Visiting the NIMS people!
Best feedback yet!
I received more positive feedback from my “Time and Score” posting than I ever have. Here’s a sampling of what people had to say.
“This was one of your better letters – EVER!
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The message…gives one pause. We have to realize time is limited more than funds. Thanks
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Fun newsletter, Randy! Great stuff, great trips, great info. Happy New Year!
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Another great newsletter. You certainly had a great time in New York City. I really enjoyed your story about how you helped the Filipino lady and her children. Randy, you really are a teddy bear at heart! Great job on your part to help them out.
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Happy new year!!! As ALWAYS, an excellent newsletter!!!! And your Filipino story brought tears to my eyes as well! What a beautiful gesture from an awesome human being! This WILL come back to you a thousand fold! But as you say, time and score (I had never heard that phrase before- makes a ton of sense!)
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Good one!”
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Happy New Year, Randy,
I really enjoyed your newsletter!
It brought back a lot of memories of my own – and Kin’s.
I believe he understood the “time and score” from the get go or we would never have been able to go to all the places and do all the things we managed to do over the years!
You take care and I think you missed your calling as a writer!!! You should write a book or just put your newsletters into one!! (I’m sure others have told you the same thing). You could make another fortune.
I can’t please everyone!
Three people unsubscribed after seeing my last post. That’s a record.
I always wonder, whenever someone does “unsubscribe,” why they did that. What was the trigger? I’ll never know.
I do know this. I would never want anyone to continue getting what I share if they didn’t find some value from reading.
Randy’s New Car Buying Method.
I shared my annual post in early December about getting the best deal on a new car. My dentist sent me this message. Congrats to his son for having the knowledge and discipline to earn a nice reward.
“My son used your car buying guide on New Year’s Eve and saved $9K!
Thanks”
And now back to your regularly scheduled program….Just a normal trip for me.
I woke up at 5 a.m. this morning. You should be impressed with that. I normally sleep in until about 7:30, and the first thing I do is grab my phone. I’m generally in bed for about an hour going over the day’s events, hearing from people who have messaged me overnight from all over the world, and catching up on the news.
You may think that 5 a.m. is no big deal. You might say to yourself that you get up at 5 a.m. or even earlier.
I get it. That’s what you think. I don’t think you should feel that way. I was getting up 2 1/2 earlier hours earlier than I usually do. If you get up at 5 a.m., to fully appreciate my story, you have to think about yourself getting up at 2:30 a.m., 2 ½ hours before you usually get up. You will enjoy today’s story if you can make that mental adjustment.
I know you’ve done this.
Have you ever walked into a drugstore or a grocery store? Both of those kinds of retail outlets sell a lot of different items.
Every one of those items, at least to some degree, appeals to somebody. You and I probably would never be interested in 98% of what the store is selling. That’s OK. When you go into the store, you expect a positive outcome. The store typically has what you wanna buy. You don’t have to worry much about what they stock that you don’t want to buy.
#1
When I was selling “packaged goods,” Oil of Olay, a facial moisturizer, was the number one selling brand in drugstores. Imagine, out of everything carried by drugstores, Olay was #1.
You might be happy to know, and on the other hand, you might not care at all that I was the first person to sell Oil of Olay to Costco. Costco is now the world’s second-biggest retailer. They never stocked Olay until I showed up on their doorstep.
Here’s the funny thing. The company I worked for didn’t want to sell to Costco. Why? They didn’t think Costco was “upscale enough” to carry the product. At the time, Olay was sort of straddling the fence between being a boutique brand and a mass-market brand. I helped to change that.
You’re not good enough!
Can you imagine being in sales with one of the biggest customers and telling them they “weren’t good enough” to buy your product? That’s tough.
To get things approved, the company made Costco take a twin pack. They packaged Oil of Olay with a flanker product, Night of Olay. Night of Olay was a huge DOG! It didn’t sell. I told our folks this would never work. It didn’t. Soon, Night of Olay was discontinued. Today, the Olay brand is one of the biggest sellers in Costco…now I will deftly attempt to switch topics.
My first day of trackchasing in 2025.
Today is Friday. Friday, January 3, 2025. Today, I begin my 2025 trackchasing season. I began trackchasing by recording locations and visit dates in 1980. Up to that point, I had seen auto racing at 71 tracks in just one country. Today, as I began my 45th trackchasing season, I have seen racing at 3,044 tracks in 88 countries. Trackchasing has taken me around the world many times.
Sorry, if you think this is true.
I sometimes feel I have short-changed the people who signed up for my newsletter expecting more trackchasing coverage. I hope nobody feels I intentionally misled them. My newsletter is about trackchasing, finance, and travel.
I’ll try to correct that today, but as I try to do that, you will realize that trackchasing involves a lot of travel and finance.
With my trackchasing hobby, I try to see auto racing at as many different tracks as I can worldwide. That’s the spiel I give to people when I make first contact on Facebook or over the internet while trying to get information about a track I might visit.
How can you see racing at so many tracks?
About 2,500 of my 3,000+ track visits have been in the United States. For years, people have asked me, “Aren’t you running out of new tracks to see?” Today, the answer to that question is yes!
I have now seen racing at more than 99% of all permanent race tracks in America. By “permanent track” I use the trackchasing definition of a track. That’s an oval, road course, or figure 8 configuration. That’s a track that races cars or trucks more often than once or twice a year.
When I first started trackchasing several decades ago, I didn’t concern myself about whether I was visiting a track for the first time. I wanted to see a good race with the cars and drivers I enjoyed. For me that was the “racechasing,” not the trackchasing phase of my interest in motorsports.
I am a trackchaser.
Today, I am a trackchaser and not a racechaser. Honestly, I am no longer interested in the racing all that much. I’ve already seen all of the best racing at all of the best tracks a long time ago. Now my trackchasing is pretty much all about checking the trackchasing box.
I don’t live near the tracks.
I live in California. Most of the racing in the United States takes place in the Midwest and the East. I’m going to guess that well over 95% of my track visits required me to hop on an airplane rather than drive from our modest seaside cottage to a race track.
I’ve mentioned earlier that a food store or a drugstore is likely to carry many items you would have no interest in buying. My trackchasing hobby might fall into that category of very little interest for you. However, maybe you wouldn’t mind reading about this hobby and silently saying, “I’m glad I don’t do stuff like that.”
As noted, I have seen racing at over 99% of all race tracks in America. The remaining tracks are few and far between. I have a policy that I adhere to as much as I can. I won’t travel from California to the Midwest or east just to see one track. At a minimum, I need to see two tracks. I’m going to have to change that policy just a little bit.
Mix and match.
If I can see one new race track and have one excellent, interesting touring activity, that would be good enough to create a trip.
World’s Best Climate.
It’s Winter. Well, it’s not winter in San Clemente. Our town’s license plate frames read, “World’s Best Climate.” Nevertheless, it is winter in most other places in the United States and much of the world.
Before I tell you much about this particular trip I don’t want you to think I get up at 5 a.m. and fly cross-country for a mundane activity. I never travel to be traveling.
I do this to see what’s on the other side of the mountain.
People sometimes tell me they would never want to travel as much as I do. What do I think when I hear that? They aren’t interested in seeing what’s “on the other side of the mountain”. But I never tell anyone that!
Planning the trip might be the most fun for me.
Trackchasing involves a good deal of pre-planning. I like that as much as anything about my hobby. For my domestic visits, I don’t plan more than a few days in advance. Sometimes, I’ll change the plan on the day of the race itself.
I already have firm plans to travel outside North America for 57 nights (see what I did there?) in the first six months of 2025. For the past few years, I’ve been traveling outside the United States for 80 days each year or more. I suspect I will beat that number by a wide margin.
Winter means ice racing.
During the winter, there is no traditional outdoor auto racing in the U.S. Most of the time, auto racing needs fans to support the program. Of course, no one wants to sit outside in frigidly cold weather.
There is one exception to that. Ice racing! During January and February, my trackchasing happens at ice tracks.
Did you even know they held car races on ice, usually frozen lakes? A lot of people who I talk to don’t know that. Ice racing is most popular in Wisconsin and Minnesota.
Despite living in the “World’s Best Climate,” I have seen ice racing at 136 different locations in 26 states, Canadian provinces, and countries.
Carol and I went to Russia to see ice racing. I’ve been to Belarus to see ice racing. Currently, Russia and Belarus are identified as “category four” by the United States…for security risks. The United States government has a 1-4 rating on the advisability of visiting each of the 193 countries in the world. Category 4 is terrible. If a country gets a Category 4 rating, you’re not supposed to go there. When I visited Russia and Belarus, they were not category 4 travel risks. I am actively considering attending a race in Venezuela, which is currently category 4. That’s on me.
A quick surgical in and out trip.
My trip this week is planned to be short. After I tell you about it, you can tell me whether you would be interested in doing this kind of trackchasing.
This was my transportation plan. I would drive nearly three hours round-trip on a 16-lane freeway just getting up to the Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) and back. I plan to fly eight hours round-trip from Los Angeles to Minneapolis. Once I’m on the ground in Minneapolis I plan to drive 1,000 miles in the two days that I will have a rental car.
That’s 23 hours of traveling. I’ll be gone on this trip for 60 hours. No, this is not the same kind of travel as sitting on the pool deck of a Caribbean cruise.
You pretty much thought you had no interest in trackchasing whatsoever. Now you’ve heard my travel itinerary. I’ve got to believe “you are firmly convinced” that you have no interest in trackchasing. Hang a little longer. It gets better.
I will say this. I don’t think anyone should get up at 5 a.m. Nor should they leave the garage when it’s 51° outside. A 51-degree morning should be reserved for curling up near the fireplace and reading a book. In San Clemente today the high temperature will be about seventy. Our average high temperature for all 12 months of the year ranges from 67-77. That’s my idea of “World’s Best Climate”. I wish I had a donut for everyone who reminds me that their climate was better than San Clemente’s on one particular day.
Ever been to Nekoosa?
I was headed to Nekoosa, Wisconsin. Nekoosa is near Lacrosse, Wisconsin. For the next 10 days, the average high temperature in Nekoosa would be about 18. The average low is about 5°. That’s why folks back there like ice racing on frozen lakes. It’s one of their few entertainment options during the winter.
I could only find one track racing this weekend that made any sense to me. The Central Wisconsin Ice Racing Association was having a race on the ice at Lake Pettenwell. I told you I wouldn’t come back to the Midwest for one track.
Ever been to Lincoln, Nebraska?
What else would I be doing? UCLA would be playing basketball at the University of Nebraska in Lincoln, Nebraska, on Saturday. The ice race will be on Sunday.
With the number of race tracks remaining to be seen declining, I have established a new sports-related goal.
Can you name the members of the Big 10 conference?
UCLA is now in the Big Ten conference. Of course, the Big Ten has 18 teams, which is how we do things in today’s world.
UCLA used to be in the Pac-12 conference. That group included schools on the West Coast. However, UCLA decided they needed to be in a conference with schools in New Jersey and Maryland to get more frequent flyer miles, I guess.
Why would UCLA move from a conference that took them to Northern California, Washington, and Arizona so they could travel these long distances? A long time ago, I discovered that if I didn’t know the answer to a question, I needed to follow the money. Being in the Big 10 conference pays UCLA about $20 million more each year. Answering questions is a lot easier when you learn to follow the money.
Do you regret retirement?
I retired 23 years ago. Yesterday, a friend sent me a news story titled “A lot of people regret retirement”. He sends me lots of these types of stories. I like to read the headline, give my initial response, and then later read the story he sent me.
I was interested in what people might say was their biggest regret about retirement.
What was my initial reaction to the headline? I don’t have any regrets whatsoever about retirement. I never have. Part of that is associated with my laid-back nature.
Am I the most laid-back guy folks know?
We have two women friends who have said separately that I am the most laid-back guy they know. One lives in California. One lives in Georgia. They don’t know each other. I mention this to Carol frequently. Carol can be an “eye-roller.” When I tell her that I’m the most laid-back guy that most people know, she is likely to roll her eyes. Go figure.
How laid-back am I? I never know what day of the week it is. I don’t need to know. I know that yesterday our daughter Kristy and her family returned home from a Christmas visit to Texas. I know that tomorrow is the University of Nebraska-UCLA basketball game. I know that in a couple of weeks, I’ll be traveling to Australia. I will return to California and in less than a week, Carol and I will travel to New Zealand. Remember, I never told you I was good at trip planning. I said I liked trip planning. My calendar doesn’t have days of the week on it. It has activities.
I never carry a coin in my pocket. Lugging around coins would make me mad. The most laid-back guy anybody knows can’t walk around being mad. I don’t walk around with coins…ever.
Regrets in retirement.
Oops. I got a little off track there. What did the story say that people find their biggest regrets about retirement?
Money. Isolated.
Two things. First, the respondents said they didn’t have enough money to live on in retirement. Secondly, they said they didn’t have enough friends and felt isolated.
I’m a money guy. I study financial strategies and then I work those strategies. I’ve been doing that all my life.
How’s this for a brilliant statement? When people retire, they either have enough money for a financially secure retirement or they don’t.
If you’ve been reading my newsletter for very long, you’ve seen me explain various financial strategies that have worked well for me. Commonly, I get questions about those strategies from people asking for advice. The other day, a woman referred to my financial strategies as “unorthodox”.
My financial strategies are not unorthodox to me. This doesn’t mean those strategies won’t seem “out there” to people reading about them.
What is unorthodox?
Having a mortgage? Having an interest-only mortgage? Not worrying about your credit score. Carrying a $92,000 credit card balance. Unorthodox?
I can only tell you this about that. If I had to guess, I would tell you, I’ve taken somewhere around 300-400 golf lessons in my life. Commonly, the golf pro will tell me to do something that feels “unorthodox”. It feels like the suggestion would never work.
Maybe you are not a golfer. If that is the case, I ask you to do this simple five-second exercise. Hold your arms in front of your chest. That feels pretty normal. Now reverse the position of your arms and fold them the way you never fold them. That feels weird, doesn’t it?
Sometimes, what you’ve been doing all your life is the wrong way to do things. I’m sure if you think about this, you have lots of examples to support that idea.
I need more money?
If someone retires too early without enough money, that isn’t good. If someone retires with too much money, maybe they worked too long. Perhaps they should have retired sooner and done what they really wanted to do. Very few people who work 40 hours a week or more at an activity would be interested in doing it if they didn’t get paid. If you have enough money, stop working and do the stuff that you would like to enjoy that work prevents you from enjoying.
I need more friends?
The second thing people talked about as a regret from retirement was not having enough friends and feeling isolated. That one surprised me a little bit.
I grew up as a latchkey kid. I was comfortable with my own company. I love traveling as much as I do. However, if someone travels away from their home half the days of the year, they’re not gonna be able to do as many at-home activities as “normal” people do.
It’s hard to go to yoga class on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday if you’re not home on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. It’s even challenging to have lunch with friends with the travel schedule that I maintain.
I have replaced those normal personal interactions quite often with people I talk to on the Internet. I know. That sort of sounds like a stalker or some otherwise demented individual, doesn’t it?”
I meet a lot of people when I travel. I can be a gregarious person so I always meet interesting people. They all have a “story”. I have a “story”. Most of these encounters are not with folks that I will see all that often again. Commonly, I won’t see these people again. That makes my interaction with my new “friends” much different than if I had coffee with the neighbor next door three times a week.
On the other hand, I will likely talk to fifty people or more every week online or on the phone. I spoke to a buddy from Zimbabwe on the phone a few days ago. I have a friend in Bosnia, and we talk frequently. Getting 10-15 messages from people outside the United States is not unusual in one week. As a latchkey kid, that might be good enough for me, but maybe not for you. Remember the grocery store analogy.
Do you like to multitask?
I dictated this part of the story driving up to LAX on a 16-lane freeway. Carol doesn’t think multitasking is a good idea. She tells me that people can’t do two things, or more well enough when trying to multitask. I tell her that most things don’t need to be done perfectly. And so, it goes.
What did it take to make this trip a success?
It’s time to get serious now about this trip. I want to give you a little background now about what it will take to pull this adventure off.
My trips do not always go according to plan. That doesn’t bother me in the least. I enjoy the unpredictability. Whenever my adventure starts to go off the rails, creative thinking is required.
For my domestic trips, I fly standby most of the time. Flying standby means that if the airline has an unsold seat and I have enough priority amongst all of the other standby passengers, I would get that seat. This is a benefit of being an airline dependent. For my international trips, I almost always buy our tickets.
I got up at 5 AM so I could make an 8:30 a.m. flight from Los Angeles to Minneapolis. People are still returning home from their Christmas and holiday vacations. Flights are generally trending toward being full. I missed getting on the first flight I wanted by about 10 seats. I could wait three hours for the next Minneapolis flight and see how I did, but I had a better idea.
I could change terminals at LAX and try for a nonstop flight, again on a standby basis, to Kansas City. That flight had two unsold seats. Nobody other than me was standing by for the flight. I made that flight! Once I was safely on board, many other travel plans had to be changed.
Change is constant.
First, I had to change my rental car reservation from Minneapolis to Kansas City. I planned to pick up the car in Kansas City and drop it a couple of days later in Minneapolis. That’s a one-way rental. One-way rentals are expensive.
This new one-way rental increased the cost of my rental car by about 100 bucks. That wasn’t good. I used a “free rental day” from National Car Rental to offset that. That decision got that hundred dollars back. Dropping the car in Minneapolis would be a much better idea logistically than returning it where I picked it up in Kansas City.
Picking up the car in Kansas City required me to create a new hotel reservation. In this circumstance, that was also a benefit. I could get a Hyatt hotel in Lincoln, Nebraska, where I was headed for a basketball game tomorrow afternoon.
Time to buy my basketball ticket.
Knowing that I was confirmed to fly to the Midwest opened up the idea of buying my basketball ticket. I used to use my “need one” sign exclusively when buying sports tickets on trips like this. Covid and the advent of people putting their tickets on their phones have pretty much killed my “need one” idea. People aren’t nearly as willing and/or qualified to manage the technology needed to sell their unused tickets. That’s too bad for everyone.
Seat Geek!
I went on my Seat Geek app and picked up a ticket to the UCLA-Nebraska game tomorrow afternoon in the lower bowl of the Pinnacle Bank Arena in Lincoln. I paid $63 for a good seat. The face value on that ticket was only $24 according to the app.
I could have waited until Saturday morning but the next best-selling ticket in my section was $93 so I figured it would be worthwhile to pull the trigger. This guaranteed a good location seat for a reasonable price.
Do you know where you are sleeping tonight?
It is common for me not to know on the morning of any given day what state I will be sleeping in that night. For this night, I could’ve stayed overnight in Minnesota, Iowa, or Nebraska. I’ve had several trips where I didn’t even know on the morning of a particular day what country I would be sleeping in that night. If that’s not laid-back, I don’t know what is, right?
When I landed in Kansas City, I had to cool my jets for two hours. I landed at 4 o’clock. I didn’t expect to be returning my rental car until 6 p.m. on Sunday. So as not to incur an extra day’s rental car charge, I hung out at Kansas City’s new airport for a couple of hours. That way, my rental would be exactly 48 hours or maybe just a little bit less.
A good conversationalist lets the other person do the talking.
Once on the rental car bus, I chatted up my neighbor. He asked me what I thought about the snowstorm coming to Kansas City. Snow? I used my Apple weather map. No snow was predicted for the Lacrosse, Wisconsin area, where I would be trackchasing this weekend.
Then, my new friend informed me that on Sunday, two days from now, there was a 90% chance of 16-20 inches of snow in Kansas City. Kansas City was south of where I was headed. I was right on the snow/no snow line being in KC. Where I was headed, there wouldn’t be any snow. I was getting out of Kansas City just in time.
The All-Star.
I like eating at Waffle Houses. California doesn’t have any WH restaurants. I knew there was a Waffle House adjacent to the Kansas City airport. I stopped in there and enjoyed my favorite, the All-Star breakfast.
I was the only person in the place. I heard the cook and the server talking about how people were freaking out about the incoming snowstorm. My server told me, “Topeka is already sold out of bottled water. They’re low on toilet paper.” Poor Topeka. In my world, that’s freaking out. Remember, I left San Clemente, California, home of the world’s best climate, to travel this weekend.
I’ll stay at the Hyatt Place in Lincoln, Nebraska tonight. The going rate for a room there tonight was nearly $170. Not for me. I used just 6,500 Hyatt points from the 1.3 million Hyatt points I earned this past year to get the room at no charge. That provided my room and free parking.
The good thing about the Hyatt Place in Lincoln is that it’s only about a block’s walk from the Pinnacle Bank Arena. Tomorrow’s basketball game between UCLA and Nebraska will be played there.
From off the rails to back on track.
Yes, my trip started off the rails when I missed that first flight to Minneapolis. Then, with a bit of nudging a little shoving, and a little logistical manipulation, the trip was suddenly back on track. I do this type of thing forty or more weekends every year. I love it.
I spent tonight’s three-hour drive from Kansas City to Lincoln listening to podcasts, mainly points and miles podcasts. I’m getting pretty good at this point and miles thing. One of my following newsletters is going to detail a full year’s production of points and miles for me. You won’t want to miss that one.
Pretentious?
I hold the highest frequent stay ranking with Hyatt. I have Globalist status. Carol thinks the term “Globalist” is a bit pretentious. Me? I like it.
To become a Globalist, I need to earn 60 “qualifying nights” each year. I don’t have to actually sleep in a Hyatt for 60 nights. I can also earn qualifying nights by spending on their credit card.
As a Globalist, Hyatt treats me very well. Tonight, when I checked in, I received a suite upgrade. This place only has three suites out of there 111 rooms. The hotel clerk waived the $12 parking fee. I received complimentary breakfast and a 4 p.m. guaranteed late checkout and three free drinks. If I am going to travel, it will be much more enjoyable getting all of these perks.
A basic room tonight at the Hyatt Place was $166. I’m not sure what the suite price was, but I’m sure it was substantially higher than the cost of a basic room. What did I pay? My “charge” was 6,500 Hyatt frequent stay points. I can earn that amount of points with one or two paid days.
Saturday
Making the trip worthwhile.
Today, I will see a college basketball game. Tomorrow, I go trackchasing on a frozen lake in Wisconsin. I would not have made this trip for only the game or only the ice racing. But, when I could combine them, it was a worthwhile idea for a quick weekend out to the Midwest.
I routinely travel to 30-35 states annually and to around 10-12 foreign countries. Those states rotate each year. I’m probably in all 50 states every three or four years and for some of those states, I have visited yearly for the past 20 years or so.
I enjoy watching people.
I am an observer of people. A long ago, I discovered the NIMS people. Maybe you’ve heard me talk about the NIMS people? Who are these folks?
NIMS is an acronym for Nebraska, Iowa, Minnesota, and South Dakota. Get it? NIMS! The nicest people in America live in those four states.
Nicest fans?
I’ve seen a lot of UCLA basketball and football games on the road. This gives me a chance to observe the behavior of the fans where UCLA is playing. Which school’s fans are the nicest?
Schools like Nebraska and Texas A&M top the list. People from Nebraska are just doggone nice. I don’t have many good things to say about Arizona (probably the worst), or usc.
From the hotel to the Pinnacle Bank Arena, I didn’t have to put on gloves or a hat to walk over to the arena. The “feels like” temperature was 6°.
Gang colors?
The nickname for the Nebraska Cornhuskers is “Big Red“. It seemed like 99% of the people wore big red Nebraska gear. I wore my blue and white UCLA sweatshirt with the words “UCLA Bruins” emblazed across my chest.
I don’t think I would have gotten any more unusual or quirky looks if my sweatshirt had read, “I am a communist.”
The Nebraska fans were so nice that when they looked at my shirt, they immediately dropped their gaze to their feet. It was as if they were embarrassed to have been caught looking at my shirt.
The Pinnacle Bank Arena is 10 years old. It looked much newer. PBA is one of the nicest arenas I’ve ever been in. Today, the arena was sold out with fans cramming every one of the seats in three decks. I had a nice seat just 18 rows from the court. Over the years, I have been willing to spend more money to get great seats. This is all part of my “time and score” financial/life strategy.
I’ll talk to you.
I always like to talk to the people I’m seated next to. On either side of me were some friendly Nebraskans. We conversed throughout the game, during all of the breaks, and at halftime. I discovered that one of the women was a newbie in the points and miles travel hobby. We spent a lot of time talking about that. Real nice folks.
Nebraska’s attendance for the season ranked #1 in the Big Ten out of 18 teams. UCLA’s attendance and legendary Pauley Pavilion rank next to last. Southern California people don’t get too excited about their sports teams most of the time. Who’s last in the Big Ten in attendance? Those lowly usc Trojans. Good for them.
I would have loved to see UCLA win this game, but that didn’t happen. UCLA was a 2 ½-point underdog. I don’t have to have my team win to enjoy the trip, but I prefer it. I am there for the overall ambiance if nothing else.
This sort of bugs me. What’s that? People.
I notice one thing every time I attend a UCLA game on the road. The fans. I am amazed that hometown fans can think that every call during the entire game goes against their team. If their team is on offense, they believe even the smallest amount of contact is a foul against them. If they are on defense, they don’t think that their players have ever committed a foul in their life. What makes seemingly rational people go absolutely nuts and make fully irrational conclusions about the officials call 98% of the time?
Despite Nebraska having such nice people they were just like every other road crowd that I have encountered. They thought that every call went against them. I am amazed that any knowledgeable sports fan can moan about 40 straight calls and firmly believe the refs are out to get them. I get a kick out of that. I heard one woman yell, “goal tending,” when a UCLA blocked a jump shot that had traveled just one foot before it was swatted away. On the walk back to the hotel, one UCLA fan told me that it was the refs that beat us. Go figure.
Just having fun with my friends on the road.
I ran into a lot of Nebraska fans in the hotel and at the stadium. If they engaged me in conversation or if I wanted to engage them in conversation, I would simply say, “Let me see if I have this right. You are UCLA fans who went to the game and ended up buying some Nebraska gear just for the heck of it”. The Nebraska people were so nice that they got a kick out of that line.
Don and Millies.
After the game, it was time for dinner. What does that mean for me? Hamburgers! One of my favorite restaurants in all of America is called Don and Millie’s. They are a small chain of hamburger and fries restaurants in Lincoln and Omaha. Their food is great. It doesn’t hurt that they sell margaritas for $1.39. Just a couple of years ago they sold their margaritas for $.99. They would be a cheap date. I never come to Nebraska without stopping at Don and Millie’s.
I would stay overnight in Rochester, Minnesota. I spent some time on Facebook Messenger talking to my friend Boris. Boris lives in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Facebook Messenger (similar to WhatsApp) phone calls are free. I use them all the time to talk to my friends internationally.
It was chilly in Minnesota.
The low temperature in the Midwest for the next 10 nights or so is going to be in the single digits. Temps like that build ice for ice racing.
Sometimes, I like to come out to the Midwest just for the half-price gasoline compared to what our prices are in California. I do bemoan the fact that folks with gas cars have to get out of their car to get gasoline. That has to be uncomfortable. I wish they had an electric vehicle. If so, they would wake up every morning with a fully charged vehicle that filled itself up while they slept in their warm and cozy beds.
Why do I have more energy than someone fifty years younger than me?
When I checked into tonight’s hotel, I asked the desk clerk how he was doing. He told me he was really tired. I told him I felt for him but that I was feeling on top of the world. Why? I had just consumed a bottle of 5-Hour Energy drink. I always wonder how twenty-somethings can get tired and I never do.
Sunday.
This is the Midwest!
This morning, I woke up in Rochester, Minnesota. The temperature was 4°. I grew up in Illinois. However, I have been gone from the Midwest for so long that cold weather is a foreign concept to me. In Southern California, I don’t think anybody should go outdoors if the temperature isn’t at least 55°.
I’m in Minnesota for ice racing. It’s the first weekend in January. Last year, I don’t think a single ice track held any races because of the warm weather. Ice racing is almost always, but not always, conducted on a frozen lake. It usually takes about 15 inches of solid ice before a track will be approved for ice racing.
It is also very unusual to hold an ice race this “early” in the season. Usually, the ice is not thick enough until the second or third week of January. The ice racing season in the United States will almost always be finished by the last weekend in February. It’s a very short season. Like I said last year, there wasn’t any ice racing at all. This winter, things look much better, but it only takes a few days of temperatures above freezing to change things to the negative.
I love meeting people.
I couldn’t stop thinking about my conversation with the Nebraska fan sitting next to me at the game yesterday. Not many people get to sit down for a couple of hours and converse on all topics with people who live far away and may or may not share common demographics in many ways.
I enjoyed the couple who were farmers from rural Nebraska. Real nice people. The lady asked me how old I was. I told her. She then returned with her observation that I looked more than 10 years younger.
Advice to take to the bank.
What did I get from her comment? Whenever you are going to guess someone’s age, look at them. Do your very best to throw out a number at least 10-12 years under the age you really think they are. You can never go wrong with that strategy. However, most strategies have an asterisk attached to them. If you’re talking to a 16-year-old, it’s never a good idea to tell them you thought they were 12.
More solid advice.
When I meet people, I try to practice the number one element of being a good conversationalist. I don’t always succeed with this plan. What’s the plan? Let them do most of the talking. You can achieve that by asking them lots of questions. It’s been my experience that people will think you’re a great conversationalist if you let them do most of the talking!
I am a very organized individual. I’ve been doing trackchasing/travel for a long time. I use “continuous improvement” at every turn. Everything in my soft-sided computer case is in its spot. I do that so I don’t forget anything. I still forget things.
Carol thinks I need a checklist. Every time I forget something, she reminds me I need a checklist. I used to have a checklist. That list had 77 items on it. I don’t use a checklist anymore. If I forget something, I’ll go without it or buy a replacement. It was just too dull to read a list every week with 77 items on it.
One of the most valuable things I bring on these trips is my four-pronged electrical charger. No one likes to have a piece of electronics that is out of juice.
I routinely bring along my iPhone, my Bose headset, my iPad, my MacBook Pro, and my Apple Watch. For this trip, I also brought along two electronic hand warmers. My four-pronged charger gets a good workout.
My go to rental car.
I rent the Toyota Camry on these trips as often as I can. I rent 40-50 cars every year. I would estimate that 80% of my rental cars are the Toyota Camry. I used to think getting 35-40 miles per gallon with that car was good. Now, in 2025, the Camry only comes as a hybrid model. I can get 50 miles per gallon or a little more with the new car. I liked the Toyota Camry hybrid so much that I bought one for Carol a few months ago.
I never forget the objective.
Trackchasing, like many hobbies, is a “counting” hobby. Trackchasers try to see as many tracks as possible in a year or lifetime. Just “visiting” racetracks doesn’t count in trackchasing. I have to see a race.
It’s not what people say, it is what people do.
Trackchasing is a highly competitive hobby. People want to see more tracks in a state, a season, or a country than the next person. Like many things in life, the people who tell you that trackchasing is not competitive are the most competitive. I’ve seen some trackchasers accuse other trackchasers of cheating. They will try to tell you that someone else tried to count a track that didn’t meet all the rules. Trackchasing counting is done on the honor system. Someone could cheat, but what fun would that be?
Nope. I would never do this.
We also have trackchasers who pay people to have a race just for their own personal benefit. If they didn’t “encourage” the promoter with cash, the race might not happen.
I have never done that and I would never do that. I think that is cheating. The payment system has now morphed into a “sponsorship”. The trackchaser pays money to “sponsor” the event they want to see. Then the next year, after the track has already been counted in the previous year, the sponsorship dollars miraculously go away. Who would have thunk??
My favorite truckstop.
I have my favorite places to stop when I’m out in the Midwest. One of those places is Love’s Travel Stop. I’m a big fan of their convenience stores, and their smartphone app gives me a $.10 per gallon discount.
Love’s Travel Stops are also a good place to get my steps in. I will make laps around their huge truckstop parking lot during the warmer months until I’ve met my goals. Sometimes, that is done at two in the morning.
With today’s temperature at 4° and with six hours of driving, it will be challenging to walk four miles. I think I’ll make it, but it’s gonna require some attention.
A tank of fuel each day is not the same thing as an apple a day.
Over the years, I have trackchased between 75-100 days each year. I use about one tank of fuel every day when I am trackchasing. I have also traveled, on average, 160 nights a year for 23 years of retirement. The difference between the number of trackchasing days and the number of travel days might tell you how much travel is involved in doing this. It usually takes about a day of travel to get to the track and an extra day to get back to California from the track.
I don’t really like cold weather so these stats are odd.
I have now seen racing at 137 ice tracks. Almost all of those races were held on a frozen lake with roughly 15 inches of ice, maybe more.
Have you ever walked onto a frozen lake? Have you ever driven a rental car onto a frozen lake? What if I told you I do that multiple times every year? I’m not saying I do that; I’m just asking what if I told you that because someone might be listening in from the rental car company.
Over the years, I have bought one winter clothing item or something else that might make my time on the ice more comfortable each year. What’s one of my most valuable purchases? Ice cleats! I put those over my shoes. The ice cleats keep me from falling on my butt on the ice, which is easy to do.
Racing on the ice today in Wisconsin.
Today’s racing would involve three different general classes. Motorcycles, ATVs, and UTVs. Only one of those three classes allows me to count a track under trackchasing rules. That would be the UTVs.
Every race had 3-6 competitors. There were two “motos”. Each moto had 45 different races. That’s ninety races for the day on a frozen lake with a “feels like” temperature of about 5 degrees.
I would sink or swim with the UTVs.
I hoped I wouldn’t have to “sink or swim” on Lake Pettenwell today. Still, the only class that counted for me was the UTVs, I was anxious to see where those machines were on the schedule. I was more than happy when I saw that the UTVs would hit the ice as the 14th race out of 45. That meant I could be out on the ice when they raced. When the UTVs were finished, I would head inside to the Lure Bar & Grill for lunch. Once inside, I would watch the races from the comfort of the tavern and lots of Packers fans.
A long walk for a short slide.
I would end up driving my rental car 954 miles in 48 hours. On top of that, I flew round-trip for eight hours and drove another three hours round-trip from my house to the airport and back.
What did I get out of that? I saw a two-hour basketball game and a one-minute three-competitor UTV race. If you look up that situation in the dictionary, you will see the words, “That was a long walk for a short slide!”
Not my wheelhouse?
I don’t live a lifestyle that puts me inside many Wisconsin bars. From my experiences of traveling around the country, the people in Wisconsin drink more per capita than in any other state.
I was just happy to be inside the Lure Bar & Grill for the warmth, if nothing else. I ordered a 12-inch pizza for lunch. I told myself I would eat half and take the other half back to the hotel. I ate the whole thing. I topped that off with a white Russian (one of Carol’s favorite drinks) and a Diet Squirt. It was all good.
I also told myself I wouldn’t have anything for dinner, given my pizza consumption. I didn’t live up to that promise either. I stopped at a gas station convenience store to fill up with gas. I couldn’t pass up the $7.99 cherry Kringle pastry. Would it sound gluttonous to tell you I ate the whole thing on the drive back to Minneapolis?
I barely squeezed returning my rental car in just under 48 hours. That avoided an extra day’s rental expense.
I take advantage of what the road gives me.
Tonight was Sunday night. Sunday night is the slowest night of the week for most hotels. That being the case, I scored a beautiful 1,000-square-foot hotel suite at the Hyatt Regency in Minneapolis. I think I’ve had this room before. It’s nice.
Monday.
I don’t like to get up early.
On Monday morning, I would have preferred to sleep in. However, the only flight that looked like I could get on comfortably on a standby basis left early in the morning. I was on that flight.
Getting my first trackchasing event of 2025 in the books was nice. I also had a lot of fun attending the basketball game at the Pinnacle Bank Arena in Lincoln, Nebraska. What a beautiful place with some very passionate fans.
I don’t need this stuff but I can’t resist it.
When I landed at LAX, I made my almost obligatory stop at the two Game Store retail outlets there. My Priority Pass privileges work at both of these places. PP allowed me to pick up about $150 worth of drinks and snacks. I don’t need any of this stuff, but I just can’t resist getting something that’s absolutely free.
The second Hyatt Hotel of the three Hyatt hotels I stayed in this weekend offered me some complimentary drinks and snacks. I reached into a cooler and picked up a couple of Snickers candy bars. When I get home, I’ll have Carol freeze them, cut them in thirds, and that will be an 80-calorie snack.
When I got home, I began to unload all of my haul. I went to grab two of the Snickers bars. That created quite the surprise.
Although the packaging said Snickers, there was no way this felt like your traditional candy bar. It was a Snickers ICE CREAM BAR. Those two ice cream bars had been in my carry-on luggage for two days. I’m just lucky they didn’t leak. I explained the situation to Carol. She put them in the freezer and agreed to eat them later. Carol will eat anything that’s left over!
I’ve done this type of trip hundreds of times.
This trip was relatively routine. Yes, when I fly out to Kansas City and come home from Minneapolis in the dead of winter that’s not exactly your most exotic trip. However, I had a couple of free days. This is what I do in retirement. In a couple of weeks, I have a trip to Australia, and then I fly back to California and pick up Carol. We go right back out to New Zealand. I suspect that will be a more exotic adventure than this weekend.
I hope you enjoyed my trip telling. It is not lost on me that what I do is a very specialized, unique, and niche hobby. I’ve now seen racing at 3,045 race tracks in 88 countries. Each time I think I can never get a new experience from doing this, I do.
I’m still undecided as to whether my next newsletter will focus on my trip to Australia or my year-end results from an extremely profitable year of credit card arbitrage.
I hope you’re enjoying winter wherever you are.
Randy Lewis
Living my dream which may not be your dream and that’s OK.