Greetings from Salisbury, North Carolina
From the travels and adventures of the
“World’s #1 Trackchaser”
Millbridge Speedway – Lifetime Track #1,761
THE EVENT “SOCAL TO TAR HEEL COUNTRY TO EASTERN EUROPE…WHO PLANS THESE TRIPS ANYWAY?” TRACKCHASING WEEKEND! Editor’s note Despite a record number of entries in the “Country #61 Naming Contest” there were no winners. Don’t worry I expect for there to be a “Country #62 Naming Contest” some day! Additionally did you know that I was part of a “Blues Brothers Stage Act” back in the day? Want to see a picture of that happening? Just click on this link Randy plays Jake Elwood of the Blues Brothers! And page down a ways. Yep! Those were the days. THE KEYS TO THE TRIP Who really at fault for creating people who will never share the American Dream?…………….more in “One cannot live well…..”. Advice on guessing someone’s age……………..more in “Observations”. Here’s to hoping Bud Heineman’s feeling well…………..details in “Observations”. People view my sponsorship program differently…… “The Trip”. WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN? If you’re going to retire you had better be able to stay busy. “Where have you been” would be a legitimate question to ask. It HAS been 11 days since my last trackchasing adventure….in Arizona. Yes, I know you just got the Arizona Trackchaser Report two days ago. However, that’s how it works sometimes in the publishing business. It has been eleven days since my trackchasing adventure with my brother, Mark and today’s visit to North Carolina. Is this lifestyle the same as going to work five days a week? Carol and I were certainly busy during those eleven days. Sometimes just having the fixed time commitments that I have in retirement makes me feel as if I’m still working! Every Monday and Wednesday is Yoga at 7:30 a.m. and circuit training at 4:30 p.m. Circuit training is always preceded by golf practice. Then on Tuesdays and Thursdays it’s golf at 8 a.m. followed by lunch at the club. O.K, I guess this schedule isn’t like going into the plant everyday. Nevertheless, you can see why I look forward to breaking the routine by starting most trackchasing trips on Fridays. Four birthdays already. That’s incredible. This was a special “11 days off”. We celebrated our twin grandbabies fourth birthday with a nice little party just for the family. I like those much more than when fifty (fitty) people are involved. Too top it off we had a couple of Angels’ baseball games. We’ve started riding the train to the games. Additionally I shot my best golf score of the year (74 – blue tees). That puts me in line, at least through June 30, of beating my golf index goal for the first six months of the year. My golf frequency is also coming along well as I attempt to have as many or more golfing days as I do trackchasing days. I can’t forget the U.S. Open! Oh, I almost forgot! Good buddy Wes Moody called at the last minute to invite me to golf’s U.S. Open. It was being played at the Olympic Club in San Francisco. It was a great treat spending the day with Wes and getting to see such a major sporting event as the U.S. Open….for the second time (first in 2010 at Torrey Pines in San Diego). Wes and I capped off our day at a “hot pot” Chinese dining establishment in the Bay area. It was almost more authentic than we could stomach. A very special treat. And finally I couldn’t forget Father’s Day. My special gift was a supply of frozen pizzas from my all-time favorite pizza place Davis Bros. in East Peoria, Illinois. I guess you could say I had a busy eleven days “off” from trackchasing. Entertainment Diversification Update Goal: 22 full weekends (a full weekend is Friday, Saturday and Sunday) away from trackchasing. This goal is in place to keep my free time in perspective. I fully expect to meet or beat my goal. Current results: 10 weekends off through June 21, 2012 WHO, WHAT, WHY AND WHERE The Plan How does a North Carolina trackchasing trip tie into an international visit to trackchasing country #61? Like most of my plans this one had a dual-purpose. The Millbridge Speedway races every other Wednesday night from May-September. I have NO other tracks that race regularly on Wednesdays left to see in the trackchasing world. Seeing tracks race on a Wednesday night is a good thing. However, it’s nearly impossible to find tracks that would be racing on a Tuesday or Thursday night. That makes tying in a trip to North Carolina for a Wednesday show somewhat difficult. It has bugged me for a long-time to see that “Wednesday date” popping up again and again in my proprietary race date database and not being able to knock it off. I still couldn’t find a domestic Tuesday or Thursday race date to come before or after the Wednesday night Millbridge show. However, if I used a stop over in North Carolina as a springboard to a summer trip to Eastern Europe wouldn’t that be grand. Therefore the Millbridge Speedway, a little go-kart track in rural North Carolina, became an entrée to a major international trackchasing trip that I hoped would yield trackchasing country #61. The Trip Difficult, easy or crazy…who really cares. I woke up this morning in San Clemente, California. I went to bed in Charlotte, North Carolina. This is what today looked like. Some folks think what I do is difficult. Some folks think what I do is easy. Some folks don’t really care and others think what I do is crazy. However, here’s the way I look at it. Everybody’s got to be doing SOMETHING right? Today I am headed to North Carolina. However North Carolina is planned to be only a stopping point on my way to “Trackchasing Country #61”. Given this information you might guess that no country in Asia will be #61 but then you never know. Carol and I once went to Frankfurt, Germany from Los Angeles and that trip included a stopover in Tokyo, Japan! I will tell you this. If all goes well I will be seeing racing in my 29th different European continent country. Under normal conditions I would never consider trackchasing in Europe during the summer (June-August). Why? The airplanes are packed coming and going to Europe during this time. There is no way I’m going to spend $1,000 plus on airfare to add a new country to my ever growing country trackchasing list. On the other hand, my sponsors aren’t likely to let me board a plane when THEY can charge someone else $1,000 plus to fly to and from Europe. Make sense? Could this be? Was it going to be easy to get to Frankfurt, Germany in the middle of the summer? However, I was shocked to see that one of my airline sponsors had relatively wide-open flights to and from Frankfurt, Germany. Recall, my recent trip to Slovakia emanated in Frankfurt. I started looking around to see where I might be able to see a race during the weekend that was within driving distance of Frankfurt, Germany. I found a place. I’ll begin telling you about it in my next report. Let’s not count our chickens. But first things first. There’s a racing group that runs near Charlotte (Salisbury), North Carolina on Wednesday nights during the summer months. Every time I open my proprietary race dates database these Wednesday shows pop up. They’ve been on my tentative schedule many times in the past only to be bumped by bad weather or another better located track. That was until now. I figured I could go the Angels’ game with Carol on Tuesday night (arriving home at midnight) then grab an early morning flight to Charlotte on Wednesday morning and then grab a late afternoon flight to Frankfurt on Thursday. That should do it. Frankfurt easy; Charlotte hard….real hard. Little did I know that getting to Frankfurt would be easy but getting to Charlotte would be most difficult. I had scoped out well over ten flight combinations from Los Angeles to Charlotte. I could fly non-stop but those flights were overbooked. I looked at connecting in Minneapolis, Detroit, Phoenix, Chicago, Memphis and a few other places. Everything was tight and overbooked. Nevertheless, SOMETHING would work, it almost always does. The logistics and timing were not a match made in heaven. Carol and I now ride the train to the Angels’ baseball games. It beats fighting traffic although it does get us home a little bit later than normal. Last night’s game was a long one at about three and one-half hours (Angels 12 – Giants 5). That meant we got home just at the stroke of midnight. My first flight that I would try for was leaving LAX at 5:50 a.m. I figured to safely get to the airplane gate on time I would have to leave at 3 a.m. That gave me three full hours to clear up the last few details of the trip and get a good night’s sleep! I’m being both sardonic and sarcastic you know. But wait! How about going in a different direction? Just before I buttoned up my laptop I decided to re-visit an earlier idea. That would be flying out of our local airport. That’s the Orange County John Wayne airport. This airport doesn’t have nearly as much long distance (east coast) service as LAX. However, it’s only 30 miles from our home and LAX is about 65 miles away. As luck would have it, they had a flight to Chicago that had 32 seats open. From the Windy City I could connect to Charlotte. This all seemed too good to be true. It nearly was. During the summer months tourists are taking their vacations. Why would there be 32 seats available on one of the busiest travel routes (SoCal-Chicago) of any that are flown. I looked a little closer. Half of those “open” seats (16) were being “held”. They were being held for “weight and balance” issues. Every airplane can only legally fly with so much weight. Things like fuel, number of passengers and cargo influence how much weight a plane will be carrying. If you were CEO…… If you were CEO of an airline would you rather carry mail/cargo that pays a pretty penny to get on the airplane……or a wayward trackchaser, albeit the “World’s #1 Trackchaser” who might not be paying full fare? If you answered “Let’s carry the mail and collect $200” then you are definitely CEO material. Nevertheless, despite sixteen of the thirty-two seats being set aside for cargo there were STILL sixteen seats available for folks like me. Normally, I am at the end (the bottom end!) of the standby list. That’s been the case since I started doing this in 2006. However, a recent “renegotiation” with one of our airline partners moved me up in the standby flying hierarchical jungle. Today I was #6 out of sixteen standby hopefuls. Thank goodness woman #8 was holding back woman #5. However, isn’t there always a ‘however’ in life, the sixteen seats being held for cargo was only an estimate. That number could go up or down. Today it went up! Of the sixteen standby seats only five of them would be available. I looked at my iPhone. Yes, I was #6. They had given out seat assignments to the five people ahead of me. I would NOT be going to Chicago on this plane. But wait!!! There’s more. One of the women (woman #5) in the “top 5” had an issue. Aren’t “issues” great! She was traveling with her friend who was #8. They didn’t want to split up. Aw! Their attachment to each other was bad for them but good for me. Woman #5 elected to stay back and travel later with woman #8. That meant that man #6 (that’s me!) would now be able to get woman #5’s seat. Ain’t life grand!! I had taken a chance flying out of the Orange County airport. Had I known that the “weight and balance” issue would be so significant I never would have tried it. I would have gone directly to LAX without passing go. However, as we used to say in the corporate world I was “unconsciously incompetent”. That means I didn’t know what I didn’t know. Sometimes that’s good. It will be much more difficult to get back to the Orange County Airport when I return than if my car was at LAX. However as I told Carol last night the challenge is “getting there”. I’ll worry about getting home after the races have been seen. I had a great seat on the airplane. There was plenty of legroom. On a trip back to the bathroom I counted 21 open seats. That meant the plane was carrying a lot of non-people cargo. I felt badly for the eleven people left behind. However, when we sign our sponsorship agreements we understand the risk. How do you view my sponsorship program?….Before you answer think about the Powerball lottery. One more point. It’s funny how some people view my airline sponsorship program. Some couldn’t be happier to see me having the chance to pursue my hobby. If I ever win the Powerball lottery those people will be taken care of first. Others seem a bit resentful/envious. I had a fellow golfer ask me “How do you get to fly so much? Are you independently wealthy?”. When I told him about my sponsorship program he nodded his head and smiled as if to say, “I knew it. You’re not so special. You’re not a millionaire. You’re just some lucky fellow who has a son who is a commercial airline pilot”. Then he walked away with a look of self-satisfaction. Too bad for that fellow…..especially is I ever win the Powerball lottery. I have often been accused by those “Dreaded East Coast Trackchasers” as being some rich guy. One fellow, not a DECT member, even called me the “Bill Gates of Trackchasing”. So far financial statements have never been required to be part of the trackchasing hobby. If they were I’d probably rank far down the list. As my fellow golfing competitor (who I usually beat when we play together) correctly surmised, “I’m not so special but I am a lucky fellow to have a son who is a commercial airline pilot”. Observations Hi to Bud and hope you feel better soon. By the way, I want to give a shout out to my good buddy Bud Heineman. Bud and I and our wives (that’s Florene on Bud’s end) first met in a small tour group on a two-week trip to China. That has to be some fifteen years ago now. We’ve stayed in touch during all these years. I’ve even been a guest at the Heineman house and they’ve joined Carol and me on a couple of trackchasing adventures. Bud is now 83 years young. Recently he had a fall and won’t be traveling for a while. He wrote to tell me he’s impressed with my “stamina” on these trips. Heck, I don’t even think about it. Nevertheless it’s always good to hear from Bud. We’ll both be thinking about each other next December 28. That’s when Bud’s Missouri Tigers (he was the leading scorer on their 1950s era teams) come calling to the new Pauley Pavilion to play our UCLA Bruins. It should be a real barnburner. Elbows and opinions….just about everyone has a couple. I’ll tell you everybody’s got an opinion. I rarely talk politics with other people (Mike Skonicki excepted). I’ve found that virtually everyone who wants to “talk politics” really just wants to tell you how THEY feel about politics. They couldn’t care less what the other person has to say. I’ve also encountered a number of people who get personally bent out of shape if YOUR political point of view does not mirror THEIR political point of view. They say it’s best to steer clear of both political and religious discussions/arguments. That’s probably could advice. Meet my midnight Motel 6 buddy. Nevertheless the 54-year old native of Bangladesh desk clerk at tonight’s Motel 6 seemed to have his share of “political feedback” to share with me when I checked in. However, considering it was nearly midnight and I have had just four hours of sleep during the past two evenings I wasn’t up for it. I would share with you the details of the manager’s very specific and direct political comments. However, I feel I might be disappointing some 60% of my readers. As most national political polls show 40% of the people feel one way, 40% of the people feel the other way and 20% of the people either don’t care or haven’t made up their minds. One should never walk away from a compliment. Nevertheless, the man caught my attention when he told me I didn’t look old enough to get the Motel 6 senior discount. That being said how could I discount his conversation even if he had more than enough political oddball comments? He was practicing something I had learned many years ago. Whenever you are asked or get the chance to answer/guess somewhat else’s age…..be careful. If you have time to gather your wits look the person over carefully and then guess AT LEAST ten years lower than you think the person could possibly be. Even then you run the risk of disappointing someone. Just be careful. ONE CANNOT LIVE WELL OR SLEEP WELL IF ONE HAS NOT DINED WELL Waffle House – Somewhere near Charlotte, North Carolina. Wouldn’t you eat two waffles under the circumstances? Whenever I come into “Waffle House” territory on one of these trips I try to stop at least once. Tonight, considering I was only in North Carolina for about 16 hours, my stop would be for supper. Did you know that one waffle at WH costs about three dollars but a second waffle costs only ninety-nine cents? How can you eat just one waffle under those circumstances. Therefore, I ordered two waffles and a Diet Coke with cherry flavoring. The Waffle House I was visiting had just one customer in it besides me. There was just one waitress. It was 7 p.m. That was unusual. Why was this the case? Maybe it was because the Diet Coke fountain drink machine wasn’t working! You’re kidding me right? “You’re kidding, right” was all I could say to my server. No, she was not kidding. There would be no Diet Coke in a “to go” cup and no cherry flavoring. I can usually be counted on to drink about 50 ounces of this stuff especially if I’m downing two waffles (only one with the new peanut butter chips addition)…..and a bacon, egg and cheese sandwich. Casting 101 has everybody they need right here. My server, like my Bangladesh friend, was nothing if not outspoken. I’m telling you if you were a movie producer and needed the right “character actors” they’re all hanging out in a Waffle House. The woman this evening was tattooed heavily on both sides of her neck. The unwitting man who chose a seat at the counter could only nod his head to her non-stop banter. She finished every sentence with “You know what I’m sayin’”. She had the “street lingo” of a gang member’s girl friend down pat. Much of her conversation seemed to center around going down to the detention center to meet her boyfriend. Of course, there were many remarks directed at another woman who seemed to be involved in this less than “Leave it to Beaver” (The Beav) episode. Just like it was being a Marine sometimes it’s better just to keep your head down. Since I was the only person of my situation in the diner, I tried to keep my head down and just eat my waffles. Nevertheless, my server was nice to me when I needed service and I left her a nice tip. I feel sorry for folks like this for one simple reason. They will never get the chance to experience the “American Dream”. Who’s at fault? I’m sure it’s their parents and their parents before that. I’ll bet you that 98% + of all inmates in our country’s prisons came from poor family lives. That really pisses me off. RACE REVIEW MILLBRIDGE SPEEDWAY – SALISBURY, NORTH CAROLINA What’s the connection between the Millbridge Speedway and Elvis Pressley? The Millbridge Speedway is a neat little 1/5-mile slightly banked dirt oval. It reminds me in some ways of the long since departed El Toro Speedway which now sits under a Marriott Courtyard in El Toro, California. It was the very same El Toro Speedway where I learned of the death of Elvis Presley on the short 10-minute drive home after the races. If you’re interested is seeing what TQ (three-quarter) midget racing looked like at the El Toro Speedway (and other SoCal race locations) check out this site. Click on this link: (SoCal TQ & midget racing). Someone did a nice job researching racing action from more than fifty years ago in some cases. Same ol’ same ol’ Racing started at 8 p.m. and I was in time for the driver’s meeting. About the only thing they said was “You’ve all been here before. Not much has changed. We’re going to try to keep the show moving.” I looked down at my pit bracelet. It allowed me to walk the pits (and attend the driver’s meeting) as well as sit in the grandstand if I wanted. I got a 20% discount (two dollars) because I am old. Isn’t that some form of discrimination toward old people? Racing for little and big people. There were about five classes of “little cars” racing tonight. Some of those classes were driven by little people and some by bigger people. In the world of trackchasing (for those who still abide by the trackchasing rules) little people don’t count but big people do. Yes, that’s discrimination toward little people if you ask me. Since I didn’t have a copy of the rulebook I couldn’t tell for sure which classes counted and which ones did not in some circumstances. I knew the “beginner box stocks” did not count. Those little guys could hardly peer over the steering wheel. The guys driving flat karts, who provided some very good racing, didn’t count either. Someone in the flat kart fraternity must have really bent the trackchasing “forefathers” out of shape to be banned for eternity. I’m a big fan of ‘outlaw karts’. The “outlaw kart” class was the headlining division. They were driven by big people (all seven of them) and they were fast. Their feature (20 laps) was the last event of the night and wrapped up at just past 10:30 p.m. There was also a “125” class of winged karts. That might have been open to big people, I’m not sure. They also had some good racing. The biggest drawback of the night. The one major drawback to the evening was the continuous false starts. Most races had at least three. The track was very good at getting re-started again but it was a minor annoyance. The P.A. system was weak in the pit grandstand. Once I moved to the spectator grandstand it was better. The announcer did a nice job of describing the action. From my childhood days. After dining at the Waffle House I had no good reason to eat anything at the track. However…..the featured item was the fried bologna sandwich. Folks I grew up on Vienna sausages, Spam, hot dogs…..and fried bologna. I was defenseless. For three bucks and another buck for a canned Diet Pepsi I had my evening’s “dessert”. I smothered the bologna sandwich in mustard and onions and “went to town”. The sandwich gets an A+. It was good to order, available in a healthy (maybe unhealthy) quantity and value priced. It’s in the running for sandwich of the year. It was good to finally knock off the Wednesday running Millbridge Speedway. Now I won’t constantly be looking for some other track to tie in with their mid-week show. STATE COMPARISONS North Carolina The Tar Heel State This afternoon I saw my 41st lifetime track in the Tar Heel state, , yes the Tar Heel state. This will serve me well in the lifetime National Geographic Diversity rankings come year-end. I still have about twenty-five tracks to see down here. They are about evenly divided amongst figure 8 tracks, ovals and kart tracks. As time permits I’ll be back as long as one of my airline partners operates a hub in Charlotte. Coming Soon – RLR – Randy Lewis Racing Exclusive Features! Do some trackchasers carry an unfair geographical advantage? Should foreign trackchasers be given a handicap so they can enjoy the fruits of trackchasing glory? Thanks for reading about my trackchasing, Randy Lewis World’s #1 Trackchaser Peoria Old Timers Racing Club (P.O.R.C.) Hall of Fame Member North Carolina sayings: Tobacco really is a vegetable. TRAVEL DETAILS AIRPLANE Orange County, CA, (SNA) – Chicago, IL (ORD) – 1,727 miles Chicago, IL (ORD) – Charlotte, NC (CLT) – 599 miles RENTAL CAR #1 Charlotte/Douglas International Airport – trip begins Salisbury, NC – 48 miles Charlotte/Douglas International Airport – 107 miles – trip ends TRACK ADMISSION PRICES: Millbridge Speedway – $8 ($2 senior discount) LIFETIME TRACKCHASER COMPARISONS The three most important trackchasing comparisons to me are: Total lifetime tracks seen Total “trackchasing countries” seen Lifetime National Geographic Diversity results Total Lifetime Tracks There are no trackchasers currently within 300 tracks of my lifetime total. Don’t blame me. Total Trackchasing Countries There are no trackchasers currently within 9 countries of my lifetime total. Current lifetime National Geographic Diversity results That’s all folks! Official end of the RLR – Randy Lewis Racing Trackchaser Report This is one of my highest viewed videos of all time. . . Click on the link below for a photo album from today’s trackchasing day: A great day of winged kart racing at the Millbridge Speedway 
