Greetings from Rockne, Texas
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From the travels and adventures of the
“World’s #1 Trackchaser”
Goertz Ranch Dirt road course Lifetime Track #2,691 THE EVENT Editor’s note: Some trips just don’t work out as planned. You know what? That’s just fine…once in a while. Seeing my family eased the pain of tons of long distance driving with not much trackchasing gold to show for it. I AM A TRACKCHASER. We weren’t the most prepared campers. Dinner was Vienna sausges, cheese and Heineken! My name is Randy Lewis (above with son J.J. on one of our trackchasing/safari trips to South Africa). I live in San Clemente, California. 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 2,690 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. Our guide was fantastic. He could spot animals at great distances when no one else could see them. 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 Sunday, April 17, 2021. What have I learned about my trackchasing hobby over the years? I have come to expect the unexpected. I’ve averaged about 40 trips a year for the past 20 years in retirement. That’s 800 trips right there. I would say that a good 90% of them or more don’t go perfectly according to the original plan…logistically. This trip was one of those 90% that wasn’t going according to plan. Let me take a moment to tell you exactly what happened. I had an Arkansas track visit planned for Friday night. I thought I hit the jackpot when I discovered a nonstop flight from Los Angeles to Memphis. The flight had plenty of open seats. That was important because I was flying standby. The trip was getting off to a great start! It’s spring time. Spring time in the south means wet weather. The track near Memphis got so much rain earlier in the week that they canceled their Friday night show on Wednesday. I have come to expect the unexpected. The trip was beginning to fall apart. My next planned stop featured an afternoon race and an evening race planned for Saturday. To make that work I would fly from Los Angeles to Austin, Texas. I felt my luck was changing for the better when I got a first-class seat down to Texas. I buy almost all of my hotel rooms on a nonrefundable basis on Priceline. I almost never buy a hotel before I have landed in my arrival city. Why? There is just too much uncertainty as to whether or not I will make a flight on a standby basis to make a non-refundable commitment to a hotel before I get to where I’m going. I landed in Austin at about 6 p.m. on Friday night. The plan was to make a three-hour drive up toward Dallas and stay there for the evening. I had already selected my hotel on Priceline. I was just about ready to press “purchase” when this thought came over me. I might want to check the social media sites for the two tracks I planned see tomorrow, Saturday. I did just that. Both were rained out! One was a UTV race at a nearby Dallas location. UTV races don’t rain out very often. The other was an oval track race in Texas northeast of Dallas. It’s somewhat unusual for a Saturday night track to pull the plug on the show on Friday afternoon. Now three of the tracks that I had planned to see had canceled. I had nothing going for Friday or Saturday. I looked in the Randy Lewis Racing proprietary future tracks database. No one gets to see this unless they are a close ally. I had some constraints on where I could go on Saturday. The most major one was that I had to be at the home of our granddaughters by 11 a.m. on Sunday morning. That was non-negotiable. This did not leave me with a lot of wiggle room. I had just one last-ditch option for Saturday. That was a UTV race at a track in El Paso, Texas. I’m sure you learned in grade school geography that Texas is a big state. I was in the Austin, Texas airport on Friday night at 6 p.m. Tomorrow’s racing in El Paso, Texas was scheduled to take place at 1:30 p.m. mountain time. El Paso is in the mountain time zone. Where I was in Austin, we were in the central time zone. El Paso, Texas is an 8 ½-hour drive and some 569 miles from Austin. If I was going to go to El Paso I needed to get going. I quickly headed to the National Car Rental lot at the Austin airport. The good thing about the rental car situation in Austin is that you can walk to the cars. One doesn’t have to take one of those mind-numbing rental car buses for a 20-minute ride to the other side of town. During Covid rental car companies sold off their cars because the demand just wasn’t there. Now travel is coming back like gangbusters. Rental car companies are being caught with their shorts around their ankles. They don’t have any cars. Additionally, rental cars are very expensive right now. I looked at the dozen cars are so that were available to executive members of the frequent renter program at National. Every one of those cars was an SUV. I was about ready to embark on a nearly 1,200-mile round-trip drive out to El Paso. I did not need a friggin’ SUV gas-guzzler. I asked the National folks if they could scrounge up a sedan. I really wanted a Toyota Camry or maybe a hybrid Ford Fusion. Both of those cars get about 40 miles a gallon. They gave me a Nissan Altima. That’s a decent car. It will get better fuel mileage than an SUV but not as good as a Toyota Camry. Off I went…to El Paso, Texas. In the early moments of the drive, I messaged the track operator to confirm they were still racing tomorrow. The response came back quickly, “yes”. “Yes” didn’t exactly cut it for me given the driving commitment I needed to make. I called the phone number listed on the track’s Facebook page. I got a woman who tried to be helpful. I don’t think her first language was English. She told me that all of the cars would start the race at the same time which is always the concern for me at a UTV race. You should know that the trackchasing requirement for a UTV race to count is to have all of the competitors in each class start the race at the same time. This is a “Randy Rule”. We have a lot of newbies in trackchasing. They have very little knowledge of trackchasing rules history. There is absolutely no reason for the current trackchasing hierarchy to explain the rules background to new members. I won’t go into all of the sordid details. I’ll just tell you that that rule exists for one reason. I am that reason. I sent another Facebook message. I placed another call to the track in El Paso. I got no response. That was a little concerning. However, I had no other option other than to begin the drive over to El Paso. I certainly didn’t like the idea of driving 17 hours round-trip and coming up empty. Sometimes in life you just have to take a risk. I was taking a risk. I continued to drive on toward El Paso. There was no way I could get there tonight. That being the case, and with a scarcity of hotels in general along interstate 10, I found the Motel 6 in Van Horn, Texas. I wouldn’t get to the Motel 6 until 2 a.m. Once I got there, I would have nine hours to spend in this budget hotel. Nine hours? That’s a lot more time than I have to spend in a lot of hotels that I rent. At exactly 2:12 a.m. I got a message from the El Paso track promoter. I had just stepped into my motel room. He apologized for not getting back sooner. He told me it had been a busy day. I understood. I texted back that we would talk the next morning. SATURDAY I woke up at 10 a.m. being only a little bit less than two hours outside of El Paso. I would bypass breakfast. I had a Yelp recommended lunch location in EP. El Paso sits on the U.S. border next to Juarez, Mexico. Juarez has been one of the most dangerous cities in all of Mexico for many years. At the same time El Paso has been one of the safest cities in America. Go figure. On the drive over I got a call from the El Paso promoter, a man named Jesus. He and I had messaged back-and-forth several times a few weeks ago. He was able to confirm they were planning to race this afternoon. All of the racing for the UTVs would meet trackchasing’s sometimes but not always stringent requirements. We talked a little bit. I told him I would see him at the racing start time of 1:30 p.m. Then I checked Yelp. I don’t know what I would do without my Apple iPhone 12. It never leaves my side and gives me so much information on a wide variety of subjects. How did I exist as a human being without this phone and its capabilities? I was in El Paso about a year ago. At that time, I used Yelp to find the El Chihuahuita’s Tacos Al Pastor Mexican restaurant. That little hole in the wall place had Mexican food that was absolutely delicious along with great service. However, I didn’t wanna go back there today. Why would I say that? It’s really rather simple. That restaurant I ate at a year ago was rated by me as A+. However, El Paso has literally hundreds of restaurants. They must have other A+ restaurants, right? If I simply went back again and again to the one and only restaurant that I loved I would never discover any of the other restaurants of equal or potentially even greater quality. That’s how I look at life. I want to enjoy a fantastic experience. However, the next time I’m in the market for that type of experience I will almost always try to get it from another location. Make sense? The El Taquito restaurant came with a Yelp five-star rating from 290 reviewers. That’s almost unheard of. It might be difficult to live up to such a reputation. When I entered, I asked my server what was the house specialty or the most popular dish they served. She recommended the al pastor taco plate. That was good enough for me. The restaurant serves their Diet Coke in cans. I prefer fountain first and bottles second. Cans come in last place. The prices were low. The service was fast. I topped off my lunch with a cinnamon filled churro for dessert. It was all good. Was it as good as the place I went to about a year ago? Not quite but it was good. Today’s weather came with a temperature of 60° under mostly sunny skies with a wind of 10-12 miles an hour. When I had talked to Jesus he was concerned about the weather. He didn’t like 60° and sunny? That concerned me just a little bit. However, it was his text message that I received between bites of my churro that sort of ruined my day. At 11 a.m. Jesus told me they were racing. Now at 12 noon he was telling the race was canceled! The race couldn’t have been canceled because of the weather. Why did Jesus have to cancel? For whatever reason virtually no competitors had shown up. This was perplexing to both Jesus and myself. He told me that three weeks ago they had a special event and attracted 300 cars. In promoter talk that’s 125 cars. Nevertheless, that’s a lot of cars. Jesus had texted me earlier today to say there were only a couple of UTVs at the track. To put a politely I was bummed. I had been on the ground in Texas now for about 18 hours. Four different race locations that I could have seen had now canceled. This was approaching record territory. It was a record that I didn’t want to have anything to do with. With the race being canceled I had enough time to go after a Trackchasing Tourist Attraction. I checked out TripAdvisor to see what the top things to do and see were in El Paso. I ended up experiencing two of them. I checked out the National Border Patrol Museum and the #1 ranked attraction in all of El Paso, which was the Scenic Drive – Overlook. When I arrived at the border patrol museum, I noticed that some sort of motorcycle club was having a rally of sorts. They had 30-40 bikes in the parking lot. Several of their members were inside the museum taking a look. These folks looked like a nice enough crew. Probably most of them were either a doctor or a dentist or maybe an attorney! The National Border Patrol Museum was a pretty laid-back affair. There was no charge for admission. They had a lot of manikins representing different border patrol uniforms used over the past century. There were a lot of interesting photographs too. You won’t want to miss my photo album or my museums page at www.randylewis.org. The Scenic View – Overlook, the #1 ranked attraction in El Paso gives visitors a great view of the city and the Mexican border. O.K, I am a little surprised this was the #1 attraction in all of El Paso but that’s what TripAdvisor was telling me. Now I was looking at a 577-mile drive back to Austin from El Paso. I’m a little embarrassed that I drove 17 hours round-trip out to the track in El Paso on a promoter’s word that they would be racing and they didn’t. That very rarely ever happens. One of the drawbacks, if you consider this a drawback, is after seeing racing at nearly 2,700 racetracks the remaining tracks for me to see are just a little bit “fragile” in their promotion capabilities. These remaining tracks are not the equivalent of the Daytona International Speedway, which operates with fixed racing dates and starting times. When I had had my rental car for exactly 24 hours, I noticed that I had driven 875 miles. I don’t mind driving that distance but I do dislike driving that far only to have added zero new tracks. The four tracks that were originally on my schedule were now all canceled. I had one ace in the hole. The TORCS off-road racing group was still planning to run tomorrow in Rockne, Texas. I planned to be there with two of my granddaughters, Jules and Ella (above). I think they were looking forward to a day trip with gramps as well. I know that I was looking forward to a day trip with them. I can tell you this. There isn’t much to see between Austin and El Paso. I was kind of impressed during last night’s drive through Fredericksburg, Texas. Fredericksburg is located right next to Luckenbach and y’all know that Willie Nelson lives in Luckenbach. I’d like to go over and stop by to say hi but then he doesn’t know me. During my drive back to Austin I stayed in touch with several of my race contacts via various forms of social media. Those folks are always trying to help me with new track opportunities. Some of those communications today were with people living on other continents. Others are race fans who have discovered some of the most off-the-wall backyard tracks anyone has ever seen. You’ll probably hear about the results from those conversations in the near future. SUNDAY It was now Sunday morning. I left on this trip on Friday afternoon. In the interim four different tracks that I had intended to see had all canceled because of weather or lack of racers. At this point I wasn’t doing too well but things were about ready to look up. Our son Jim and his Krista and their three beautiful daughters live in Texas. Today I invited the two oldest girls, Jules and Ella, to come along for their very first ever trackchasing adventure. I think they were excited. I was excited to have them along. We were going to see some UTV racing at Goertz Ranch in Rockne, Texas. This was going to be a Texas Off-Road Championship Series (TORCS) race. A couple of months ago I met a fellow by the name of Mike Kowis. Mike races UTVs with TORCS. He’s also an accomplished author. If you check out this link you can learn about some of the books he’s written about racing and other related topics. Mike and I had never met personally but we had corresponded and messaged back-and-forth often. I was looking forward to meeting Mike at the races today. Unfortunately, that was not going to happen. Some of the parts he had ordered for his broken UTV weren’t working out. I got a message from him at 3 a.m. this morning saying that he wouldn’t be at the track today. This was the first event he had missed in nearly three years. I’ll have to catch Mike at another upcoming TORCS event. All of our kids and their spouses and friends and children as well as wife Carol are “healthy” eaters. I am not a healthy eater. The trackchasing hobby does not foster healthy eating. That being the case Jules, Ella and I stopped at Whataburger to grab lunch before the races. I sensed they were a little tentative but they humored me. The track’s location was only about a 50-minute drive for us today. At most tracks that I visit youngsters are free and adults pay an admission price. At a TORCS event adults over 60 are free. Younger than sixty? Ten bucks please. Interesting. They even had an iPad for us to use to sign the liability release. That’s a first! With this being the first race event of any kind that the girls had attended there was a lot of “racing education” that needed to go on. Our timing was exquisite. We arrived at the starting line just two minutes before more than 50 motorcycle riders were to begin their one-hour event. Please don’t miss my video. It will turn my words into pictures and movies! Much of today’s racing was out in the woods. I call this “Woods UTV racing”. Clever huh? Jules and Ella were up for marching out into the woods into some of the most obscure places that any race fan could watch an event. There we saw motorcycles making their way through very narrow passageways. That was a lot of fun for all of us. At 2:30 p.m. the UTVs were scheduled to compete. We were able to talk to some of the drivers and listen in on the drivers’ meeting. It’s always cool to get that inside information that some fans won’t be hearing. I think the girls liked getting this “behind the scenes” information. One of the “pro” drivers led the meeting. He explained that the pro division would be racing for money. He asked the other drivers to make way when they came up from behind. Maybe they should let Joey Logano lead the NASCAR drivers’ meeting! Each UTV class had 4-6 racers or so. Each class started on its own line with one green flag. They had a one-minute interval between each class starting their own race. One of the drivers told me that even if the track’s starting line might only accommodate six UTV racers at one time they would start every UTV racer at once regardless of how many there were. That’s what I needed to hear for future trackchasing visits. The UTVs raced in an opposite direction and on a slightly different course than what the motorcycles had done. There was one significant difference between these two classes. The dust was heavy duty with the UTVs. Once again, we moved around to get all kinds of viewing points of the side-by-side racing. Like I said don’t miss the video! When the UTV racing was finished off we headed for more adventure. The girls would be exposed to another one of my famous Trackchasing Tourist Attractions. As we rode along in the car, for some reason I asked them if they had ever been to a flea market. I don’t think they had. Wouldn’t you know it and surprising to me as well, about two miles ahead we encountered the 812 Market. This was a huge flea market with lots of car streaming in even at 4 p.m.. We joined in. Admission was just two dollars per person and folks who were shorter than 52 inches in height could get in for free. Unfortunately, with my gang today all exceeded the limit. But for six bucks we had a bargain and a cultural experience all in one. Obviously, the Hispanic population in Texas is strong. We were probably in the flea market for nearly an hour. The place was packed with literally hundreds if not thousands of people on a sunny warm Sunday afternoon. The three of us were the only non-Hispanic visitors that I saw during the entire time we were there. It was a great crowd. Everyone was just kick back enjoying the music, food and various bargains that existed. We have been at the racetrack and now the flea market for several hours. The weather had been sunny and warm much of the time. We had walked a long distance on uneven ground. We were all pretty well worn out by the end of the day. Pretty soon we were back home. Everyone had stories to tell. That’s what family adventures should be like. I know that what we were doing today was just a little bit out of the “wheelhouse” for my granddaughters. I think that’s what we were all looking forward to. From there our two-year-old granddaughter Ceci joined in on the fun. What a bright light she is. She has a great vocabulary, stays engaged all the time and never cries. Later in the evening son Jim and I spent some time in his media room. He has an overhead projector which displays movies and the like in a format that is about 10 feet wide and 8 feet tall. It’s pretty cool. Jim and I watched the Michael Waltrip movie, “In the blink of an eye”. That film focuses on Dale Earnhardt and his untimely death back in 2001 at Daytona as well as Michael Waltrip’s NASCAR career. I’ve seen it a couple times and highly recommend it. Overall, this had been an interesting trip. I had driven the National Car Rental Racing Nissan Ultima nearly 1,400 miles in about 36 hours. On the negative side I had seen just one countable race all weekend. However, on the positive side spending time with Jim and Krista and Jules and Ella and Ceci was outstanding. I had a great time and they did too. MONDAY On Monday morning, Jim, Ceci and I went to the park and swung. Yep, we just swung. When was the last time you swung? From there it was an easy trip back from Austin to SoCal. Good afternoon from Goertz Ranch in Rockne, Texas. Randy Lewis – 85 countries – 2,691 tracks. Texas The Lone Star State This afternoon I saw racing at my 87th lifetime track in the Lone Star State, yes, the Lone Star State. I hold the #1 trackchasing ranking in Texas. Texas ranks #9, amongst all the states, in tracks seen for me in the U.S. Here’s a link to my all-time Texas state trackchasing list. I have made 59 separate trips to Texas 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 Texas sayings: Don’t mess with Texas You’ve no doubt seen this phrase on everything from T-shirts to belt buckles. It’s been the unofficial slogan of the Lone Star State since 1985. While the rest of the country thinks it’s just a catchphrase, true Texans know it’s part of an anti-littering campaign. 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. The big trip to Texas that produced some unusual outcomes 
