Rocky Ford-Tooele-Elk Creek
Recognize any of those towns? Maybe not. After you read my Trackchaser Report you will.
The little bag that could. Or could it?
I thought my little bag could do it…but I didn’t know for sure.
By the way please don’t worry about the length of this Trackchaser Report. You are getting three Trackchaser Reports in one! And yes, for my racing fans, I have videos from each race location at the bottom of this message.
I am using this trackchasing trip as a “test market” You might ask yourself, “You do this all the time. What are you testing?” I am testing my traveling capabilities.
Let me tell you the story. This is my 18th trackchasing trip of 2023. By the middle of August, I had already traveled 108 nights. One of those trips was only a day long. Another adventure was 24 days long. Each trip is a custom effort and comes with its own “irregularities”. Carol has been known to say that trackchasing is a lot like “Groundhog Day”. I’m not sure what she means by that. I’m not sure what she is saying is a compliment!
It is true that last Thursday I trackchased in western Illinois. Then on Friday and Saturday, I went to new tracks in upstate New York. Sunday I was out in the middle of Nebraska to see a race. Then on Monday night, I was back in rural Virginia. Take just a short moment to think about that. Does that kind of travel sound like an easy thing to do?
No, I didn’t get an “A” in geography. On Tuesday from the above trip I arrived back home in San Clemente late in the evening. Then at 2:33 a.m., that would be this morning 36 hours removed from my last trip. I headed out the door for a flight to Denver, Colorado to begin my test.
With this trip I plan to trackchase in first Rocky Ford, Colorado, then Tooele, Utah, and finally Elk Creek, Virginia. You may be familiar with some of those places although to most they are far off the beaten path. When I finish, I’ll head back to San Clemente just in time to experience the first-ever tropical storm from Hurricane Hillary, since 1939, to attempt to make landfall in Southern California. You see the big deal about this is we don’t get hurricanes. I can hear people saying, “But you get earthquakes!”
Let me just stop for a moment. Did YOU think to yourself “But California gets earthquakes?” I am originally from the Midwest. I wish I had five dollars for every family member or friend from the Midwest who has asked me about earthquakes and California.
Here’s my history with earthquakes. I was 20 years old when I felt my first earthquake. It was Saturday morning and I was sitting on the edge of my bed contemplating my day. I was in DeKalb, Illinois on the 9th floor of my dormitory room!
Despite having lived in California for 45 years I have never felt a significant earthquake. For the four or five occasions when I have, my first comment always turned out to be, “Was that an earthquake?” My most significant experience was with Carol in our bedroom. There was one strong jolt. That provided some excitement but then that room frequently provided some excitement. Wait. TMI?
I feel I have strayed. By the time I get back from this trip, I will know how my “test” went. Everything I do beginning in Colorado through Virginia from this journey will be a test for my 15-day adventure that begins 48 hours after I come back from Virginia. Where am I going? Sydney, Australia. When I return to California where will I be coming from? Tokyo, Japan. Yes, I lead an adventuresome lifestyle.
This 15-day journey will take me to Darwin, Australia, which is part of the Northern Territories. I have trackchased in all six Australian states and on both the North Island and South Island of New Zealand. I’ve been to the Australian continent more than a dozen times. However, I have never trackchased in the Northern Territories of Australia. Why in the world would I want to do that? The simple answer is this. I just want to say I did it!
Many of you are not racing fans. I get that. Please don’t think these trackchasing trips are only about racing. They are not. The most time I will spend at a racetrack when I do go trackchasing is 2-3 hours for the day I’m at the races. Of course, not every day of a trackchasing trip involves racing. As an example, I will be going to Australia and Japan for more than two weeks. How much time will I spend at a racetrack? Three hours. That leaves plenty of time for good old fashion touring and, most importantly, just “experiencing the trip”. It’s the journey baby, not the destination.
From Darwin (DRW), I will fly through Sydney (SYD) and Brisbane (OOL) on the way to Tokyo (NRT), Japan. You might be saying and you might not, “Randy, haven’t you been going to Japan quite a bit lately?” The answer to that question is yes. This is my third trip to Japan in the past 20 months. This will be my fourth trip to Australia in the past eight months. I’m going to Australia for a race and to Japan to see baseball games.
You may or may not know that I have seen a baseball game at every current major-league baseball park in the United States and Canada. There are thirty of them. You may or may not know that Japan has a very active Japanese major league baseball scene. Their league is called Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB). There are 12 Japanese major league teams.
I came up with the idea that I really needed to see a game in every one of the 12 stadia that are home to the Japanese Nippon Professional Baseball (NPB). I have already started doing that. I’ve seen games in three different locations which include these teams and stadia. Chunichi Dragons – Nagoya Dome, Yomiuri Giants – Tokyo Dome, and the Fukuoka Softbank Hawks – Fukuoka PayPay Dome.
By the way, just in case you were wondering… Both stadia and stadiums are accepted plurals of stadium. Neither is right or wrong, but stadiums is far more common. This is the case throughout the English-speaking world, and it has been for several decades.
During this trip to Japan, my plan is to see games in seven different stadiums in just six days. That’s going to be a hectic adventure. The trip will involve airplanes and subways and bullet trains and more. However, I am not here to tell you about that today.
I am here to tell you about the trip that precedes my going to Australia and Japan. I’ll explain what this domestic trackchasing trip to Colorado, Utah, and Virginia will be testing.
What is the test??
I am testing out a piece of luggage. If the luggage works, I’m going to take it to Australia and Japan. The luggage I hope to use is a study in self-discipline. If everything “works” then I can simply say I did it!
You are probably familiar with the standard 22-inch rolling travel bag with an extendable handle and wheels. I’ve got one of those. I bought it at Costco. This is the bag I use on every one of my trips. I’m going to guess you have one too.
The bag I am testing today was purchased at Costco as well several years ago. I paid $29 U.S. for it. I consider this purchase to be one of the best values I’ve ever gotten in my life. This “little bag” is a smaller version of my traditional 22-inch rolling bag. Many discount airlines have some draconian size requirements for a free bag to be carried on an airplane at no charge. Their size requirement is that a carry-on bag must be smaller than 18” 14” x 8”. That’s not a very big bag. My little Costco bag meets that requirement. Take that Spirit Airlines!
When I booked my flight from Sydney to Tokyo via the Golf Coast (Brisbane) Jetstar Airways (JQ) told me that I could bring on a small bag for free. That bag could weigh a maximum of 7 kg. Before you look it up. I will tell you that 7 kg is 15.4 pounds.
I grew up in an era where airlines did not charge for bags, carry-on, or checked. Then when airlines began charging for bags my corporate expense account covered the experience. Now I am in my 22nd year of retirement. I travel just about every week. I’ll guess I have not actually paid to check a bag or carry on a bag ten times during retirement. I won’t need to worry about the size or the cost of my bags when I fly from Los Angeles to Sydney and then onto Darwin. I will have no bag charges from Tokyo to Los Angeles.
It is the middle part of the trip that will create its own bottleneck, baggage-wise. My Jetstar itinerary takes me from Sydney to the Gold Coast airport to Tokyo’s Narita airport. Jetstar’s requirement is that the bag can only weigh 15.4 pounds. They aren’t that much concerned about the size of the bag. I guess they figure, “How big could a bag possibly be” that can weigh only 15.4 pounds. I’m going to be using my little Costco bag. When that bag is empty it weighs six pounds. My challenge is coming up with 9.4 pounds of “cargo” that will get me comfortably through 15 days of touring. Do you think I can do it? Do you think I would be asking you that question if I didn’t think I could do it?
I will have to take a couple of the heavier items I’ll be traveling with and “conceal” them on my person. One of those items is my iPad. The plan is to put my iPad in my pants. I’ve already tested that concept. From the photo of the guy above does that big smile make you think he has concealed an iPad in his pants? I think not…but he has!
For this week’s trip, I am taking my “little Costco bag” to places like Rocky Ford, Colorado, Tooele, Utah, and Elk Creek, Virginia. I want to see how it performs. If the bag passes, and I sure hope it does since I’m not sure what my alternative would be, the bag will make the trip to Australia and Japan.
I will take four T-shirts, four pairs of underwear, and four pairs of socks. I’ll have one pair of lightweight cargo shorts. I have cut down on weight by taking the lightest pairs of underwear that I own. On our last trip, Carol and I stopped in a Walmart and bought some soap flakes. Soap flakes? Yes. I have never in my life purchased soap flakes.
Every three or four days I am planning to wash my clothing in the sink in my hotel rooms. That way I’ll rotate clothing and wash maybe three or four times during the trip. I also expect to buy a souvenir T-shirt or two at the Japanese ballparks to support my favorite teams. Hopefully, I’ll get one from the Hiroshima Carp. Their colors are red and white.
I always bring along a lot of technology for these trips. Of course, I will have my iPhone. That’s just about the most critical piece of travel equipment other than my glasses. I’ll have a MacBook Pro, an iPad, AirPods, my Bose noise-canceling headset, two external battery bricks, and enough cables to support all of that as well as my foreign electric current converter.
I’m going to let you in on a little secret. I plan to be carrying two things separately from my 15.4-pound fully stuffed Costco bag. That would be my iPad and a small satchel. Just to be clear my satchel is not a man purse. It’s a satchel!
When I check into the Jetstar flight the plan to stick my iPad in my waistband. My iPad weighs nearly three pounds. I can’t afford, weight-wise, to put it in my travel bag. My satchel will carry all the smallest but heaviest items, so those things don’t weigh down my Costco bag.
THURSDAY
On this morning’s flight from Los Angeles to Denver I tested out an old pair of wired Apple headphones. Wow. Old school! I really wasn’t satisfied with them. I’ve grown accustomed to using my Bose headset, which is the best noise-canceling product that I’ve ever used. Initially, I was going to leave the Bose headset at home, but I think that might be a bad decision.
Right now, I am in the midst of watching 10 seasons of the Netflix legal drama, “Suits”. I love that show. I just heard that Suits was the most-watched TV show on Netflix in the U.S. last month. 18 BILLION views. I am now watching season 5 on my iPad. There are 15 episodes per season. If I bring along my Bose headset, I will have to cut down on something else. Who knows I might be traveling commando style!
My toiletries have been downsized. I brought along my smallest packages of deodorant, shaving cream, and toothpaste. I left my electronic toothbrush at home on this trip. I will go with a lightweight Oral-B toothbrush.
My Costco bag fits underneath my seat. In Tokyo, I may be rolling that bag behind me all over the country. I’ve been told by Japanese travel experts, that, if necessary, ballparks will let me take a bag that size into the ballparks. That seems unusual but that is what I’ve been told.
Now you know what the big test will be on this trip. I will learn a lot. I will immediately reapply my learnings so that when I hop on that jet airplane, headed from Los Angeles to Sydney, Australia, I will have the most efficient luggage package in the business.
You also know that I will have a iPad in my pants. That creates quite the word picture, doesn’t it? Is this cheating? I don’t know that it is. I don’t think I could be prosecuted. I’m just trying to sidestep some of the arbitrary rules that Jetstar Airlines is employing so they can maximize shareholder profit.
Now let’s shift gears and talk about today’s trip.
My alarm came at 2:33 a.m. If you normally get up at 4:30 a.m. then my wakeup call isn’t outlandish. Getting up at 2:33 a.m. is not the end of the world. I do feel a little bad for you though. Normally, I don’t wake up until 7:30 a.m. I might not get out of bed until after 8 a.m. For a fella who is accustomed to getting up that late I was making a big sacrifice.
Of course, I had all my stuff packed and ready to go. I am a morning shower person. Carol is an evening shower person. Nevertheless, I showered last evening because no one wants to shower at 2:33 a.m. Before I left, I had to decide if I wanted to wake up Carol and kiss her goodbye. I did. I enjoyed it.
My 5 a.m. flight got me into Denver by 9 a.m. I didn’t want to pick up my rental car until about 1 p.m. Why was that? Rental car management is part of my trackchasing expense reduction plan. If I picked up my car at 1 p.m., knowing I would drop it off tomorrow by about 1 p.m. I would save a day’s rental car expenses. If I picked the car up at 9 a.m. and dropped it at 1 p.m. tomorrow I would be charged for two days. I could easily hang out at the airport for four hours to save one hundred bucks. Do you get me?
I never have a hard time “hanging around in an airport”. First, I did enough walking to easily get my 4 miles’ worth of steps in for the day. Then I found a quiet place to make plans for the rest of this trip. I worked on future trackchasing efforts and European vacations that will involve Carol in a couple of weeks.
As I was walking around Terminal C at the Denver International Airport (DEN) I noticed that terminal passengers were allowed to walk outside. I did just that. I was still inside airport security but now I was getting some fresh air and sun. Truth be told I felt like a convict who had been placed in solitary and was now enjoying that one hour each day in the “yard” to get some sunshine and exercise.
DEN is a good place to use my Priority Pass membership. I will tell you I do not understand the PP business model. I pay them so little and they give me so much. Priority Pass comes as a perk with my Chase Sapphire Reserve credit card. PP costs me just $75/year. The program offers me free admission to airport lounges all around the world. At most airports, I receive a $28 food and beverage credit. In all, there are well over 1,000 lounges and restaurants all over the world that are part of Priority Pass. During my first year with the program, I “earned” more than $10,000 in PP benefits…for seventy-five dollars.
Today I stopped in the Mercantile restaurant. I sat down and enjoyed a gourmet lunch of rigatoni Bolognese and Coke Zero. When I was finished, I walked over to the SweetWater Mountain Taphouse and bought $28 of chocolate chip cookies. I will limit myself to one cookie each day and use the rest as bargaining chips. Pun intended! If any are left over, they will hit the freezer for future use. Yes, I love Priority Pass. Even if you only travel 4-5 times a year you can benefit from the program.
I hold the status of executive elite in the National Car Rental frequent renter program. Despite losing my Procter & Gamble sponsorship recently, which was a tremendous benefit that I exploited for well over 10 years, I continue to rent with National. Their price for me has almost doubled but the competitors aren’t much cheaper. I very much enjoy the perks of National Car Rental.
For every five rentals, I earn a free day with National. I always use that free day to offset any rental that I deem to be excessively expensive. In Denver, a full-sized National car was going to be $127 for just one day. I used my free day to reduce the charges to just nine dollars. I figured a nearly $120 price reduction was a savings of nearly $25 per rental for the five rentals it took to get my “free day”.
The Denver airport is not one of the better locations for car selection with National. I looked around for a Toyota Camry. They didn’t have one. I asked if they might look for one. They did and soon a still dripping wet white Camry came “up from the wash”. If you don’t ask you don’t get.
I like the Camry because it gets good fuel mileage, the Apple CarPlay works well, and overall, the car is comfortable. Don’t get me wrong. A Camry is not a Tesla Model X like the one I own, but for a rental car, the Toyota Camry is my preference.
Today I was driving down to the Arkansas Valley Fairgrounds in Rocky Ford, Colorado. I had never been to Rocky Ford which is 2 1/2 hours south of Denver.
I hate to say this and certainly don’t want to offend anyone. I have never been a big fan of Denver. I don’t like the weather. One day it will be 75 and the next day 39. I don’t particularly like the 5,000-foot elevation, although I am in pretty good shape. Denver has a lot of traffic. In some ways, I think their traffic is worse than in California. That’s the case with a lot of cities, Las Vegas and Austin come to mind, where the population growth has outstripped the infrastructure.
On the way down to Rocky Ford, I stopped at Chick-fil-A. Those folks have customer service nailed. I have developed a fetish for the “Chick-fil-A Coke Zero 180-calorie lunch”. What is that? It’s a large Coke Zero with no ice and a Chick-fil-A ice cream cone. I drink about a quarter of the Coke Zero. Then I submerge my ice cream cone into the Coke Zero. I have learned that if I don’t stay on top of the “process” when the ice cream cone hits the soda the liquid will overflow the cup. As you can imagine, I have learned that the hard way. They say you learn by doing! I find this 180-calorie delicacy to be a nice lunch.
On the drive down to Rocky Ford, I passed by the former dog racing track in Peoria, Colorado. The dog track is out in the middle of nowhere, a good 30 miles or so south of Denver. Who in their right mind thought that was a good idea?
I saw a stock car race at this facility all the way back in 2011. Now the dog track sits along Interstate 70 with broken windows around what used to be the indoor seating grandstand. I hope the person who came up with this brilliant idea didn’t get one cent from the government either going in or coming out of this dog track failure.
If you read my recent post, titled “Die with Zero”, you should know that strategy has had a significant impact on me. Although I have always spent money freely, I intend to spend even more freely upgrading Carol and me whenever I can. Die with Zero does not mean dying with zero money. It simply means it’s a good idea to optimize for your net personal fulfillment (enjoyment) rather than optimizing for your personal net worth. I’m going to apply this strategy for the rest of my life. If you didn’t read my post about “Die with Zero” or if you need to read it again or if you need to read it and understand it, you can always go back and check it out. Here’s the link.
Sadly, there are no highway rest areas for 100 miles on Interstate 70 when you leave Denver and head south. Doesn’t anyone else drink a large Coke Zero on this route?
Rocky Ford, Colorado is a small rural western town. The population is just 3,876. They were having their annual county fair. Figure 8 racing was the evening’s grandstand entertainment. On other nights they were presenting rodeo and demolition derby in front of the grandstand. These events plus live country music concerts have been the staple of entertainment at fairs for well over 100 years.
I didn’t end up paying anything to watch the races tonight. While looking for parking I think I drove into the pit area from the wrong direction. I invested my “savings” in a handsome serving of pulled pork nachos. Carol always says, “There are no fruits and vegetables on the trackchasing trail”. She is correct.
There was a field of well over thirty figure 8 cars. They’ve been racing F8 for a while at this fair but I just heard about this year. They call their racing program “Figure 8 Jump” racing. This simply means they have built in a few dirt berms that do get the cars and trucks into the air at times.
The racing was fun. The drivers were aggressive. One driver decided to compete by driving his car backward all night. There is always someone who doesn’t get the memo, right? He did not do well.
The feature race started with 14 cars and trucks racing for 30 laps. That was wild. Don’t miss the video. For the final few laps, I stood at the fence of the track. I was within feet of the speeding cars standing behind a very weak fence. No, that was not a smart thing to do.
However, I had been told by a fan in the stands that one of the guys in a white cowboy hat who WAS standing next to the fence was a track promoter at a track nearby that I had never visited. I went down and soon the guy in the white hat and I had bonded. We were now fast friends. This is called “networking” in the hobby of trackchasing. I’ll get to his track as soon as I can.
It seemed like a long drive back to Denver. I stopped at a highway truck stop. It is amazing to see the “creatures” that pop out after dark in these rural locations. I am NOT talking about animals! Enough said.
When I got back to the hotel, I was tired. However, I still needed to wash today’s clothing with my “soap flakes”. I’m in training for next week’s big 15-day international trip. What I learned in “test mode” on this trip will help me when I am far from home.
FRIDAY
Today I flew from Denver to Salt Lake City. Yes, my hobby of trackchasing requires a good deal of flying and driving. For the year, about 8 1/2 months, I am just about ready to go over the 200,000 miles of travel threshold. That comes with about 180,000 miles of flying and 20,000 miles of rental car driving. I have also used my personal car for 126 miles of trackchasing travel. Nope. I have never had any interest in wearing out my own car for this!
Last night I washed a day’s worth of clothing in my hotel sink using “soap flakes”. I was testing my “capability” for doing this in preparation for next week’s trip to Australia and then Japan. You should know in advance that I don’t do “chores” very well. Chores are not my skill set which is why I don’t do any chores at home.
Early in our married life, probably during our dating life, Carol recognized this “outage” with me. Luckily, Carol LOVES doing chores. She says she doesn’t but people vote with their feet. She always doing chores so that is how I know she loves it. If I hate doing chores, which I do, you would never see me doing chores at home, which you don’t.
Anyway, this morning my washed clothes were still very damp. I came up with the idea of placing my shirt over the air-conditioning unit. Surely, the air the unit was blowing would accelerate the drying of my shirt, right? I came back to the situation in about 15 minutes. The shirt wasn’t any drier. It was FROZEN. The shirt was hard as a board. The shirt felt as if someone had super-starched it. Does this prove to you once and for all, I am not good at chores?
As noted, I flew from Denver to Salt Lake City. Kansas City (MCI) used to be my least favorite airport. Now MCI has a new terminal. It’s nice.
Salt Lake City just completed a brand-new airport terminal. Would it be too strong to say the new place just “sucks”? It does. This terminal has the longest walking distance of any airport that I have ever been in all around the world. It’s got to be well over a mile from some of the airport airline gates to the rental car center. Just terrible. What were they thinking?
Once again, I wanted to rent a Toyota Camry and they didn’t have one available. I asked if they could get one and they did. The rental car station manager apologized for the car having 36,000 miles on the odometer. I didn’t care. I would be driving the car less than 100 miles today.
One of the advantages of renting a Toyota Camry is that it takes forever for the gas gauge to go off full. I have driven Camry’s 200 miles after filling the tank to the brim until the gas gauge dipped below full. Today the gas gauge indicator fell slightly below full after I had driven the car just 9 miles. I would address that issue when I returned the car.
I had just enough time to stop at a very special eatery, called “Hires Big H”. I first discovered this legendary drive-in restaurant by using a website called “Roadfood.com”. I suggest if you wanna find off-the-wall good places to eat all over the U.S. that you check out roadfood.com.
Today I went with Hires Big H’s chili cheese dog, a diet root beer, and some of their fresh-cut fries. My bill came to $19 plus tip. The chili cheese dog was 10 bucks. However, if you look at the photos, you’ll see that the offering was unique and huge and I’m here to tell you very tasty. I must confess I ate it all. I’m sorry.
This evening I’ll be trackchasing at the Utah Motorsports Campus. This is the former Miller Motorsports Park. Larry Miller was a rich guy who owned several car dealerships in and around Salt Lake City. Sadly, he passed away a few years ago and now the track has new ownership.
Tonight, a group called “Nitrocross” headed by popular Travis Pastrana was holding their once-a-year event at the track. Nitrocross is really like a big carnival for people in their 20s and 30s. It’s very popular with this group. You will see and hear things like bull riding machines, bands, foosball tables, and much more. You just don’t see that kind of thing in the paddock area are very many race events.
Nitrocross offers three classes of racing machines. One is a gas-powered sports car division called “NEXT”. They also have cars that look identical on the outside to the NEXT division named “GROUP E”. These are electric-powered cars. Finally, they have a robust division of SXS (side by side) racers. When you get both sports car divisions on the track in their own races, with the crowd screaming, it’s virtually impossible to tell the gas-powered and electric cars apart.
Most Nitrocross racing, which is also called rallycross racing across the world, is done on what is called a “mixed surface” road course. This simply means that part of the track is dirt and part of it is paved. Rallycross is absolutely huge in Europe. It’s not nearly as big in the United States. I’ve seen racing at several rallycross venues in Sweden where the sport is very popular.
Please check my video of the racing. You’ll see one of the best flipping sequences I have ever recored. In addition to the normal Nitrocross racing groups, they had a special class of Volkswagen beetles with souped-up customized engines. These cars raced on a slightly different road course configuration. This allowed me to count two tracks at one location tonight in Tooele, Utah. That was a plus. Don’t miss that video!
After the races, it was time to hustle back to the Salt Lake City airport for a redeye flight to Charlotte. First on that agenda was gassing up my rental car and returning it to National at the airport.
I told you earlier that the car’s gas tank wasn’t full when I picked up the car. When I refueled tonight the tank took 4.6 gallons and I had only driven the car 55 miles. I explained this inequity to the National folks upon my return. They discounted my bill by twenty bucks. That wasn’t a huge benefit to me. My gas bill was $19.71. I guess I did get an advantage. I ended up driving the car 72 miles, didn’t pay anything after adjustments for gas and they GAVE me 29 cents! If that isn’t optimizing I don’t know what is!
I’m not a big fan of red-eye flights. However, in this case, the overnight airplane ride would allow me to see an evening race in Utah and easily get to a late afternoon race in Virginia on Saturday. Like most things in life, if you put in the effort, you’re likely to get a good result.
SATURDAY
I flew overnight from Salt Lake City to Charlotte landing at 6 a.m. The first thing I did was walk a mile and a half! Getting some distance in early makes my daily goal of walking four miles much easier.
Then I marched over to the “Club at CLT” to have breakfast and relax. The club comes with my Priority Pass membership. If you travel very much at all, I would highly recommend getting a credit card that offers Priority Pass. PP is a tremendous value.
The club offers some excellent complimentary food all during the day. This morning I had scrambled eggs, cheesy grits, and a bagel with cream cheese and jelly. I found a soft chair, relaxed/slept, and charged all my electronic equipment. Then I listed for my flight tomorrow morning from Charlotte back to Los Angeles.
I picked up my rental car at National Car Rental. I chose a Toyota Camry. I’ve rented about 10 cars in the last three weeks. I believe every one of them has been a Camry.
When I went to check out, I noticed the gas gauge showed the fuel tank was exactly full. That was bad news! Because I have rented a couple hundred Camrys in the last five years, I knew that being “exactly on full” was about six gallons (not exaggerating) short of full.
At checkout, I mentioned this to the National Car Rental representative. This was my second “fueling problem” with a rental car for my three-day trip. The rep agreed to record my outgoing fuel status as “7/8”. That meant I needed to return the car with 7/8 of a tank showing on the gas gauge. Folks, returning a car with exactly 7/8 of a tank is much easier said than done. However, I was up for the challenge!
I immediately went to a nearby gas station and filled the tank to nearly overflowing. That’s what they do in NASCAR and that’s good enough for me. I had driven the car only a couple of miles and it took 5.4 gallons to completely fill the tank!
My “plan” was to drive the car until the gas gauge read 7/8 of a tank. I would record how many miles it took to create that situation. Then on the way back to the airport, that number of miles would be exactly the number of miles from the airport where I would fill up. I’ve always been good with numbers. Although my background was sales my CPA tax accountant (sorry the photo isn’t correct, my CPA was a woman) told me I was the only “non-engineer” who created every line of my U.S. tax return on an Excel spreadsheet. I took that as a huge compliment. Did you know before you came here there was this much strategy in the hobby of trackchasing?
I have another important strategy that I employ when I fly overnight. With that type of flight, I land very early in the morning like I did today. Most hotels’ official check-in time is 3 p.m. Yes, I could have stayed in the airline club to catch up on my sleep but a hotel would be better.
With 22 years of retirement in the rearview mirror and 175 nights a year of hotel stays I have stayed in my share of Motel 6 properties. I don’t do that much anymore. However, Motel 6s are very cooperative with letting me check into a room at 9 o’clock in the morning if they have a room that wasn’t occupied the night before. Sometimes I might have to make two or three phone calls to get that early check-in.
This morning, on my first call, I got an acceptance. I showed up at the hotel a little past 9 a.m. The check-in lady was as nice as pie. She called me “sweetheart” as they are still likely to do in the south. I paved the way for my early check-in by giving her two of the chocolate chip cookies I bought at the Priority Pass restaurant in Denver. When I asked her if she would like the cookies, she didn’t give me any of those “BS” comments like “Oh no, I really shouldn’t”. Her one-word answer was “Yes”. As in “Yes, give me the cookies now, damn it!” That was fine with me. I was more than happy to use my chocolate chip cookies as bargaining chips! Remember, my background is sales and anything that can be used to make the sale easier and more complete is fair game.
I proceeded to sleep until 2 p.m. I’ll be trackchasing up in Virginia this evening. When I get back to Charlotte after the races, I will go back to my motel room and sleep from somewhere around 11 p.m. until 5 a.m. I have a 7:30 a.m. flight back to Los Angeles tomorrow morning. I sort of think of my redeye flight/early hotel check-in strategy as getting two hotel sleeps for the price of one. Yes, I like to think of myself as being a “thinking person’s trackchaser”.
Last night I trackchased in Utah. My original plan was to trackchase today in the state of Washington. That was before I learned that if I trackchased in Virginia this evening I could get to see racing on two different track configurations. Two tracks in Virginia always trump one track in Washington…even if I do have to fly overnight to make it happen.
It would have been a lot easier to trackchase in Utah on Friday night and Washington on Saturday night and then fly back to California on Sunday morning. The trifecta of Utah, Virginia, and California was not as convenient obviously. On the other hand, with my trackchasing production being doubled in Virginia, than it would have been in Washington, I saved a day of my future trackchasing time. All I had to do was put my body through a little bit more of a hassle by flying cross country a couple of times. One of the best things I took from being in Marine Corps boot camp was this. You can do a lot more physically than you might initially think you can.
Tonight’s racing in Elk Creek, Virginia would feature what I lovingly call “junk car” racing. This type of racing would never be confused with the racing you would see at the Daytona 500 or the Indy 500. This doesn’t matter to me. I am a “track” chaser and not a racechaser.
Elk Creek’s plan was to have racing on both an oval configuration and a figure 8 configuration. In trackchasing lingo that counts as two tracks. I don’t see many of these events, but I never like to pass them up when there is the opportunity to get a trackchasing double.
I always like to thank people when I get to reapply their good ideas. Most trackchasers are slow to adopt that line of thinking. How hard is it, how long does it take and how much does it cost to say “thank you”? A fellow by the name of Bryan Davis Keith saw racing at these two tracks in Elk Creek last year. When people do that, I record their results and make a note to replicate their success next year or as soon as I can. Thank you, Bryan!
Of course, I have seen racing at more tracks than anyone else. Other trackchasers are doing the same thing by looking at my results. They just don’t say where they got their ideas from! I learned a long time ago it doesn’t take much time or effort to say thank you.
During my business career, I learned all about a concept called “search and reapply”. Search and reapply simply means finding someone else’s idea and massaging it so that the idea works for you. I do much better in life by taking other’s ideas and manipulating them to fit my program. I attribute this strategy to a good deal of my personal success. I like using other people’s ideas.
Today’s racing location was sort of out in the middle of nowhere somewhere up in the mountains near the Virginia/North Carolina border. This was scenic country. The racing was being sponsored by the Elk Creek, Virginia fire department.
These folks have what I call a “permanent” racetrack situated all by itself just outside of town. By “permanent” I mean they have permanent safety walls surrounding the racing surface. They place two huge tractor tires inside the safety enclosure. Those tires are used as pylons and create the opportunity for an oval race and a figure 8 race.
Surprising to me, the small town of Elk Creek has a drag racing facility. Even more surprising was that the drag race operation was having an event today as well. I wonder how that plan of competing race facilities came to be considering the two locations were less than a mile from each other? I would have liked to have stopped to watch the drag racing but there wasn’t time. I could hear the drag cars all night from where I was watching the Oval/F8 racing. As you know from reading my past Trackchaser Reports the rules of trackchasing do not allow the counting of drag racing. Why? I have no frigging idea!
Today they had a few sets of permanent bleachers. Quite a few fans brought their lawn chairs or watched from their parked cars, which circled the arena. I’ll guess there were 400-500 fans and drivers at the track.
It is somewhat unusual to see racing at two racetrack configurations at one location on the same day. Recall that the trackchasing rules allow chasers to count racing on three race configurations. Those would be ovals, road courses and figure 8 tracks.
Tonight, they would do all their oval track racing first. When the heats and main events were finished on the oval, they began their figure 8 racing.
In the heat races, there were only four cars competing for eight laps. The drivers raced hard, slung some dirt, and banged into some walls. I think the crowd was entertained by things.
However, after each race, four different construction machines, including a Caterpillar tractor, and some Kubota skip loaders went out and worked on the track. The track surface was red dirt common to the area. The composition of the dirt did make it look sandier than normal. I didn’t think all this prep work was worth it. Doing that after EVERY race sure took a lot of time.
Between the oval racing and the figure 8 racing they took nearly an hour “intermission”. The announcer told everyone that officials were trying to determine the winner of the oval racing main event. Folks, there were only six cars in that race! Some broke down. Others were slow and fell laps behind. How hard could this be…with just six cars? Even if they couldn’t determine the winner from the small selection of possibilities couldn’t they at least begin the figure 8 racing and not delay everyone by an hour on a Sunday night? I know this. That hour’s delay came right out of my sleep time. Nevertheless, I was happy to see add two tracks to my lifetime totals. Don’t miss the video.
On the way home I stopped for a snack at a Cook Out hamburger fast food restaurant. I don’t know if you’ve seen these, but they are very popular in North Carolina.
I use fast food drive-through lanes all the time. I’ll bet in any given month I am at a fast-food drive-through 25-40 times. I almost always pay for my food and drink with my Apple Watch, using Apple Pay. I am still pleasantly surprised when a teenage cashier is amazed that an old guy like me is using an Apple Watch to pay for his hamburger. On this topic, I shouldn’t be teaching them they should be teaching me.
It was nearly 11 p.m. when I got to Cook Out. I tried to pay with my Apple Watch and was informed that they don’t do that. No watch payments! I could accept that type of feedback if it were 1950. This is 2023!
Then I offered up the idea of using my Apple iPhone to pay with Apple Pay in the same manner. I was told that after 9:30 p.m. when the inside restaurant closes, they can no longer accept iPhone payments. If I had arrived when the inside restaurant was open, they would’ve taken my phone from me and walked it up to the cash register inside the restaurant to get payment. I have never heard of such a thing. I mentioned this to a friend. He told me the only way for anyone to take his iPhone from him was from “his cold dead hand”! I can’t make this stuff up!
I still needed to pay for my double cheeseburger and Diet Coke. I went to option #3 of the four options I had available in my payment arsenal. I used a physical credit card. That worked. My cheeseburger was excellent. It tasted just like it had been grilled in the backyard. I guess that’s why they call this place “Cook Out”.
These folks also offer more than 30 flavors of milkshakes all priced at a reasonable $3.99. There’s a reason there are long lines at places like In N Out Burgers and Chick-fil-A…and Cook Out. It’s not because their service is slow. It’s because their food is great. Remember, people vote with their feet.
Oh! What’s my fourth option for drive-through payment? I call it the “nuclear” option. Cash! I HATE paying with cash. Did you get that? I HATE paying with cash. I don’t like carrying cash. You will normally find me with three $20 bills in my small credit card leather case. Oftentimes I can go weeks without spending any cash.
I HATE carrying coins. I might go a year without having a coin on me. You might ask, “Randy, what do you do when someone says ‘Let’s flip a coin”. First, I will ask them if they have a coin. If they don’t, I will have a little more respect for them! Then I will say to Siri, who lives in my iPhone somewhere, “Siri, flip a coin”. Do you feel me?
When I got back to my Motel 6, I still had about half a mile of walking to do to get up to my 4 miles for the day. I guess my Motel 6 near the Charlotte Coliseum wasn’t in that great of a neighborhood. Why do I say that?
When I started walking around the parking lot at nearly midnight, I noticed two guys eyeing my movements. As they got a little bit closer, I noticed they were two civilians, wearing bulletproof vests and carrying holstered guns. Yikes! Folks, I know that some of you think I make these things up to create drama. I don’t. I don’t have the imagination to do that. It turned out these were the security guards for my Motel 6 property.
I’m not gonna lie. I have seen my share of police activity while staying at Motel 6s across the country. Crime comes more from poor people than rich people. For the most part, rich people don’t have to steal stuff because they already have stuff. Ever heard that explained in such simple terms?
Motel 6 is a more attractive option for poorer people. Poor people travel too. All you really must do is do the math and it’s easy to understand why Motel 6 had two security guards wearing bulletproof vests. I wish our world wasn’t like that but it is and it’s getting worse.
This is one of the reasons I don’t stay in Motel 6s much anymore. The security guards were nice enough and told me their presence was simply in order to protect me. Fair enough. I guess I’m glad I don’t have to wear a bulletproof vest to protect people like me!
I finished knocking out my four miles or so I thought I did. Later it dawned on me that I had not walked 4 miles for the day according to the Pacific time zone, which is my hometown time zone. My Apple Watch and Apple iPhone calculate how far I have walked in the time zone where my watch or my phone is located at that moment. Yes, I walked 4 miles in the Eastern time zone today. However, when that activity was converted to West Coast time, I only came in at 3.2 miles. Bummer.
SUNDAY
I didn’t really want to catch a 7:30 a.m. flight in the Eastern time zone from Charlotte to Los Angeles. That meant my wake-up call came at 1:15 a.m. Pacific time where I would be spending the balance of my day. However, Hurricane Hilary was going to bring a tropical storm to Southern California today. I thought if I got back to Los Angeles earlier, I might miss the worst of the rain and wind.
I was super lucky to land at 9:30 a.m. when it wasn’t raining. It had already rained a lot, but during my 25-minute walk from the airport terminal to my parking garage there was no rain. As soon as I left the garage, it started to rain hard.
There is one reason why no one is going to be able to ever match my trackchasing totals unless the rules are dramatically changed. Maybe someday trackchasers can count tracks by simply watching the racing on TV. Oh my.
No one will ever match or exceed my trackchasing numbers for several reasons. It’s unlikely anyone will live in a place like California and use a three-day trip to see racing in Colorado, Utah, and finally Virginia and be back in California in 72 hours. Four tracks in three states in 72 hours was a lot of trackchasing production.
I’m home! Driving back from their airport in the rain reminded me that folks say Californians can’t drive in the rain. Maybe that’s true! In 30 hours after I landed in Los Angeles today, I will be back at the airport leaving on a 15-day trip, flying nearly 21,000 miles. How about I tell you about that trip next time?
Thanks for tuning in.
Randy Lewis
The man without a coin to his name