A week in the life of the World’s #1 Trackchaser traipsing all over the Midwest
Greetings from Hutchinson, Kansas
And then up to Wabasha, Minnesota
And even further north to Thief River Falls, Minnesota
Before wrapping up in Jim Falls, Wisconsin
From the travels and adventures of the
“World’s #1 Trackchaser”
Kansas State Fairgrounds Dirt oval Lifetime Track #2,722 Wabasha County Fairgrounds Dirt oval Lifetime Track #2,723 Pennington County Fairgrounds Dirt oval Lifetime Track #2,724 Eagles Nest Kart Track Dirt oval Lifetime Track #2,725 THE EVENT Editor’s note: I’m closing in on having seen 1,000 tracks in just the Midwest. As this is written my total here in the Midwest sits at 984 tracks. The Midwest has the best racing and I grew up Illinois. This is my world and people know me here. 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 with Carl Crawford TQ midget driver in Syracuse). 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. College roommate Stan Logan frequently joined the family and me on racing trips in Northern California. 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 Monday/Sunday, July 12/18, 2021. When you plan a trip do some of the logistical items just seem to not work out? Trackchasing trips seem to have a lot more “boobie-traps” than a civilian vacation. What’s a civilian vacation? Let’s say you live in Detroit and you’re planning a trip to Hawaii. Don’t you just get on the plane in Detroit and fly to Hawaii and sit on the beach in front of the condo for a week and then fly back to Detroit? End of story. Simple, right? I’ve been doing what I do for a very long time. Overall, I think I’m pretty good at it. My trips do seem to have a lot of moving parts. It’s a true mental challenge to get all of the moving parts moving in the right direction all the time. This doesn’t frustrate me as much as it surprises me. Permit me to provide an example. This week’s trackchasing trip was going to take me on the road for six days. I hoped to see racing in Illinois, Kansas, Minnesota and Wisconsin. This is July. July is usually my heaviest trackchasing travel month of the year. It’s county fair season. MONDAY I started out on Monday evening by taking Trackchasing’s First Mother, that would be wife Carol, to dinner at one of San Clemente’s little Italian bistros. We had a coupon. Why did we have a coupon? Probably because we grew up in the Midwest and money was scarce and stuff like that sticks with you. When our dinner was finished, I dropped Carol off at our modest seaside cottage. I headed to the Los Angeles International Airport (LAX). I had an overnight flight on Spirit Airlines from Los Angeles to Chicago. Normally I fly standby. When I fly standby if there is an open seat on the airplane, I might get it unless other standby passengers have more juice (seniority) than I do. Sometimes, especially during the heavy summer travel months, I like to purchase an airline ticket on the first leg of the trip. This allows me to get into the general area where I’ll be trackchasing on a confirmed basis. With a paid ticket I know I won’t be left back at LAX waiting for another plane that might not get me to where I need to be on time. Spirit Airlines is a discount airline. They offer very low basic fares but charge for everything else such as reserving a seat, bringing a carry-on bag onto the plane or checking a bag. When I buy one of their basic fares I don’t want to be upsold. As you may come to find out I go out of my way to avoid that in most areas of life. A few years ago, I bought a robust small rolling travel bag from Costco for 29 bucks. This was one of the best investments I ever made. That little thing meets Spirit’s draconian size requirements for a free carry-on bag. A free carry-on bag with Spirit cannot be greater in dimension than 18 x 14 x 8 inches. Look around in your house. See if you have a box or a bag that is that size or smaller. It will give you a good idea on what I had to work with for a six-day trip. My travel needs in terms of clothing and such are pretty simple. Basically, each day especially during the warmer months, it’s a T-shirt, a pair shorts, a pair of underwear and a pair of socks. I don’t know why most of those things are called “pairs” when in fact underwear and walking shorts are just one item. Although my Costco bag is outstanding, it cannot accommodate six T-shirts, six pairs of underwear, six pairs of socks and two or three pairs of shorts in addition to a laptop computer, an iPad, toiletries, and quite a few wires and chargers to support everything I bring along. Long ago I developed a solution for this particular problem. One afternoon Carol and I were in Germany and I picked up a beautiful green army field jacket for €10. This jacket is actually lightweight and rugged but helpful in another important regard. I can stuff the sleeves of that jacket with six T-shirts, four pairs of underwear and quite a few AC adapters and other smaller but bulky items. Then I’ll carry the jacket in my arms and roll my Costco bag right past the eagle-eyed, revenue generating Spirit Airline employees. That is what I did for tonight’s flight. My flight was scheduled to depart at 1 a.m. I received a message on my phone regarding a flight delay. My flight was being delayed until 2 a.m. That was a bit of a problem. I couldn’t really count on the flight leaving at 2 a.m. Sometimes when they announce a delay the flight will actually leave sooner if whatever problem existed clears up. This meant I had to leave San Clemente at 10 p.m. This would give me time to make the 65-mile drive up to LAX and walk 20-25 minutes from my airport parking garage to the terminal. I like to arrive one hour before the flight departs. If I don’t have any trouble with traffic I’ll often stop and get 20 or 30 minutes of charge for my EECU sponsored Tesla Model X. Ultimately, I did get on an airplane and ended up in seat 6F, a window seat. Legroom, especially for someone like me who stands 6’3” tall, is simply nonexistent on Spirit Airlines. To top it off I had a 20-year-old youngster next to me who was as tall as I was. On the overnight flight he kept falling into my seat fast asleep. I put a few body blocks on him to nudge his torso back into his space but it was ongoing challenge. I’m always telling you there is a lot of strategy with trackchasing. Why do I say that? Because there is. Permit me to give you a real life example. At the end of this trip, I would need to drive 6-8 hours from my trackchasing location in Wisconsin to Chicago for my return flight. That meant it would be a good idea to return my car to Chicago as late in the day as possible so that I could still make a flight back to Los Angeles. TUESDAY In order to avoid being charged an extra day with my rental car I wanted to pick the car up when I landed as late as I possibly could. My flight landed in the Chicago O’Hare Airport (ORD) at 8 a.m. I didn’t want to pick up my car until at least 12 noon. I had four hours to kill at the O’Hare airport. I had just flown overnight in a cramped seat where I might’ve gotten two hours of sleep. I needed more slumber time. I found a quiet place in the airport and laid out my army jacket on the floor. The stuffed sleeves made perfect pillows. There I slept for the next three hours. When I woke up it was time to pick up my rental car at noon. I expected to be driving this particular rental car over the next six days about 2,300 miles. It was critical to the success of my trip that I get a good rental car. I always rent full-sized rental cars from National Car Rental. Their Toyota Camry is my favorite. Today this came in the form of a beautiful cherry red Toyota Camry. The odometer had just 1,000 miles on it. When you go on a vacation do you make your hotel reservations days or weeks before you get to where you’re going? Most people do. I don’t. I typically only make a hotel reservation a few hours before I expect to get there. The main reason I don’t like to make advance hotel reservations is because of the tentativeness of the auto racing events I’m going to visit. Most of the time auto racing is subject to the whims of the weather. It doesn’t take much rain to cancel a racing program. As soon as I hear of a track cancellation I am as likely as not to make a U-turn with my rental car and head off in another direction. Today, with a clear forecast for my tonight’s race location in Fairfield, Illinois I decided to go ahead and make a hotel reservation. I found a highly rated Comfort Inn in Mattoon, Illinois just an hour and a half north of the track. That would be perfect… until it wasn’t perfect. Once again, I was reminded that it’s generally a bad idea for me to make a hotel reservation in advance. During the four hour drive down from Chicago to the race track location in Fairfield, Illinois I checked the promoter’s Facebook page. Race canceled! Say what? It turns out the area got a lot of rain yesterday, so much rain that they couldn’t get things together for tonight’s racing. This happens more frequently at these once a year county fair shows. They just don’t have the equipment to get a race track back in shape after it’s been heavily rained upon. Eldora Speedway would absolutely be racing tonight despite having heavy rain yesterday. This wasn’t Eldora Speedway. I messaged the promoter. We chatted online for a while. We were both disappointed in the cancellation. He had scheduled an at the track interview with me and his announcer. I had been looking forward to that. Since this race will be held during a county fair it won’t be rescheduled this year. I’ll have to wait until at least next year to check the box on this one. Now I was left with a Tuesday evening with clear weather out in the Midwest with no auto racing anywhere nearby. I did have a fallback plan. I could catch a minor-league baseball game somewhere in the general area. You might be saying to yourself, “Randy, why minor-league baseball? Why not go to a major-league baseball game?” Unless I really like something I’ve already seen or done I’m all about doing something for the first time. When I get the chance, I’m going to try a new restaurant before I go back to an old restaurant that I might’ve liked. I do that with auto racing and I do that with sports. I’ve already seen a baseball game at allactive major-league baseball stadium so now minor-league games reach my radar. I wouldn’t go back to a minor-league baseball stadium where I’ve already seen a game. I did a little searching. I soon found out that if I drove west a little bit, I could see a home game featuring the Springfield Sliders versus the Quincy Gems. As a matter fact they were having a doubleheader. I could just make it on time. There was one problem with this plan. This problem was the reason that I don’t reserve hotel rooms in advance. I had a hotel reservation in Mattoon, Illinois. The baseball game was going to be played in Springfield, Illinois. My hotel was east of Springfield. Tomorrow I wanted to head out toward Hutchinson, Kansas. Hutchinson is west of Springfield. I was now going to have to drive 170 miles out of my way after the ball game to go back to the hotel (east) and then drive right past Springfield again on the way to Hutchinson (west) tomorrow. Luckily, I like driving. I seriously considered just “eating” the hotel expense in Mattoon and paying for a second hotel somewhere in a westerly direction. I decided against that. I ended up staying in Mattoon. Tonight’s game was played at the Robin Roberts Stadium in Springfield. Roberts was a star pitcher for the Philadelphia Phillies when I was a kid. Robin grew up in Springfield, Illinois! A ticket to the game was only five bucks. Parking was free. The Springfield Sliders are a collegiate summer league baseball team in the United States Prospect League. The Sliders formed in November 2007 and were an expansion franchise for the 2008 season. The Sliders and other collegiate summer leagues and teams exist to give top college players professional-like experience without affecting NCAA eligibility. Tonight was “$2 day”. Several food and drink items were just two bucks. I went with a corn dog and pretzel with cheese. There wasn’t much of a crowd. I just relaxed, had my baseball dinner and watched the game. I really wanted to be at a race tonight but the ballgame turned out to be a nice substitute. This was day one of my six-day trackchasing adventure. I hope you get a sense of how unusual and unpredictable the travel aspect of this hobby can be. It’s probably not the kind of thing that you do on a typical family vacation. I don’t blame you for that! WEDNESDAY I didn’t have any trackchasing planned for today. It’s very unusual for me to be on the road without a night of racing involved. When the Fairfield, Illinois race was canceled on Tuesday that really messed up my plan. If I had known they weren’t going to race in Illinois I could’ve left on this trip two days later. That made me think I had sort of wasted two days when I could have been home. I don’t go on these trips to not see racing. Most of my day would be occupied with some business meetings and driving. By the end of today I had driven more than 700 miles. I had not been able to see a race yet. I was continuing to work with the lenders who are refinancing our home loan. We are in the homestretch now. If you are not a subscriber to my financial/travel newsletter and want to learn more about the world of personal finance you will want to sign up. Refinancing is a little bit of an online paperwork hassle. Nevertheless, if lowering your interest-rate or increasing and improving the terms of your loan are part of the refinance that’s going to be a good idea. We are in the last ten days of the process which will take about 40 days. When we’re done it’s going to be a very profitable business arrangement. However, in the mortgage refinance business it’s never over until it’s over. I’ve come to find out that going to a minor-league baseball game is a nice alternative when I’m on the road and don’t have any trackchasing plans or when weather has affected my plans. Last night I saw a game in Springfield Illinois featuring the Springfield Sliders playing the Quincy Gems. Tonight, I was hoping to find a game being played somewhere on my driving route from where I woke up this morning in Mattoon, Illinois to where I wanted to be on Thursday evening in Hutchinson, Kansas. I found the perfect opportunity. The Kansas City Monarchs were going to be playing the Houston Apollos at Legends Field in Kansas City, Kansas. Perfect. It would take me 4-5 hours to drive there and then after the game I would have only a 3 1/2 hour drive over to Hutchison. Legends Field was built in 2002. This is what Wikipedia told me about the park. “Legends Field is a baseball park in Kansas City, Kansas, located in the Kansas City neighborhood of Piper. It is the home of the Kansas City Monarchs of the American Association of Professional Baseball, and Kansas City NWSL of the National Women’s Soccer League. It was formerly home of the Kansas City Wizards (now Sporting Kansas City) of Major League Soccer. The ballpark was originally named after CommunityAmerica Credit Union, a Kansas City area financial institution, which held naming rights to the park from 2002 to 2017. The reported dimensions of CommunityAmerica are 300 feet (91 m) down the left field line (with an 18-foot (5.5 m) wall, affectionately known as “the Little Green Monster”), 411 feet (125 m) to left center, 396 feet (121 m) to dead center. With the addition of bleacher seats in 2008, the park has 6,537 fixed seats, though its capacity (including the concourse, picnic area, right field grass berm, and center field party area) is usually considered over 7,500.” Legends Field looked much more modern than a stadium having been built some 19 years ago. Ticket prices range from $5 to $45. As a veteran observer of professional baseball, and especially minor-league baseball, I knew the crowd would be small. I could buy a ticket for five dollars and sit anywhere I wanted. That is what I did. Tonight’s game time temperature was about 90° and humid which is what you would expect in Kansas during the middle of July. One of the pluses of this ballpark is that you can make a complete walking circle around the entire field. Our favorite baseball park Angels Stadium has the same option. This allowed me to get in my four miles of walking while observing all aspects the stadium. It was fun to stop and see the activity in the bullpen. I could see the starting pitcher getting loose before the game and hear the players talking and welcoming young fans. My five dollar ticket was for grass seating in right field. That location is called “home run hill”. Lots of families with young children sit there. Price drives a lot of things in this world. I would end up grabbing a Coors Light and a really good piece of pizza and watching the game from down the third-base line. The Kansas City Monarchs are in first place in their league. The Houston Apollos are in last place with a dismal 7-43 record. The Apollos jumped out to a seemingly commanding lead of 10-3 in the early innings. By the end of the sixth inning the Monarchs had tightenedthe score to 10-8. Having driven more than 700 miles in the first two days of this trip and knowing that I wanted to call Carol back in California at a reasonable hour I decided to bag the game after six innings. That might’ve been a mistake. The Monarchs came back to win the game 12 -11 on two consecutive homers the final being a walk off. I had a good time at the game. The park is located right next to the Kansas Speedway. I have visited there on more than one occasion. I actually saw the inaugural event at the Kansas Speedway featuring Indy cars. Tonight’s crowd was maybe 300 people tops. I wonder how many of those 300 were still around for that final home run? A few years ago, I stopped in downtown Kansas City to visit the Negro Baseball Hall of Fame Museum. That was fantastic. I really enjoyed it. The Kansas City Monarchs were and are pretty much the “Negro”baseball team of the century starting back in the 30s. They’ve had such famous baseball players on their team as Ernie Banks, Jackie Robinson and Satchel Paige. That’s impressive. In 2021 the Monarchs nickname has been reimagined. The Kansas City monarchs used to be the Kansas City T-bones. It seemed a bit ironic that the 2021 Kansas City Monarchs play in a baseball stadium located out in the suburbs. I probably didn’t count 10 black fans at the game tonight. Of course, the Kansas City Monarchs originally were an all-black team in the Negro baseball league. All of that seems sort of odd. Tomorrow night I’ve got a race scheduled in Hutchinson, Kansas. The rain forecast is dismal. If they do cancel, I hope they cancel by the middle of the afternoon so that I don’t have to make a seven hour round-trip drive out west only to be disappointed. If they did rainout in Hutchinson, I could just stay in Kansas City and head on out directly to Minnesota for Friday night’s racing. We’ll see what happens. THURSDAY Kansas State Fairgrounds – Hutchinson, KS – Lifetime Track #2,722 I woke up to a rainy parking lot at my Kansas City hotel this morning. That didn’t matter. I was planning to trackchase nearly 200 miles to the west in Hutchinson, Kansas. The forecast called for rain in the morning in Hutchison but clear after about 12 noon. I figured since this is a larger well-known track, they would probably have the equipment to make things go off as planned and they did. The Kansas State Fairgrounds runs races just once a year. The National Championship Racing Association (NCRA) is the sanctioning group. They used to be much bigger in terms of importance than they are today. In the past I’ve seen racing at the Hutchison Raceway Park (HRP). I was also always a little confused as to whether or not HRP and the Kansas State Fairgrounds were one and the same. They are not. To get my day off on the right foot for the 230-mile one-way drive I stopped at the Waffle House. I had some “sponsorship” from them. I am a member of their “regular’s club”. From time to time they send me free offers for stuff including free waffles. Despite what some might thinkWaffle House is not inexpensive. Yes, I got a free Waffle today but the rest of my order including tip cost me $16.50! Most of my drive was through a rain storm that was moving out of western Kansas and then toward Kansas City. Using my weather app, Weather Underground, I could see the rain was leaving the race location.I didn’t mind enduring a little of the wet stuff to get over to the race trackwhen I pretty much knew they would be racing. I had enough time to stop in Emporia, Kansas which was along the way. Emporia is the hometown for NASCAR’s Clint Bowyer (above). I wanted to see the community center that he helped support. I would do that tomorrow. I used Priceline to get a Quality Inn Hotel in Emporia. I had just enough time to take about an hour’s nap. I take my sleep where I can get it out on the trackchasing trail. There are only a few state fairs that hold big-time auto racing with large covered grandstands. The fairs that do that have really decreased over time. I was a little surprised that tonight’s racing was not being held during the actual state fair itself. Nevertheless, I would be able to see the 65th running of the Grand National auto races at the Kansas State Fairgrounds. This was going to be a three day event. I was here on Thursday night the first night of the extravaganza. I paid my $20 admission fee and marched on down to the huge grandstand. They race on a 5/8 mile dirt track here at the state fairgrounds. I know this place has a long story history it’s just I don’t know much about it personally. When I walked in, the first person I saw was trackchasing rookie sensation John Simpson. John and I had matched up last week in Lewiston, Missouri. We both expected to show up tonight here in Hutchinson, Kansas. It’s always fun sitting down to talk with John and hearing his perspective on his new hobby and trackchasing in general as he approaches 200 lifetime tracks. My total currently sits a little bit more than 2,700. In some ways we look at what we are doing a little bit differently and at the same time have quite a bit in common. John is currently doing most of his trackchasing within his “500 mile geographical driving circle”. What is that? John lives just outside of Kansas City. If one were to draw a circle with a radius distance of 500 miles of Kansas City that is John’s 500-mile geographical driving circle. Having done this for years I have determined that several things can really slow down a trackchaser when it comes to seeing new tracks. First, is family life. Most trackchasers will get derailed when they get married and later have children. Maybe that’s why most trackchasers are not married and virtually none of them have children. It is commonly said and certainly true, “he who travels alone travels fastest”. John just got married. Another life experience that will affect the trackchaser is retiring. You might think that when a person retires, they will trackchase even more with increased free time. The exact opposite is true. When people retire, they trackchase less…much less. You can look at the data which supports that assertion. Why would this be? Maybe it’s because folks are older when they retire. They just don’t have the get up and go they used to have. Maybe it’s because they no longer have a work income? In retirement people can get very conservative with their finances. Trackchasing costs money. Retired folks don’t want to go broke. John Simpson is in his late 20s. He doesn’t have to worry about retirement for a long time. The last major item that will have a direct influence on a trackchaser’s proclivity is his or her “500-mile geographical driving circle”. Most folks can drive 500 miles in a single day. Certainly, most trackchasers can do that. However, statistics show that when tracks are located outside of this magical 500-mile geographical driving circle the chaser is MUCH less motivated to make an 800-mile drive to see a county fair figure 8 race! Trust me. I’m pretty good with numbers and I have been watching this phenomenon impact trackchasers for decades. John Simpson’s 500-mile geographical driving circle is located in generally a very productive part of the United States for trackchasing. To the west Limon, Colorado would be about 500 miles from KC. Unfortunately, there are not all that many trackchasing opportunities to the west of Kansas City. To the north Minneapolis is roughly 500 miles from KC. This geography includes the state of Iowa that is rich with racetracks. To the south Shreveport, Louisiana is about 500 miles down the road. The landscape includes racing in Missouri, Oklahoma and Arkansas. There are quite a few tracks here but these states don’t race very often during the week. To the east you will find that Indianapolis is close to 500 miles from Kansas City. This includes the racetrack rich areas of Illinois and Indiana. John will be a midwestern trackchaser based upon his 500-mile geographical driving circle location. Ed Esser was one of the best ever trackchasers from the Midwest. Ed hailed from Madison, Wisconsin. When Ed died in 2014, he had seen racing at 1,430 lifetime tracks. All but one of those tracks was located in the United States. The last track Ed Esser ever saw and his first track he ever saw outside the U.S. was one and the same…the Mission Bay ice track in Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada. Ed and I made that trip to Canada together. I classify the “Midwest” as Iowa, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, North Dakota, Nebraska, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Dakota and Wisconsin. Ed saw racing at 848 tracks in these midwestern states. Brian Dolphy is currently the top trackchaser in the Midwest who also lives in the Midwest. Brian has been very active for the past 4-5 years from his headquarters in southern Illinois. How many tracks has Brian seen in the Midwest? 323! He’s got a long way to go to get near Mr. Esser’s total. I grew up in the Midwest. However, I didn’t do much trackchasing early on. By the time I was 31 years of age I had only seen racing at 71 tracks. Heck, by the time I was 46 years old I had only seen racing at 296 tracks. I was definitely a late bloomer! To date, I have seen racing at 984 tracks in the Midwest. It will be a long time, if ever, that anyone trackchases at that many tracks in the Midwest. It’s going to be fun observing John Simpson’s trackchasing future. There have been virtually no “young people” taking up this hobby for decades. Will John be limited, as I was, with a wife and maybe children in the future? We must wait and see. I would hate to see John fall prey to the demographic that has haunted trackchasing in the past. The hobby has definitely not been “family friendly”. Will John fall victim to his “500-mile geographical driving circle”. We will have to wait a fairly long time to see about that. John has a large amount of activity that he can do in the future WITHIN that circle. However, it turns out, I hope he enjoys the hobby in whatever form it takes for him. Tonight, in Hutchinson three classes were racing. There was a super stock division, some 305 winged sprint cars and a group of modified stock cars. Car counts were on the skinny side. The superstocks had seven cars. The sprint cars had nine. They were 16 or 18 modifieds. Despite the relatively low car counts the sound in the covered grandstand made it sound like every division had a full field of 40 cars each. There wasn’t a lot of passing in the feature races. What do I mean by “not a lot of passing”? Well, there was not a single pass for the lead in any of the three features. Occasionally someone came close to swapping the lead but it never really happened. I asked John if many of the crowd actually knew that there hadn’t been a single pass for the lead in the featurestonight. He agreed that was likely not even noticed. John mentioned that he had seen racing at 13 new tracks in the past 11 days. That was impressive. What was even more noteworthy was thatJohn told me he hadn’t slept away from his home or his parent’s home for a single night during his adventures. Ah, the life of a rookie Trackchaser. We got out of the track at a reasonable hour. I was driving back to Emporia just two hours to the east while John was making it all the way back to Kansas City this evening. The race at the Kansas State Fairgrounds would be my only track of this trip where I would not be the first trackchaser ever to darken their door. Since I’ve seen so many tracks up to this point it’s kind of a big deal to go out and find a place that no other trackchaser ever been to. So far thirtyof the 51 new tracks I’ve seen this year are tracks were I was the first trackchaser to walk through the turn styles. FRIDAY Wabasha County Fairgrounds – Wabasha, MN – Lifetime Track #2,723 I will be doing quite a bit of driving with the National Car Rental Racing Toyota Camry on this trip. Long drives have now become the average trip and not the exception. Why? Because the tracks but I still want to see are located so far from each other. From last night’s track in Hutchison, Kansas it was going to be a 662-mile drive up to southern Minnesota to see an autocross race in Wabasha. When I have to drive as far as I had to drive today there isn’t much time for anything else. No trackchasing tourist attractions from this point forward on this trip! I pulled into the crowded and unusual situated Wabasha County Fairgrounds at just a few minutes before 7 p.m. the official start time of the event. I paid five bucks to park and $10 for admission to the races. The pits were absolutely jammed. There had to be 75-100 auto cross cars waiting for their share of the limelight. I grabbed a seat over in the small aluminum grandstands. The sun would set behind me. My top row seat location was outstanding. It wasn’t long before the fella sitting next to me leaned over and said, “How fast do you think these guys are going”. That started our conversation. I absolutely love meeting local people. These folks were local. They lived in a nearby small town with a population of 150 people. I would soon come to learn that my new friend had raced demo cars for about 20 years. He loved it. Now he’s into street rods and takes his cars to custom car shows. It wasn’t long before we were comparing the vast differences between rural southern Minnesota living and what the California lifestyle might be like. My friend told me he purchased a 10-acre piece of property with a nice house on it for $66,000 a few years ago. He just sold it for $285,000. I mentioned to him and his wife that this evening I would be staying in Minneapolis. They shuttered. They told me that they wouldn’t go to Minneapolis for anything because on the news every night there are stories about various forms of violence. Of course, Minneapolis has had a rough past year or so with the George Floyd killing. I mentioned that I am on the road about 175 nights a year. The wife I was talking to shuttered once more. She alluded that she wouldn’t want to travel like that because she enjoys being home. Carol might say something similar but probably not be as strong about it. My buddy and I compared the cost of car license plates and real estate taxes and real estate properties. I’ll just say that there are vast differences between southern Minnesota and Southern California! My friend told me there wasn’t much of an electric car business anywhere near where he lived. I explained a few of the advantages of electric cars and solar panels. I find that so many people, especially more rurallylocated people, don’t know the first thing about electrified automobiles. I enjoy sharing the advantages of EVs. Tonight’s racing was interesting. The track was sort of a “square oval”. They were four turns and four straightaways. The track wasn’t that large and had quite a few moguls in the racing surface. This made it be a real handful for the drivers as they tried to get around the track. They were racing four cylinder cars, six cylinder cars and trucks. You’re not gonna want to miss my YouTube video of the race action. Tonight, I was seeing racing at my 2,722nd lifetime track and my 110th track in Minnesota. I’ve been up here a lot! Following the race action, I took a short walk around the small rural fair. There was no carnival. They did have a few animals at the fair. The entire place was built in sort of a hilly forest. It was more like a county fair location I would have seen in Kentucky rather than Minnesota. I bought a caramel milkshake and just walked around to see what I could see. I’ve been all over Minnesota. I’ve been up here 78 different times just for trackchasing. Most of what I have seen in Minnesota has offered up a very flat terrain. That’s why I was so surprised when I left the fairgrounds tonight. I would have thought I was in the mountains of North Carolina with all the switchbacks and elevation changes offered up by the highway. It was obviously dark and most of the highway was a no passing zone. I was on this road for about 30 miles. I simply couldn’t believe that I was in Minnesota. After the 662-mile drive from last night’s track to the Wabasha County Fairgrounds I still had another hour and a half to get over to theMinneapolis suburb where I would stay overnight. There I had a very nice Marriott hotel waiting for me and a most comfortable bed that was just what I needed at this point. SATURDAY Pennington County Fairgrounds – Thief River Falls, MN – Lifetime Track #2,724 The long daily driving distances continue today. I would be traveling from my hotel in Edina, Minnesota to Thief River Falls, Minnesota, a distance of 300 miles. Then following the Baja races at the Pennington County Fairgrounds I’ll make the same 300-mile drive back to the very same hotel. I am routinely going to be getting a 20-50% discount off of normal hotel prices by using Priceline.com. I would much rather pay $80 for a Marriott and save 50 bucks than pay $50 for a Motel 6. I don’t wanna buy cheap things cheap. I wanna buy good things cheap. I stopped into a Holiday gas station where I noticed that apple fritters were two for $2.25. How can you only buy one apple fritter in a situation like this? They were both good! It was interesting seeing Amish farmers out in their fields cutting hay and being pulled by a team of horses. I wonder if they look at their neighbors and see how relatively “easy” their farming life is compared to the Amish way. These Amish guys work their butts off. One of the things I routinely do when I stop for gas with my rental cars is to fill the tank until the gas begins to overflow. I especially like doing that with Toyota Camrys. Today I was able to drive 218 miles before the gas gauge begin to come off of totally full. That will help me when I return my rental car. This afternoon they would be having Baja racing for the first time ever at the Pennington County Fairgrounds in Thief River Falls, Minnesota. Just like at Wabasha last night and now in Pennington I was the first trackchaser ever to come to either of these events. This fairground has a very large and quality brand new grandstand. The grandstand is covered which was most helpful today on a 90° humid and sunny day. Luckily there was a nice breeze. On the fairgrounds itself is a huge building used for hockey called the Ralph Engelstad Arena. I’ve been to the Ralph Engelstad Arena for college hockey at the University of North Dakota campus in Grand Forks. That ND arena is as nice as any other sports arena that I’ve ever been in. Ralph Engelstad was huge in North Dakota and Minnesota. He owned his own construction company and became a millionaire at the age of 29. Later he owned the Imperial Palace casino in both Las Vegas, Nevada and Biloxi, Mississippi. The Ralph Engelstad arena on the campus of the University of North Dakota was the site of one of my best sporting events ever. What an atmosphere for hockey. What an atmosphere for being in North Dakota. I would love to go back sometime. Today’s racing took place on a nearly flat dirt surface. There were some minor chicanes but the drivers could drive right through those chicanesfor the most part without making a turn to the left or right. This makes me want to count today’s track configuration as an oval. The announcer was quite active and entertaining. Those are good traits for an answer. He also has a strong PA system. A really huge crowd all paid $20 each to get in to see the races. They were having a good time. These people would have had less of a good time if there hadn’t been a roof over the grandstand to knock away the sun. Today there were four cylinder cars, six cylinder cars, trucks and an open class. I’m going to guess they had 60 cars plus or minus. That was a good turnout. The announcer told the crowd that this was the first time there has ever been Baja racing on the grounds of the Pennington County Fairgrounds. I first learned of this event by seeing a flyer a couple of weeks ago when I saw some Baja racing in Oklee, Minnesota. Baja racing is expanding rapidly in this part of the country. There might be 10 or more fairgrounds having this kind of racing in 2021. The county fair was going on today as well. The fair itself was located so far from the grandstand that I didn’t really feel like walking all the way over there in the heat. I was just happy for the breeze running through the grandstand. Don’t miss my YouTube video and photo album from today’s visit. These Baja drivers put a lot of effort into their racing. They were not afraid to hit the gas. Whenever a crowd as large as what showed up today will pay $20 to see this kind of an event that’s pretty impressive. On the 300-mile drive back to the hotel tonight I drove through a small Minnesota town and saw a Mexican restaurant with several cars parked in front. It was just about time for dinner so I ventured on in. I was reminded that it’s not necessarily a good idea to try to eat good Mexican food in small Midwestern towns. I had a burrito with ground beef and queso. Honestly, not that good. This is the last half of July. This time of year, is probably the busiest time of the year for my trackchasing. It’s county fair season. I’ve got another busy week planned next week. I’ve been traveling a lot. I would like to cut that back just a little bit because I’ve only had a day or two at home each week for the past several weeks. Tomorrow I will try to catch some winged kart racing over in Wisconsin. If I was up for it, I could try to see the World of Outlaw late model race in nearby Menominee, Wisconsin. Along those lines I checked the World of Outlaws late model lineup as they were racing at the I-94 Speedway tonight. It looked as if a lot of the big names were not following the tour at this point. I think I’ll just try to catch the go-karts tomorrow afternoon and head back to Chicago. That way I can get an early morning flight to Los Angeles on Monday morning. We’ll see. No final decision yet. SUNDAY Eagles Nest Kart Track – Jim Falls, WI – Lifetime Track #2,725 I rented my car for five days. It’s a Toyota Camry four-cylinder. For a rental car I absolutely love this automobile. When I return the car to the airport it will have more than 2,800 miles on the trip odometer during those five days. Today I set an all-time record by driving 716 miles on a single tank of gas. My previous record was 715 miles! With my rental cars I always fill the tank to the brim so that I don’t have to stop any more often than I have to. I learned that from NASCAR. Today after my record fuel economy run the car took 16.5 miles of gasoline to fill it back up. The fuel tank capacity for a 2021 Toyota Camry is 15.8 gallons. I can’t explain this! All during this drive I had the air conditioning running and drove about 5 miles over the speed limit. I was able to get 43.4 miles per gallon. If I was in the market for this class of car, I would absolutely buy a Toyota Camry. This afternoon I will be trackchasing in Jim Falls, Wisconsin. I last ventured up to this part of the world for trackchasing in 2003. That’s an 18 year hiatus. On Monday, May 26, 2003 I went to see racing at the Eagle Valley Speedway in Jim Falls. Eagle Valley was lifetime track #635. the above mentioned Ed Esser joined me that day. Today I was coming to the Eagles Nest Kart Track in Eagle River. The kart track sits in the infield of the larger Eagle Valley Speedway. Today was a special event for the Eagles Nest track. Why? This was going to be their first ever racing event. They had held practices here but never had a race yet. I was honored to be at the track for their inaugural outing. I make it a very common practice to be the first trackchaser to visit a large number of tracks. Keep in mind there are hundreds of trackchasers. They have been recording new track visits since 1998. You would think there would be virtually no new tracks that a person could go to that had an already been visited by someone. Not the case. Today I was seeing racing at the 54th new track of my 2021 trackchasing season. Thirty-three of those 54 tracks had me being the first trackchaser ever to see that particular track host a racing event. On a very few occasions other trackchasers have been at the track on these first time visits with me. If I had to guess no other trackchaser has visited as many as 10 tracks this year as the first ever trackchaser to visit that particular venue. I think having done this 33 times in the first half of the season is pretty impressive if I do say so myself. A few days a call I called Tony (above) the promoter at Eagles Nest. I wanted to ask him exactly what types of go-kart type racers he would be having at his event. I had read the rules and knew that the “250” class was trackchasing countable. Now the question was would any 250 cart drivers and carts be competing? Tony told me that his nephew, aged 11, races in the 250 division. The rules allow for any driver aged 11 and up to race in this class. Tony told me he would have to make some phone calls to see if any other drivers were planning on attending this Sunday event. He said he would call back… and he did. Tony confirmed with me over the phone that at least one other driver would show up. Except in the most unusual circumstances two countable drivers in countable race cars are required in order for a trackchaser to count a track. It looked as if I was “golden”, as we used to say when I worked in the factory at the Caterpillar Tractor Company, for my visit to Eagles Nest Kart Track. Last night I stayed over in Minneapolis at a Marriott hotel. I slept in until noon and then made the leisurely 2 1/2 hour drive over to Jim Falls, Wisconsin. Just after I paid my five dollar general admission fee the national anthem was being sung. I had bypassed the option of paying $20 for a pit pass. Today was a beautiful blue sky day with temperatures in the mid 80s. It was a bit warm but I’ll take that over a rainy day anytime. A good number of fans, likely parents and family members, brought their lawn chairs and enjoyed an afternoon of go-kart racing. At first, I thought we were going to have a high-quality track announcer. He made a couple of announcements but from that point on only country music was shared over the speakers. Then after a few minutes of that nothing. Go-kart tracks don’t typically do real well with having announcers. The Eagles Nest Kart Track is located entirely inside the quarter-mile Eagle River Speedway banked dirt track oval. From the looks of the black rubber on the track they probably raced here in the last day or two. I hadn’t remembered all that much from my 2003 visit; except they had an outstanding track announcer. Several other classes of go-karts were competing today beyond the 250s. There was a flat kart class for adults. They will several caged kartclasses. Some of those caged kart classes were winged. They were all for kids. From what I could tell the two carts in the 250 class were the only trackchasing countable racers at the track today. To begin with something happened that doesn’t happen very often at all. The 250 caged karts came out and competed in the first race of the day. Normally when there are only one or maybe two countable classes they race at the end of the day. This afternoon’s program called for each class to race two heat races and a feature I had a chance to talk to Tony the promoter after the first round of heat races. I always find talking to promoters to be very interesting. Most often they have some very unusual life stories. It turned out that Tony had worked for NASCAR in the marketing/promotions side of the business for 10 years. He was mainly involved in managing souvenir sales. He told me at the height of NASCAR’s popularity there were 99 souvenir trucks on the road. Today he said there are seven. He also mentioned that a big problem for NASCAR with their souvenir sales is employee theft. I guess the temporary workers like to supplement their pay! Yes, sometimes there’s a distinct sad side to America. The Eagles Nest Kart Track had initially scheduled a special two day national event to coincide with some of the other nearby tracks who would be running their “nationals”. Tony told me that Kyle Busch and Kelly Miller Earnhardt (Jr.’s sister) had called to see what the national schedule look like at Eagles Nest. Their kids race and they wanted to have the opportunity for them to race up in Wisconsin and nearby states for a week or so. It turned out Eagles Nest was having just their first-ever event today. They didn’t want to risk having a nationals event when they didn’t have all of their ducks in a row. Tony told me that Kyle Busch even called back a few days later to see if he had changed his mind about racing on August 5 with a nationals event. There was no change in the track’s decision. The nationals would not be at Eagles Nest this year. It was a good day of trackchasing. Whenever you can be the firsttrackchaser to visit a venue and be able to count it with only two approved competitors that’s a pretty good day no matter how you look at it. From Eagle River, Wisconsin my destination was going to be Chicago’sO’Hare International Airport. I would grab a hotel there tonight and fly home tomorrow. When I went to fill up my Toyota Camry for the final time, I had driven 205 miles since the last fill up. I always fill up the car’s fuel tank to the brim so that I have to stop for gas as few times as possible. That being the case I was only able to put 3.2 gallons into the tank. I had driven 205 miles withbrim to brim fill-ups. I could only put 3.2 gallons into the tank? Unbelievable! This five-day trip seemed like it was about 15 days long. I could hardly think back to last Tuesday when I got rained out at the track I had hoped to visit in Illinois. I was able to see a couple of minor-league baseball games. I also added four new tracks to my all-time list. Three of those tracks were “first-ever” visits by ANY trackchaser. Not a bad trip I would say. By the way, I have a smart phone app for just about everything. On the drive back to O’Hare airport I decided that I had just enough time to catch a movie if the timing was right. As I approached Madison, Wisconsin Iused my Fandango app to check out movie times. The movie “Road Runner” covering the life of Anthony Bourdain was showing just at the right time. I wheeled the National Car Rental Racing Toyota Camry into the parking lot of the movie theater and soon was in my seat just as the last movie trailer was finishing up. In a very slight way, I see my lifestyle as being somewhat similar to what Anthony Bourdain was doing. I was never a huge fan of his and didn’t really watch his program. However, I was saddened and surprised at his untimely death here a couple of years ago. I really enjoyed the film and highly recommend it. A couple of hours later I was pulling into the Holiday Inn located right next to her the O’Hare International Airport. I got a great deal on my room from Priceline. I would be able to get a solid eight hours sleep before departingfor home tomorrow morning. But wait. Maybe I wouldn’t be flying back to SoCal tomorrow morning! More on that in my next Trackchaser Report. Randy Lewis – 85 countries – 2,725 tracks. Kansas The Jayhawk State This evening I saw racing at my 46th lifetime track in the Jayhawk, yes, the Jayhawk State. I hold the #1 trackchasing ranking in Kansas. Kansas ranks #18, amongst all the states, in tracks seen for me in the U.S. Here’s a link to my all-time Kansas state trackchasing list. I have made 36 separate trips to Kansas seeing these tracks. Minnesota The North Star State This weekend I saw racing at my 110th and 111th lifetime tracks in the North Star, yes, the North Star State. I hold the #1 trackchasing ranking in Minnesota. Minnesota ranks #5, amongst all the states, in tracks seen for me in the U.S. Here’s a link to my all-time Minnesota state trackchasing list. I have made 78 separate trips to Minnesota seeing these tracks. Wisconsin The Badger State This Sunday I saw racing at my 109th lifetime tracks in the Badger, yes, the Badger State. I hold the #3 trackchasing ranking in Wisconsin. Wisconsin ranks #8, amongst all the states, in tracks seen for me in the U.S. Here’s a link to my all-time Wisconsin state trackchasing list. I have made 72 separate trips to Wisconsin 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 Kansas sayings: “Driving like a bat out of hell.” Used to describe Missouri drivers. Minnesota sayings: Juicy Lucy Meaning: Wisconsin sayings: We’re headin’ Up Nort’ Not only is “up nort'” more of a state of mind than an actual physical location, but this one is just the first of many phrases on this list where I think accents attributed to the changing and dropping of letters. 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 855 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. No flips or crashes! Racing on the big track at the Kansas State Fairgrounds. Ever been to Wabasha County? Maybe the most unusual track I’ve seen. Roughest racing ever? Maybe…from Thief River Falls, Minnesota. I returned to Jim Falls, Wisconsin…this time for the go-kart racing 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. Each trip includes a lot of photos of the “trip” and not just the racing. From one U.S. senator, “I think if I wanted to see what this adventure was like and didn’t have all that much time, I would just look at the photo album.” All photo albums fully captioned. Baseball all over the Midwest then a trip to the Kansas State Fairgrounds Wabasha Country…they were country before country was cool Amish farming and then Thief River Falls, MN for their first ever racing event Eighteen years later it was time to return to Jim Falls, Wisconsin, population: 237 
