Greetings from first Union, Missouri
and then Black Rock, Arkansas
and finally Bono, Arkansas
From the travels and adventures of the
“World’s #1 Trackchaser”
Franklin County Fairgrounds Dirt oval Lifetime Track #2,706 Black Rock Dirt road course Lifetime Track #2,707 Jonesboro Karting Complex Dirt oval Lifetime Track #2,708 THE EVENT Editor’s note: There are times when I go out on these trips not so much for the racing but for the counting. You see, when it is all said and done, trackchasing is really all about counting. Most trackchasers are now spending most of their time seeing tracks I’ve already seen in the past. What am I doing? I’m seeing racing at tracks that no trackchasers, most of the time, have ever seen. No trackchaser had ever been to the three tracks I’m reporting on today until I showed up…ever. I travel this way so you don’t have to. How does that work? I tell you how I travel and then you get to decide if that’s a good idea for you. Fair enough? Now get out there and go somewhere. Covid is in the rearview mirror and getting smaller every day. I AM A TRACKCHASER. My name is Randy Lewis (above at dinner with a couple of my Alergian friends, Massi and El Hachemi. 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. 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 more than 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 Friday/Saturday, June 11/12, 2021. FRIDAY Big time racing last night. I woke up this morning in Indianapolis, Indiana. I had a fine time last night at the Eldora Speedway in Rossburg, Ohio. Getting a chance to see some dirt late-model stock cars race for a purse that paid $127,000 to win the main event was exciting. This was today’s plan. Today’s objective was to get over to Union, Missouri by 7 p.m. Union was about a five-hour drive from Indianapolis. I figured I could sleep in to a reasonable hour, check out a Trackchasing Tourist Attraction and be on time for tonight’s enduro race at the Union County Fairgrounds. It would be a full day…but then most of my days on the long and dusty trackchasing trail are full. First…one of my most favorite Trackchasing Tourist Attractions of the year! I had a very special plan for today’s touring attraction. This winter J.J., our son, and I were in Indianapolis for the NCAA basketball tournament. During that visit, we got a chance to see UCLA play three times. It was a special tournament where the 11th seed UCLA Bruins overachieved to reach the Final Four before losing on a near half-court shot at the buzzer in overtime. During that trip, J.J. and I went out to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and toured their museum. We got to ride in the van that takes visitors around the 2.5-mile IMS oval. We even got a chance to kiss the bricks. When we were inside the IMS museum one of the guides told us about an opportunity to see the “Hoosier Gym”. The Hoosier Gym is located in Knightstown, Indiana. This was a special place and nearly a shrine to me. What was so special about the Hoosier Gym. To begin with, they first started playing basketball here in 1921. One of the things that made the Hoosier Gym such a big deal was not just the fact that it was built in 1921. The main reason I wanted to see the Hoosier Gym was that the sports film “Hoosiers” was filmed there. Hoosiers is considered by many to be one of the very best sports films ever produced. Knightstown was just 39 miles west of where I was staying in Indianapolis. Unfortunately, that was 39 miles in the wrong direction of my getting to the race tonight in Missouri. Nevertheless, I felt I had the time to make the drive to see the gym and still get to where I needed to be tonight in good shape. “Vintage” rocks my boat. I’m a big fan of vintage experiences. I love vintage stock car racing. I’m a big fan of American pickers I just like seeing and experiencing things from the past especially from the era of my boyhood which would be the 50s and 60s. When I walked up to the entrance of the gym today, I noticed a sign that said: “tours only”. That scared me just a little bit. I was thinking they weren’t going to allow individuals like myself to share the Hoosier Gym experience. I was wrong about that. The “tours only” sign simply meant that once you walked inside in order to see everything you would need to be guided along by one of their tour guys. There was no charge to visit the museum. Soon I and one other guest was meeting up with tour guide Merv. Merv took his job seriously. He knew a lot about the Hoosier gym, the movie Hoosiers and Indiana basketball in general. I was soon being introduced to not only my guide but the one and only other guest on the tour, Kevin (above). Later, I would learn Kevin was from the area and worked for ServePro. Soon the three of us were shaking hands all around to begin our tour! I had never done that before. I’ve spent my share of time in locker rooms. The first part of the tour centered on the locker room. There were a lot of scenes in the movie from the locker room. I made a mental note that as soon as I get home, I was going to watch the Hoosiers movie again…and I did. It was produced in 1985. I’ve spent my share of time “shootin’ baskets”. The last half of the tour was in the gym itself. I loved the architecture and as I mentioned the place was built in 1921. I also learned that the gym hosts high school basketball games. Teams want to come here just for the experience of saying they played in the Hoosier Gym. That’s cool. Maybe next winter you’ll find me here for one of the games. I hope so. One of the highlights was being able to shoot baskets for a while in the gym itself…by myself. Merv was very happy to take some pictures of me shooting around. He actually recommended that I get my signature photograph standing at half court of the Hoosiers Gym. This visit was an excellent experience. I topped it off by buying some souvenirs and getting a printed schedule of more than 70 basketball game dates for this upcoming season that will be played at the Hoosier Gym. I also learned that the gym can be rented for $100 an hour. That doesn’t seem too bad if you bring 10 guys and have a little scrimmage. With me living in California I’m not sure I could round up 10 people in Indiana on short notice. Now…back to trackchasing. From there I began the 331-mile five-hour drive from Knightstown, Indiana over to Union, Missouri. There was something going on traffic-wise or construction-wise on Interstate 70. My Waze GPS system did a good job of taking me over rural Indiana roads until I bypassed whatever blockage existed. I listen to a LOT of podcasts. For these long rides, I listen to a wide variety of podcasts. Today the podcast titled “How I made this” dominated my airways. I also made several phone calls and stayed in touch in various ways with people as I drove along primarily Interstate 70. First time ever…for them and me. Tonight, I was visiting the Franklin County Fairgrounds in Union, Missouri. To my knowledge, they have never had any countable racing at the fairgrounds. The main focus today was going to be the demolition derby. Joshua my track contact promised me there would be an Enduro race. There was. I parked on a side street and went up to get a general admission ticket. I was told it was going to cost $20 for spectators. That seemed like a high price for such a small-town event. Twenty bucks seemed like it would be a pretty big number for a lot of folks who live in this area. 20 bucks for a small-town demo? Geez. I mentioned that I thought the price was high to the fella putting the wristband on my wrist. He countered with the fact that he didn’t think twenty dollars for an admission price for a show that included a demo derby was high. I told him that was the highest price I’ve seen charged by anybody for this kind of event pretty much ever. Then he asked me how old I was. I told him. That’s when he told me that I qualified for a senior discount and my price would only be $10 in total. It pays to keep the communication active! Welcome to heat and humidity. Been there; done that; don’t like it. Tonight’s weather was hot and humid or was it humid and hot? It was both. The high temperature I saw on my car’s thermometer today was 97°. It seemed as if there was humidity to match. The weather was very uncomfortable. I’ve been to more than 500 county fairs. This was the first traditional county fair of my 2021 trackchasing season. There wasn’t a lot of “fair” to see. I didn’t notice any animal barns. There was one rather small display of kid’s crafts and 4-H activities. The fair also had a small carnival. Tonight, fans could watch from several sets of smaller bleachers or sit on a huge grassy hillside which gave fans an excellent view of the demo ring but from a distance. Nice to meet Chris Chen. When I come to events like this I like to talk to the locals. Soon I was engaged with a young man by the name of Chris Chen. It turns out he is an avid demo derby fan along the lines of what I do with trackchasing. Chris likes to videotape the demo derby action. He even has a YouTube channel titled “ChenChillX”. Chris was a nice guy and had a lot of interesting information about what his near-term plans were for demo derby watching. His channel also includes several videos of him riding busses! Remember, there is something for everyone! Tonight’s demo ring was squarish like I’ve seen at so many county fairs in the past. In order to make an enduro race, they brought out three junk cars and put them in the middle of the ring. The cars in the enduro tonight would race around those three junk cars for 15 laps. Yes, this was about as far from the $127,000 to win stock car race I had seen at Eldora last night as I could possibly get. Next up? Handling my press responsibilities. Before the races started, I had a chance to chat it up with another fellow who was taking pictures at one corner of the ring. This turned out to be Geoff Folsum, the editor of the Union Missourian. We started talking and Geoff soon recognized that he had a breaking news story on his hands with the World’s #1 Trackchaser coming to Union, Missouri. As I talked, Jeff furiously took notes. When he had finished the makings of a story I asked if I could have a photo? Of course, I could. He told me the story about my trackchasing adventure at the fairgrounds would appear in next Wednesday’s paper and a little bit after that online. I’m going to look for it. Editor’s note: This is Geoff’s story from the Union Missourian newspaper. Union Fair attracts Trackchaser Randy Lewis has visited racetracks in 85 countries. Geoff Folsom/folsomg@emissourian.com An estimated 2,000 fans showed up Friday at the Franklin County Fair in Union. Most were there for the demolition derby, where extra bleachers were installed around the motorsports complex to meet the demand and hundreds more fans watched from the berm leading to City Lake. But one man came farther than most to see the evening’s events, and he was there primarily for the undercard. Randy Lewis, of San Clemente, California, calls himself “the world’s No. 1 track chaser.” He said the temporary track at the fairgrounds was the 2,706th auto racing track he has visited in 85 countries. ‘It’s all about going someplace for the first time,” Lewis said. “If I went someplace and came back the next year, it doesn’t count.” Because it’s not technically a race, the demo derby also doesn’t count. But the 15-lap enduro race held before the derby, in which ramshackle cars raced around three no-longer-running vehicles, did count toward the total. Lewis said he visits around 100 racetracks a year. He’d been to a track in Ohio Thursday night and was off to Arkansas Saturday. He posts about his adventures on YouTube and Facebook. Lewis said he has seen races at all NASCAR tracks and many Formula 1 tracks, including in South Korea, India and Singapore. The Union course was on the smaller side. “It’s definitely small-town America, which is great,” he said. “I’m trying to see things I’ve never seen before, and this fits the bill.” Union was the 35th new track Lewis visited this year, which included stops at ice-racing tracks in the winter. Not counting temporary tracks like Union’s, which was adjusted to play host to tractor pulls Saturday and Sunday, Lewis said the U.S. has around 1,500 permanent racetracks, and he has been to all but 20 of them. Although the demolition derby was the biggest draw of the fair, organizers said they were pleased with the entire event, which ran Thursday through Sunday. Mayor Bob Schmuke, who has been involved with the fair off and on since 1978, said they also had between 1,500 and 2,000 people for the truck and tractor pull Saturday night. “All the (concession) stands are up on sales,” he said. “All the ticket sales are up. Everything is going really good.” After the COVID-19 pandemic led to the fair’s cancellation in 2020, Schmuke said things appear to have picked up attendance-wise compared with the most recent fair in 2019. “I think this is equal to or a little above that.” One new planned event that was canceled was ax throwing. Schmuke said the man who puts the event on had COVID-19 and was not cleared by Saturday afternoon, when it was scheduled. Zoe Kinsey and Lauren Monzyk, both of Union, were among those at the fair Sunday, their first time at the event this year after previously attending in 2019. They said they enjoy the fair because it has many things to do close to home. “It’s super close to where we live, and it’s something to do in the summer where you don’t have to drive anywhere far away,” Kinsey said. Racing on maybe the smallest track I’ve ever seen. Tonight’s racing program would begin with the enduro. Of course, because this is how it’s done nearly everywhere they would start a few minutes late. Initially, seven cars came out to the track. Soon two of those cars left before the green flag was displayed. The announcer told us those two cars both had fuel leaks. Interesting. The five cars remaining ran the 15-lap race nonstop. The track was essentially a complete circle and very short. I asked people to give me their estimate of exactly how long they thought this particular track was. One person said I should measure it in the car links. Another person said he thought the distance might be 1/27 of a mile. This was one of the shortest tracks I have ever seen. The race took just five or six minutes to run. Yes, I had driven 300 miles to see it and almost paid twenty dollars for the privilege. They had finished up just a little bit before 8 p.m. The small car demo wasn’t much. I elected to stay and watch the small car demo derby which only included three cars. They watered down the track for the demo derby heat. I figured the track was so wet that it might take forever for the three cars to be reduced to one. It didn’t take long primarily because of the lack of reliability of the machines out on the track. With that demo heat finished I packed it in simply because I didn’t want to stand out of the heat and humidity any longer. As I was exiting downtown Union and headed to my hotel in Farmington, Missouri I noticed a barbecue restaurant. I pulled over to the side of the road and tried to decide whether or not I needed to eat 1,500 calories at 8:30 at night. I went back and forth and finally decided against it. Then I hopped on the freeway and headed to the hotel. Rolla? Really? Rolla? It was about this time that I noticed a sign for Rolla, Missouri. I knew that the Rolla Speedway sprint kart track raced on Friday nights. They race every other week and I didn’t know if they were racing tonight. I also didn’t know how far Rolla was from where I was at the moment. I knew this. Heavy rain was in the area. Soon my proprietary database confirmed that the Rolla Speedway was racing tonight. I also learned that the track was only about 50 miles away. If I hurried, I might be able to catch their feature racing. I hurried. Hello Franklin. What’s up? On the drive down to Rolla Franklin Hodges (above left), the promoter at Hillbilly Raceway in Missouri gave me a call. He and I talk a time or two each season. He’s been having a lot of success and getting large crowds. Franklin has gone to promoting a couple of demo derbies with his bump and run racing. I told him that whenever he has a figure 8 race, I will try to make it down to his place. It was not easy finding the Rolla Speedway sprint kart track. Ultimately when their Facebook page indicated the races were pretty well over, I simply pulled the plug on the Rolla Speedway and drove into a Sonic Drive-In to have a late supper. I’ll catch that track some other time. Had I been awake and left the Franklin County Fairgrounds right after their enduro race wrapped up, and not stopped anywhere along the line, and knew where I was going, I would have had a trackchasing double tonight. I wasn’t prepared. It is not often that I am not prepared. I can’t make this stuff up! Following my stop at Sonic, I needed to make the 100-mile drive over to my hotel in Farmington, Missouri. More than 60 miles of the drive was on a rural two-lane highway. I’m not much for driving on highways like that on a Friday or Saturday night but I guess I didn’t have any choice. This was “Deliverance” country. This next experience falls into the category of “I can’t make this stuff up”. As I was having this lonely nighttime drive after midnight, I noticed a man lying on his back in a prone position with his hands behind his head on the shoulder of the road. He was only five feet from where I was driving at 60 MPH. His situation was a little disconcerting at best. I didn’t stop. I didn’t think I really wanted to know what the story was about this fellow. Today had been a full and productive day. Getting a chance to visit and have a complete tour of something like the Hoosier Gym will be one of my Trackchasing Tourist Attraction highlights of 2021. I was also pretty pleased that I was the first trackchaser ever to see any kind of racing at the Franklin County Fairgrounds in Missouri. Somewhat surprising, at least to me anyway, is that of the 35 new tracks that I’ve seen race this year for the first time I was the first trackchaser ever the darken the door at twenty of those facilities. I find that particularly amazing. SATURDAY Was I finally going to be on Candid Camera? When I checked into my hotel after midnight this morning, I thought maybe I was being filmed for an episode of candid camera. The clerk told me they had just had a shift change. The guy on the earlier shift hadn’t signed out and the current clerk would need to sign into his computer to get me checked in. He stared at the computer as if he were reading a letter from his mom or potentially watching pornographic movies. I drummed my fingers on the desk. Some 20 minutes later I had my room key. In the midst of all of that, he asked me the last four digits of my Social Security number. After more than 5,000 nights of hotel stays, I can never remember anyone asking me that information. When I challenged him on it, he simply said “I’m only filling out the form here”. That sounded like the perfect rationale to get some of my Social Security information. With a check-out time of 11 a.m. I slept until 10:30 a.m. I needed to bank all of the sleep I could possibly get because after tonight’s racing I needed to make a 499-mile drive, which was expected to take me a little bit more than nine hours. Additionally, I would lose an hour in time zone changes driving over to Ohio. Don’t worry it’s all part of the fun. A rare visit for me to Arkansas. I had just enough time as I drove over to Black Rock, Arkansas this morning to stop and eat my lunch inside a real restaurant. I rarely do that. I never have the time. I didn’t have all that much time today. Which would I choose? Catfish or piggy? I checked Yelp for a barbecue restaurant in Poplar Bluff, Missouri. Missouri is a pretty good place to check out barbecue restaurants. Yelp recommended “The Fishin’ Pig”. What else would I expect in Ozark country? A little bit of catfish and a little bit of piggy. Beef! I ordered the beef brisket place plate. The restaurant is only open on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays and the beef brisket plate is only offered on Saturdays. This was my lucky day. I ordered up three sides of macaroni and cheese, Cajun fries and baked beans. They had three different barbecue sauces at the table. Those choices included smoked, piggy spicy and sweet. I tried them all. Overall, I would give the restaurant four stars out of five. It wasn’t my best but it was decent. My server was great. With tip my lunch came to a bit more than $22 and that included a large Diet Coke. Prices for food do seem to be rising. I drive my rental cars til they sputter. I glided through Poplar Bluff driving my National Car Rental Racing Toyota Camry on a wing and a prayer. I was nearly out of fuel. Luckily, Siri told me that the Ross Fuel Center was just up ahead. I’ve been averaging about 680 miles per tank full with the Camry. There are very few passenger cars that will give you more miles per tank than that. I learned my fueling strategy from NASCAR. I drive it until it sputters and fill it until it splashes. This works for me. Ten pounds of taters in a five-pound sack? Was I really that low on fuel? I think I was. Research told me that a 2021 Toyota Camry has a fuel tank capacity of 15.8 gallons. Today I put 16.33 gallons in the tank. What do I conclude from this? I was low on fuel. Beyond hot, humid and sticky. Today’s weather conditions were oppressive. The temperature was 91° and the “feels like” temperature was a bit more than 100. I know for sure that the humidity was more than 100%! As a matter of fact, the restaurant had a warning sign on the front door today. It said that because of humidity the floors would be slick. That’s humid. Oh my. Today’s racing at Black Rock, Arkansas was going to begin at 3:15 p.m. After I stopped for lunch, my ETA showed 3:02 p.m. I hoped I wouldn’t have a hard time finding the track. I was pretty sure it was located on somebody’s farm out in the country. We’ll see. After today’s UTV woods racing in Black Rock I intended to drive just 45 minutes down the road to the Jonesboro Karting Complex. I hoped there would be some caged kart racing at Jonesboro and then I would be on my way with an overnight drive to Ohio. I like track promoters who take a moment to call me back. I left a message for Roger, the Jonesboro track promoter. He called me back in a few minutes. I really like it when promoters take time out of their busy day to do that. How to judge real character. I’m not a big-time well-known racer. I’m not a track sponsor. I’m just a single fan. That’s why when a track promoter takes the time to call me back to answer one of my questions like, “When does the show start?” or “What kind of cars are you racing” I really appreciate it. True character can be judged based upon a person’s behavior when no one is watching and there is no real benefit to the person doing the right thing. This told me the Jonesboro race promoter had a good deal of character. Roger confirmed that they get normally “5 to 14” caged karts for adult drivers. He also confirmed this class would be the first group to race. That’s unusual. Normally caged karts run after the flat karts race. Tonight, the caged karts were supposed to hit the track at 6 p.m. If they did that, I could add a couple more hours of sleep time to my nine-hour overnight drive to West Liberty, Ohio. It was now time to put the pedal to the metal and make sure I saw the start of this afternoon’s UTV race in Black Rock, Arkansas. Need a good auto air-conditioner? Buy a Toyota Camry. Today was one hot and humid day. I’m happy to report that the National Car Rental Racing Toyota Camry has a very stout air conditioner. I’ve never seen one better. Even at 95° with heavy humidity I can’t keep the air conditioner on low with the fan on high for very long. Judging others not a good idea? Sorry. I’m judging. I know this is going to sound a little judgmental. I also know that it’s never really a good idea to judge others. Today I stopped at a convenience store to pick up a couple of cold bottles of Gatorade Zero. That’s my go-to drink nowadays. I saw what I commonly see when I stop in a convenience store. What’s that? People at the counter selecting various forms of lotto tickets. A good share of the proceeds generated by the lottery go into the general tax fund and pay for other things enjoyed by the public. The vast majority of people who play the lottery are lower-income folks. It’s a little bit of a chicken and egg thing. Are the people lower income because of the lottery or is the lottery big because of lower-income people or both? I know that five bucks at one time or another isn’t going to break the bank for virtually anybody. However, when I see someone come up to the cashier with $30 of lottery tickets and $25 worth of cigarettes, I just think that $55 might have been invested for a brighter future than what a lottery ticket and/or a pack of cigarettes will bring. OK, that’s it. That’s my rant for the day. First, woods UTV racing. This afternoon I was going to see my very first AXC racing event. This is a group based in Arkansas that races quads and UTVs. They don’t have UTVs at every show. However, when they do trackchasers are going to attend. A word from John Simpson. Last night I got a text from fellow trackchaser John Simpson. His comment went something like this. I know you’re in Union, Missouri tonight. I think there’s a 50% chance you’ll be in Coffeyville Kansas tomorrow or a 50% chance you’ll be in Black Rock, Arkansas. Am I really that predictable? I guess I will never be able to outsmart the Mexican drug cartel. Can someone see me in one state and accurately project that I’ll be in one state or another and hundreds of miles away the next day? I guess they can! In point of fact, John had accurately predicted there was a very good chance I would be in Black Rock, Arkansas this afternoon for some racing. I was. We agreed to meet up. What would I remember from today? Probably the strongest remembrance and feature of today’s trackchasing would be the weather. It was hot and humid. No not the kind of hot and humid you’re thinking of. It was more than that. Today’s course for the UTVs, which are also known in some circles as side-by-sides (SXS), would be 5 miles long. Probably 70-80% of that distance or maybe more would have the side-by-side racing out in the woods. When they are racing out in the woods the spectators can’t see them. No, UTV/SXS racing is not a riveting spectator sport. However, for the racer and competitor, this form of racing has to be a lot of fun. I can only imagine how difficult it is to wear a fire suit on a weather day like we were having today. I hope those folks drink plenty of liquids. The AFX racing organization doesn’t run side-by-sides at every event but when they do, they have two different races. The first race includes the C&D groups which are also called novice and utility. The faster group runs the last race of the day and they’re called the A&B group. This last race is for the most powerful UTV machines at the racetrack. Standing in the shade. The highlight of the day. John and I met up at the starting line of the novice and utility race. The best thing about watching the racing from the starting line was that we could stand in the shade. That made things much more bearable than being out in the sun. Today there were four starters in the novice division. Two racers competed in the utility division. Each of those classes went off on their own green flag separated by one minute. Curiosity killed the cat? Once the racers were out on the track I looked over to John and told him I really needed to talk to the promoter. I needed to confirm that what we had just seen was actually a countable racing event and met and exceeded all existing trackchasing rules. I wasn’t sure but I thought John looked at me as if to say, “You know that curiosity killed the cat, right?”. Wait! You know that’s a SLEEPING cat in the photo, right? However, that’s how I operate. I’ve seen racing at more than 2,700 tracks and I don’t want a single track not to meet and exceed trackchasing rules in effect at the time. Make sense? That’s right. Just to be sure I was seeing a countable racing event after the starters have left the line I went up and introduced myself to Jason Sterling, the AXC race organizer and owner. Earlier I had seen Jason explaining on YouTube videos how things are run with his group. Jason was a nice guy and very concerned about the welfare and enjoyment of his racers. Nice guy, track promoter Jason Sterling. Today he took a moment to explain exactly how the racing program was happening for the side-by-sides. It was true that each of the C&D classes had started their own race all at once for their class. That made today’s racing event 100% countable. John and I watched several laps even though we couldn’t see the racers all that often. There weren’t that many racers competing in these divisions. Most of the time they were in the woods. After we had taken in about as much heat and humidity as we could standing in an Arkansas farm field, we agreed it was time to head on down to Bono, Arkansas. What was in Bono? Read on. Ed’s #1 in Arkansas and will stay that way for a while. By the way, after this evening’s racing, I have now seen racing at 17 tracks in Arkansas. Ed Esser (above lefft) maintains the #1 trackchasing ranking here having seen racing at 19 tracks. By attending the next two Arkansas AXC races I could gain a tie with Ed for first place. I don’t think I can do that. I am not going to take a full day out of my busy trackchasing schedule to see a woods UTV race. I’m just not going to do that! Pablo Escobar and the Jonesboro Karting Complex. This evening’s second half of a traditional day/night doubleheader was going to be the Jonesboro Karting Complex. I’ve had this track on my radar screen for years. It was the Pablo Escobar of the tracks I hadn’t seen yet. Hard to find. Tonight, looked like the night I was finally going to check it off my list. Earlier today I spoke with Roger, the Jonesboro promoter. He gave me the good news that the senior caged class of karts would be the first class racing tonight. That’s almost unheard of. At probably 99% of the kart tracks that I’ve ever visited the senior caged class runs after the flat karts. Having the senior caged class race early was going to be very helpful to my plan following the visit to the Jonesboro Karting Complex. I still haven’t done that much in Arkansas. Seeing two Arkansas tracks in one day was going to bring my lifetime Arkansas trackchasing total to 15. Relative to what I’ve done in other states that’s not all that much. Even after seeing two razorback tracks Arkansas still ranks only 40th on the list of the 50 states and how much trackchasing I’ve done. From the UTV woods track in Black Rock, Arkansas John Simpson and I made the 50-minute drive down to the Jonesboro Karting Complex in Bono, Arkansas. We were in separate cars. As soon as I arrived, I noticed that fans could watch the racing from their cars while parked at the fence of today’s dirt oval. That was most appealing to me. Parking at the track fence was cool in more ways than one. Today’s admission price was five dollars for spectators and $15 for those folks who wanted to enter the pit area. In order to park up near the fence, we needed a pit pass. I thought the $10 premium was well worth it. John got to the track a few minutes before I had and was already parked at the fence. Yep. It’s hard to keep up with those young trackchasing whippersnappers. Where are the young trackchasers? By the way, permit me to make a comment about young trackchasers in general. There are almost none of them. You will be hard-pressed to find a single trackchaser who ranks in the worldwide trackchasing top 25…who isn’t 60 years of age or older. Heck, if you looked at the top 50 the same would be true. If this applies; listen up. What advice do I have for the younger trackchaser? Be careful. There are very few “traditional” family units in the upper echelons of trackchasing. Almost all are unmarried or married with no children. Sorry. Don’t shoot the messenger. I’m just sharing the facts. For me personally, I am quite fortunate. My wife has always been perfectly fine with my heading off on trackchasing trips, with or without her. I didn’t really begin any serious trackchasing until our kids were pretty much off to college. I hadn’t even seen racing at 300 tracks when I was 46 years old. By the time our youngest child was entering college and all of our kids were out of the house. A penny spent today will likely not be a nickel tomorrow. Another serious warning for the young trackchaser is one of financial concern. Trackchasing can be expensive when someone gets truly serious about the hobby. I’m not talking about the “tourist” trackchaser. The tourist trackchaser sees 10-15 new tracks each year and thinks they are a serious trackchaser. At that point they are a tourist trackchaser but not approaching “world-class” in the hobby. A driving trackchaser must consider the cost of trackchasing. That’s going to include gasoline, hotels, food, race tickets and the rapid depreciation of their personal vehicle. If a trackchaser ever reaches the level of being a flying trackchaser that going to rachet up the expense level to include airplanes, rental cars and airport parking. Let’s say a trackchaser spends just $100 per track visit (a very low amount) in the early days and sees 50 new tracks in a year. That’s a cool five grand for the year. Let’s take that $5,000 in year 1. Invested at 8% for 25 years that first year of trackchasing spending would be worth $140,000 in 25 years if the money were invested and not spent on trackchasing. Then in year 2 that next 5,000 would be worth about $120,000 in 24 years. Get the point? The young trackchaser who spends as little as $5,000 each year on trackchasing would be missing out on well over ONE MILLION dollars when he/she was getting close to retirement and the kids were heading off to college. What do these numbers really tell us? They explain why there are nearly no young trackchasers. It explains why the people who did spend money on trackchasing as they were moving through life are either single or married with no kids. Trackchasing as a young man or woman is much more expensive than meets the eye. Always doing research. Tonight, John and I took a walking tour of the pits. We took turns quizzing the competitors about other potential trackchasing opportunities. Where did folks race on Friday night? Was SEMO raceway still active? Did Flickerwood ever get any adult caged karts? For the most part we struck out on each of these questions but if you don’t ask the question, you don’t know the answer. Racing was scheduled to begin at 6 p.m. It didn’t. That always surprises me but then I’m a fairly gullible person. They did hold the drivers’ meeting which was fairly noneventful at approaching 6:30 p.m. From there they went to a short round of practice for each of the divisions in attendance tonight. I’m going to guess there were eight or ten classes. The practice was well organized and didn’t take more than 10 or 15 minutes. Icicles were forming on our beards. When practice was happening John and I were safely ensconced in the National Car Rental Racing Toyota Camry. Boy, does that thing have a stout air conditioner. Despite the outside temperature being 95° with so much humidity you felt like you had just taken a shower I couldn’t keep the air conditioning on max cold. If I had done that we would have been frozen Popsicles in the sultry summertime, Arkansas heat. If you were to look up and down the list of the top 25 trackchasers in the world I have spent quite a bit of one-on-one time with almost everyone. I am the only trackchaser to have met and spent time with all of the leading women trackchasers. I’m happy to report that. John is evolving as a race fan. John is an interesting guy to talk to. He’s an up-and-coming trackchaser, who like many of us have done, is slowly switching over from being a racechaser to being a trackchaser. This happens on a day-by-day evolutionary basis. Before you know it, you are passing up racing at tracks that you thought were wonderful to see some of the most unusual “racing” that you never would have imagined would have taken up your time. That’s trackchasing. Here’s come life! However, John still needs to go through the getting married, buying a house, having kids, going to soccer games and more tunnel of life on the way to being a worldwide ranked trackchaser. If he can come out the other end of that experience with everything intact and still has an interest in trackchasing he can climb up the rankings. Some make it; most don’t. Jonesboro was impressive. I was most impressed with today’s layout at the Jonesboro Karting Complex. I’ve had this track on my radar for years and for one reason or another it took me this long to get there. The track has very strong banking around the entire dirt oval not just in the turns. You just don’t see that at go-kart tracks very often. The only kart track that comes to mind that can meet the banking at Jonesboro and actually maybe even beat it is the Raceway Bar and Sports Complex in New Berlin, track in Illinois. That track is owned by the Sheppard family. Brandon Sheppard noted late model driver is part of that family. I am most happy to report that the “stock appearing” a.k.a. senior champ kart class was the first racing group to hit the track for their heat race. They had five competitors. The promoter told me they normally get 5-14 of these racers. Fast. Just plain fast! I can’t ever recall seeing a faster dirt kart track. These folks were hauling the mail. Please don’t miss my video from the Jonesboro Karting Complex. At most karting events the karts themselves hug the inside line and race around the track as if they were part of a freight train. That is not how they do it at Jonesboro. The fast lane at the track is right around the top. If you close your eyes and imagine racing at Salem or Winchester then you can figure out what the racing today looked like at Jonesboro. I’ve never done it the way the others have done it. I don’t trackchase like others do. I really never have. Some trackchasers, but not many, would have shown up to Jonesboro watched one heat race from a countable class (the first race tonight) and boogied on down to the old number one speedway in Harrisburg where John was going to do later in the evening. One trackchaser, and there are others like Ben Turner seem to be the kind of fellow who has gone to a track, seen one race or maybe even part of a race, counted the track and headed to the next one. That’s poor style in my opinion. You can simply look at the track lists/dates and see that that was likely the scenario. I had every good reason to leave after the 12-minute kart race at Jonesboro. I had just been out in 95° weather in 98% humidity in a farm pasture in Arkansas. After today’s racing at Jonesboro, I would hop in the National Car Rental Racing Toyota and drive more than nine hours and 603 miles to get to tomorrow afternoon’s track. I was going to have to sleep in a highway rest area for three or four hours for gosh sakes. Why in the world would I want to stay for more kart racing when the track was already capable of being counted after just one quick race? Meeting and exceeding the rules. I’ll tell you the answer to that question. I have a few general rules that apply to 99.97% of all of the tracks I’ve ever seen. When I go to a track, I want to spend at least an hour there or I want to see every car in the pit area race. I’m not going to pop in and spend 10 minutes at a track and go on down the road and see another one. I don’t do business that way. Despite my having such a long drive ahead John and I stayed to see all of the karts in the pit area race their heat races. I’m happy to report that they ran these races off quickly. How long did it take? I don’t know for sure but right around an hour or so. We arrived at the track at about 5:30 p.m. or maybe 5:45 p.m. I was leaving the track at 7:30 p.m. With a quick stop at one of the porta-potties I felt qualified, ready, anxious and motivated to make the long drive over to West Liberty, Ohio. I was looking forward to West liberty. I have a lot of friends who race there. In addition to the 603-mile one-way drive from Jonesboro, Arkansas to West Liberty, Ohio I was going to lose an hour moving from the central time zone to the eastern time zone. Tomorrow’s racing was scheduled to kick off at 2 p.m. Eastern time in West Liberty, Ohio at the Mac-O-Chee quarter midget track. I put all of those parameters into the Randy Lewis Racing concrete mixer and headed on down the road. I was on the road now…and as free as a bird. It took me about an hour to get totally out of the Arkansas two-lane highway business. Then I went on the famous highways that many of you have traversed including interstates 55, 57, 64 and 70. There wasn’t all that much traffic. At nearly 10 o’clock the temperature was still 90°. I would expect that for July and August but for June 12? A few years ago, I spent 43 nights sleeping either in my car, inside an airport, or on an airplane. That’s a record. I don’t expect to repeat that anytime soon. Nevertheless, I have slept in my car a few times this season and flown overnight on airplanes. When it was time…I slept overnight in my car. Tonight, I would pull into the Greenfield, Indiana highway rest area along interstate 70. I wanted to get through Indianapolis where they’re having a lot of summer road construction. At that point, I had driven seven of the nine hours that I needed to cover so tomorrow morning’s two-hour drive over to Ohio would be easy. I went to sleep at 4 a.m. The temperatures had dipped down into the low 70s. Sleeping overnight in the car was most comfortable and I woke up 3 1/2 hours later…ready for another day of trackchasing. Randy Lewis – 85 countries – 2,708 tracks. Missouri The Show Me State This evening I saw racing at my 76th-lifetime track in the Show Me, yes, the Show Me State. I hold the #1 trackchasing ranking in Missouri. Missouri ranks #13, amongst all the states, in tracks seen for me in the U.S. Here’s a link to my all-time Missouri state trackchasing list. I have made 51 separate trips to Missouri seeing these tracks. Arkansas The Razorback State This afternoon and evening I saw racing at my 16th and 17th lifetime tracks in the Razorback, yes, the Razorback State. I hold the #2 trackchasing ranking in Arkansas. Arkansas ranks #35, amongst all the states, in tracks seen for me in the U.S. Here’s a link to my all-time Arkansas state trackchasing list. I have made 13 separate trips to Arkansas 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 Missouri sayings: Hold your horses Arkansas sayings: Quit being ugly 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 840 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. First time ever! Enduro racing in Union, Missouri Woods UTV racing from Arkansas The highest banked and fastest kart track I’ve seen? 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. A busy day of touring in Indiana and trackchasing in Missouri Arkansas woods UTV racing and lunch at the The Fishin’ Pig! High-banked kart racing in Arkansas and then the long drive to Ohio overnight 
