Greetings from Mason, Tennessee
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From the travels and adventures of the
“World’s #1 Trackchaser”
Coyote Run Arena Speedway Dirt oval Lifetime Track #2,675 THE EVENT Editor’s note: I think it would be fair to say I lead an unusual lifestyle. Here I was…all set for an ice trackchasing weekend up in Minnesota and Wisconsin. Then the trackchasing gods intervened. They ended up sending me to Tennessee. Thank you trackchasing gods! I AM A TRACKCHASER. My name is Randy Lewis (above with my racing buddy Carl Crawford at an indoor race in Syracuse, New York). I live out in San Clemente, California. We’re only 74 miles north of the Mexican border. I’m not sure a person could pick a more inconvenient location in the continental United States if they wanted to be a world-class trackchaser. My residential location virtually assures the idea that I must fly to virtually every track I visit. I am a “trackchaser”. I trackchase. Have you ever in your life heard of “trackchasing”? I didn’t think so. Trackchasing for me is all about three things. First, I enjoy auto racing. Secondly, my hobby requires a good deal of overnight travel. When I venture out to see a race at a track I’ve never seen before I do not want my trip limited to racing only. The very last thing I want when I’m done trackchasing is to have memories of only racing. I want to take some time to see the local attractions of wherever I might be visiting. Those visits in many cases will provide more long-lasting memories than whatever I saw on the track. Finally, I want to create a logistical plan that allows me to accomplish the two points mentioned above without depleting my retirement account. That’s trackchasing for me. Hundreds of trackchasers have stopped for a moment to create their own personal trackchasing list. I think that is great. However, I will tell you that no one has ever taken trackchasing more seriously than I have. Do I have any data to back up that assertion? I do. To date, I have seen auto racing in 85 countries at more than 2,670 different tracks. Does that sound serious to you? I’ve been able to see the world doing this. If you’re interested in exactly what I’ve been able to experience all around the U.S. and the world I recommend you click on this link. Trackchasing Tourist Attractions After each and every event that I attend I post a YouTube video, a SmugMug photo album and a very detailed Trackchaser Report about the experience on my website at www.randylewis.org. My trackchasing contributions generate a good deal of interest in what I am doing. My YouTube channel (ranlay) has more than 1.3 million views. My website gets more than 20,000 views every month. Because I have seen racing in 85 countries at this point I am considered the World’s #1 Trackchaser. That’s good enough for me. Now I encourage you to drop down a few spaces and read about today’s trackchasing adventure. As you discover what went on at this track just think about the idea that I’ve done this nearly 2,700 times. I don’t mind admitting I am addicted to the hobby of trackchasing. It’s just fun! If you’re interested in looking back and seeing where I’ve been the following link is for you. 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! FOREWORD Saturday, February 6, 20202. What an epic adventure this trackchasing trip turned out to be. It had so many storylines. I should’ve done that reality TV show about trackchasing with Fox when asked me too! Let’s get started. The Covid pandemic has really put a big dent in my trackchasing over the past year. Luckily, I haven’t had Covid. There were times when I wanted to try to play it safe and stay off the road in the hopes of never getting Covid. Beginning in mid-March 2020 I stopped trackchasing for 85 days. I didn’t fly anywhere. I guess I was scared. Then beginning in early June I went trackchasing somewhere on an airplane for 24 consecutive weeks. I didn’t know anybody else who was doing anything like that during Covid or any other time for that matter. When news started to spread that a Covid vaccine was going to be available soon I figured I had pushed my luck long enough. Beginning in mid-November I once again pulled myself off of the airplane riding trackchasing trail. I took another 82 days off with no flying trackchasing. I did drive to a few events in California and Arizona. Now it’s time to get back at it. I had my first vaccine shot of the two-shot Moderna regimen on January 22. My research told me that after one shot people are 80% protected and after two shots 95%. I figured I was protected enough to go on my first airplane trip since my self-initiated temporary retirement from trackchasing. I wanted to go ice racing. I had a perfect ice racing plan set up for this weekend. First I would see some racing in Minnesota and then in Wisconsin, on Saturday and Sunday. However the temperatures were going to be brutally cold. How cold? The high temperature on Sunday would be -4°F. Ice racing is a very fragile sport. In almost every case it’s done on a frozen lake. If the temperature gets too warm ice racing can be canceled. If it snows too much ice racing can be canceled. If it rains too much ice racing can be canceled. Even if it’s too cold ice racing can be canceled! I have ice trackchased in 23 different states, Canadian provinces and countries. Below is the list of those locations. By the way that’s me in the #57X below! My very first ice trackchasing adventure was up in Quebec, Canada. It was also the coldest. The windchill temperature was more than -50°F. It was beyond brutal. Yes, sometimes ice racing can be canceled because it’s too cold. Who wants to be a corner worker standing out on a frozen lake with no protection of any kind when the windchill is -30 or -40 or even -50°? Same thing for drivers, even young drivers. My planned trackchasing opportunity in Wisconsin on Sunday was canceled because of the cold. That left me with only the Saturday ice race in Minnesota. I didn’t think going out in such cold weather for only one race and flying across country to do it was worth it. I have a lot of buddies who give me trackchasing tips. They tell me about new venues and sometimes little known race dates that even I don’t know about. That was exactly what happened with my friend John Simpson. I met John when he was 13 years old at a racetrack in Missouri. It was John who first told me about an indoor kart race down in Tennessee. Ultimately I would act on John’s tip. Trackchasing has rules on what types of racetracks count, what kinds of race drivers are acceptable and what kinds of racing machines will meet and exceed our rules. I know it sounds a lot like the IRS doesn’t it? In a nutshell the rules around go-kart racing are relatively simple. We don’t count flat karts (above). We don’t count go-kart racing in divisions where the age limit is limited to drivers under 18 years of age. What do we count? Essentially we count caged karts in classes that are open the drivers 18 years of age or older. That normally turns out to be what is called a senior champ kart. Before I go much further I want to mention that I was not part of the trackchasing rule situation that banned flat karts. I always feel badly when I have to explain trackchasing’s position on flat karts to flat kart promoters and drivers. If anyone is to be blamed and I feel that blame is the right emoji it is trackchasing’s founding fathers. The folks down at the Coyote Run Arena Speedway in Mason, Tennessee were racing on Saturday night. When the people up in Wisconsin canceled their event I got on the phone. I called the Tennessee kart promoter. His name was Doug Layton. I called him just after Carol and I had finished dinner in San Clemente. Little did I know that I would be on the phone with Doug for the next 45 minutes. He was a southern fellow. Even though I grew up in central Illinois and I have lived in California for longer than I’ve lived anywhere else in the country I think of myself as being “part southern“”. My grandmother, a Neal, was from Kentucky. I almost felt like I was being interviewed by Doug. He asked me all kinds of questions about where I grew up and what my family was like and what I did for a living. I speak to a lot of race promoters on the phone. Doug’s and my conversation was a little bit unusual. I think this was just a way for a southern gentleman to get to know me. I think I passed Doug’s interview. Why do I say that? During our conversation I told Doug all about trackchasing and the trackchasing rules. He understood that if I came all the way to Tennessee and he didn’t produce any senior champ kart racing it would be a disappointing trip for me. He repeated that, “if I only have zero or one” senior champs then your trip is a waste of time? I didn’t exactly like put it that way but the way Doug put it was exactly right on. Due to a scheduling snafu Doug‘s race was which was originally planned for February 13 had been moved up a week at the very last minute to February 6. He thought the date change might affect his car count. It might affect the number of senior champs that would show up. He told me that in the past he had 5-7 senior champs on most nights but really couldn’t guarantee things for the night that I wanted to come. I understood that. The race promoter is at the mercy of the racers and whether or not they show up. Doug and I kind of left it at that. I certainly didn’t want to fly all the way to Tennessee and not be able to see a track that would count in my lifetime totals. I’m a big fan of watching flat karts but of course the draw in trackchasing is to see racing that counts by trackchasing rules. About a half hour after our first conversation Doug called me back. He had a plan. I like people who have a plan. What was Doug’s plan? He had just posted on the Coyote Run Arena Speedway Facebook page that he was going to offer a special upgraded and increased purse for the senior champ division. If four senior champs (above) showed up, at a minimum, the winner would collect $300, second place would get $150 and third place $75. All of this could be accomplished with each racer paying only a $25 entry fee. Doug went on to say in his post that a “special guest” was going to show up. I’ve had a lot of promoters do a lot of very special things for me. I don’t know that I’ve ever had a promoter put up a special purse that could benefit me like Doug was doing for his race at the Coyote Run Arena Speedway. I want to be perfectly clear on one point. I didn’t ask Doug to do this. He came up with this idea 100% on his own. I wasn’t going to partially fund any of the purse. I don’t do that. I never have done it. However if after I have a conversation with a race promoter and the promoter understands what the rules of trackchasing require and then they decide to come up with whatever idea which may or may not benefit me that’s their call. Of course, I fully appreciated everything was Doug was trying to help me out. I will tell you this. It’s not something that I like to explain any more often than I have to but it comes up from time to time. We HAVE had trackchasers who have paid promoters to run a special “event” (wink) for their benefit. They have collected cash money from their own pocket and from fellow trackchasers to get a promoter to run a special race. This is been done several times. Most recently this was done at a Pennsylvania kart track. Some 15-20 chasers all kicked in money to “sponsor” a small car special event on a “road course”. Of course, this created a new track opportunity for these trackchasers. How do I feel about behavior like that? I consider it shameful. I consider it pure evil. Who in their right mind would like to tell someone that they had seen XX tracks during their lifetime trackchasing career when they paid promoters to run on a special track so these chasers could add to their totals? These people should be jailed. Their entire lifetime trackchasing efforts should be erased from the record books. These people are the Barry Bonds of trackchasing. After listening to Doug tell me about his new plan to encourage senior champs karts to show up he had a question for me. Was I going to show up? I understood his question. How do you think a race track promoter feels when I call from out of the blue to tell him that I’ve seen thousands of racetracks and the next race track I want to come to is his? Do they believe me? Do they think I’m really going to fly all the way from California to Tennessee to see one go-kart race? I think Doug wondered about this. Although he was a sincere individual and I’m pretty sure he understood I was a sincere individual there was a little doubt. I assured him with 100% certainty that I would be there. That was all I could do. Even though I said that, in my heart of hearts I think Doug might still have been wondering if he plunked down $500 to support the senior champs the “special guest” might not show up. This weekend is Super Bowl weekend. I love trackchasing on Super Bowl weekend because airline traffic is low. Everyone is staying home for the big game. This makes flying standby really easy. Of course this year it was a combination of both Super Bowl weekend and Covid. If that wouldn’t keep people out of the airports I don’t know what would. The Tennessee go-kart racing was going to be done in Mason, Tennessee. Mason is about 45 miles northeast of Memphis. There were no nonstop flights from LA to Memphis when I would be leaving. It was only later that I realized I could’ve flown nonstop to Nashville and then driven nearly 3 hours to Mason. That might’ve been a better idea that the connecting flight combination that I did pick. I would end up flying from Los Angeles to Dallas and then from Dallas to Memphis. Choosing connecting flights over a nonstop flight is never a good choice in trackchasing. There are just too many things that can go wrong with two flights compared to one. On Saturday morning I set my wake-up call for 3 a.m. You should know if you don’t think that’s early in your world it is in mine. I normally wake up about 7:30 a.m. For me I was getting up 4 1/2 hours earlier I normally do. Let’s say you get up at 5 a.m. every morning. What I was doing, in your world, would be as if you got up at 12:30 a.m. to begin your day. Understood? When I woke up I already had all my bags packed. I simply put on my clothes, brushed my teeth and out the door I went. At 3:15 a.m. in Southern California there is no traffic. The EECU Credit Union sponsored 2020 Tesla Model X was safely put on auto pilot and away I went up to LAX for the first time in nearly three months. Frequent readers of what I do in my hobby know that I go trackchasing about 40 weekends every year. It is amazing that if you don’t do something that you do all the time for three months how little details can seem to fade from your memory. This trip pointed out to me. I need to keep doing this or I will get rusty. I made it up to LAX in good shape to my lot F sponsored parking garage. Thank you LAX World Parking! I had discontinued my parking privileges December and January. Then when I knew I was going to begin trackchasing heavily again in February I renewed my sponsorship. Now I just had to make sure that my parking key card worked after a layoff of nearly three months. It did. I was early for my 6 a.m. flight to Dallas. I sat down on a chair at LAX and started to think. I wondered if there were any nonstop flights from Los Angeles to Nashville? If there were and that flight was leaving soon I could book a ticket and simplify the flying process although I would increase my driving time in Tennessee. I found a nonstop flight from Los Angeles to Nashville on Southwest Airlines. I consulted my special travel app called Staff Traveler. Staff Traveler would let me know if there were any standby seats available on this flight. There were. When I went in to try to book that flight for some unknown reason I couldn’t. One of the screens that needed to be completed wasn’t there! It was that fine of a line which prevented me from flying nonstop to Nashville and sticking with my connection through Dallas on the way to Memphis. A lot of people think travel makes Covid more dangerous. Maybe it does. But here’s the question. How much more dangerous does flying on an airplane and being inside of the airport make Covid for the average individual? Honestly, I don’t know the answer to that. Again, obviously, I wouldn’t be flying if I thought it was similar to putting a gun to my head. Maybe a normal person has a one in 10,000 chance of getting Covid. Maybe a person who flies on an airplane has a two in 10,000 chance of getting Covid. One could look at that situation and say that you were twice as likely to get Covid if you fly. Another person could look at the same situation and say their chances of getting Covid from flying was only two out of 10,000. I guess all of this depends on how you look at life. Once I landed in Dallas I had about an hour and a half layover. I quickly grabbed the inner airport train system at DFW, which is very good, and rode it over to terminal D. There I could go into the private club called “The Club at DFW”. It’s part of my Priority Pass program. In the club I would have some breakfast, a little bourbon and simply relax and get the rest of the trip planned put together. I had a new idea. Yes, I was going to be landing in Memphis but what if I flew home from Nashville? There was a flight on Sunday early afternoon that would take me nonstop from Nashville to Los Angeles. There was just one sticky little problem. The rental car companies frown on having someone pick up their car in one city and drop it in another. They support their frown with exorbitant prices for one-way car rentals. Imagine if you asked your best friend if she would lend you her car for a day. You go over to her house and pick up the car and drive it wherever you need to and then return it to her house. That would be a pretty good friend right? Now what if you went over to your friend’s house picked up her car and then told the owner that when you were finished using the car you were going to drop it in a city 300 miles away? What do you think your friend would think about that? I guess if you paid your friend enough money you could drop the car just about anywhere you wanted. Just about everything is available for a price. Not everything but just about everything. I called up my longtime sponsor, the National Car Rental Company and asked them if they would let me pick up my car in Memphis today and drop it in Nashville tomorrow. I figured they might charge me a little bit more but they would at least let me do it. They wouldn’t. No matter who I talked to and how much “swag” I tried to swing it was no dice. My secondary rental car choice is Avis. I don’t rent from them very often but I do a few times each year. It just turned out that I had enough points, barely, to rent a car in Memphis and drop it in Nashville. They would charge me just 35 bucks. Most one-way rentals are a minimum of $100. I’ve seen them exceed $200 for one day of a one-way rental. I was golden. I would now be renting from Avis. I arrived in Memphis without incident. I picked up my Avis rental car, which was a Mitsubishi Eclipse Cross ES. No offense to anyone who owns one of these but I would never rent this type of car, but in a pinch anything works. I wasn’t going to be driving all that far. I was thinking something less than 300 miles. I figured I could ride in just about anything for 300 miles. A major rain storm was moving into Memphis at about 5 p.m. tonight. Luckily, that wasn’t going to be a problem because tonight’s racing was indoors. Had it been outdoors the rain would have canceled everything There’s one thing I love to do when I come to the south and that’s go to the Waffle House. In the south they have a Waffle House on just about every other corner. My birthday is in January. I’m a member of the Waffle House Regular’s Club. That doesn’t surprise you does it? What does membership bring? For my birthday they sent me an email with a coupon for a free waffle. Thank you Waffle House. You’re only supposed to print that particular coupon one time and use it once. I’m sorry but I do not abide by those rules. After I tell you what I do do I think you’ll understand and maybe cut me a break on the idea that I print the coupon multiple times. This is my plan. A waffle at the Waffle House costs about four bucks. When I go in to the Waffle House and give them my coupon I’m saving four dollars off my bill. However, I don’t put those four dollars in my pocket. I’ll add that four dollars to whatever tip I would have given the server anyway. Essentially I am moving money from Waffle House corporate to the Waffle House employee. I’m only the middleman. Today my Google Maps GPS took me to the most unusual Waffle House visually that I have ever seen. I think that you all know what a Waffle House looks like (above). I didn’t think they had any other kinds of Waffle House exteriors. When I saw today’s design I didn’t know if this was the new version of Waffle House or maybe the old version of Waffle House or maybe a version of the Waffle House that was acquired from somebody else somewhere along the line. Nevertheless, I went in and ordered my usual. What’s my usual? It’s a Waffle, a bowl grits and a Diet Coke in a “to go” cup with cherry flavoring. That’s my Waffle House usual. Today it was my Waffle House birthday present. I am here to tell you this. First of all, I was the only white guy in this particular Waffle House during the entire time I was there. Secondly my server was a nice young woman who did her job really well. Surprising to me she had never seen a Waffle House exterior with what I consider to be the “normal” exterior. When I showed her a picture on my phone of “normal” she was blown away. Then I was served the largest bowl of grits that I’ve ever seen in a Waffle House anywhere. It was twice the size of a bowl of grits that I’ve ever been served at Waffle House. With my free waffle coupon my bill came to just more than five dollars which included the waffle, the large bowl of grits and multiple refills on my Diet Coke. Five bucks was a steal. I left the young woman a seven-dollar tip on my five-dollar bill. She was most appreciative. When she serves one or two people at a time I doubt she gets very many tips for seven bucks. She deserved it. I thank Waffle House for helping me give it to her. From there I completed the 45-minute drive from Memphis up to the Coyote Run Arena Speedway. I paid my $20 admission. This would allow me to go into the arena and sit anywhere I wanted. I could also move around as much as I wanted and be in the pit area right up next to the racers and the racing machines. The arena was older. It was built for horse shows and horse activity. The fumes from tonight’s racing weren’t bad, better than most, but this wasn’t pure air either. The first thing I did was to find a spot in the dirt and somewhat muddy parking lot that was close to the door of the building. I knew we were going to have a major rainstorm later in the night. I wanted to be as close to my car as possible. Then I took about a 20-minute nap to try to recover from my 3 a.m. wake up call. I was awakened from my nap when my brother Mark (above) called from Kansas City. He was in a Best Buy and wanted some advice on buying a laptop computer. Then I got a text from promoter Doug. We would meet up soon. The next item on the agenda was to look for senior champ karts. If there were at least two of them I was good to go. If there were zero or one senior champ kart I was not good to go. What complicated the visual of this just a little bit was that there were several caged karts racing tonight. However, the majority of those caged karts were for drivers younger than 18 years of age. These are called junior champ karts in most locations. A junior champ car as a racing machine does count in trackchasing. However when a junior champ kart is driven by a driver who is less than 18 years of age and competing in a class limited to people less than 18 years of age that car/driver combo doesn’t count in trackchasing. Got that? So here I was walking around the pit area and seeing all kinds of caged champ cars…without the driver sitting inside. I didn’t know if these racers were countable or not. A senior champ kart is a little bit larger than a junior champ kart but not by that much. I’ll cut to the chase. They were exactly four senior champs at the track tonight. That was the magic number. Remember Doug, the promoter, had put a special race purse together basically for a four kart minimum. If four senior champ karts showed up the drivers would race for $300 to win, $150 for second and $75 for third. If three or fewer senior champs showed up I guess they would have to negotiate things. I talked to one of the drivers who lived near tonight’s track. He enjoyed racing over at an Arkansas track that he told me about tonight. I can’t share the name of that location unless you are part of my Randy Lewis Racing “preferred” program. If you are and you wanna know the name of that track just get in touch with me. All my information is free. For others aka my fellow competitors my proprietary race date information is not free and it’s not available. I asked my new senior champ kart friend if he knew about the $300 champ race purse. Of course he did! I told him that I saw one of the senior champs pull off the track in practice after only one lap. Now that kart was parked in the dark outside. It looked as if he might not be racing any more tonight. This didn’t faze the driver I was talking to one bit. He simply looked at me and smiled and said “four senior champs signed in and paid. We’re getting the purse”. Nice guy. I was rooting for him to win tonight but he did not. After reading this far are you thinking that you might want to become a trackchaser? You have just experienced one of the three main reasons that I trackchase. We’ve been talking about the logistical process and what it takes to get from point A to point B. This is not just geographically but in terms of meeting and exceeding trackchasing rules and benefiting from sponsorships and the like. A second major aspect of what I like to think of as the “three-legged trackchasing stool” is the opportunity to meet the people and see the local sights and sounds that make trackchasing such an interesting hobby. It’s one thing to get to the track but it’s another thing to enjoy things in a special manner once you’re at the track or in the area. I think it’s obvious if you’re in the know that I do things in my trackchasing world just a little bit differently than my fellow competitors. I had already developed a close relationship, via a series of phone calls, with Doug tonight’s race promoter. Now I needed to search out and meet Doug personally. After a few text messages we matched up in the large arena that was crowded with racers and people. Doug (above with his staff, Kim and Heidi) was just as nice in person as he was over the phone. We talked for several minutes on several different occasions on this evening. I gave him one of my souvenir trackchasing t-shirts. He liked it. Doug told me that he had his first kart racing promotion back in 2014. Then he took a year or two off and now he’s been promoting here at Coyote Run Arena Speedway for the last three or four years. He mentioned that tonight there were 118 racing karts signed in. He told me that his previous show had about 150. This was a good turn out tonight. Every one of the pit stalls that was located under the roof was occupied. Several kart racing teams had to pit outside the building which tonight was inconvenient because of the cold, rain and mud. I was a bit surprised that I didn’t see the roof leaking anywhere! Doug (left) introduced me to his brother John (right) who helps with the race promotion. I also got to meet his sister Ashley and several of the other staff members. It takes a lot of folks to make one of these things run well tonight. The racing was very efficient. They had 25 classes of karts. With the heats and features they probably ran off 60 races. One of the best things happening tonight was that the senior champ karts were the third class to race out of the 25 classes that were competing at the show tonight. That’s very unusual. Normally the senior champs are one of the very last and often times the last class to compete. I have no idea why that is usually the case. Racing began at 7:30 p.m. after hot laps. Probably less than 15 minutes after that the four kart senior champ heat race was on the track and soon finished. At that point tonight‘s Coyote Run Arena Speedway was in the books. It will forever be known as lifetime track #2,675. Tonight the outside temperatures were in the high 30s. It was raining. Inside temps might have been in the high 40s/low 50s. Several fans and race people brought portable propane heaters to keep themselves comfortable. Concessions were available. I went with a good-sized Tennessee cheeseburger for five bucks. All during the night I walked through the pit area both inside and out checking the race machines. For the day, including my airport walking, I covered more than five miles. If you really wanna take a look at this particular track’s ambience check out my SmugMug photo album and YouTube video. If you do you’re going to get the distinct feeling that you were in the building as well. Doug introduced me to his staff. During intermission he had the track announcer Lyn Neal do a short interview with me. We did the interview in the track’s infield. Whenever I do an interview where the fans and drivers can see me many of those people come up to say hello. That was exactly the case tonight. Above that’s Ashley, Doug, John, Kim and Gary. Lin (above) the announcer was quite a gregarious fellow. Lin is a former motorcycle racer of note. Here’s a photo of Lin and Evil Knivel on the day Lin beat him in a “wheelie race at a drag bike national event at Dragway42 in West Salem Ohio”. How cool is that! Lin’s doing a biography of the Riverside International Speedway located in nearby West Memphis, Arkansas. By the way you probably know that the greater Memphis area is located pretty much at the borders of Arkansas, Mississippi and Tennessee. About that time a fan named Craig came down to say hello. Craig had quite the varied background. His great uncle was a buddy of Elvis Presley! Craig had done marketing for various NASCAR teams including those funded and owned by the legendary James Finch. Craig knew me from my website. He told me he has spent many late nights reading my “long” trackchasing stories and envisioning what trackchasing the hobby would be like. Craig and I and several others including his lacrosse playing, go-kart driving son talked for several minutes. Craig admitted he was a strong believer in several conspiracy theories. He shared many of them with me. It was all done in good fun. I felt like I was talking to many of my older mature white friends as regards their political philosophies. By the way I don’t believe in a single conspiracy theory! However, I guess if you believe in that stuff…you don’t think it’s a theory! We talked for so long that the woman in charge of race directing had to move us out of the track’s infield when feature racing began at 10:10 p.m. A fun race tonight was the powder puff event (above). I’m pretty sure this was a race for the ladies who had no experience racing karts. They put on a good show and got around the track very well. So up to this point I had a great logistical experience that made me use my brain. Then I had a great people experience which made me use my heart. All during the night I had the racing experience as well. Since the senior champs were going to be the third main event of the night it was much easier to stay to see their four-kart feature race than if they had been the 25th class racing tonight. Again, don’t miss the video. It was probably about 11 o’clock when I left the arena after having arrived at 5 p.m. Now I had a nearly three-hour drive over to Nashville, Tennessee. I soon found out that the bad weather that manifested itself as rain at the racetrack was now going to turn into a very wet and heavy snow for most of the drive over to Nashville. I don’t see BLUE on my weather radar map. Tonight’s map showed blue, green yellow AND orange! I had bypassed trackchasing in Wisconsin and Minnesota this weekend because of the extreme cold. Little did I realize that the temperatures would drop to the mid 30s tonight. It was wet and cold too. Tonight I would be driving for such a long time in heavy snow. In the middle of the drive I pulled into a Love’s truck stop and took a 20-minute nap. It was 2 a.m. That seemed most appropriate. I ended up pulling into my Fairfield Inn and Suites hotel in Nashville at nearly 3 a.m. They were waiting for me! I bought this hotel room on Priceline.com as I almost always do. I paid about half price as compared to what the normal consumer would be charged. That’s just how I do things. My day had begun on Saturday morning at 3 a.m. in California. Now at nearly 3 a.m. on what seemed like Saturday night but was really early Sunday morning in Nashville, Tennessee my day was wrapping up. I call that a pretty complete trackchasing day. If you’ve read this far you know all about the three-legged trackchasing stool. My hobby involves the logistics of simply getting to the track and getting there can mean more than one thing. It’s about the idea of meeting the people and seeing the local sights and sounds. Finally, it’s about the racing. Tonight 118 racing machines and drivers and crews showed up. Their experiences and objectives were similar to mine. I know they are just a little bit more focused on the racing than I probably am. They have the camaraderie of their family and crews that make racing such a fun family sport. They also have to figure out how they’re going to get from point A to point B and not spend every last dime. In reality their racing program is a three-legged stool just like my trackchasing is. Sunday. Today is Super Bowl Sunday. There was a time when I was a huge NFL fan. Then when the players started having strikes and boycotts and the like I dropped out of the NFL for a good 20 years or more. Now I am dipping my toe back into the NFL waters. A couple of years ago I wrapped up an ice trackchasing event in Massachusetts. I stayed over to watch the game in my hotel room. I think I am ever so slowly reacclimating myself to the NFL. I guess if my NFL situation proves anything it proves that when people piss me off I stay pissed off for a while. Maybe the NFL deserves a revisit by me. Today I could sleep in for a good long time. As a high ranking member of the Sheraton/Marriott frequent stay program I have some “juice” with them. This allows me to get a late check out up to 4 p.m. whenever I need it. Today I would relax and work on my story so you could have just as much fun visiting the Coyote Run Arena Speedway as I did. You could do all of that without having to go there and then catch a flight back home. Then I hopped on a nonstop flight from Nashville Los Angeles leaving at 3:30 p.m. and landing at 6:15 p.m. back in California. I will tell you this. I had a middle seat on a more than four-hour flight. This was one of the most uncomfortable flights I’ve had in a long time. Nevertheless, I would be home by eight or so. If I had enough energy I would still be able to watch the Super Bowl on a recorded basis. I did all of that. Thank you for riding along on the story about my visit to the Coyote Run Arena Speedway. I hope in your mind you can imagine having just the experience that I had. With the photos and the video I think you will have that nearly identical experience…and you wouldn’t have to get up at 3 o’clock in the morning to do it! Good night from the Coyote Run Arena Speedway in Mason, Tennessee. Randy Lewis – 85 countries – 2,675 tracks. Tennessee The Volunteer State This evening I saw racing at my 38th-lifetime track in the Volunteer, yes, the Volunteer State. I hold the #3 trackchasing ranking in Tennessee. Tennessee ranks #21, amongst all the states, in tracks seen for me in the U.S. Here’s a link to my all-time Tennessee state trackchasing list. I have made 31 separate trips to Tennessee seeing these tracks. 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 Tennessee sayings: We don’t say we want a kiss, we say “give me some sugar.” 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 780 tracks of my lifetime total. Don’t blame me. Total Trackchasing Countries My nearest trackchasing competitor, a native of Belgium, has seen racing in more than 30 fewer countries compared to my lifetime total. Current lifetime National Geographic Diversity results That’s all folks! Official end of the RLR – Randy Lewis Racing Trackchaser Report Click on the link below to see the video production from the racing action today. Click on the link below for a photo album from today’s trackchasing day. You can view the album slide by slide or click on the “slide show” icon for a self-guided tour of today’s trackchasing adventure. I saw a lot and did a lot during my 24 hours in Tennessee 
Alaska
Alberta
Andorra
Belarus
British Columbia
Finland
France
Iowa
Italy
Maine
Manitoba
Massachusetts
Michigan
Minnesota
New Hampshire
New York
Ontario
Quebec
Russia
Saskatchewan
Sweden
Vermont
Wisconsin
