The happiest of New Years’ to both you and your family.
This post is another crossover that I hope appeals to both my “finance/travel” and my “racing/travel” groups. The common interest of both groups is travel. As you read along I would be interested in hearing how you have done adventures like this differently and how we might do things in common. I can only hope that all of us will be back to experience trips like this whenever we want to.
This report is dedicated to my wife, Carol. She’s got good teeth and I wouldn’t trade her for a pony.
From the travels and adventures of the “World’s #1 Trackchaser”
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Isola 2000
Ice road course
Lifetime Track #2,601
Classic Trackchaser Reports Some of my Trackchaser Reports from years ago have never been posted. These come from many of the best tracks I have visited. These are classic trackchasing adventures!
McLean County Speedway – Underwood, North Dakota You’re not gonna wanna miss this story from 2009 where I made a one-day trip to North Dakota simply to see one new track before returning home. The YouTube Video Do not miss this video. It features electric cars racing on ice in the French Alps. Have you ever in your life seen that? Trophee Andros ice racing from the French Alps The SmugMug Photo Album Each trip includes a lot of photos of the “trip” and not just the racing. Sometimes the trip photos are the best. You’ll see car museums, Nice, France and Monaco and a whole lot more. A unique nighttime ice race from Isola 2000, Andros Trophy ice racing, in the French Alps The story…I do this for the story! I do this so you don’t have to…unless you want to.
THE EVENT
I AM A TRACKCHASER.
My name is Randy Lewis (above with the Shirton boys from London, Ontario, Canada). I hail from the sleepy little village by the sea, San Clemente, California. I am a “trackchaser”. I trackchase. Have you ever in your life heard of “trackchasing”? I didn’t think so.
Well, you made it this far. You might as well pour yourself a cold one and take your Trackchasing 101 class. When you finish you’ll have your trackchasing diploma and can then teach your own friends about the hobby.
Let’s get started. Trackchasing is a three-pronged hobby. I’m a racing fan. I love to travel. I love to analyze opportunities to get the most out of everything while saving time and money.
Let’s do this by the numbers.
The racing part of my trackchasing has me trying to see wheel to wheel auto racing at as many different racetracks as I can all over the world. Yes, all over the world. Do I really mean that? Yes, I do! I’ve seen racing in 85 countries at more than 2,600 tracks. I’m known as the “World’s #1 Trackchaser”. Why? Because I’ve seen racing in more countries in the world than anyone else by a wide margin.
However, my hobby of trackchasing involves much more than simply visiting racetracks. Much more. My hobby includes and requires lots of traveling. I get to see and experience, over the “long and dusty trackchasing trail,” all kinds of interesting places, restaurants, sporting events and the like. I call these adventures “Trackchasing Tourist Attractions”. You won’t want to miss my “Trackchasing Tourist Attractions” page. Here’s the link: Trackchasing Tourist Attractions or my “Sports Spectating Resume” page, Sports Spectating Resume on my website at www.randylewis.org.
I live in southern California. That’s probably the most inconvenient location in the country for seeing tracks in the U.S. Most of the racetracks in the U.S. are located well over 1,000 miles from where I live. As a matter of fact, my average trip covers 5,000 miles and more. I take 35-40 of those trips each season. In any given year I will travel well over 200,000 miles, rent more than 50 cars, and stay in more than 150 hotel rooms.
I get the chance to meet people from all over the world. With trackchasing trips to 85 countries and counting just getting the chance to experience so many unique cultures, spend time in the homes of my friends and meet so many people is a huge reward for being in this hobby. I am indebted to several of these folks for their help and friendship.
It takes a good deal of planning to do the above and not spend my entire retirement portfolio. I enjoy the challenge, the travel and every other aspect of “trackchasing”. In reality, my trackchasing hobby is a lot like being with the carnival. I breeze into town, stay a little while and then head on down the road.
Once you begin researching my trip itineraries from my website, yes you will want to do that, you will be surprised. One day I’ll be in Tucson, the next in maybe Tuscaloosa and the following day in Syracuse. I do that kind of thing all the time. Figuring out the logistics of a trip like that is as much fun for me as watching a figure 8 race.
Now you know a little bit about my trackchasing addiction. When you receive one of my Trackchaser Reports or find one on my website at www.randylewis.org you’ll get three pieces of entertainment.
First, my Trackchaser Report will be an in-depth essay of how the trip went from A-Z. Yes, I’ll cover the racing aspect of things. But you will also hear about what it took to pull off the trip, the special stops that made the trip fun and the obstacles that needed to be overcome.
Secondly, you’ll get a YouTube video of the racing action I saw. These are normally short 3-6 minutes highlights of the racing. My YouTube channel is named, “RANLAY”. I have nearly 2,000 subscribers to my channel. Currently, I have posted more than 1,300 videos and my channel has more than 1.2 million views!
Finally, I’ll share a captioned photo album using a photo-sharing program called SmugMug. Normally, there will be anywhere from 50-200 photos from each trip I take. Sometimes more! My website is linked to literally hundreds of thousands of photos from all of the trips I have taken.
There you have it. That’s trackchasing…the way I do it. Do others trackchase? Absolutely. Do they share their experiences? Sorry. They don’t. If you want to see the true “essence” of trackchasing you’ve come to the right place.
A common question I get about my hobby is, “Why?”. I’m a curious fellow. I’m an adventuresome fellow. My hobby is about seeing and experiencing the things that most folks walk right past. Below is a link to a special video. It shows a small town in Missouri that I visited on one of my trips. In this video, I’ll share with you exactly what I mean. This video might just make your day.
Today’s adventure was one more of the 2,000 trips that have taken me up, down and around the proverbial long and dusty trackchasing trail. If you would like to see where I’ve been and experience those adventures here’s the link:
If you’ve got a question, comment or whatever please leave it at the bottom of this report. It’s very easy to do. Or you can visit me on Facebook. Thanks!
Welcome to the first trip of my 2020 trackchasing season. It’s nice to have you along for the ride. I hope you have a good time. This is the second part of a three-part series. Ice racing brought Carol and me to Italy and France. We stayed for pizza and a whole lot more!
One of my major goals for the 2020 trackchasing season is to take more “big“ trips. This trip, my first trackchasing adventure of 2020, typifies exactly what that goal is all about.
First, I would be heading off to Italy with the objective of seeing an ice race up in the Italian Alps. Then just a couple of days later the World’s #3 Trackchaser aka “Trackchasing’s First Mother” would join me in France. Who is this person? She goes by the name of Carol (above with her buddy Paul Weisel). Carol? Yes, Carol is my wife.
From there we will try to see ice racing provided by the most famous ice racing organization in the world, Andros Trophy. They’ll be racing in France in the French Alps. A couple of days later we will try to tack on another Italian Ice Challenge ice track in Italy.
Before we cover that, I wanted to share an overview of this 16-day trip. If you are ever interested in trying to replicate my adventure you might think about reviewing this travel/logistical overview.
The 16-day trip overview.
“Europe can be expensive but it doesn’t have to be….in most cases.
Airfare can be very reasonable. We have a discount airline, Norwegian Airlines, flying from Los Angeles to Europe. We paid just $629 round-trip from Los Angeles to Paris. I’ll be returning to Stockholm, Sweden in early March. That round-trip nonstop airline ticket was less than $500.
I don’t mind flying in coach class on these 10-12 hour flights. I’m 6‘3“ tall and still have enough legroom as not to be cramped. Although everyone feels differently on all kinds of subjects I think that paying for business or first class is one of the least worthwhile expenditures I could make. That being said I have probably flown to Europe and other faraway destinations in first-class or business class more often than I have in coach. I just didn’t have to pay for it. Of course, I would prefer business or first but not on a paying basis.
Norwegian Airlines allows one free carry-on bag of 20 pounds and charges for checked baggage with a 44-pound limit. Despite being the recipient of a very generous Procter & Gamble profit-sharing account over 30 years of work-life I don’t like paying for checked bags. I commonly take my ski jacket and stuff it full of 10-12 pounds of clothing to make sure I get the most for my traveling buck.
Rental cars were surprisingly inexpensive in Europe. I made my reservations with Europcar. They represent all of the popular rental car brands. Our 16-day trip was broken up into three 5-6 periods.
My first rental was a Peugeot 308 from Alamo. For four days I paid only $106 US. I was able to cajole the rental car agent into giving me a car with an automatic transmission after I successfully answered his question, “Can you drive an automatic?”. Just a heads up. The correct answer is, “Yes”. Normally for a four-day European rental car reservation, an automatic transmission would cost 100 bucks or so additional. I used my Chase Sapphire Reserve credit card to cover the various insurances for the rental car. The card also covers emergency health care and a nice ride back home in an airplane if needed.
I was going to be driving up into the Italian Alps. People on TripAdvisor told me I would need, “winter tires,” which I was also told are not the same as snow tires. No cars in Paris came with winter tires.
However, I could rent snow chains and did. The rental car agent told me that I would have to pay cash for the rental of the snow chains since my contract had already been, “closed”. He told me he was giving me a special deal for the chains at €150 for four days. That didn’t seem that special to me. I offered €15 and we settled on €25. By the way to convert euros into dollars multiply the euros by about 1.11.
This was an, “off the books” rental of the snow chains (wink!). I’m not sure that Alamo Rental Car will ever see a credit of €25 on their books for the snow chains I rented. Luckily, because it’s a real hassle to put on snow chains, I didn’t have to use them.
The rental car agent told me that this was such a special deal that I really shouldn’t tell anyone about it but I am making an exception by telling you. Please don’t share this information with your friends. Now that I have told you that I’m sure the first phone call you’ll make will be to your friends. Don’t worry. That’s OK.
The most valuable and cost-effective item on this trip was my iPhone. Our cellular carrier is AT&T. They have something called the “International Day Pass”. What’s that? For ten bucks each day the AT&T International Day Pass allows your phone to operate exactly as it does back home. Phone calls within the country you are visiting and back to the U.S. are free.
Would you want to drive around Europe using paper maps? I hope not. I’ve done that back in the stone ages but don’t really understand how I had the brainpower to do it. Are you still using paper maps? No problem. If you are I could never convince you otherwise.
The phone was good for GPS, email, Facebook, stock prices, weather forecasts, currency conversions, SiriusXM satellite radio, reading my news apps, checking sports scores, using Yelp, checking on airline schedules, listening to podcasts, checking my Google calendar, texting (lots of texting), Facebook Messenger, What’s App, taking pictures and monitoring the battery life of my new Tesla Model X safely parked in the garage at home. By the way, the battery dropped about 1.5 miles/day while we were gone.
I think it is T-Mobile that allows the user to use their phone abroad pretty much the same way they can use it at home for no extra fee. However, I travel all over the U.S. often in rural areas. I am told that AT&T is the best for that. I think of the $10/day AT&T International Day Pass as the VERY BEST value of any expense of the trip.
In Europe, you have a choice when you get on the highway. You can take toll roads or you can take roads that don’t charge a toll. If you decide to take the toll road you can simply write a check from your traditional rollover IRA in the full amount of the IRA’s balance and you should be able to cover the tolls. Don’t want to take the toll road? No problem. A four-hour toll road ride becomes an eight-hour winding road ride. My Waze GPS system tells me how long each option (toll roads vs. no toll roads) will take and the cost of the tolls I will be expected to pay. Taking free roads is no problem if you have the time.
For the first five days of the trip, I was on my own in Italy following the winter Ice Challenge racing circuit in Italy. My wife joined me for the last 11 days of the trip. On one day I paid approximately €100 in tolls. This included a round-trip fee of €60 using the 8-mile tunnel that connects Italy with France. I drove nearly 3,000 kilometers in the first ten days of the trip chasing ice tracks and the like.
Later in Nice, France we rented another car for four days this time from Hertz. The charge was $200 U.S. They gave me an all-black BMW I3 SUV. This car was nearly as long as the state of Rhode Island and likely was used as the private chauffeur driven car for the president of France before I got it.
By the way, the curb weight of the BMW I3 maxs out at 3,309 pounds. It seemed like a Sherman tank. Alas, appearances can be deceiving. My Tesla Model X maxs out at 5,531 pounds. The BMW I3 does 0-60 MPH in 6.6 seconds. My Tesla Model X does 0-60 MPH in 4.4 seconds. Just sayin.
Again, because I am a salesman at heart, I was able to talk our way into an automatic transmission car. However, the SUV was so long I had to start turning about a block before we got to each intersection.
Fuel is expensive in Italy and France. These are two of the most expensive countries for fuel in the world. Did you know that the United States is one of the least expensive countries for fuel in the world? It is.
Along with getting cars with an automatic transmission as a top request I also asked for cars that were diesel-powered. Why diesel? First of all diesel fuel is less expensive in Europe than regular gasoline/petrol. Secondly, diesel-powered cars get better fuel mileage than gasoline-powered cars. There is no real performance difference between diesel and gas-powered cars. During the entire trip, 16 days, I saw just TWO Tesla fully electric automobiles.
I paid in the neighborhood of $6.75 a gallon for diesel fuel. Does that sound expensive? It might sound expensive but for me, it wasn’t all that expensive.
My Alamo Peugeot 308 gave me about 44 miles per gallon. Remember, I was driving a car with an automatic transmission and sometimes driving it at the speed of sound. Had I gone with a manual transmission I would’ve gotten better fuel mileage.
Believe it or not, I was actually paying less for fuel on a per-mile basis in Italy and France than I do in California. When I paid $6.75 a gallon I got 44 miles per gallon. That was less expensive on a per-mile basis than driving my Lexus RX 350, since sold, and paying $3.70 a gallon in California and getting 22 miles per gallon. Go figure.
I spent the first five days of the trip traveling all over Italy and into the mountains of the Italian Alps. The second 5-6 days of the trip were spent in Nice France, Monte Carlo Monaco and driving up into the French AND Italian Alps. No major traffic problems in any of those areas. The switchbacks, however, going over and through the mountains made this one of our toughest drives ever. Luckily, despite this being January, the roads were 100% clear for the entire trip.
The last five days of the trip were spent in Paris, France. We didn’t have a rental car there. We used the fixed price taxis from the airport to downtown and Uber the rest of the time.
My original idea for Paris was to rent a hotel for about 100 bucks a night near the Charles De Gaulle airport. That plan called for us to ride a shuttle bus from the airport located hotel to the airport. Then we would ride a train from the airport to downtown Paris each day. How can I put this delicately? That was a stupid BS idea. That would have been terrible. Only after I stayed in the brand new brand, Moxy by Marriott, at CDG did I come to my senses. Then on three days’ notice, we never book hotels far in advance, I came up with a new plan.
The worst traffic I have ever experienced has been traveling inside India. Paris, with a six-week still unsettled metro strike going on, rivaled India! The traffic there in downtown Paris is insane, aggressive, and slow. I would not have wanted to drive in Paris and I have driven in some pretty tough situations.
Hotel parking for a rental car can be expensive. I’m talking about $20-$40 a night. I was able to park on the street a couple of nights and figured that I had found free money.
I used Booking.com for the first 1/3 of the trip when I was traveling solo. For $100-$125 a night, I was staying in nice places. I discovered the AC Hotel by Marriott for the first time. These are excellent hotels.
When my wife joined me we stayed in Marriott properties for all but one night of her visit. Paris hotels can be expensive.
We stayed at the Renaissance Paris Arc de Triomphe Hotel in Paris for five nights. If you were to go on any travel site right now you will see that their rate in January hovers around $700 a night plus taxes. Despite being the beneficiary of a Procter & Gamble profit-sharing plan that’s a little pricey for us.
I used, “points” to cover our stay at the Renaissance in Paris. Some 180,000 points were required to knock out nearly $4,000 in hotel expenses. That seemed like a pretty good value to me.
Additionally, by being a “titanium elite” member of the Marriott program, they included their upscale buffet breakfast for each morning of our stay at no charge. That buffet breakfast went for 30 euros per person each day to the paying public. By having stayed in Marriott properties pretty much every other night for the last 40 years saving €300 for five mornings (300 euros!) of what got to be a mundane breakfast was a good thing. Truth be told I would just as soon have the All-American breakfast at the Waffle House. We were also upgraded to a top floor king-bedded and larger room. I have no idea what the retail price was for that room.
Going into this trip I had eaten a very strict low-carb diet for three months. I didn’t really want to maintain that regimen while traveling through Italy and France. I didn’t. I love pizza especially pizza served in Italy and France. I gained 7.4 pounds in 16 days. No problem. This morning I’m having two fried eggs and two sausage patties. I can eat low-carb with the best of them.
I am addicted to diet soda. O.K., I said it…because it’s true. At home, I will drink 3-4 diet sodas and sometimes more each day. A single glass bottle of Coca-Cola Zero averaged $5.50 U.S. at every restaurant we visited. That was probably our most outrageous expense for what it was, of the entire trip although the toll roads ran a close second.
During our visit, we went to two theatrical productions. One was kind of a Cirque du Soleil meets Shakespeare’s play (above). The other was a one-woman comedy show. Both were very entertaining. Those shows went for €65 (row five in a 1,000-person venue) and €25 (first row in a small theatre) respectively.
On previous trips, we had taken in the Moulin Rouge cabaret show. That was a long time ago but I remember it as being fun. Tour guides recommended the “Crazy Horse” review for this trip. We considered that but at €160 per person that seemed beyond whatever entertainment value, it might provide. We did all of the other Paris tourist stuff at our leisure.
We used, “Uber Pool” for most of our Uber rides. This normally saved us €8-10 per trip. It might’ve taken us 10-15 minutes longer to get where we were going but we met some interesting pool passengers and left early enough to make things work.
I was talking with my nephew, who is a freshman at Iowa State University. We were speaking about travel. He told me that at this stage in life exotic travel is hard to “cost justify”. I reminded him that many forms of travel can never be cost-justified. That’s why not that many people do it.
Yes, Europe can be expensive. However, as I have pointed out above there are ways to travel in a first-class or nearly first-class manner and still not break the bank.
We have a very robust world travel schedule for the balance of the year. My wife seems aghast at the prospect of my spending five nights in Sweden (two ice tracks) with only a 20-pound Costco travel bag, previously reviewed in this conference. I know I can do it. It will just add to the adventure.”
Now….let’s get started with part 2 of this three-part adventure!
Tuesday, January 7, 2010
Today I spent several hours touring the National Automobile Museumin Turin, Italy. What a place. It’s really a combination of a racing museum and an art museum. You are NOT going to want to miss the photos from this visit. If you just can’t wait here’s a direct link to that museum.
From there I made the three-hour drive from Turin, Italy down to Leon, France. My Waze GPS system told me that I was going to be paying around €85 taking the toll roads. I didn’t have any choice. The other option would have added hours to my trip.
I had already paid for a round-trip passage through the Frejus Road Tunnel which connects France and Italy on the way into Italy. That tunnel is 12 km or 8 miles long! Of course, today I didn’t have to pay for my return trip so in reality I only paid about €50 in tolls!
My Waze GPS system is performing exquisitely. Waze in conjunction with CarPlay puts all of the directions on the car’s video screen. What a convenience. Even my trackchasing fellow competitors can go trackchasing internationally with support like this.
A true highlight of my hotel stay in Lyon, France was the hotel’s parking garage. To get to the underground garage I drove my car into a one-car elevator! From the driver’s seat, I pressed the elevator button and down we went. I’ve only done this a time or two and it’s a rush!
I walked around downtown Lyon a little bit tonight. I won’t have much time to spend here. I was here a couple of days ago to see their automobile Museum. The nighttime views of Lyon are gorgeous.
I wanted to get a good night’s sleep as tomorrow I need to make a five-hour drive into Paris. Once there I’ll return my rental car and stay at a hotel out by the Charles DE Gaulle airport. There I’ll get everything organized. Then the next day I’ll be meeting up with my lovely bride, the World’s #3 Trackchaser.
Wednesday, January 8, 2020
Today wraps up the POTTWC (Part of the trip without Carol). So far this trip has been a resounding success.
I was able to see my first ever ice racing in Italy. No, that’s not Carol above. Yes, I seem to make friends easily. This checks off one of my goals for 2020. Meeting up with my Italian trackchasing contacts was the best.
Additionally, I was able to see two outstanding automobile museums. The National Automobile Museum in Turin was rated by one source that I found on the net as one of the top 15 automobile museums in the world. It was outstanding.
Some parts of traveling in this part of the world are expensive and some are not. I ended up paying an average of $6.42 per gallon for diesel fuel. At first glance that might seem expensive.
However, my Peugeot 3008 Rental Car gave me nearly 44 miles per gallon. That was with an automatic transmission. I ended up paying 14.6 cents per gallon for diesel fuel here. Back home with my 2013 Lexus RX 350, which I just sold, I would pay an average of $3.50 a gallon and get 22 miles per gallon fuel economy. That translates to 15.9 cents per mile. Doing the math means I pay nearly 10% more for fuel economy in the US than I do in Europe and that’s after I paid $6.42 a gallon for fuel in Europe!
What was really expensive in France and Italy are the toll roads. There really aren’t very many time-efficient alternatives to taking the toll roads. I will tell you there’s not all that much traffic on the toll roads. Those roads are in outstanding shape as well. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen such a long stretch of highway that was any better.
In nearly 1,200 miles of driving, most of it on the toll roads, I paid almost €200 in tolls! That’s about $220 US. That’s Expensive.
I will also tell you that I was majorly disappointed in the public restrooms at the convenience stores that I stopped in along the toll road. Most of the porcelain toilet bowls were simply that, a bowl. There was no toilet seat cover and there was no toilet seat! WTF?
I stayed in some quality hotels. The prices were reasonable by American standards. The pizza in Italy as you might expect was fantastic. The pizza here is actually less expensive than you are likely to pay back in the United States.
There isn’t all that much English spoken here with the exception of the hotels. Nevertheless, since I am not fluent in any foreign language or even close, I would never starve to death on one of these trips.
Everywhere I went people were nice and friendly. I didn’t travel in any areas at any time where I felt I was in danger or even remotely close.
Here’s what I find inviting. A ten-day trackchasing trip to Europe covering two weekends won’t cost me all that much more than taking two four-day trips out into the midwest or the eastern part of the United States. One of my goals for my trackchasing year in 2020 is to take more “big” trips. I plan to do that.
Thursday, January 9, 2010
I woke up this morning in Paris, France just outside the Charles De Gaulle airport. This was going to be an important day in this trip.
I was staying in a brand new Moxie Hotel by Marriott. This is not a normal hotel in many respects. It definitely caters to the young professional. The services are somewhat minimalist compared to the normal Marriott property. There are lots of hard surfaces, concrete floors and the rooms aren’t all that large. All of this comes with a little bit lower price as well which is more attractive to the younger traveler.
When I stay in Marriott properties my titanium elite status allows me to check out as late as 4 p.m. if I need it. That’s a nice luxury. I got up in time for breakfast but then went back up to my room and simply relaxed.
Trackchasing’s First Mother also known as wife Carol was going to be landing in the Charles de Gaulle at 2:30 p.m. Then at 6:45 p.m. both she and I were scheduled for an EasyJet flight from Paris to Nice, France.
We had agreed, if we didn’t meet up sooner, to meet inside the Sheltair Lounge inside terminal two at CDG. Let me tell you this. It’s nice having a wife that I can simply say these words, “Meet me in Paris” and she can handle it. I wonder how many people have spouses that can pull that off?
Today’s good fortune would have it such that Carol and I met up in the EasyJet departure area about three hours before flight time. At that point, we couldn’t check our bags so we just hung out after having not seen each other for five days.
We needed to get down to Nice, France so that the next step of our three-part ice racing trip could begin. We had not been too Nice since 1987.
That experience back in ‘87 was interesting. It all started at the Long Beach Grand Prix in Long Beach, California. How could that be you ask?
We were invited by American Airlines to be a guest at the Long Beach Grand Prix in 1987. AA had a special contest for their guests. The individual who could come closest to guessing the winner’s overall speed could win a prize. It was a great prize. We won! What was the prize? It was round-trip airfare for two and a week’s hotel to Zürich, Switzerland. I’ve won quite a few prizes while I’m at the races. Nothing tops that.
While we were in Zürich we decided to fly over to Nice, France during that trip. We spent a couple of nights lounging in a waterfront hotel. Yep. That was a good trip.
Tonight’s one and a half hour flight from Paris to Nice went smoothly. I can only remember flying on EasyJet one other time. That was when I was in Liverpool. I flew over to the Isle of Mann for a Monday night oval stock car race. I had just finished up a round of golf at the Royal at Lytham and St. Anne’s Golf Club. To this day that round of golf goes down as my most memorable of all time. What a place. What history. I got to share in that history.
When we landed in Nice we grabbed our bags and headed over to the Hertz Rental Car Company. I have a little, “juice” with Hertz. That translated into them giving me an almost brand new, less than 2,000 miles, BMW I3 SUV. The jet black vehicle looked like it could be a SUV limo!
This diesel-powered car is huge. We had a couple of seven-hour drives and more coming up. I think the BMW will be a very comfortable car to ride in. On the other hand with gas prices being nearly 7 dollars a gallon I’m not really sure what the fuel mileage is going to be. We’ll find out!
From there we drove just 4 miles over to our AC Hotel by Marriott. What an upscale place. They upgraded us to a junior suite. We’ll be here for two nights, then gone for a night and then back out to the AC hotel for a final night of our time in Nice.
Friday, January 10, 2020
I came to France for the express purpose of seeing an ice race. Up until this visit I had seen ice racing in 21 different countries, states or provinces. Italy was added just four days ago. Here’s the list.
Alaska
Alberta
AndorraBelarus
British Columbia
FinlandIowa
Italy
Maine
Manitoba Massachusetts
Michigan
Minnesota
New Hampshire
New York
Ontario
Quebec
Russia
Saskatchewan
Vermont
Wisconsin
Considering that I live in a warm-weather location and wear short pants aka golfing trousers 99.76% of the year having an ice racing resume like this seems to be pretty good. However, this list didn’t include Italy – yet.
Carol is going to be in France with me for nine nights. We’ll be staying at Marriott properties every night of her trip except one. Marriott treats us very well. Today their complimentary buffet breakfast was simply outstanding.
For the next four days, I’m going to be driving a huge black BMW SUV given to us by Hertz Rental Car. This really isn’t the best vehicle to have in this part of the world. The roads are narrow and the parking garages even more so. The BMW is diesel-powered. I have no idea what kind of fuel mileage we’re going to get. We’ll be driving this monster for more than 20 hours.
This morning we went walking along the Promenade des Anglais. If this was July the place would be jammed with beachgoers, topless beachgoers. I mention that for only one reason. It’s true. However, this is mid-January and no one is at the beach even though the temperatures are a reasonable 55-60° Fahrenheit. Quite balmy for this time of year. I was surprised at how rocky the beaches of Nice are. Not very attractive at all.
The number one tourist attraction in Nice is the Promenade des Anglais. In reality, this is simply a long walk along the beach, which ends up in old town Nice. We had made most of that walk this morning when it started to rain. Carol gets a little freaked out by rain. I didn’t even notice the light mist. Nevertheless, the wet stuff prompted us to hail an Uber ride back to the hotel and get on with the second half of our touring for today.
Earlier this week, on my own, I first stopped at the Musée de l’automobile Henri Malartre auto museum (above) in Lyon, France. Then a day or two later I stopped at the National Auto Museum in Turin, Italy. Believe it or not, I was going to hit another automobile museum today. This one would be in Monte Carlo, Monaco. That’s three auto museums in three countries in less than a week. Pretty good huh?
When I go into an auto museum I try to take a photograph of the description of the car that I might be looking at as well as the car itself immediately following. Then I post all of these photos in a SmugMug photo album and share them on my website. If you go to my link at the bottom of my homepage at www.randylewis.org you’ll see the link. It’s titled “Halls of Fame/Museums”. Click on that link and you can sit in the comfort of your own home and check out some pretty cool museums from all over the world.
The roads from Nice, France over to Monte Carlo, Monaco are narrow and winding. These were not the roads I wanted to be driving in a huge truck like BMW SUV.
It was difficult finding the auto museum in Monte Carlo. Monte Carlo has some of the craziest combinations of streets and hairpin turns and the like that I’ve ever seen. Once we were within a mile or less of the museum we decided to just find a parking space. Once we parked we could then walk to the museum.
The parking garage we picked was a real horror chamber. There were very few spots available. The spots that were open were big enough for a Smart car and we were driving a Sherman tank. It probably took us 20 minutes to find a spot that we could navigate into properly. The last thing I wanted to do was damage my BMW rental car, which was nearly brand new.
From there we found an Italian eatery in Monte Carlo. Monaco is a place for the rich and famous. That being the case their prices are high. I had been eating some delicious pizzas in Italy for about six euros. Today’s Monaco prices for the same pizza were three times as much.
It wasn’t that easy finding the museum and remembering where we had parked the car. However, I am not shy about walking up to strangers and asking them for directions. Surprisingly, everyone we stopped spoke just enough English to direct us just a little bit closer to the museum, which we eventually found.
I was impressed with the cars on display inside the Monaco Top Cars Collection museum. Admission was a reasonable six euros per person. As is my practice I think I took a photograph of every car in the place.
I’m going to guess there were nearly 100 cars in the museum. About half were classic cars from the 1920s to the 1950s or so. The other half of the automobiles in the display were racing cars of one form or another. There seemed to be a lot of rally cars. Please search out my photo album on my website. You’ll be able to experience exactly what we did. Carol and I had a good time. By the way, the museum featured several American made cars as well like the 1947 Chrysler Town & Country wagon pictured above.
Next up we had to drive from Monte Carlo, Monaco over to Isola, France. Before we did that we took some time to see the Monte Carlo Harbor. Adjacent to the harbor was the grandstand area where we sat in the year 2012 to watch the famous historic Monaco Grand Prix. I think if I had to choose between the historic Monaco Grand Prix, which happens every two years and the Monaco F1 Grand Prix I’d probably go with the historic GP. The crowds are smaller. The cars racing are much more exotic, dating back to the original years of the Monaco Grand Prix.
The drive from Monte Carlo to Isola, France was not for the faint-hearted. It took us 2 1/2 hours and covered about 60 miles over some of the toughest mountain roads I had encountered in a long time. I think a root canal might have been easier. There was a switchback about every 200 yards and quite a bit of traffic ultimately going up into the French Alps. We did those switchbacks for sixty miles!
THE RACING
Isola 2000 – Isola, France
We finally made it up to Isola by about 7 p.m. We were just in time to see the Trophee Andros Series ice racing, which I guess was the major attraction for the day.
Trophee Andros might be the most popular and well-known worldwide ice racing sanctioning body anywhere in the world. Back in 2009 I saw one of their races in the country of Andorra.
This was my first ever ice racing visit in France. That gives me 22 countries, states and provinces where I’ve seen ice racing. Here’s that list.
Alaska
Alberta
AndorraBelarus
British Columbia
FinlandFrance
Iowa
Italy
Maine
ManitobaMassachusetts
Michigan
Minnesota
New Hampshire
New York
Ontario
Quebec
Russia
Saskatchewan
Vermont
Wisconsin
As you might imagine everything associated with this race was in French. They announce in French. The signs were in French. We didn’t hear any English speakers at all during the two hours we were at this ice track.
Parking was a little bit difficult. We ended up parking along the mountain road and hiking up a few hundred yards to the track. The other option appeared to be taking a shuttle bus higher up the mountainside but I figured that would be too challenging logistically to pull off with the language barrier.
There was no admission charge. We just wandered in. About 15 minutes after we arrived they began racing. We watched races from all over the ice road course. I’m going to guess the distance of the track covered 8/10 of a mile or so.
This ice track was land-based. Most ice racing in the United States is done on frozen lakes. There’s an ice racing group in New York that year after year cancels most of their races because of lack of ice on their lakes. I feel like yelling at them, “Check out the Trophee Andros series. They rarely cancel their ice races. They race on ice on land”. C’mon New York change your ways and continue to sit on the couch at home all winter.
Surprisingly, there weren’t that many fans. This is a well-known race series and the cars were upscale. We did see cameras positioned around the track so I’m going to guess that the series gets a lot of advertising money by being on TV. I would guess that there were not any more than 75-100 actual fans on a chilly evening up in the French Alps.
There were quite a few people associated with race teams, the media and track personnel in general at the track. We didn’t see a single concession stand selling food and drink. There was one trailer selling merchandise, primarily jackets and stocking caps. They weren’t doing much business.
We finally found the toilets but it took some searching. Right next to that building was what looked like an indoor restaurant/bar. We wandered in and saw they were serving food and drink. Carol ordered a coffee and I had a hot chocolate. When I went to pay we were informed that this was the track worker’s building. All of the food and drink was for them. We had a nice conversation with a couple of ladies doing the serving. They gave us a little bit of background on how their car club supports ice racing in Isola. There was no charge for our drinks.
With our coffee and hot chocolate in hand, we wandered back to the track and watched several more races. The temperature was reasonable being in the high 20s with almost no wind. For ice racing at night that’s about as good as you’re going to get.
We watched the last race of the night high up on a hill overlooking the entire facility. This definitely gave us the best view of the racing that we had tonight. Don’t miss the video I think you’re going to be impressed.
AFTER THE RACES
From the track, we drove about 50 miles down the mountain back to our hotel in Nice, France. The drive was about 500 times easier than navigating across the mountain range from Monte Carlo to Isola. That was some tough driving today. Getting in and out of the Monte Carlo parking garage was not a piece of cake either. I probably wished we had a standard smaller rental car. The BMW SUV rides like a truck. I don’t like riding in trucks.
We were back at the hotel at about 11 o’clock in the evening. It’s been a full day. We had been on the run. However, whenever you can get something done in trackchasing like seeing ice racing in a new country for the very first time that is rewarding
Tomorrow was going to be busy. We needed to make a seven-hour one-way drive to position ourselves up in the Italian Alps for another ice race in Italy. That entire project will be Part 3, the last part of our three-segment trip to Italy and France for ice racing and all other forms of touring fun.
Good evening from Isola, France.
Randy Lewis – 85 countries – 2,601 tracks.
France
This evening I saw racing at my third-lifetime track in France. Of those three French tracks, this was the first ice race I had ever seen in the country.
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
France sayings: Apres la pluie le beau temps
What a poetic way to say better days are ahead and disappointment will turn to hope! The sentence translates literally to, “After the rain, nice weather.”
In English, it’s “Every cloud has a silver lining” because–like life itself–the weather is so changeable.
JUST THE FACTS
LIFETIME TRACKCHASER COMPARISONS
The three most important trackchasing comparisons to me are:
Total lifetime tracks seen
Total “trackchasing countries” seen
Lifetime National Geographic Diversity results
Total Lifetime Tracks
There are no trackchasers currently within 730 tracks of my lifetime total. Don’t blame me.
Randy Lewis, San Clemente, California – 2,601
Total Trackchasing Countries
The nearest trackchasing competitor has seen racing in 30 fewer countries compared to my lifetime total.
Randy Lewis, San Clemente, California – 85
Current lifetime National Geographic Diversity results
Randy Lewis, San Clemente, California – 3.96
That’s all folks! Official end of the RLR – Randy Lewis Racing Trackchaser Report
