This is another crossover review that I think will be entertaining and informative for my finance and racing groups.
For the Finance/Travel folks, you get lots of money-saving travel tips and strategies. For my Racing/Travel followers what could be better than Bristol on dirt! For everyone who’s a sports fan, you’ll enjoy seeing what Sweet Sixteen and Elite Eight NCAA tournament basketball is like. I hope there is something for everyone.
Bristol Motor Speedway…it’s the dirt baby!
written by Randy Lewis April 1, 2021
Greetings from Bristol, Tennessee
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From the travels and adventures of the “World’s #1 Trackchaser”
The YouTube Video
This video includes racing from Bristol on the dirt for the first time in 51 years for the NASCAR Cup division…plus the UCLA celebration at the NCAA basketball tournament in downtown Indianapolis.
Bristol on dirt…and a little Elite 8 NCAA bball action
The SmugMug Photo Album
Each trip includes a lot of photos of the “trip” and not just the racing. Sometimes the trip photos are the best. My photo albums cover the trip from A-Z.
A great photo album…Bristol dirt…NCAA basketball Sweet Sixteen and Elite Eight plus a stop at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum
The story…I do this for the story! There is always a lot of “story” to tell you about.
Bristol Motor Speedway
Dirt oval
Lifetime Track #2,689
THE EVENT
Editor’s note: I get the chance to meet a lot of nice people when I’m out on the trackchasing trail. Those folks can be racers, fans and race promoters. Today I hit the jackpot in that area. I met the race promoters, Frank and Michell Bardaro. During the evening I had the chance to chat for a good long time with fans Mandy Taylor-Griffin and her husband Steve. I also was able to talk on the phone after the race with yard kart racer David Hardy. All real nice Oklahoma folks.
I AM A TRACKCHASER.
My name is Randy Lewis (above – sometimes watching a dirt race can be pretty bad! This was not from Bristol). 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
Monday, March 29, 2021.
Most people know that I announced my semi-retirement from trackchasing at the beginning of the 2021 season. Some folks seemed to think that I was going to stop trackchasing altogether. That was and is not the case.
It’s just that after seeing racing at nearly 2,700 racetracks in 85 countries there just aren’t that many racetracks left to see. With a limited number of tracks to visit that I haven’t already been to, I have no choice but to cut back on the frequency of my trackchasing. It wasn’t my choice to semi-retire. That decision was made by the “system”. If I had a ton of tracks left to see I would be trackchasing as often as I ever have.
As I looked at the various racetracks that I could see for the first time in 2021 one race date stood out. That date was March 28, 2021. Who and what was racing on that date that I was so interested in seeing on that particular Sunday?
It’s Bristol baby! However, the astute observer of my trackchasing history might rightfully say, “Randy you’ve been to Bristol several times including 1982, 1988 and 2015.” That is correct.
Readers might also know that I am a stickler for meeting and exceeding the rules of my hobby as established by trackchasing’s founding fathers. They came up with one special rule that I didn’t really agree with. Nevertheless, I was going to benefit from this rules generosity on this trip… hopefully.
Trackchasing‘s founding fathers, in their infinite wisdom, decided that when a track “changes surfaces” that a trackchaser can count that particular facility a second time.
What does “changing the surface” exactly mean? If someone sees racing at a dirt track and later on that track paves their race surface trackchasers can return to the facility a second time and count the “new” track. That works whenever a track changes from pavement to dirt or vice versa. A trackchaser can only take advantage of this very liberal rule one time.
The Bristol Motor Speedway is, normally, a high banked ½-mile asphalt oval. However, for the first time in 51 years, the NASCAR Cup series has decided to race on dirt. They would simply go out and get a lot of dirt and put it over the 36°-degree banked asphalt oval of the Bristol Motor Speedway.
This would be quite an undertaking. Racing on dirt for the NASCAR Cup series was the biggest news of the year. They decided they would decrease the banking for this temporary dirt track to about 15° from the current 35 degrees. This required them to add approximately 9 feet of dirt on top of the surface in the lower lanes of the regular track and about a foot of dirt over the high lanes of a half-mile track.
Because we are just now coming out of the Covid pandemic seating was going to be limited for fans. The Bristol Motor Speedway is one of the largest sports venue, seating capacity-wise, in the United States. They have seats for 160,000 people. They needed that many seats when NASCAR was at the height of its popularity. Now the Bristol crowds are only about 40,000-50,000 people.
Of course, as I always do, I would travel to the track without a ticket rather than having purchased one in advance. Some people would not be comfortable doing that. This isn’t a big issue for me. I have my famous “need one“ sign. This sign would pretty well guarantee me a good ticket at an outstanding price.
This trip would end up requiring large amounts of logistical planning time. Why would that be? Just a couple of weeks ago our UCLA Bruins basketball team was picked to be part of the NCAA basketball tournament.
To cut to the chase on this particular point UCLA would be playing in Indianapolis. They had beaten first Michigan State, then Brigham Young University and finally Abilene Christian to advance in the tournament. This put UCLA in the next round of “March Madness”. They would play the famous University of Alabama. Of course, Alabama is famous in college sports for football, not basketball. Nevertheless, if you know anything about the NCAA Bball tournament Alabama was a #2 seed. UCLA was an eleven.
Initially, I learned the basketball game was going to be played on Saturday, March 27. What a good fortune! I could see the basketball game on Saturday and then move over to Bristol and see the NASCAR Cup race on Sunday. What an absolutely perfect plan. However, the plan would turn to much less than perfect.
Our son J.J. and I are both season ticket holders for UCLA basketball. J.J. has a higher priority than I do because he makes donations to the UCLA athletic program and is an alumnus. J.J. was going to attempt to get tickets to the game. If he was successful he and I would travel to Indianapolis for the big game.
The game was going to be played in the Hinkle Fieldhouse on the campus of Butler University. Seating was going to be extremely limited because of the Covid pandemic. Hinkle normally seats only 9,000 fans. The fieldhouse was built nearly one hundred years ago in 1928. It’s been refurbished a couple of times since then. Only about 1,000 fans would be allowed to watch the game under the Covid protocols being used by the NCAA.
Wouldn’t you know it? We were selected for tickets and ended up buying four seats. I couldn’t believe how well our logistical plan was going. Then things changed.
The basketball game, which was initially planned for Saturday mysteriously got moved to Sunday. This put the basketball game in direct conflict with the NASCAR Cup race at Bristol. I had already committed to being part of the ticket plan with J.J. so the basketball game was going to take first priority. Indianapolis, where the game was being played, was a seven-hour drive from the racetrack in Bristol. There was no way I could go to both events.
This meant that the Bristol dirt race for this weekend was being scrubbed…for me at least. I would only be able to go to the basketball game…unless some special circumstances came into play. UCLA was a seven-point underdog against Alabama. That meant there was a good chance the Bruins would not advance in the tournament.
I felt like I had a crystal ball. I could see my weekend future. UCLA would lose against Alabama. The Bristol race would go on as planned for Sunday. I would end up traveling all the way across the country for a two-hour basketball game AND miss the most important race of my 2021 trackchasing season. However, I learned a long time ago that one can never predict the future!
With this as background, I began the actual “transportation process”. I’m needed to get from our modest seaside cottage in San Clemente to Hinkle Fieldhouse in Indianapolis, Indiana. This was going to be an interesting journey. My trip would not be for the faint-hearted.
During the pandemic, there are no nonstop flights from Los Angeles to Indianapolis. I would try connecting somewhere along the line from LA to Indy. The simplest process seemed to be trying to catch a nonstop flight to a somewhat “nearby” city to Indianapolis. That city turned out to be Nashville.
As you know I fly standby nearly everywhere I go. Right now we’re in the middle of “spring break”. All the little rug rats of yesteryear are now in college. They have funds from mommy and daddy to charge off on their own to drink and party. It’s a lot easier to have a good time when someone else is paying for it!
In addition to spring break, we are coming out of Covid. People have been vaccinated. The mood around Covid is changing from one of fear to one of hope. Airplanes during the last three or four weeks have been nearly full. During the last 12 months of Covid, nobody has been flying.
SATURDAY
On Saturday morning I left our house at 3:30 a.m. I was going to try to get on a 6 a.m. flight. This flight originally had 19 unsold seats. I would try to standby for one of those seats. In the last 24 hours, those 19 seats had melted away. When I arrived at LAX there were just two seats open and five standby passengers. I was fifth and last on that list of standby passengers. Not good.
Getting on the flight was going to be a nail-biter. Remember when I fly standby I only get a seat if the airline has not been able to sell every seat on the plane. The four people ahead of me on the standby list were all traveling together. There was the possibility, if they didn’t want to split up, I might be able to get a seat ahead of them. Sadly for me, they decided they would split up if there were only one, two or three seats available for their party of four. However, with only five minutes remaining before the plane departed, all five of us had our names called. I ended up getting the very last open seat on the plane. I was off to the Music City
I sat next to an interesting woman. She and her family were in the midst of moving from the greater Los Angeles area to Nashville. She and her husband felt that California was just too “liberal” for them. I’m not liberal and I’m not conservative. I would never consider moving because of others’ political views!
This woman’s husband didn’t like the tax situation in California. Again, I manage my spending in a way that isn’t influenced in any major way by taxes.
Why did this couple really want to leave California? It didn’t sound like this was for politics or taxes. Then why WERE they leaving the Golden State?
It didn’t hurt that they were selling their home in California for more than $1 million. They could buy a comparable home in Nashville for half that price. That’s what motivates a lot of people in California to leave the state. Folks can buy so much more real estate elsewhere. I can understand that as a reason to leave the state with the best climate in the country. Nevertheless, there is always someone willing to snap up their property in the Golden State. The demand for real estate in California is at nearly an all-time high despite what some news sources saying that everyone is leaving California. Simply not true. Finally, this lady’s grandkids live in Nashville. Decision made!
When I landed in Nashville it was going to be important to get a really good fuel-efficient rental car. I was going to be driving about 1,000 miles in three days. I couldn’t get a Toyota Camry but I did get a Ford Fusion hybrid model. That was a pretty good choice as I would be able to get approximately 40 miles per gallon with this car.
J.J. was going to meet me in Indianapolis. He had already reserved the Hyatt Regency Hotel in downtown Indianapolis. That was going to be a perfect location.
While all of this was happening I was watching the weather in Bristol, Tennessee. The weekend called for heavy rain on both Saturday and Sunday in Bristol. There was the potential that this bad weather could be very good news for me.
If Bristol were rained out on Sunday they would reschedule the race for the next clear day which was going to be Monday. That meant I could see the basketball game on Sunday night and drive on down to Bristol and see the race on Monday afternoon.
I also knew that NASCAR doesn’t like to postpone their races unless it’s absolutely necessary. They have all of the latest in race track drying equipment. This normally allows them to race on the date scheduled. They want to race on the originally scheduled race date to satisfy their commitments to broadcast TV.
The Bristol track for this particular weekend was a dirt surface. With dirt, it’s much more difficult to handle bad weather than with asphalt. Additionally, the Bristol area was going to get a “lot” of rain. Over the weekend they would get well 3 inches. It was reported that one area nearby received ten inches of rain. Nevertheless, even with that amount of water I still thought NASCAR would be able to figure it out and race on Sunday.
As I approached Indianapolis on Saturday night I learned that parking at the Hyatt Regency was going to cost me $48 a day. I didn’t like hearing that. I had a solution for reducing my parking expense. I always have a solution for doing stuff like that. Remember, my life’s motto is, “I don’t want to buy cheap stuff cheap. I want to buy good stuff cheap”. Of course, another of my basic life tenants is “the cheap man pays the most”.
I have a smartphone app called “Park Whiz”. Park Whiz works with several different parking lots to offer reduced prices for parking. I noticed that all of the places around our hotel were still charging $40-$60 a day to park. However, I was able to come up with a location exactly 1.2 miles from the hotel where I could park for two days for just $10 in total. I could certainly walk a bit more than a mile each way to save nearly 100 bucks. That’s what I did.
I arrived at our hotel at 9 p.m. on Saturday night. I was just in time to join J.J. for a drink or two at the hotel bar. We watched Saturday night’s NCAA basketball games. It’s times like this with all of our kids that make being a father so much fun and enjoyable.
SUNDAY
Our UCLA basketball game tonight wasn’t scheduled to begin until 7:15 p.m. This allowed J.J. and I to sleep in just a bit and then take in a Trackchasing Tourist Attraction. It just turns out that none of our kids are huge racing fans. No harm no foul there.
Nevertheless, we were in Indianapolis, Indiana home of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and the Indianapolis 500. Fans can go over to the track and visit the famous Indianapolis Motor Speedway Museum. They can take a tour of the track. That was what J.J. and I would do today.
For $22 we signed up for the tour that includes a van ride around the 2.5-mile asphalt oval. That particular tour culminates with a stop at the finish line. At the start/finish line, they still maintain a three-foot strip of the original brick surface. For the longest time, the racing surface at Indianapolis was made from 3.2 million bricks. That’s why the track is still called “the Brickyard” to this day.
Of course, J.J. (above) and I got the chance to “kiss the bricks” like so many race winners and tourists have done over the years since Dale Jarrett first started at the tradition.
We returned to the museum to check out the beautiful race cars that date back to the very first Indianapolis 500 race in 1911. We had a chance to spend several minutes speaking with one of the docents at the museum. As most Hoosiers are he was a long-time high school basketball fan. He was the nicest guy to talk to. We concluded our conversation with a firm handshake and the affirmation that we would meet again.
With my rental car parked in its remote parking lot, we were moving around the city using Uber. That just seemed like an easier option. We wouldn’t incur any additional parking charges and the Uber service was just convenient in general.
Next up we were going to meet a friend of J.J.’s, named Sara. Sara and J.J. had gone to high school together nearly 30 years ago. J.J. hadn’t seen her in the better part of 15 years. Sara is a graduate of UCLA and her husband Kyle is a graduate of the University of Michigan. Michigan is also in the basketball tournament. They are a #1 seed which makes them one of the favorites to win the championship.
We ended up meeting Sara and Kyle at a sports bar that was only 100 yards from the Hinkle fieldhouse site of tonight’s UCLA basketball game. I mentioned that J.J. had come up with four tickets for our UCLA basketball game. Sara and Kyle would join us for the game.
It was absolutely amazing how there was no crowd in the sports bar or anywhere around Hinkle Fieldhouse. This was “March Madness”. This was the friggin’ NCAA basketball tournament. I guess that comes from the idea that only 1,000 fans were allowed to watch the game. Seating was extremely limited because of the Covid pandemic protocol. For four hours the four of us sat in the sports bar and munched on munchies and renewed our acquaintances and established new ones.
I was impressed with Kyle‘s history with cars and actual racing experience. He had raced at road courses all over a 500-mile radius of their home in northern Indiana. He had done the famous “lap around America” event. I think Kyle was just a little bit surprised that I was most familiar with each of the tracks where he had competed. I’ve seen racing at virtually every permanent public road course in the United States. Kyle is also getting started in golf. That gave us an interesting subject to talk about as well.
When it was time we marched over to the fieldhouse for the basketball game. Yesterday in Indianapolis the temperature had been about 75°. Today it was 45° with a 20-mile an hour wind. That’s what you get in the Midwest.
UCLA was going to be a seven-point underdog against Alabama. That meant we probably had about a 20% chance of winning the game. I was pretty well convinced that with Alabama being a #2 seed and us being a #11 that we were not going to have a favorable outcome.
When we entered the stadium the first person we met was Martin Jarmond the brand new athletic director at UCLA. He’s already been a “mover and shaker” with the program. Things are definitely on the upswing.
With a seating capacity of 9,000 people and only 1,000 fans in the stands, a healthy dose of social distancing existed. Fans were also required to wear a facial mask. We had some excellent seats in the fifth row of the second deck. No fans whatsoever were allowed to sit in the first deck so effectively we were in row five from the court of anyone watching the game.
UCLA got off to a slow start. In what seemed like no time we were eight points behind. It looked as if at any moment we could be 20 points behind and out of the game for the rest of the night. I had feared a game like that.
However somewhat miraculously, despite Alabama being a much bigger and quicker team than us we erased the eight-point deficit and led by 11 points at halftime. Despite being ahead by that amount I think all of us feared that it was only a matter of time before UCLA would lose that lead and still maybe lose by 15 or 20 points.
At halftime, I asked J.J. if he thought UCLA would lose their lead any time in the second half despite leading by 11 at the break. He said that was a distinct possibility. I felt like it was.
Wouldn’t you know it? We blew the 11-point lead and actually fell behind by two points. Then almost equally miraculously we took the lead and built up a nine-point advantage. It looked like we might be able to even win this game.
With 4.2 seconds to go in the game, we had a three-point lead. Alabama had the ball and needed to drive the entire length of the court. I will be the first to tell you, and you don’t need me to tell you this, I have never been under contractual agreement as a basketball coach at any major university or any university for that matter.
However, I know that when you have a three-point lead and there are only a handful of seconds left in the game you foul your opponent. That way they can’t make a three-pointer. They can only add a couple of free throws. Even if Alabama makes both free throws we still have a one-point lead and the ball with almost no time left.
Of course, I advised JJ, Sara and Kyle that this was the only strategy that should be employed. Did Coach Mick Cronin who earns more than $3 million a year follow my advice? He did not.
Alabama passed the ball in and dribbled to half-court. They passed the ball to another player who canned a three-point shot with 0.4 seconds on the clock to tie the game in regulation. We were going to overtime!
I implored J.J., Sara and Kyle that if they were ever contractually employed as a head basketball coach at any university in the United States of America that they would have their players foul their opponents if they had a three-point lead with only a few seconds to go on the game. They assured me if they found themselves in that situation they would follow my advice.
All during the game, it looked as if UCLA was sitting on a powder keg that could explode in our faces at any moment. Alabama just looked like the better team. We were scrappy and didn’t turn the ball over. We made our free throws and they didn’t. However, they were an outstanding rebounding team and as quick as about any squad I’ve ever seen play.
Tonight, the basketball gods seemed to be on our side tonight. In the five-minute overtime somehow we got the center tip. We never get the tip. Then we opened with a three-pointer and begin to build a lead that reached 14 points before we actually grabbed a victory by a score of 88-78.
In the 20-minute second half, we had scored 24 points. In the five-minute overtime, we scored 23 points! I’ll simply say this. There were some pretty happy UCLA fans.
The Alabama basketball coach showed some strange behavior at the end of the game. Despite being down by more than 10 points with thirty seconds to go he kept instructing the Alabama players to foul. Nobody intentionally fouls when they are behind by more than ten points with 20-30 seconds to go. What was this guy thinking? Had he made a wager on the “over” for this game?
UCLA was now going to the dance in Tuesday night’s basketball game against the University of Michigan. This would pit Sara and Kyle against each other basketball-wise. Sara was an alumnus of UCLA and Kyle of Michigan. It would be a fun game. UCLA would be the underdog by about the same amount against Michigan as they were Alabama.
J.J. had an arrangement for our basketball tickets that if we won our game against Alabama we would also get an option for tickets to our game against Michigan. The tickets weren’t cheap. I saw some of those tickets selling for more than $1,500 per seat on StubHub an online ticket broker.
We would also be on the line for two more days of a rental car and two more days of a luxury hotel. Seeing the two-hour basketball game against the University of Michigan was going to be an expensive endeavor. However, once you dip your toe in the ocean of life you might as well just jump in, right?
While all of this basketball hoopla (pun intended) was happening I was getting constant text messages from my buddy Jim Sabo. Jim was down in Bristol, Tennessee for the NASCAR racing.
I was a little shocked when Jim gave me a phone call. The NASCAR race on Sunday had been canceled! The rain date was going to be Monday afternoon at 4 p.m. I could make that. Despite not being able to get to sleep until about 1:30 a.m. on early Monday morning after the game I was headed to Bristol just four hours later.
MONDAY
Yes, my wake-up call came just four hours after I got to sleep last night. On Sunday night I scheduled an Uber reservation for 5:40 a.m. this morning. I didn’t feel like walking more than a mile from my hotel to where my car was parked.
Soon I was in the National Car Rental Racing Ford Fusion ready to make the seven-hour drive from Indianapolis down to Bristol, Tennessee. I had a bottle of 5-Hour energy drink at the ready. I also had the advanced knowledge that the weather forecast was going to be blue skies with a high temperature of about 60° for today’s racing. I was looking at a 422-mile one-way ride after four hours of sleep. That was somewhat daunting. Nevertheless, if you’ve read my Trackchasers Reports for very long you know that I do that kind of thing all the time.
Last night’s low temperature in Bristol, Tennessee was 32°. At 4 p.m. which was race time today, they were expecting a temperature of 57°. That seemed reasonable.
Today was definitely going to be a special day for my hobby of trackchasing. The NASCAR Cup series was racing on a dirt track for the first time in 51 years! This was the race I was most looking forward to during the entire 2021 season. I almost missed it. If they hadn’t rained out yesterday UCLA‘s appearance in the NCAA tournament would have blocked me from seeing “Bristol the dirt track”.
Over the years you’ve heard me talk about the Dreaded East Coast Trackchasers. The DECTS (a phrase originally coined by buddy Pryce Boeye) rule the political environment in the trackchasing hobby. One of them is an active opponent to everything NASCAR. I’ll let you guess who that might be.
On the internet, you will commonly hear NASCAR haters. They will tell you they like short-track racing. They don’t like NASCAR. I think the folks who don’t like NASCAR are victims of “class envy”. What the heck is class envy? It’s folks who don’t like seeing someone who has more of something or something better than they do. If you’re a race fan and you like short track racing as I do that doesn’t mean you can’t also enjoy NASCAR. Heck, short track racing is a Saturday thing and NASCAR races on Sundays.
NASCAR is the only racing series in America that draws crowds in the tens of thousands of people. Did NASCAR draw even more fans 10 or 15 years ago? Yes, they did. They are still the only show in town with the exception of the Indianapolis 500 that can draw a crowd of 50,000 or 80,000 people to come to watch their races. The next biggest series might be the World of Outlaws. What kind of crowd do they get? If they draw 10,000 fans that’s nearly a miracle.
NASCAR is just about as fan-friendly of a sport as you’re going to see. As I describe the benefits offered by NASCAR compare it to all of the other major-league sports that you’re familiar with.
At a NASCAR race, you’ll be able to get free parking. At a NASCAR race, you can bring in your own food and drink including alcoholic beverages. At a NASCAR race, you can listen in on the communication of the participants. At a NASCAR race, you can stand right next to the fence and the competitors. You’ll find it difficult to do any of that watching a Los Angeles Angels baseball game or a New England Patriots football game. Will it be easier to get Chase Elliott’s autograph or Lebron James?
Tickets to NASCAR races are super cheap. Over the past five years or more I’ve seen about two major NASCAR races per season. My average cost for tickets to each of these races is about $10. I can almost hear what you’re thinking. “Hey, Randy. I went to a NASCAR race and the face value of my ticket was more than $100. How is your average cost just $10?“
You see, I have a special “method” that gets me these great deals. Of course, I don’t pay retail. I don’t even buy my tickets in advance. I simply park my car for free and walk down toward the racetrack.
That is exactly what I did today. At the Bristol Motor Speedway, they were having the rained out NASCAR truck race at 1 p.m. The NASCAR Cup race would go at 4 p.m. I arrived at about 1 p.m.
My initial plan was to sleep in my car for about an hour. I figured if I did that I might get just a little bit of rest. During the past couple of days, I have been constantly going going going and driving driving driving with very little sleep.
However, I made a game-time decision to go down to the track and make sure I got my ticket situation squared away. I would not be heading to the track ticket booth. All of the tickets had been sold out a long time ago. For the Covid races, they don’t even give you a hardcopy ticket anymore. You buy the ticket online. The ticket is sent to your phone.
I buy “OP” tickets. What’s an OP ticket? The tickets I buy are “other people’s” tickets. Yes, I buy tickets from other people that don’t have any direct connection with NASCAR whatsoever.
Here’s how it works. People make their plans to attend a NASCAR race weeks or months in advance. They get a group of friends together or family members and they buy maybe four tickets as an example. However, as the race grows near one or two of those people flakes. Haven’t you had a friend tell you they would come along for the big game and then at the last minute they came up with some lame excuse on why they wouldn’t be attending? Yes, you have.
Usually, if you have good friends, the people who flaked have already paid you for the tickets. Now you show up at the track in your group of three with an extra ticket from your flaky friend. You’ve got that extra ticket sitting in your pocket or in this case on your phone. You’re not expecting to do anything with it. Your friend “Joe” (above) already paid you for that ticket. He’s losing the money for the ticket, not you.
That’s when I come into the person’s life who has a friend like Joe, the flake. I’m willing to give this person back just a little bit of money for the ticket that Joe paid full price for and then didn’t come to enjoy the race or the game. My money is sort of considered “free money”.
Here’s the secret. How am I going to be able to meet up with that person who has an extra ticket that they don’t need? I can’t see in the people’s pockets or look inside their phone. Those people don’t know I have a need for a ticket either. That’s where my “Need One” sign comes in to play.
In my spare time, I have created a very attractive and concise sign that simply reads “Need One“ or “Need 1”. I hold up my sign. The person with the extra ticket sees my sign. They see dollar signs in their head. Joe has already paid them the money for the ticket. Now maybe they’ll get enough money in cash for a beer or two and that beer or two is kind of “On Joe”.
Here is how the situation unfolded today. I went down toward the area where all of the driver’s souvenir trucks were lined up nose to tail. Most of the fans were inside the track watching the truck race at this point. I didn’t have a strong interest in watching the trucks since I was going to be inside the stadium for about five hours in total seeing the NASCAR Cup event.
I can literally guarantee you that I will be in active negotiations to purchase a ticket to a game, a concert or a race within five minutes of displaying my sign. It’s only a piece of paper with a bright blue highlighter used for the font. However, it seems like it’s an electronics/neon sign with the biggest and brightest message you’ve ever seen.
Almost immediately a fellow came up with his wife or girlfriend. He had an extra ticket. Good for him. Good for me too. He began to tell me where his seat location was inside the huge coliseum. That didn’t matter to me. I would sit wherever I wanted too.
I’ve had quite a bit of training in the art of negotiating. One of the aspects of negotiating that’s pretty important is to get the other person to start off the bidding process. Today I asked my new friend Eric what he wanted for his ticket. That’s step #1. Get the other person to make the first offer.
He told me he paid $93 for the ticket. That was when I replied with another important negotiating skill (step #2) which is called the “explosive no”. When you’re negotiating with someone and they offer up a piece of information that you absolutely disagree with in total you have to be very explicit. You have to tell them that you are not buying their line of BS whatsoever. Of course when you do that you have to do it tactfully.
When Eric told me that he paid $93 for the ticket I could have reacted differently. I could have told him that whatever he paid for the ticket had absolutely nothing to do with the ticket’s value today. I could have said I don’t care if you paid $500 for your ticket you have to know that there is no one willing to pay full price just minutes before the big event. If I said something like that it might make Eric feel defensive. Rule #3. Try to stay on the good side of your negotiating foe. You will almost always get more with sugar than with salt. You want people to cooperate with you. The last thing you want them to do is to feel badly toward you.
So… after hearing Eric‘s woeful tale that he paid 93 bucks for a ticket that he had no use for today I shook my head with some empathy and replied, “Well, I can’t pay you that”. A lot of people would have made a mistake in the negotiating process at this point. Eric had told me that he paid $93 for his ticket. The last thing I would want to do at this point was to say, “Well then I’ll offer you $60”. Nope, that would be a bad negotiating move. Rule #4. Get the other person to bid against themselves.
Erica told me he paid $93 for his ticket. I immediately communicated the explosive no by telling him there was no way I could pay that price. Then I stopped talking. In a negotiating process, here’s another pearl. All you have to do to get control of these pearls is to bend over and pick them up. Rule #5. When there’s a pause in a negotiating conversation the first person to talk losers. I didn’t talk.
I waited. Eric waited a little bit but not long enough. He looked up at me and said, “I’ll sell it to you for $25”. Wow. If I could buy a ticket to the first-ever NASCAR Cup race on dirt in 51 years for 25 bucks that would be a pretty good deal, right? This was especially true when the ticket was worth $93 on the open market at one point in time.
Yes, $25 was a reasonable offer. I could have just accepted that price and the transaction would have been consummated. However, now it was time to employ still another negotiating tactic. Rule #6. Nibble.
Sometimes when you negotiate the other side actually offers you a fair deal. Should you accept a fair deal? You can’t let the opposition know that you think it’s a fair deal. You need to nibble.
In terms of currency, all I had on me were $10 bills and $20 bills and $50 bills. If I could avoid it I didn’t want Eric making change. That way he wouldn’t necessarily know that I had more than twenty dollars in cash on me.
I offered Eric $20 for his $93 ticket. Eris smiled. I think he was beginning to realize that if he didn’t know who the pigeon was in this game it might be him! He told me he would take twenty bucks. I think he realized that $20 was better than no dollars. No one else was walking around with a “Need One” sign. If he didn’t take my $20 there might not be any money coming his way for his extra ticket. He accepted my offer.
Fortunately, Eric was pretty tech-savvy. Soon he was transferring his ticket from his phone to my phone and I was good to go. I thanked Eric and smiled at his wife/girlfriend and moved on down the road.
I don’t really know who lost $73 on this transaction. Was it Eric or was it his friend Joe or was it someone else that I didn’t even know about? It didn’t really matter to me. I have come to Bristol with the intent of getting a ticket to the race at the last minute at a low price. My sign and me were able to pull that off. I was happy.
Just one more thing. Did I take advantage of Eric? I don’t think so. I think Eric should have thanked me for helping him out. He’s twenty dollars richer because of me.
From there I sent a text to a friend who was already inside the stadium. My buddy’s name is Jim Sabo. Jim and I first met each other nearly 50 years ago. We worked together. We have also been to several races together most notably the World 100 at the Eldora Speedway many times. We went to the first truck race there some seven years ago.
Jim and his wife Jane built a cabin in northern Georgia. They were staying there this week. Jim made the drive over to Bristol so we could watch the race together. He had already scoped out a couple of good seats for us on the backstretch. We were right in the middle of the straight about 40 rows up from the track. Excellent seats.
By the time I got inside the arena truck race was finished. No problem there for me. Martin Truex Jr. was the winner. In order to make this trip work as well as it had up to this particular point in time I only had four hours of sleep. If I had wanted to get to the track any earlier I would have had to subtract some amount of time from the four hours of sleep. I didn’t want to do that.
Today’s race was going to be on a dirt surface. The promoters and organizers had taken a very large amount of dirt and covered the 1/2 mile steeply banked asphalt Bristol oval. How much dirt? In order to decrease the amount of banking on the bottom side of the track, they put about 9 feet of dirt over the paved surface and on the top side about a foot.
The track organizers had done a good deal of planning to make sure things worked well today. You only get one chance to make a good first impression. To make sure that today’s racing went smoothly, despite having torrential rains over the past two days, the track had been raced on quite a bit already this year.
A couple of weeks ago they had five straight nights of racing with a total of more than 1,300 short track entries from the hornet class all the way up to late models. As a matter of fact, after the NASCAR Cup racing leaves Bristol on dirt the World of Outlaws will come in for a couple of weekends. They’ll feature their sprint cars and their late models.
A normal race on asphalt at Bristol is 500 laps or 250 miles. This cup race would be just half of that at 250 laps or 125 miles. I just kept looking at the track and the cars during the entire race and imagining how happy I was to see something like NASCAR cup racing actually coming to a dirt track. I know my civilian friends might not get that. Suffice it to say I had a smile on my face and in my heart.
I listen to the NASCAR channel on SiriusXM radio. I have called into their shows one time in my life. I called into the Dave Moody show. I was recommending that NASCAR Cup racing have a race on dirt. Mind you they had not done that in 51 years. Dave told me that was a terrible idea! He said it would ruin the one and only dirt track race NASCAR has in all three of their national divisions. That one dirt race happens in the lowest national division the trucks at the aforementioned Eldora Speedway.
Wow! Talk about the tail wagging the dog. Should NASCAR NOT have a dirt race for their top series, Cup, because their lowest division has one race on dirt? I guess NASCAR executives must have heard my call into the Dave Moody show!!
I also brought my RE 3000 racing radio to today’s event. This would allow me to listen into the radio broadcast today on PRN as well as the driver communications with their crew chiefs and spotters. It’s a lot of fun to listen in on these candid conversations. Sometimes the language would make a sailor blush. I guess this would be similar to listening in on the huddle of an NFL football game and hearing the quarterback call the play. Having a “race scanner” really added to the enjoyment of big-time auto race watching.
Many of the NASCAR Cup driving stars had never really raced on dirt and if they had it was a long time ago. The racing on the dirt track brought a little dust. Nevertheless, it wasn’t anything close to what I have experienced at dusty local tracks. They did have competition cautions and stage breaks every 50 laps. During the breaks, they watered the track and worked on it a bit.
Today’s pitstops were not like “normal” NASCAR Cup pitstops. During the competition cautions or stage breaks, all of the drivers came into the pit area. When they were all in front of their pit stalls their crews came out, worked on the cars and changed tires. They had three minutes to complete their work. Then all the drivers came back onto the track together with no one being able to gain an advantage from a pitstop.
It was interesting and somewhat heartbreaking to see drivers compete out front for the entire race and then have a problem toward the end that relegated a top 10 finish into a 30th place finish. This happened to Bubba Wallace and Martin Truex Jr. I was disappointed to see one of my favorites Kyle Larson, who had moved up from his last place starting spot to the top ten only to be involved in a crash early on and finish several laps down. I think if he had not crashed he would have raced up from his last place starting position to first place at the end of the first stage which covered 100 laps.
Today’s race winner was Joey Logano. He’s one of my favorites. Denny Hamlin tried to chase him down but couldn’t pull it off. In the end, Ricky Stenhouse Jr. finished second and Ryan Newman had a top-five. You can certainly see that on a dirt track several of the drivers who would have been in the back of the pack on an asphalt surface were near the front on a dirt track. I’d like seeing that.
The racing part of my trip had now been a smashing success. This was only possible because the race was rained out from yesterday. Not being able to see the race on its originally scheduled date of Sunday had come into play when the UCLA Bruins unexpectedly continued on with solid performances in the big tournament.
Today’s attendance had been severely restricted because of the Covid pandemic. Believe it or not the Bristol Motor Speedway seats 160,000 people. Its nickname is the “last great coliseum”. I’m going to guess there were 30,000 people or so, maybe 40,000 in the stands today. We had all the room we wanted and we had the best seats in the house.
From Bristol, I headed over toward Nashville. I wasn’t going to drive all the way there but would stop about an hour east of the Music City in Cookeville, Tennessee. On the way, I made a quick stop at the Waffle House, which everyone who goes to a NASCAR race probably ought to do. I grabbed an inexpensive Priceline featured hotel and spent the evening. One of their employees told me that fellow workers were not showing up to their jobs because they had received their stimulus checks! Don’t know if that is true but that’s what he told me.
TUESDAY
Today was going to be a big day. The day would require quite a bit of logistical maneuvering to be completed. Tonight was the big game. When I agreed to make this trip I was only expecting to see UCLA play one. Tonight’s game against Michigan was a huge bonus.
J.J. and I had come to Indianapolis to see UCLA play Alabama on Sunday night. This was a “Sweet 16” game. The winner would advance to the “Elite Eight” portion of the NCAA men’s basketball tournament. UCLA had vanquished Alabama in overtime and tonight would be playing Michigan. In each game, UCLA was the underdog. But in these kinds of situations, the underdog can win.
There is a tremendous amount of strategy that comes with this hobby. I think casual observers often don’t realize that. I’ll share an example.
I had initially rented my car in Nashville for three days at a total price of $147. That’s actually a pretty good price in today’s world. Now things were changing.
When UCLA won their game on Sunday night and would now play again on Tuesday night it meant I was going to need a rental car for four days rather than three. I also learned that it wasn’t going to be a good idea to try to fly standby out of Nashville to get back to Los Angeles when the trip ended. I looked all over the Midwest for an open flight. Spring break is a killer (that’s bad) for flying on standby. Finally, looked as if Chicago would be the best place to initiate a trip back to our modest seaside cottage in Southern California.
If I was going to fly home from Chicago in all likelihood I would need to return my car to Chicago. If I simply called up the National Car Rental Company and told them this they would let me do it. The process would be easy. However easy can sometimes be another word for expensive.
If I turned my three-day pick up in Nashville and return to Nashville rental into a four-day pick up in Nashville and return to Chicago it would cost me a minimum of $240 MORE than the plan I came up with.
One-way car rentals are expensive. I would probably be given a rate of about $100 a day for each day of the one-way rental. That would make my rental car expense $400.
I had an alternative. I almost always have an alternative. Here’s what I was going to do.
I would drive about two hours out of my way over to Nashville from Bristol on the way to Indianapolis. Got that? In Nashville, I would close out my contract completing the original three-day rental as planned at a rate of $147.
Then I would rent a new car in Nashville for one day on a one-way basis dropping in Chicago. A one-way rental averages about $100/day but I’ve seen one-way rental rates of $200/day or more. I couldn’t pay that. What could I pay? How does $10 for one day of one-way rental sound? It sounded good to me. I used one of my “free” days which I earn with every five rentals from National to get the special rate.
You see I have a sponsorship with National Car Rental that pays off pretty well. Rather than paying about $400 for my rental car, I drove out of my way by two hours to save more than $240. Remember, I told you that I don’t pay retail? By the way, you might want to browse this entire message when you’re finished. I think you will see that I saved thousands of dollars compared to what the normal vacation traveler would pay.
Oh, one more thing about the car rental strategy today. I was enjoying the Ford Fusion car that I had already driven well over 500 miles. It wasn’t a Camry but as a hybrid, I was getting great gas mileage.
I thought it might be nice to keep the rental car from my first rental car contract and have that same car for rental car contract #2. Also, I didn’t fancy moving all of my gear from one rental car to another one.
So…I simply pulled my rental car into the return center and motioned the agent over to my door. I lowered the window and told him I would like to have my contract closed out on the Ford Fusion hybrid car. As soon as that was done I would simply drive my car over to the exit and re-rent the same car. I’ve done this 100 times. It works like a charm. I don’t have to hassle with my gear. I’ve already got a car that I like and I’m getting a good price for the rest of the trip. Remember, these are pearls. They are yours for the picking.
Then I began the 250-mile drive from Nashville up to Indianapolis. I made the same drive just two days ago when I had flown into Nashville. Today I returned a car at 12 noon today for two reasons.
First, I picked up my car at about 2 o’clock in the afternoon last Saturday. As long as I returned it by 2 o’clock this afternoon I wouldn’t have to pay for an extra day. Then when I picked the car up at 12 noon today that meant that I could keep it until 12 noon tomorrow when I returned it to Chicago. By being able to return it to Chicago at 12 noon I could sleep in Indianapolis tonight as late as possible tomorrow morning before making the three-hour drive Indy to Chicago. Yep, there’s a lot of strategy in trackchasing.
Is all of this logistical maneuvering REALLY necessary? I think it is…IF you want to see a major league basketball game in Indianapolis on Sunday night, then a major NASCAR race on Monday afternoon in Bristol, Tennessee before returning for another major league basketball game in Indianapolis on Tuesday night.
I can tell you I turned this trip including cars, hotels, sports tickets, rental cars, airport parking and airplane rides for about 20% of what the normal traveler would have paid. Actually, the normal traveler would have looked at the cost of this trip and decided to watch basketball and racing on TV!!
Tonight we had reservations at a steakhouse very near where we were staying at the Hyatt Regency in downtown Indianapolis. The Hyatt was also within walking distance of Lucas Oil Stadium for tonight‘s basketball game with a tip-off of 9:57 p.m. All of those logistics were well planned. J.J. and I would be having dinner with Sara and Kyle the folks that I told you about from our game a couple of days ago.
Of course, when I got back tonight from Nashville, I needed to be able to park my car in downtown Indianapolis overnight. The Hyatt was still charging $48 a day to park. I didn’t really want to do that. Other close by parking lots also had expensive parking rates because the basketball games were being played downtown tonight.
I went back to my Park Whiz smartphone app. They were still selling the lot I had used earlier in the trip for five bucks a day. That was hard to pass up and I didn’t pass up the Park Whiz offer. I can certainly walk a mile to save more than $40 and get some additional steps in. With a few clicks, I was now parking for the next 24 hours for just five bucks.
Much of my drive today from Nashville to Indianapolis was up on Interstate 65. I couldn’t believe the truck traffic on this route. Indianapolis is a major truck corridor. It’s kind of like the truck crossroads of America. People are coming and going in all directions up down and sideways through Indianapolis. That contrasts with Southern California where big trucks are not allowed on the roads except overnight. It’s night and day difference so to speak.
Our dinner at Harry and Izzy’s, a sister steakhouse to the famous St. Elmo’s Steakhouse in downtown Indy was great. It was great for the conversation and friendship with Sara, Kyle and J.J. We all had some excellent food, drank some expensive wine and talked about all manner of things.
Once again Sara and Kyle treated us to dinner. J.J. got the tickets for all of us at face value. What did I do? I guess I was just the guest elderly freeloader who lives on a small fixed income just large enough to support a modest seaside cottage. It was confirmed that I was the only person at the table who qualified for a stimulus check!
From there we walked over to the Lucas Oil Stadium in downtown Indy. This venue has been home to a Super Bowl.
The capacity for basketball at Lucas Oil is 70,000! Only about 10% of that total was allowed to watch because of Covid protocols. Every other row was blocked off. Ushers roamed the stadium with paddles asking fans to wear their masks. Not every fan complied. I will tell you that pissed me off. If I am willing to abide by the rules I think everyone should. Can you imagine if people only stopped at stop signs if they agreed with the placement of the sign?
Once again, just like at the Hinkle Fieldhouse two nights ago we had excellent seats. Michigan came out in their gold home uniforms. UCLA was in their familiar light blue away suits.
Both teams seemed somewhat offensively challenged. Were they just tight because of the pressure of the game? Or was the opposing defense just that good? Maybe it was a bit of both.
Remember Kyle was a graduate of Michigan. Sara and J.J. graduated from UCLA. I graduated from Northern Illinois. I guess what I learned at NIU was to hang around the right people. Remember, I was the only one in our group that qualified for a stimulus check.
During the first half UCLA charged to a 9-point lead. Then our star player twisted an ankle. Soon our lead was down to one point. The game seesawed back and forth with us having a two-point lead with six seconds remaining. Michigan had a couple of chances to tie and move ahead with a three-pointer. Their shots didn’t fall and the #11 seed UCLA had defeated another tournament favorite #1 seed Michigan.
This meant UCLA would play the top seed in the entire tournament, Gonzaga, this coming Saturday night. Gonzaga has an undefeated 30-0 record. Oddsmakers made us an early 13-point underdog. Sometimes the underdog can win. You never know. Whatever. UCLA had moved from the first four to the final four. Only one team had ever done that before in the entire history of the tournament.
J.J. and I didn’t get back to the hotel until well after midnight. We stayed up and talked about the game until 2 a.m. He was flying back to SoCal from Indy early tomorrow morning. I would drive to Chicago and fly to Seattle before connecting to Los Angeles and getting home at nearly midnight Pacific time.
WEDNESDAY
My three-hour drive to Chicago this morning was uneventful. When I returned my rental car I noted I had driven 1,492 miles for the trip. In four days with two big basketball games and a great NASCAR event that’s a lot of driving.
When I landed in Seattle I received a text. It was from J.J. He had tickets for Saturday night’s game against Gonzaga in Indianapolis. He was asking if I wanted to go.
To pull that off I would need to begin traveling again just 36 hours after I had returned from this trip. Did I want to go?
Yes, I did want to go. Did I go? I did. UCLA was a huge 13-point underdog against undefeated Gonzaga. However, you never know what the outcome will be. That’s why they play the games.
For some unknown reason, I have several major family commitments that needed to be altered and appointments changed. It was Easter weekend and I would be battling the “standby” wars when the airports are packed with folks for the holiday weekend and the fact that so many people think Covid is in the rearview mirror.
The funny thing about that is that despite traveling well over 40 weekends every year I almost never think I have any conflicts with others. It just turned out that this coming weekend seemed to conflict with everything.
However, UCLA has not been in a Final Four for a long time. For three years they were in the Final Four (2006-2008). I saw them lose in the championship game in 2006 to Florida, which was also played in Indianapolis. I returned the next year to see them lose in the Georgia Dome to, once again, Florida.
That year in Atlanta was the time I used my “Need One” sign. I kept buying and selling tickets for a profit until I was $500 ahead. Then I bought a ticket for myself for $450. It turned out to be counterfeit! Not a major problem. Just a temporary setback. At the last minute, I bought a ticket for $50 that was about as far away from the court as Cincinnati is from Indianapolis. Again, not a problem. I soon found myself watching the game from an empty seat at mid-court about 20 rows up.
Will UCLA beat Gonzaga? I think I know the answer to that question but I will show up just to see for myself. You should get this message before the game. Maybe you will want to watch it. Tipoff time is 8:34 p.m. Eastern time on CBS. Look for me!
Randy Lewis – 85 countries – 2,689 tracks.
Tennessee
The Volunteer State
This afternoon I saw racing at my 39th-lifetime track in the Volunteer, yes, the Volunteer State. I hold the #3 trackchasing ranking in Tennessee. Tennessee ranks #21, amongst all the states, in tracks seen for me in the U.S.
Here’s a link to my all-time Tennessee state trackchasing list. I have made 32 separate trips to Tennessee 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
Tennessee sayings: Goo Goo: No, not a baby or a really bad pet name. It refers to the amazingly delicious Goo Goo Cluster, a Tennessee staple.
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 795 tracks of my lifetime total. Don’t blame me.
- Randy Lewis, San Clemente, California – 2,689
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.
- Randy Lewis, San Clemente, California – 85
Current lifetime National Geographic Diversity results
- Randy Lewis, San Clemente, California – 3.96
That’s all folks! Official end of the RLR – Randy Lewis Racing Trackchaser Report