Greetings from Russellville, Kentucky
And then Gray Court, South Carolina
From the travels and adventures of the
“World’s #1 Trackchaser”
Logan County Ag Arena Dirt oval Lifetime Track #2,760 Warrior Creek Speedway Dirt oval Lifetime Track? No score! THE EVENT Editor’s note: My trips are never simple. I guess I could title my weekend adventure as a “one in a million” odyssey. First, I just missed the huge Kentucky tornado tragedy. Then on Sunday, a “one in a million” trackchasing experience happened. What did I learn from all of this? The future is impossible to predict. 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 kissing the bricks at Indy). I live in San Clemente, California. I am a “trackchaser”. I trackchase. Have you ever in your life heard of “trackchasing”? I didn’t think so. Trackchasing for me is all about three things. First, I enjoy auto racing. Secondly, my hobby requires a good deal of overnight travel. When I venture out to see a race at a track I’ve never seen before I do not want my trip limited to racing only. The very last thing I want when I’m done trackchasing is to have memories of only racing. I want to take some time to see the local attractions of wherever I might be visiting. Those visits in many cases will provide more long-lasting memories than whatever I saw on the track. Finally, I want to create a logistical plan that allows me to accomplish the two points mentioned above without depleting my retirement account. That’s trackchasing for me. I’ve been able to see the world doing this. If you’re interested in exactly what I’ve been able to experience all around the U.S. and the world I recommend you click on this link. Trackchasing Tourist Attractions After each and every event that I attend I post a YouTube video, a SmugMug photo album and a very detailed Trackchaser Report about the experience on my website at www.randylewis.org. My trackchasing contributions generate a good deal of interest in what I am doing. My YouTube channel (ranlay) has more than 1.3 million views. My website gets more than 20,000 views every month. Because I have seen racing in 85 countries at this point I am considered the World’s #1 Trackchaser. That’s good enough for me. Now I encourage you to drop down a few spaces and read about today’s trackchasing adventure. As you discover what went on at this track just think about the idea that I’ve done this more than 2,700 times. I don’t mind admitting I am addicted to the hobby of trackchasing. It’s just fun! If you’re interested in looking back and seeing where I’ve been the following link is for you. If you’ve got a question, comment or whatever please leave it at the bottom of this report. It’s very easy to do. Or you can visit me on Facebook. Thanks! FOREWORD Thursday/Sunday, December 9-12, 2021. I expect this will be my last trackchasing trip of 2021. It’s been a very good year. Covid and the fear of Covid slowed me down a little bit. Some tracks didn’t come through as promised by the promoter. Nevertheless seeing 88 tracks, going into this weekend, in a single year after I’ve already seen nearly 2,800 has got to be a pretty good year. I’ve always said I need three things to make a trackchasing trip. First, I need a race. Next, I need some good weather and finally, I need a way to get there. The combination of these three requirements makes this a very interesting and challenging hobby for me. I have some proprietary methods, which means I can’t share this stuff with anyone, which helps me find race dates. If everybody did it this way, they would probably have a lot more trackchasing opportunities. For this trip, I was hoping to trackchase on Saturday in Russellville, Kentucky. The challenge with Russellville was whether or not I would be able to see a “race”. Yes, they were racing in Russellville but primarily with flat karts. I called the track promoter, Chris. He was a very helpful guy. Chris called around and confirmed they would be getting a few winged outlaw caged karts for his race event. Then he gave me the phone number of Brian who organizes that kart group. I called Brian and had a nice conversation with him for several minutes. He told me several winged karts would be in Russellville. That meant I was going to be a Russellville! You might be asking yourself, “Randy, it’s December what about the weather”? That’s a good question. The Russellville, Kentucky race was going to be held inside the Logan County Ag Center. That meant the weather wasn’t going to be much of a problem unless they had a major snowstorm and that wouldn’t happen this weekend. Chris told me that Russellville was going to begin their racing at 2 p.m. on Saturday afternoon. There was no way I could get to Kentucky from California leaving early on Saturday morning. I would have to leave on Friday. I have to leave a day early quite often to get to a race in the Midwest or east. That’s just part of it for me in order to make the race time in a different time zone. Russellville is about an hour north of Nashville. I checked around to see if there might be some college basketball games being played on Friday night. There was! If I was going to have to travel on Friday, I figured I needed a reward for that. The Loyola Ramblers from Chicago, and former national champions, would be playing Vanderbilt in Nashville at 7 p.m. on Friday night. That game had my name all over it. I went on StubHub and snagged a ticket for six dollars plus fees which got me in for 11 bucks. Now I was committed to going to the Vanderbilt basketball game. How was I going to get there? There were a couple of nonstop flights from Los Angeles to Nashville on Friday morning. However, those flights were full with paying passengers. Getting on one of those flights on a standby basis might be difficult. I gave the entire situation some more thought. Then I discovered I could fly overnight from Los Angeles to Nashville landing on Friday morning with plenty of time to see the game. There was just one minor issue. I got my Moderna booster shot on Tuesday. That pretty much laid me laid out with chills and fever and a sore, red arm all day Wednesday. I specifically got my booster shot on Tuesday after traveling home with Carol from her birthday trip in Boston on Monday. I got the shot on Tuesday because I figured I might need two days to recover so I could travel on Thursday or Friday. That was a good strategy. I decided I didn’t really wanna fly overnight if I could help it the way I was feeling. I searched around and found a flight leaving Los Angeles at 5:30 p.m. on Thursday night. This flight would land at a little past midnight into Atlanta. Atlanta was only a five-hour drive from Nashville. I determined this to be my best opportunity to get as much rest as possible, see the basketball game in Nashville and easily get over to Russellville, Kentucky for Saturday afternoon’s racing. You might not believe all of the “mental gymnastics” that I go through coming up with the very “best” plan. This plan called for about 1,000 miles of driving in three days. At the last minute, I found a race on Sunday down in Gray Court, South Carolina at the Warrior Creek speedway. Gray Court was going to get a lot of rain on Saturday. But if they didn’t get too much they would be able to race on Sunday. If I ended up going down to South Carolina then returning from Atlanta made even more sense. All of this was the plan. If all went well, I would be landing at LAX at midnight on Sunday night. Of course, that would be 3 a.m. South Carolina time. I probably wouldn’t pull into my driveway until about 5 a.m. South Carolina time. Some folks would just be getting up for work on Monday morning when I was just going to be in California! This is how I go about trackchasing. Are you surprised that no one else does it at this level? THURSDAY I’ve had chills and fever and a sore arm from my Covid booster shot. I’ve been sleeping for most of the last 48 hours. A little pain for a long-term gain, right? I’ve set up a Thursday evening flight from Los Angeles to Atlanta. When I landed, I had a National Car Rental car reserved and a Holiday Inn Express waiting for me. I was going to sleep late in the morning and then head up to Nashville to see the Vanderbilt-Loyola basketball game. FRIDAY I had flown into Atlanta when I really wanted to fly into Nashville, Tennessee. Why did I do that? I was pretty much guaranteed to get on a plane in Atlanta. With the Atlanta plan, I would be able to sleep overnight in a hotel. I could’ve flown into Nashville but on an overnight flight only. I guess I’m getting soft in my old age! I really needed to come in on Friday, not Thursday for this trip because the racing was going to begin at 2 p.m. on Saturday. I couldn’t make it on Saturday from Los Angeles but I certainly could’ve come in on Friday However, when I knew that I had to come in on Friday for the racing I checked local college basketball games. That’s when I came up with a home game at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee on Friday night. As noted, they were playing Loyola Chicago in a non-conference matchup. However,…to make sure I got in on time for the college basketball game on Friday night I needed to come in on Thursday! One thing is definitely linked to another in the trackchasing game! At least this morning I could sleep in. I checked out of my hotel in Atlanta at 12 noon. This gave me plenty of time to make the four-hour drive up to Nashville, Tennessee. Every time I stopped for a restroom break or to get something to eat, I walked 4/10 of a mile (8 minutes). This is how I would get 4 miles of walking in today. I purchased my ticket to the basketball game in advance using StubHub. I rarely do that. However, when I saw someone was offering a single ticket for six bucks and just $11 with fees, I jumped all over it. The next cheapest ticket was $30 plus fees. I figured even if last-minute travel plans canceled my opportunity to go to the basketball game, I would only be out 11 bucks. Vanderbilt University is located in downtown Nashville. They are a strong private academic university similar to Northwestern, Stanford or Duke. That normally means they don’t do very well in their conference which is the Southeastern Conference. I arrived early for the game so I could scope out all of the ambiance of the arena. The Memorial Gymnasium opened in 1952. Somewhat incredibly Northwestern University’s Welsh-Ryan Arena opened on the very same day, Saturday, December 6, 1952. This makes Vanderbilt’s Memorial Gymnasium the 26th oldest (tied) active basketball arena going right now. I guess I’ve got a thing for visiting old but still active college basketball locations. Here’s a list of the arenas and when they came into existence all the way through tonight’s Vanderbilt basketball location. Oldest Home Arenas in Division I College Basketball I’ve been to six of the 10 oldest basketball arenas in the country. These include the following: Matthews Arena – Northeastern (1) Rose Hill Gym (above – from Carol’s and my visit to Fordham) – Fordham (2) Lavietes Pavilion – Harvard (3) Hec Edmunson Pavilion – Washington (5) Hinkle Fieldhouse – Butler (saw an NCAA tournament game there (UCLA vs. Alabama) (7) Haas Pavilion – California (10) My six-dollar ticket was recommending that I sit in the nosebleed section of the arena. Nope. I appreciated Vanderbilt University offering a recommendation where I should sit but I figured once I was in the arena, I would leave things to my own best interests. My idea of where to sit translated into a seat just three rows from the corner of the court. This was an excellent seat location. My strategy was aided by a small crowd although an enthusiastic one. My visit allowed me to see a beautiful arena that has been modernized a few different times. The Ramblers of Loyola Chicago have discovered that a shot from beyond the three-point line rewards them with a 50% bonus compared to shots taken inside the three-point line. It’s one thing to know that. It’s another to make those long shots. Loyola took 51 shots in the entire game. Exactly 37 of those shots were three-pointers. They made seventeen. That’s about as strong of a three-point presence as I’ve ever seen. Loyola was a five-point favored in this game. They led by about that amount most of the time until they extended their lead in the second half and ended up winning 69-58. I had a good time. I always do. Oh, one more thing. The starting point guard for Vanderbilt is Scottie Pippen Jr. Yep. He’s the son of Scottie Pippen of Chicago Bulls fame. Pippen Jr. is probably the best player on the Vanderbilt team. On this night he scored 23 points (only one of six from three) and played a very good floor game. On the walk back to the parking garage I heard people talking about a forecast of nighttime tornados this evening. I was surprised that the temperature during my walk was about 70 degrees. This is nearly mid-December! A cold front was coming in behind the warm weather…thus the tornado forecast. I didn’t give the idea any more thought. SATURDAY You can imagine with all the travel I have done over literally decades how many interesting and unusual days that I’ve had on the road. Today was another one of those unusual yet rewarding days which makes my hobby of trackchasing such a fun and exciting thing to do. Early this morning at about 3:30 a.m. my iPhone went off waking me from a dead sleep. Without my glasses, I didn’t really know what the alarm was all about. When it stopped, I simply went back to sleep. About 10 minutes later the alarm was coming back full blast. What in the world was going on? It turned out this was a feature on my iPhone that sends emergency alerts under special circumstances. The special circumstance at 3:30 a.m. in the morning was a tornado warning for my location in Nashville, Tennessee. This was a tornado warning, not a watch. As it turned out a massive tornado hit Mayfield, Kentucky this evening. Mayfield is just about two hours to the northwest of where I was in Nashville. I had trackchased in Mayfield, Kentucky (above) in November 2017. This would be the deadliest tornado that the state of Kentucky had ever seen. Just 24 hours after the storm hit at least 84 people were reported dead with the number rising. That’s a terrible shame. Every year hundreds of people are killed by tornadoes in the Midwest and the south. People comment about earthquakes in California but the number of people killed in earthquakes pales in comparison to the tornado death totals every year. May all of these unlucky souls rest in peace. When I checked out of the hotel this morning, I headed across the street to the Waffle House. Employers of restaurants and lots of other businesses have had a difficult time getting employees since the Covid pandemic began. At first, people who worked in minimum wage jobs took those Covid stimulus payments and expanded unemployment benefits (as lots of other people did) and just stayed home. However, those benefits have long vanished. I don’t really understand how employers can’t get people to work at this point. The Waffle House I was visiting had a sign that said they only accepted “to go” orders from 9 p.m. until 7 a.m. Waffle house used to be a 24 hours a day staple. Things have changed. It looks as if it’s taking a long time to get back to normal. By the way, the sign says grill operators can earn up to $17.50/hour plus benefits and stock options. Some people think of the Waffle House as being a cheap alternative for lower economic customers. That really isn’t true. Today I ordered a waffle with chocolate chips, a cherry Diet Coke (in a to-go cup!) and a cheesesteak melt. My bill with tip came to a bit more than $19! I don’t pay $19 for breakfast anywhere… other than at the Waffle House. Today there was enough food to cover both my breakfast and lunch so I guess it wasn’t as expensive as it initially sounded. From there I drove a little bit more than an hour north to Russellville, Kentucky. Today I would be trackchasing indoors at the Logan County Ag Arena. The term “indoors” was a little bit misleading to describe today’s arena building. The outside temperature hung in at about 45° all day. Because they left the doors to the racing building open in the hopes of reducing the fumes from the racing machines the temperature equalized from both outdoors and indoors. That made the temperature inside around 45° as well. A big part of my hobby is getting information from all kinds of people. These folks can be race promoters, racers, fans, and all sorts of people located all around the world who just want to help me see more tracks with my trackchasing hobby. I am thankful to all of them. I came to Russellville, Kentucky with help from two different sources. The first was Chris, the race promoter. I talked to him on the phone and he gave me all kinds of details. Then I told him a little bit about my hobby. Chris was promoting an indoor go-karting show today. Almost every one of the racers of the more than 100 that showed up today were racing “flat” karts (above). Flat karts dominate the sport of go-kart racing. Long ago trackchasing’s founding fathers hailed mainly from Pennsylvania and the surrounding area. Apparently, they got together in a smoke-filled room in the 1990s and came up with the rules of trackchasing. I wasn’t a part of this. To be honest I feel sort of ashamed of the decisions they made. That’s a sad state of affairs for the World’s #1 Trackchaser to say that he is ashamed of much of the work done by trackchasing’s founding fathers. Nevertheless, it is true in so many circumstances. When I talked to Chris on the phone, I had the unenviable task of telling him that trackchasing rules do not allow a trackchaser to count flat karts as a racing machine. Whenever I tell a promoter or a race driver or a racing fan this, I quickly tell them that I can’t be blamed. I didn’t make the rules. I didn’t make the rules I only play by them. I really feel bad when I have to explain this option to people who are trying to help me with my trackchasing. It’s a little bit like being invited into someone’s home for a meal and then telling them their food isn’t any good. The popular question could be, “If you don’t like the rules why do you follow them”? The answer is simple. If everyone uses the same set of rules, no matter how inconsistent or illogical they might be, then one trackchaser can compare his or her results with someone else who is using the same set of rules. That is the ONLY reason I follow the trackchasing rules. Others might wonder if I would like to see a rule change allowing the counting of flat karts. No, I wouldn’t. Here’s why. There is no question that trackchasing is a “counting” hobby. The hobby is based on stats. Most of the “original top ten” trackchasers has stopped trackchasing due to death or old age. Others rarely go to a new track. I don’t think it would be fair for today’s trackchasers (that includes me) to add flat kart tracks to their totals when the early day trackchasers didn’t have that opportunity. I think it would screw up the comparative stats. I think the hobby just needs to live with the errors of the founding fathers. However, time marches on. As younger (note: not really young but younger) trackchasers look for easier and easier ways to see tracks closer to where they live I wouldn’t be surprised to see a rules change proposal submitted to add the counting of flat kart race venues. A rule change like that would not affect me much. I’ve likely seen hundreds of “kart tracks” on those somewhat rare occasions when they have hosted a countable trackchasing race class. I had explained in my phone call to Chris that I needed to see some form of winged go-karts driven by adults. Yes, trackchasing’s founding fathers turned double thumbs down on races run exclusively by “kids”. This is another aspect of trackchasing rules, among many, that I’m not very proud to explain. At the time of my conversation with Chris, he told me there was a fellow by the name of Brian Patterson who organizes winged outlaw kart racing for adults. Chris recommended that I give Brian a call to see if they were going to be showing up for today’s event. Of course, I called Brian. He was quick to confirm his group would be in Russellville today. I had a great conversation with Brian. It turns out he’s a parts dealer. He also lives in Hopkinsville, Kentucky where my grandfather (above) and grandmother lived for several years. Nice guy. Brian told me there would be several winged outlaw karts racing today. This gave me some confidence that when I showed up in Russellville and later in the day left the track that one more track would be added to my lifetime totals. When I arrived, I parked near the ticket booth and paid my $15 entrance fee. This would give me a full run of the Logan County Ag Arena’s operation. Right next to the entry point was a series of six different winged outlaw karts including the one that Brian Patterson told me he was going to be driving, car #13. I walked over toward their trailer and ran into a young man. I would come to find out this was Ty Patterson, son of Brian Patterson. I didn’t know this at the time so I just walked up to the young man and asked if he knew where I could find Brian Patterson. Soon the youngster was asking me several questions. First, he asked, “Are you Randy Lewis”? I told him that I was. Then he asked, “Did you come all the way from California to see these races”? Again, I answered in the affirmative. Then the young man said his group had been expecting me. He told me, “Everyone’s been talking about the idea that you’ve come all the way from California to see us race. We’re happy to have you”. What a nice Kentucky welcome! Folks when I travel all the way from California to a place like Kentucky and I get a welcome like that it makes me pretty happy that I made the trip. Soon I was being invited into the race trailer, where it was a lot warmer, to meet Brian Patterson. We stood in the trailer for several minutes and I chatted with Larry (L) and Brian (R) and some of his crew members and friends. This was the parts trailer for the track. Customers were coming in from time to time to buy the part that had just broken on their car so they could continue racing today. Brian seemed as happy as his son Ty that I had made the trip from the Golden State. I was just as pleased to meet these guys and happy to see six 450 winged outlaw karts in the pit area. The race format was a bit unusual. There were a little bit more than 100 karts in the pit area. This represented 15 or so racing divisions. Some of those divisions had only three or four competitors. Others had about fifteen. The race schedule called for qualifying first. Then the 450 winged outlaw karts would run a heat race. This would be the only heat race run today. This one and only heat race would be followed by feature events for each of the racing divisions. The 450 outlaw karts would run a feature somewhere in the middle of the program as well. I headed indoors to see what the track looked like. I have probably seen racing at nearly 100 of these indoor go-kart locations. Today’s track was excellent. It was flat but there wasn’t a hint of dust all day. The track was fast too. I was on the hunt to meet the track promoter, Chris. When warm-ups were finished, I corralled the flagman and asked if he knew where I might be able to meet up with Chris. The flagman had some unusual news. He said, “Chris is wearing a mask because he has Covid! If I were you, I wouldn’t get too close to him”. I didn’t need to hear that twice. Although I have been fully vaccinated, I got my own case of Covid back in August. I wasn’t interested in catching it again. I talked with the flagman for a while. I asked him how long he thought qualifying was going to take. He told me 45 minutes. Race promoters and I guess flagmen, are always pretty optimistic about car counts and the time it’s going to take to run the races. Although the flagman told me qualifying would take 45 minutes it took a little bit more than three hours. Was I surprised? Naw. I’ve come to expect this. For most of those three hours, I sat indoors in 45° temperatures and breathed in fumes from more than 100 go-karts. I had arrived at about 1:30 p.m. Qualifying lasted until past 4:30 p.m. I must tell you this. During these long periods of essentially “downtime” for a race fan my iPhone keeps me great company. I get to stay in touch with friends from all over the world. If a question pops up in my mind my iPhone answers that question for me in seconds. I love technology. When qualifying was finished a fellow named Larry came up to say hi. He was part of Brian Patterson’s crew. I met him briefly when I went into the part’s trailer earlier this afternoon. Larry and I talked for several minutes. He told me he has enough time to do two things in life. That’s to go to work at his regular job and to work on go-karts. Good talking to you Larry. The only saving grace after more than three hours of qualifying was the first wheel the wheel race of the day would be a heat race for the 450 winged outlaw karts. There were nearly twenty divisions of karts. The one and only class that would count for me in trackchasing was going to be the first race of the day. I don’t know if that’s ever happened in my life. When that race did take place, I positioned myself down in the middle of turns three and four. I was standing next to a big guy behind a couple of bales of hay and a farm gate. I told him I didn’t think we were standing in the safest position in the building. He just smiled. This small level of protection was all that would separate me from some pretty wild and fast and twitchy winged outlaw karts. I don’t really recommend this to anyone from a safety point of you. Their race was fast and wild especially when I was standing there getting video clips maybe 10 feet from the outside lane. You do not want to miss my video from today’s race. When that one race was finished the announcer told the crowd that in about 35 minutes, they were going to have the first of the “B mains”. B mains? I didn’t know there WOULD be any B main events. I guess with some classes bringing large car counts not everyone was going to be able to make it to the A-main event. This necessitated a semi-feature of sorts. I had initially been told that racing would begin at 2 p.m. In point a fact, racing didn’t begin until about 4:45 p.m. I had hoped to be on the road by no later than 6 p.m. because I had a four-hour drive over to Knoxville, Tennessee. Now they were going to take another 35-minute delay to start the first of the B means….no thanks. 2,760 When the 450 winged outlaw karts took the green flag for their heat race the Logan County Ag Arena became a countable track location. It will forever be known as lifetime track number 2,760. I decided for the first time ever in my life, while attending a go-kart event, that I would leave after one and only one race. Granted, today there was only one racing class that would count for my trackchasing purposes. Based upon the circumstances there was no need to see more of the flat-kart racing. When I headed out, I stopped over to the Patterson parts trailer. I said hello to Ty and then Brian came out to thank me for coming and wished me safe travels as I headed on down the road. I’m pretty sure I’ll see these guys again. They race these winged karts all over the place in the summer. Today I learned of a couple of tracks where they race that were unknown to me until meeting Brian Anderson. As Brian and I were talking the track announcer came over the PA and said that the winged outlaw kart feature was being moved from the middle of the program to the last race of the night. I think that might’ve been because they thought the winged outlaw karts, which are much more powerful than flat karts, would tear up the track with their powerful tires. Now there was a very good chance with all of the karts that were racing today that the winged outlaw kart feature race might not begin until 10 or 11 p.m. or maybe even later. Oh my. I have absolutely no idea why they ran a heat race for the winged karts and why they ran that race as the first race of the day. That was most unusual. If they hadn’t done that I might have had to wait until late at night, after arriving at the track today at 1:30 p.m., to see the one and only countable group race that would allow me to count this track for trackchasing purposes. That would have been a very bad situation considering I needed to make a four-hour drive over to Knoxville, Tennessee after the races today. I’m going to count myself as lucky on several accounts with my visit to Russellville today. I was most lucky to meet up with Brian and Ty Patterson and Larry, one of their team members. I was lucky to meet up with the flagman who gave me a lot of background information about today’s event. I was a little unlucky not to be able to meet up with Chris the track promoter who was having an issue with Covid. I was lucky the schedule put the one and only class I needed to see at the front of the race parade. I was lucky to escape the tragedy of the tornadoes last night. This was a very lucky and a very good day of trackchasing. From Russellville, Kentucky I made the drive over to my Town Place Suites hotel in Knoxville. I got there in time to watch the second half of the UCLA – Marquette basketball game. I used my FOX Sports app to stream the game on my iPad. The UCLA basketball team had some logistical challenges as I did today as well. It’s not unusual for car racing to start late certainly later than scheduled. That’s almost an expectation. However, a late start virtually never happens at a college basketball game. It turns out that the airplane that was flying the UCLA Bruins basketball team from Los Angeles over to Milwaukee had to stop in Denver. Their airplane had a cracked windshield! This delayed their transit and delayed the game from a 1:30 p.m. central time start to an 8:30 p.m. central time start. This allowed me to catch the game on my iPad. My day was getting luckier by the moment. The same weather system that devastated Kentucky last night at about midnight was going to be moving through Gray Court, South Carolina at about 3 p.m. this afternoon. Gray Court was where I planned to trackchase tomorrow afternoon. If they didn’t get too much rain, they could work on the track tomorrow morning and be ready to practice at the scheduled time of 1 p.m. As I write this on Saturday evening, I will say this. From the sounds of what the track is posting on Facebook, they probably will race tomorrow. There are no guarantees with that. It’s also very unusual that a place like South Carolina, home to the Bible Belt, would have a race on a Sunday. I guess I’ll believe it when I see it. SUNDAY I’ve been trackchasing for decades. Just when I think I’ve seen it all I am reminded that I really haven’t seen it all. What I am about to tell you shocked and surprised me. In trackchasing I am not easily shocked and surprised. Recall I need three things to make a successful trackchasing adventure. Several days ago, I messaged the promoter at the Warrior Creek Speedway. Warrior Creek is a kart track. There are essentially two types of racing karts…flat karts and caged karts. In trackchasing only caged karts “count”. Why? Don’t get me started. Flat karts don’t count. Caged karts DO count…of course if the class is open to adults. My Warrior Creek contact was a little tight-lipped with his information. He did say when I asked if there would be any senior champ karts (the common caged kart class) racing that there would be. He told me they usually get “five or six and sometimes more”. This made it sound like there would be a race. Next up was to confirm the weather. This looked like a problem. The race was scheduled for Sunday afternoon. The weather forecast called for the area to get about an inch of rain with a near 100% chance of that happening. With that much rain on Saturday in the late afternoon getting the dirt track in shape for Sunday afternoon racing might be a challenge. Yesterday I trackchased in Russellville, Kentucky. In order to get to Gray Court, Kentucky from Russellville I needed to drive four hours last night. That got me to Knoxville, Tennessee. Then I needed to drive another three hours this morning from Knoxville to Gray Court, South Carolina. All along the Warrior Creek Facebook page was saying that despite getting a good deal of rain they expected to race. That was good news. I pulled into the parking lot of Warrior Creek just before 1 p.m. Practice was scheduled to begin at 1 p.m. After I paid my $15 admission price, I quickly took a walk around the pit area. I was looking for the “five or six” senior champ karts that had been promised. Again, I fully recognize that a promoter usually can only “guess” at who and how many competitors might show up. I will say this about race promoters bless their hearts. I won’t say they will lie to you. I will say they will give the most optimistic explanation of their current circumstances. If I call them on a rainy day and ask if it’s raining at the track, I will normally get this. The promoter might be up to his ankles in mud with rain rolling off the brim of his baseball hat and he is likely to offer “We haven’t gotten a drop of rain at the track! The sun is melting my sunglasses!” If I ask when the racing will begin, I will likely get “we always start on time at 7 p.m.”. What does that really mean? It probably means that practice will start at 7:45 and the first race will take the checkered flag at 8:30! Just yesterday the flagman told me qualifying would take 45 minutes. They took more than three hours to qualify. When I ask how many cars/karts are expected I will have to use my calculator to figure the exact number. The promoter might say a dozen. Then, with my calculator in hand, I multiply a dozen by 55% and subtract three. When the promoter says a dozen that means “3-5”. I am not being critical of promoters. It’s just that I’ve been doing this much longer than they have. They are just one promoter. I have the experience of having talked to hundreds of promoters. Promoters are not dishonest people in almost all cases. They are just a bit overly enthusiastic about what they can deliver. I never fault enthusiasm! The Warrior Creek promoter told me they normally get “five or six and sometimes more” senior champ karts. I walked through the pit area. They had TWO senior champs in the pits. Two was not “five or six”. However, two would work. By trackchasing rule, it takes two racers to make a race unless the race was LIMITED to two. I know. Trackchasing rules are worse than dealing with the IRS. I’ll bet I’ve been able to count more than ten kart tracks when there were only two countable racers at the event. That’s cutting it close but I’ve done that many times before. The two senior champ karts in the pit area came from one trailer, a father and son team. They also had a flat kart. The track looked good. The weather was sunny and I had TWO senior champs ready to race. What could possibly go wrong? All of the karts, about 30 in total, would have a short practice and then run a heat and a feature race. I noticed the two-car senior champ kart heat race was scheduled to be the third race of the day. That was excellent news. I might be able to be on the road back to Atlanta for a late-night flight back home in good order. The Burrell’s, Scott (dad) and Bryson (son) hit the track for practice. When they did that, I had just one thought in my head. These guys don’t NEED to practice. Why was I thinking that? Because if one of them had a problem that couldn’t be fixed there would be no race. If these two senior champ karts didn’t race, I couldn’t count the track. You might know where I’m going with this. As I watched these two senior champ karts on the track the worse thing I could imagine happened. Coming out of turn two after three laps of practice Scott Burrell’s kart began to slow and then it stopped. Oh, my goodness. Bryson Burrell being the good son gave his dad a push back to the pit area. I had not met the Burrell’s yet. I was about to. After a few minutes, I sauntered over to the Burrell pit area. I knew I was going to get bad news. I asked the elder Burrell for a status update. The news was bad. Something was wrong with the engine. He didn’t know what. When the thing cooled down, they might try to start it and get “some laps in” he told me. I talked with Scott for a good long time. I told him exactly why I was at the track today. We both agreed his broken engine was bad for both of us. He wanted to race his kart. I wanted to count this track. Scott wanted to accommodate. He told me that after the entire program was finished, he might try to run some laps with his son for me…a race sort of…so I could count the track. That was a nice offer but an offer I could not accept. No, ethically I couldn’t do that. A race like that would be set up just for me. That wouldn’t be right. Something like that smacked of Guy Smith and his cronies paying promoters to run special races that they wouldn’t run unless they got paid some money “under the table”. I thanked Scott Burrell for his gesture. I would have to come back to Warrior Creek someday in the future, at significant expense, to see a real race. Maybe I can get Scott to confirm for me in the future where and when they will be racing. Folks in my entire trackchasing career I have never shown up at a track where only two of the competitors would count by trackchasing rule and then had one of them break before they could race. Never. Decades. Thousands of races. Never. There was a major highlight to my Warrior Creek Speedway appearance however. The promoter was also the announcer. He was promoting the track’s concession stand. He told everyone within earshot that their bologna sandwich was the bomb. Folks, I GREW UP on bologna sandwiches. For a long time the bologna sandwich was my favorite meal. That along with gravy with chicken bits (we couldn’t afford the entire chicken) were my favorites. Was the track’s bologna sandwich as good as it was touted to be? Hell ya! The thing was huge. I’ve had my share to racetrack bologna sandwiches, almost always in the south. Today’s was the best by far. Good on the concession stand! It was with a sad face and a sad heart but a full stomach that I drove slowly out of the Warrior Creek Speedway. Don’t get me wrong. People have much bigger problems than I do. People who lose their loved ones or their home to a tornado have big problems. My “Warrior Creek” problem was hardly “a pimple on the ass of progress” as one wise man once told me. I’ll get over it. I have no choice. From there I drove three hours in some pretty heavy traffic back to the Atlanta airport. I took a 10 p.m. non-stop flight from ATL to the Los Angeles International Airport. I landed at midnight SoCal time. That was 3 a.m. in the morning from the eastern time zone where I had spent the day. By the time I got my car and drove home I was pulling into the driveway at 5 a.m. Gray Court, South Carolina time on MONDAY FRIGGIN’ MORNING. Nevertheless, I am thankful I get to do what I do. I am doing what every last person wants to do in retirement. No, that’s not trackchasing. What am I doing that everyone else wants to do in retirement? I’m doing exactly what I want to do! Randy Lewis – 85 countries – 2,760 tracks. Kentucky The Blue Grass State This afternoon I saw racing at my 59th-lifetime track in the Blue Grass, yes, the Blue Grass State. I hold the #1 trackchasing ranking in Kentucky. Kentucky ranks #15, amongst all the states, in tracks seen for me in the U.S. Here’s a link to my all-time Kentucky state trackchasing list. I have made 42 separate trips to Kentucky to see 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 Kentucky sayings: Not as many banjos as you think 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 860 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. Exciting indoor winged outlaw kart racing He blowed an engine! That ruined both of our days. 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 are fully captioned. Vanderbilt basketball; winged outlaw karts and a bunch more! The trip that was…until it wasn’t…bad on you South Carolina 
1. Matthews Arena (above during my visit) – Northeastern – April 16, 1910
2. Rose Hill Gym – Fordham – Jan. 16, 1925
3. Lavietes Pavilion – Harvard – 1926
4. The Palestra – Penn – Jan. 1, 1927
5. Hec Edmundson Pavilion – Washington – Dec. 27, 1927
6. Williams Arena – Minnesota – Feb. 4, 1928
7. Hinkle Fieldhouse – Butler – March 7, 1928
8. Payne Whitney Gym – Yale – Dec. 10, 1932
9. Devlin Fieldhouse – Tulane – Dec. 15, 1933
10. Haas Pavilion – California – 1933
11. Municipal Auditorium – UMKC – 1935
12. Gallagher-Iba Arena – Oklahoma State – Dec. 9, 1938
13. Lundholm Gym – New Hampshire – 1938
14. Fairgrounds Coliseum – IUPUI – Aug. 1939
15. McAlister Field House – The Citadel – 1939
16. Cameron Indoor Stadium – Duke – Jan. 6, 1940
17. Gallagher Center – Niagara University – Nov. 20, 1949
18. Gill Colliseum – Oregon State – Dec. 16, 1949
19. Alumni Gym – Elon – 1949
20. McDougald-McLendon Gymnasium – North Carolina Central – 1950
21. Tudor Fieldhouse – Rice – 1950
22. UW-Milwaukee Panther Arena – 1950
23. MAC Center – Kent State – Dec. 2, 1950
24. Calihan Hall – University of Detroit Mercy – May 25 1952
25. Allen County War Memorial Coliseum – IPFW – Sep. 28, 1952
T-26. Welsh-Ryan Arena – Northwestern – Dec. 6 1952
T-26. Memorial Gym – Vanderbilt – 1952 – Dec. 6, 1952
