when we show up just a moment or two late, they always start on time. Does that happen to you? We pulled up to the admission gate with our seat cushions in hand precisely at 6 p.m. I could hear the announcer telling the crowd that the UTV race was just about ready to take the green flag. What? Green flag? 6 p.m. Starting on time? That never happens! Luckily the admission date was only about 30 yards from turn one of the racetrack. We needed to get our hardcopy ticket, which was printed from my computer at home, scanned. The security guard had to give us a stamp that looked as if we had been in a tattoo shop for more than two hours. We rushed through all of these processes and were able to stand just off of turn one as the UTV racers completed the second lap of their eight-lap “heat” race. We had come within 4-5 minutes of missing this race. That would have been catastrophic as you will come to learn a bit later in this Trackchaser Report. The announcer told us that this heat race would be followed by a feature race later in the program. Luckily for us, we saw tonight’s UTV race that took place inside the track’s paved oval at the beginning of the show. The UTV race had been advertised as being on a dirt road course. Not true. It was actually on a grass track. Of course, in the world of trackchasing, a grass track is the same as a dirt track. The race did not take place on a road course configuration but on an oval configuration. That could have been a problem. In November 2019 I had seen racing on a mixed surface (dirt/paved) oval track. Luckily tonight’s UTV oval racing happened on just ONE surface. That surface was grass. Trackchasing rules allow racetracks to be counted using one of three surfaces. One of those is dirt. Another would be asphalt or paved. The third countable surface combination is called a mixed surface track. That’s a little bit of dirt and a little bit of paved surface. Back in the 70s (above with a promoter friend of mine at a track in Hawaii – check out my t-shirt!) I had seen racing on the paved oval at All-American. In 2019 I had seen racing on a mixed surface oval. Now in 2021, I was seeing racing on a dirt (grass) oval track. I had now seen the maximum number of ovals at the All-American Speedway! I might also point out that the All-American Speedway had produced a promotional video for their upcoming UTV race. That video showed the UTVs racing on a road course! Nope. Not tonight. They raced on an oval. If those UTVs race on a road course in the future I might be back here. Before I would come for that I would need an iron-clad guarantee they really were racing on a road course! When the UTV race on grass was finished the program switched over to the asphalt oval. There we saw the track’s modifieds, bandoleros, four-cylinders, and super socks perform. I think we like the modified racing the best. Tonight, all of the racing was feature racing. I like that concept. This type of program, “features only” is used almost exclusively with asphalt racing. Why? I don’t know. You will almost never see a features-only race program on dirt for a one-day show. The modifieds actually ran twin 30-lap feature races. You won’t want to miss my video from tonight’s race action. I recorded a little bit of every one of the classes that were racing tonight. The car counts were on the small side. The modifieds, super stocks and four cylinders had 10-12 cars in total. The bandoleros had just four. They had some kind of a BMR Driving Academy class racing as well. That group brought a couple of very nice-looking Toyota stock cars but there were only two of them. I think these folks had something to do with the ARCA race series. The program moved along very well. There was about a 20-minute delay when one of the superstocks blew his engine dropping oil over the paved surface. If this had been a dirt track, I don’t think there would’ve been any delay whatsoever. When oil gets on an asphalt track it takes a long time to clean things up. We were anxiously awaiting the UTV feature race on the inner grass oval. This would be the last race of the night. The UTV heat race that we nearly missed was actually run BEFORE they did the prayer and national anthem. How often does a race begin on time at the scheduled time and before the national anthem and prayer? Is it OK to say never! I don’t know if I’ve ever seen that and I’ve seen racing at nearly 2,700 tracks. The surprises just kept coming. Tonight’s track announcer told us that for the first time in the history of the All-American Speedway the UTVs were going to race on the asphalt oval. The track announcer even mentioned my name and told the crowd that I was coming to see the UTV racing. Actually, seeing the UTVs race on the paved surface was not going to be a new track for me. I had already seen racing on the paved oval at the All-American Speedway back in the 70s. Although UTV racing on the paved surface at All-American was a first-time ever activity it wouldn’t count as a new track for me or for Carol. Tonight’s track announcer was Steven Blakesley. I met Steven a few years ago back at Kern County Raceway Park in Bakersfield. We did a short interview at the time. He’s a very enthusiastic young announcer who does a great job. I’m surprised someone hasn’t grabbed him for some sort of major TV or radio announcing gig. Steven sends out a newsletter periodically with all kinds of information about short-track racing in California. He’s very thorough, upbeat and entertaining. Unfortunately, the PA system at the All-American Speedway isn’t very good. Tonight, we sat in the covered grandstand just off of turn one. We could actually hear the announcing much better standing outside of the grandstand than being in the grandstand. They really need to get that fixed. What good does it do to have a great announcer when the crowd can’t hear him? Tonight, Steven took the time to interview several of the winning drivers. The audio from the drivers was virtually nonexistent. Because Steven is an announcer and knows how to speak into a microphone, we could hear him a little bit but not very well at all. We were both surprised that tonight’s audience was a family affair. That just isn’t the case at a lot of short tracks nowadays. I can’t recall seeing a more family-oriented crowd at a race like All-American had tonight in a very very long time. There were actually a lot of young “twenty-somethings”. The track seemed like the place to be in Roseville! Racing wrapped up at just before 9 p.m. A good race program should be no longer than three hours on a short track. They didn’t have an intermission tonight. The track started on time at 6 p.m. almost to our chagrin and finish less than three hours later. Good job. From there it was only a 30-minute drive back to our hotel near the Sacramento airport. We were back in time to get a good night’s sleep and hopefully catch a noon flight back to our modest seaside cottage in time for dinner in San Clemente. I came very close to missing the main purpose of my trackchasing trip which was the UTV racing on what I thought was a road course that turned out to be a grass oval. Had we arrived five minutes later we would’ve been shut out for the trip. I guess I was lucky. SUNDAY Today was a very weird day. Things happened to us today that never happen. I think I might know why. Let me tell you the story. I guess the symptoms of today’s outcomes happened to me in Indianapolis last week when I was at the NCAA basketball tournament. I landed in Indianapolis late at night. From the airport, I took the hotel shuttle to my airport hotel. The only restaurant open at that time of night was a Waffle House nearly a mile away. I didn’t have a rental car. I had to walk and the temperature was cold. When I arrived at the Waffle House, a restaurant chain that is known for being open 24 hours a day, I found that they were handling takeout orders only. This was not because of Covid. I would come to find out their cutback in customer service was because they couldn’t get enough employees to work the night shift. Only one customer was allowed inside the restaurant at a time. When I got there, I had to wait outside for about 10 minutes simply to get into the restaurant to place a to-go order. Eating to go waffles outdoors late at night in the cold is not my idea of a good visit to the Waffle House. I asked the employees what was up? There were only two women working in the restaurant. One of them told me that with unemployment compensation being so rich currently that employees didn’t want to come into work. I found that explanation odd but accepted their opinion. Today in Sacramento I would find more of the same. On the way to the airport, where Carol and I were trying to catch a 12-noon flight, we stopped at McDonald’s. We used the drive-through lane to place our breakfast order. To make a long story short I will tell you that we were asked to pull over into a waiting spot for our food to be served. This was after we had placed and paid for the order. We didn’t get our McGriddle sandwiches for nearly 30 minutes! That’s a world record. Once again, I asked our delivery person what was up? She told me that people were staying home to collect the unemployment benefits being distributed during the Covid pandemic. A couple of days ago I heard a news report saying that 37% of workers collecting unemployment are earning more on unemployment than they do by going to work. The average current unemployment payment per week nationally is $250 per person. Right now, that is supplemented by Covid unemployment benefits of an additional $300. That means that workers can earn or better said “collect” $550 a week or $28,600 a year. A person earning $10 an hour at a regular job only makes $20,000 a year. When you consider that you don’t have to buy much gasoline if you’re collecting unemployment and not working and you might not have to pay child care I can see how some people might think staying home and simply collecting unemployment is the best choice. It’s a paid vacation! I know there are Biden haters and Trump haters. Before the Biden haters jump on their high horse and tell everyone that the country is going to hell in a handbasket because the Biden administration is paying $300 extra for unemployment you should consider this. Just about eight months ago the Trump administration was paying double that amount, $600 extra a week on top of regular unemployment, to people collecting unemployment. The next thing I had to do this morning was to return my rental car. When I did, I discovered a long line of customers were doing the same thing… waiting for a National Car Rental employee to come up and close out their contract. I never have to wait like that. Once again, I asked the National employee what was up? It’s the unemployment he told me. People would rather stay home and collect unemployment than go to work and earn less money. After I returned my rental car it was time to ride the rental car bus from the rental car center over the airport. Again, a long line of people formed while we waited for a bus. I wondered why there were so few buses? I made a guesstimate that bus drivers might be staying home to collect unemployment. All of these personal experiences confirmed one opinion that I have as being a major problem for the United States. It’s “income inequality”. I’m not trying to be political at all. To be honest I don’t support either political party. Income inequality comes about went too few people own too many of the assets. Did you know that 13% of the population owns about 87% of the stock market? During the past year, the stock market has been going crazy. Those 13% of U.S. citizens have been making out like a bandit. On the other hand, the people that make $10 an hour and such are being laid off from their jobs and might not ever get them back. Here’s the bottom line to income inequality. When the “haves” are used to being served by the “have nots” and the “have nots” decide that they are no longer going to serve the “haves” the lifestyle of the “haves” is going to go down! I think a lot of the “haves” only think the “have nots” are going to lose with income inequality. Maybe both the “haves and “have nots” will lose out. How do we fix this problem? I don’t really have any easy answers. I just see the above problems happening more and more often. Customer service is going down. People demand low prices on their products. The best way for companies to sell their products to their customers at low prices is to decrease their labor costs. That means less customer service and more technology and robots and all the things that come with that. We’ve got a problem. Carol and I almost had a problem getting back from Sacramento to Los Angeles today. We were standing by in hopes of getting a seat that was unoccupied. Today was the last day of spring break. Most airplane seats are occupied on the last day of spring break! Today’s plane ride was only going to be a one-hour flight from Sacramento to Los Angeles. We had three options leaving at 12 noon, 3 p.m. and 9:30 p.m. I am happy to report that Carol and I got the very last two seats when two paying passengers didn’t show up, for the 12 o’clock flight. Carol and I did muse about two important items on this trip. We wondered aloud what it would have been like if we had shown up five minutes later and missed the UTV race on the grass oval? Then we wondered what the day would have been like if we couldn’t get on a flight until 9:30 p.m. that would have put us back in San Clemente after midnight! On the way back to our modest seaside cottage we stopped at a Sonic Drive-In restaurant. I’ve just discovered these places in Southern California. I’m a big fan of their soft pretzel with nacho cheese and salt. I’m unhappy to report that the customer service at this restaurant wasn’t very good. It took a long time and they messed up our order on two different fronts. The Covid bonus unemployment insurance isn’t going to last forever. However, the lack of customer service is only going to get worse and that’s a bigger problem for the “haves” than the “have nots”. Good evening from the All-American Speedway in Roseville, California Randy Lewis – 85 countries – 2,690 tracks. California The Golden State This evening I saw racing at my 176th-lifetime track in the Golden, yes, the Golden State. I hold the #1 trackchasing ranking in California. California ranks #1, amongst all the states, in tracks seen for me in the U.S. Here’s a link to my all-time California state trackchasing list. I have made 148 separate trips inside California seeing these tracks. 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 Beginning in June (or even at the end of May if it’s a particularly unlucky year), a wave of foggy weather invades coastal areas of California and ruins everyone’s beach plans. June Gloom/Grey May/No-Sky July are southern Californian terms used to describe a weather pattern that brings low-lying clouds and mist during the early summer months. Though people from out of town will try to convince you it’s just air pollution, the fog that appears every morning usually clears up by mid-afternoon or so. JUST THE FACTS 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 800 tracks of my lifetime total. That’s a fact, Jack. Total Trackchasing Countries My nearest trackchasing competitor, a native of Belgium, has seen racing in more than 30 fewer countries compared to my lifetime total. Current lifetime National Geographic Diversity results That’s all folks! Official end of the RLR – Randy Lewis Racing Trackchaser Report Click on the link below to see the video production from the racing action today.
See it in pictures! Click on the link below for a photo album from today’s trackchasing day. You can view the album slide by slide or click on the “slide show” icon for a self-guided tour of today’s trackchasing adventure. Another wild trackchasing adventure in the Golden State! 
California sayings: “June Gloom.”
