They say life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you are going to get!
This weekend I was looking forward to my very first trackchasing trip inside the United States. I started off my 2023 season trackchasing down under in Western Australia.
I had a rather simple trip planned. First, I would travel to Kellyville, Oklahoma, and then to Cedar Creek, Texas. When I left the race in Oklahoma, I would drive seven hours overnight in order to make the race down to Texas. I was willing to do that.
I always try to contact the race track and talk with the promoter. I want to understand what his or her racing program will be. I texted the promoter at the indoor Kellyville, Oklahoma kart track. I wanted to confirm that the one and only class that would count for my trackchasing totals on the track’s schedule was going to race. I’m talking about the caged outlaw karts open to adults. I didn’t want to make a wasted trip if this class wasn’t going to have any competitors show up.
I am not a big fan of many of the rules of trackchasing. They just don’t make good sense to me. Long ago trackchasing’s founding fathers decided that go-kart racing (flat karts) would not “count” in the hobby of trackchasing. If something doesn’t “count” in trackchasing it will be avoided like the plague. Go-kart racing is very popular in the United States and the world. It is much more professional and competitive than many of the forms of racing that trackchasing does approve. Not counting karts was a huge mistake on the founding fathers’ part in my opinion. Is it too late to correct this wrong?
Probably. So many of the key players in the hobby are now retired or deceased. They never had the chance to count go-kart racing. Making flat-kart racing “legal” now would be like moving the fences in by 100 feet in baseball and then trying to compare the home run totals with those rules to the home run totals when the fences were much further away. That’s all too bad and a sad story.
The track promoter in Oklahoma could not guarantee any of the caged outlaw karts that I needed to see would be at his event. That being the case, I couldn’t risk flying to Oklahoma and not being able to get a new track visit on the books. When the Oklahoma trip fell through that also put my going to Texas in jeopardy. I rarely will travel on an airplane in the United States just to see one track.
It should be noted that trackchasers are race fans. However, when a trackchaser goes on a trackchasing trip they would not walk across the street to visit a racetrack if that track was not going to add to their lifetime trackchasing totals. I hate to put it that directly. But, you wouldn’t be reading my stuff if you couldn’t count on my giving it to you straight, right?
However, I had an ace up my sleeve. There was a race happening in Quebec, Canada. I might be able to make it there on Saturday afternoon. I would have to leave a day earlier than I had planned for the Oklahoma trip but that was OK. Get it? See what I did there?
It seemed as if I could fly into Montreal from Los Angeles. Then I would drive over to Ormstown, Quebec for the snow/ice racing on Saturday afternoon. That evening I would catch a flight from Montreal to Dallas, Texas. After I arrived in Dallas I would drive down toward Austin, Texas. Don’t worry. This is what I do.
Believe it or not, going to Montreal and then Texas was going to be easier than going to Oklahoma and then Texas. Had I gone to Oklahoma rather than Montreal I was going to have had to drive overnight to Texas and sleep for a couple of hours in my rental car in cold temperatures. As it was when I stopped in Montreal and then flew to Dallas I only had to drive two hours and I was able to stay in a hotel in Waco, Texas. All of this surprised me.
Of course, when the Oklahoma track didn’t work out I now had to get in touch with the promoter in Quebec. As you likely know, Quebec is a strong French-speaking Canadian province. I think they speak more French and less English in Quebec than they do in France!
Luckily, when I called, I got the promoter, Sylvain Allard, on the first ring. Although Sylvain was a French Canadian and a native French speaker, he spoke English well enough for us to converse about his event. His rescheduled to this weekend event had been canceled on the two previous weekends in January. Why? There wasn’t enough snow and cold. When we hung up I was convinced they would be racing in Ormstown on Saturday. This track would be just what I needed to see.
As we closed the conversation, he reminded me that I needed to see Martine, his wife when I arrived at the track. She would be working the front gate. Sylvain had arranged for a complimentary admission for me. What a nice guy. I ended up reciprocating by bringing him one of my trackchasing souvenir T-shirts as my gift to him.
Our son J.J. had a chance to visit with us in San Clemente on the night before I departed for Canada. We watched the UCLA – Arizona State basketball game together. Once again the Bruins snatched victory from the jaws of defeat in the last couple of minutes of the game. UCLA is now 17-2 after winning four games in the past two or three weeks where it looked like they were going to lose.
Friday, January 20, 2023
The flight from Los Angeles to Montreal would take five hours today. That’s a pretty long flight when you consider we were flying west to east. Flying in that direction normally takes an hour or so less than if we were flying from the East Coast back to the West Coast.
When I landed at the Montreal airport, I had just a little trouble with customs. I couldn’t get my passport to work with their electronic kiosk. This put me in front of a real individual who had a lot of questions about my ice trackchasing trip. He had so many questions that when we finished he put me in front of another border control agent! This guy continued to grill me on my hotel plans and the rest of the trip. Finally, I was able to convince him that a person who looked and acted like me was not a terrorist or a drug dealer. I was allowed to pass.
Once I got on the plane in Los Angeles, and I knew I was going to Canada, I made a quick reservation for a Marriott hotel in Montreal. Of course, I used Priceline.com. I ended up getting a Marriott hotel for $94 plus tax. When I checked into this brand-new opulent hotel, the clerk upgraded me to a beautiful suite. Then she gave me a $10 gift card for their marketplace (think gift shop of sorts). There I selected a Pepsi Max, a package of M&Ms, and a small can of Pringles. All in all. this was a pretty good deal.
Saturday, January 21, 2023
On March 1, 2023 (in about 40 days) I will have walked a minimum of four miles each and every day for a year. That’s my goal. Actually, during that time I have averaged 4.9 miles each day for nearly 11 months.
Probably the biggest challenge of my walking goal is having enough time and circumstances to get my walking in. That’s difficult when I am on an ice trackchasing trip like I am today. It isn’t easy to try to walk four miles in below-freezing temperatures.
That being the case I got in a solid 1.3 miles of walking in the hallway of my hotel. No one seemed to mind. By the time I left my hotel, I only needed to cover 2.7 miles and not four!
I rented a Toyota Camry from National Car Rental in Montreal. The driving time down to Ormstown from the Montreal airport area would be a bit less than an hour.
Whenever I come to Canada, I almost always eat at Tim Horton’s and find a place to have some poutine. Of course, Tim Horton’s does not serve poutine, so this requires two different engagements. I can handle that.
It was fun to see a racing car gassing up at the convenience store next to Tim Horton’s. The car looked brand new without a dent in the entire body. I knew I was in the right place!
At Tim Horton’s I ordered a breakfast sandwich. Then I had to have a Canadian maple creme-filled donut. I couldn’t resist one of their huge apple fritters (not pictured). Finally, for the road, I bought a ten-count of Tim Horton’s “Timbits”. I washed it all down with a bottle of Diet Coke. Then…when I get home I will wonder why the scale is giving me the results it is giving me. Don’t worry. This is what I do.
Today’s general admission price at the Ormstown Exhibition grounds was $15 Canadian. However, as mentioned this fee would not apply to me. I encountered a young lady who spoke English really well. She reminded me of one thing when I told her I’d come from California to see the racing today. She told me that their weather was “a lot colder than California”. She was correct!
I arrived just in time to attend the driver’s meeting. Before the meeting began I went up and introduced myself to the promoter, Sylvain Allard. Like lots of promoters, he was surprised I had called him in the first place and equally surprised I showed up!
Sylvain conducted the entire driver’s meeting in French as you would expect. He opened the 15-minute meeting with a nice welcome to me. Even though I couldn’t understand much of what he was saying he must have said something complimentary. You can hear most of his speech on my YouTube video. Everyone gave me a nice round of applause and lots of smiles. I really appreciated that.
I could best describe today’s layout as what you might expect to see at a county fairgrounds in the United States. They had a classic older covered grandstand. Most of the fans watched the races from there, but I didn’t. I split my time between watching from inside my car, where it was warm, and in the pits. I had a good view of the action from both locations.
Today’s racing surface was snow and ice. This was not snow and ice on a lake but on the ground. The underlying “surface” be it the water of a frozen lake or the earth doesn’t matter. This would be classified as an ice race because they were racing on snow and ice. It’s such a good idea to keep things simple. That being the case I was seeing ice racing at my 129th and 130th-lifetime ice tracks. No one comes close to those totals in this category.
Wait! Did he say 129th AND 130th-lifetime ice tracks today? Two tracks? How is that? Hold on. Keep reading. I’ll tell you all about it.
From what I could tell, considering all the communication was in French, there were probably twenty V8 stock cars, another 15 or so four-cylinder stock cars, and maybe a dozen or more ATVs.
The race event itself had originally been advertised as offering racing on a road course and an oval track. In talking with the promoter, he told me the oval racing had been canceled. That was not a huge deal for me. The only class scheduled to race on the oval was the ATVs. ATVs are not a countable class in the trackchasing hobby.
I walked around the entire facility and got pictures of everything that was important to me. I even had a quality serving of poutine at one of the food trailers and another offering of mini beignets at the other food trailer. I washed it all down with some Sunny D orange drink. You may or may not remember that Sunny D was owned at one time by the company I retired from, Procter & Gamble.
Now, about those TWO tracks! I was most pleasantly surprised to see that the V-8 stock cars raced on a road course that was just a little bit different than the road course used by the four-cylinder cars. This difference would allow me to count racing at two different “tracks” in Ormstown, Quebec.
Here’s what the trackchasing rule says about being able to count two “interconnected” road course-shaped tracks. The rule states “the two variants must have at least three turns and one straightaway of difference” Actually, today’s variance in the two road courses consisted of four different turns and one straightaway. That variant was used by the four-cylinder stock car class. Yes, this was a pleasant surprise. Don’t miss my YouTube video to see all of the racing action from Ormstown.
Trackchasing alert!
Late arriving news. Unbeknownst to me two other trackchasers were in attendance today. Those folks were Will White and Rick Young. I saw a message from Will White saying that he counted two tracks at Ormstown as a “kidney-shaped oval” and a road course. Why would he describe things that way? This is the result of another “Randy Rule” explained in even more detail below.
“Randy Rules” are essentially rules that have been put into place in the trackchasing hobby to prevent me from counting tracks under the previous rules! Here’s an example that applies today. This is how the new “Randy Rule” in the Ormstown circumstance is written.
“An oval with a slight chicane (sometimes referred to as “kidney-shaped”) is still considered an oval.” Oh my. I think of oval tracks as tracks where, to follow the course, the driver turns in just one direction. A road course is where a driver turns both left and right (in both directions!) in order to get around the course.
Today the racers were absolutely turning both left and right in order to get around the portion of the track that was considered a “kidney-shaped” oval. If they turned both right and left why would that not be a road course? Watch the video. You will see the drivers making nearly 90-degree right and left turns in the chicane of the road course used by the V-8 stock car class.
Ice racing from Ormstown, Quebec!
I don’t know that the “kidney-shaped” oval idea was ever voted upon. It wasn’t. Trackchasing commissioner, Guy Smith, noticed that I returned to a location in Michigan where I had seen a race on an oval during my first visit. Then, when I returned for a second visit, the track had a small chicane on the backstretch of the track. Drivers had to turn both left and right to handle that chicane making it a “road course” until Mr. Smith decided on his own that such right and left driving was no longer a road course but a “kidney-shaped” oval. Oh, friggin’ my. There could be no better explanation as to why I couldn’t trust Guy Smith any further than I could throw him. I counted the two tracks at Ormstown as two road courses and gave you a full explanation as to why above.
On the way back to the Montreal airport I used my Sirius Satellite radio app to listen to the UCLA-Arizona basketball game. Arizona is UCLA’s toughest Pac-12 opponent in basketball. Sadly, Arizona prevailed 58-52 snapping UCLA’s 14-game winning streak. I wish we could win every game but that’s not possible. In 2024 UCLA will be moving from the Pac-12 conference to the Big Ten conference. What makes me happy about that? We won’t be playing Arizona anymore. Their fans suck!
If everything worked out on this trip, I would take a five-hour flight from Los Angeles to Montreal. Then I would fly for 4 1/2 more hours from Montreal to Dallas. Finally, my hope was to fly from Austin to Los Angeles to get home, which was another three hours plus. That’s nearly 13 hours of flying to add three new tracks to my lifetime trackchasing total. In my world that seemed fair enough to me.
I might add that I have a very simple strategy when it comes to flying. If you know of someone who has a more simple strategy than me I would like to hear about it. Here goes. This is a three-step process. I get on the plane before it leaves. I sit on the plane and watch movies on my iPad when we fly. When the plane lands I get off the plane. It doesn’t matter to me how long the flight is. I told you my strategy was simple. This simple strategy befits a man who has been described by many people as the “most laid-back guy” they know.
By the time I had boarded my flight, I had walked 4.7 miles meeting and exceeding my daily goal. When I’m at an ice race walking long distances are always going to be a challenge.
Tonight, my YUL-DFW flight had a “weight and balance” issue. That happens sometimes in hot weather. It takes more power for a plane to take off in hot weather. At times an airline may take fewer passengers, even when all of the seats might be sold during the hot summer months because of weight and balance issues.
This evening we were experiencing another weight and balance situation and this was in the dead of winter. What caused the problem? Tonight, there was a lack of passengers. Only twelve people including me chose to fly to Dallas tonight from Montreal. That being the case, to put the passengers in the right places on the plane they upgraded me from coach to first class. I considered that “karma” for me helping a woman with her seat selection on my recent flight from Australia. I believe in karma!
While I waited for the plane to take off I used my iPhone to book a hotel tonight in Waco, Texas using the Priceline.com app. Waco was about midway between Dallas and Austin (Cedar Creek) site of tomorrow’s racing. I snagged a Marriott property for just 85 bucks plus tax. Folks, I try to use technology as often as I can to make life easier and to reduce my expenses.
They were pouring the drinks in first class pretty strongly tonight. That photo is ALL whiskey. I listened to the movie “Forrest Gump” on my iPad. That’s where the “box of chocolates” reference came from. The food in first class was good too. With so few passengers I almost felt as if I was flying on my own private jet!
Sunday, January 22, 2023
Today I would be trackchasing in Cedar Creek, Texas just outside of Austin. Originally, this trip to Texas was meant to follow a visit to near Tulsa, Oklahoma the night before. Then when the Tulsa event didn’t work out I changed gears and went to a race near Montreal.
Had I trackchased in Tulsa I would have had a seven-hour overnight drive to get to today’s race. Despite Montreal, Canada being MUCH further from Cedar Creek, Texas than Tulsa, Oklahoma trackchasing in Canada was an easier trip. At least when I left Canada I could fly to Dallas, drive to Waco, Texas, get a hotel room in Waco and still be in Cedar Creek, Texas by race time. It’s funny how things work out!
On the drive to Waco this morning I stopped at a “Buc-ee’s”. Ever been to one of those? Buc-ee’s is sort of a combination gas station/convenience store. That description really oversimplifies things! Buc-ee’s is huge. Today’s location in Temple, Texas had 100 gas pumps! They were also adding about 50 Tesla superchargers stations. I paid just $2.83/gallon to fill my tank.
The inside of a Buc-ee’s is about the size of a Walmart. I stopped in just to check things out. People from Texas are very proud of their state. I don’t see that level of pride in very many other locations. Buc-ee’s had a wide variety of “Texas” stuff. I was beyond surprised when a “convenience” store of this size didn’t sell Gatorade. The smallest 7-11 convenience stores will sell Gatorade. Unusual!
From there I was off to Rusty’s Walnut Creek Ranch in Cedar Creek, Texas. A group called “TX4 Cross Country Racing” runs the show. They sanction both ATV (not trackchasing countable) and UTV (trackchasing countable) racing. I’ve seen some of their shows in the past.
Today I wanted to meet up with a friend of mine, Mike Kowis. Mike races both ATVs and UTVs. He is also an avid walker! Mike and I are both closing in on a year’s worth of daily walking…every day. Mike’s goal is to exceed 10,000 steps every day for a year. I’m trying to knock out four miles every day. Both of us are likely to reach our goal in early March.
Before the racing started today I found Mike’s pit area. He was traveling with his son, Cash. Yesterday both Mike and Cash raced ATVs. Today Mike would drive his UTV and Cash would be his co-pilot. They race UTV #77. I still don’t know how Mike came up with that number.
Mike and Cash drove nearly three hours to today’s racing from their home near Houston. They slept overnight in their sleeping bags at the track/ranch in low temperatures of 40 degrees. All of that is a great father/son experience that will be remembered for a lifetime. Last night the TX4 group had its 2022 racing banquet. Mike won the championship in three different categories. Well done!
Some racing fans of stock cars and/or sprint cars don’t really follow UTV racing. This is a picture of a group of UTVs. They race “off-road” on a variety of tracks. The TX4 racing takes place on what I call a “woods” course. That’s right. They start in a cleared-off area and end up racing for most of the track’s distance in the woods outside the view of most spectators.
In the hobby of trackchasing, there are several “Randy’s Rules” as first mentioned above. Like famed late model stock car driver Scott Bloomquist says, “I don’t break the rules. I MADE most of the rules”! That is the case for me in the hobby of trackchasing.
My UTV and off-road influence on trackchasing rules are reflected in these rules’ statements. “If the “feature” race winner is determined by elapsed time and not first to the finish or most laps” and “Any racing event that is limited to fewer than three simultaneous starters does not count.”
The keywords here are “elapsed time” and “simultaneous”. Before I tell you why these keywords ARE keywords let me tell you how they came to be in the first place. Off-road racing began and is still most prevalent in the west meaning California, Arizona, and Nevada. Years ago, I began to see desert off-road racing. Most of the time these events will have several classes. It’s not unusual to have more than 200 entries at a major desert off-road race.
These events are called “desert off-road races” because they take place in the desert! Even though there might be 200 total competitors and maybe as many as 20-30 racers in one class it is rare that the starting grid area is wide enough and/or flat enough for every racing machine in every class to start at the same time. That being the case a small number of competitors, maybe just two at a time, go off in intervals of 15-30 seconds or whatever. They do this until every racer is racing on the track. Desert off-road races are often long in terms of time and distance. I’ve seen desert off-road races where one “loop/lap” was 50 miles long. Today’s course was around five miles long and the time of the race would be 70 minutes.
Trackchasing began as a hobby in and around the Pennsylvania area. They don’t have much desert off-road racing in the northeast compared to the west. When the political hacks, i.e., trackchasing organizers saw I was adding desert off-road races to my list in the west they were concerned. They were not only concerned, they needed to act! Randy lived in the west. He had lots of desert off-road racing opportunities. Most trackchasers lived in Pennsylvania or within a nine-iron of Pennsylvania. They didn’t have very many of these off-road races to attend. See where I’m going with this?
The solution? Change the rules. Yep. The organizers of trackchasing would simply say that desert off-road racing isn’t really “racing” because of the starting procedure. Most folks would be hard-pressed to tell a desert off-road racer that they aren’t really racing!
However, for the most part, these efforts to knock out desert off-road racing opportunities by Guy Smith and his cronies have failed. No, big events like the Baja 500 in Mexico still do not count. However, all kinds of UTV races in desert-like environments DO count. I haven’t counted lately but I would guess I’ve seen racing at nearly 200 UTV tracks almost all of which are road courses in very rural desert/ranch/woods environments.
I will admit that for the spectator watching UTV racing at a woods course is not that entertaining. Why? A spectator can’t see much. I would say the racers have an absolute blast doing this. A number of “real race fans” of stock car and sprint car oval tracks wouldn’t walk across the street to watch UTVs race on a woods road course. That is certainly their prerogative.
I still go to lots of UTV racing. In order to “count” the track I have to be sure the racers in one class all start their race “simultaneously”. I have to make sure the race winner is determined by the first driver to reach the finish line and that the winner is not based on the lowest “elapsed time”.
What bugs me the most is that during my entire time of observing the hobby of trackchasing just one person for the most part, Guy Smith has controlled the rules. However, this abuse of power is not just directed at Mr. Smith. The other people who have worked closely with Mr. Smith have never really “stood up” to these abuses of power. Then the rest of the people who are part of the trackchasing hobby have never really wanted to rock any boats even when someone needed to rock the boat.
I have not been a part of the trackchasing group on a formal basis for more than 10 years. Yes, it was a mistake on my part to have ever been associated with this group. I follow the current trackchasing rules for one reason and one reason only. If everyone follows the SAME set of rules then everyone’s trackchasing totals can be compared equally. Currently, I am nearly 1,000 (one thousand) tracks ahead of my nearest fellow competitor using the official rules of trackchasing.
Today, according to TX4’s website three UTV classes would be racing on the course at the same time. These would be the “Experts, Turbo Opens and NA Opens” as specified on their website. The three classes would start in four rows. I was told the six drivers in the first row were all in the “expert” aka pro class. It looked to me like the Turbo Open drivers were in rows two and three. The NA Open group looked to be in row four.
I took videos of each row leaving the starting line. I will also get the results from Mike Kowis regarding how many starters were in each of the four classes and how the final results shook out. As the World’s #1 Trackchaser, I go to extreme measures to make sure everything is 100% on the up and up.
From there off I went to get “as deep into the woods” as I could. I was particularly interested in seeing the Kowis team race. When I did that I could see the UTVs racing from a point of view that only a few fans could see. At this point, I had the most fun of the day. Please don’t miss the video. Then YOU will get that “behind the woods” view!
Wait! Here’s the video!
Woods UTV racing from Cedar Creek, Texas.
When the racing was finished I had the highlight of the day coming up. Our son Jim lives in Austin. Today he and I would have the chance to get together for lunch. He chose an upscale Thai restaurant. We hung out there for a few hours just catching up. I really enjoyed that.
During the course of our getting together, Jim gave me his Christmas presents and birthday gifts for all of us who live in SoCal. I wasn’t expecting that! To make room in my 22” rolling travel bag I put all of my dirty clothes in the sleeves of the winter coat I brought along for the ice racing. I never did use that jacket in Canada! This maneuver made just enough room for me to get all of Jim’s gifts to the right people!
Following our late lunch, I was off to the Austin airport. I grabbed a jet airplane and was off to LAX. Yes, I had flown more than 13 hours on three airplanes to make this trip a reality. I rented two cars. I stayed in two hotels. I added three tracks to my lifetime list. This was definitely trying to squeeze 15 pounds of taters in a 10-pound bag. I had left on Friday afternoon and was back in my bed by Sunday night. Don’t worry. It’s what I do!
Randy Lewis
Ice racing and UTV woods racing spectator