This message goes to both my finance/travel readers and my trackchasing/travel readers.
The travel part of this trip did not go well coming or going. Actually, that part of the trip truly was an unmitigated disaster! The eating, touring, racing and meeting people went really well. Then I ran into a guy who was trying to reach the station. There is no “station”. If you read only one part of what I’m sharing do NOT miss reading about the STATION.
From the travels and adventures of the “World’s #1 Trackchaser”
Clinton Raceway
Dirt figure 8
Lifetime Track #2,747
Wainfleet
Dirt figure 8
Lifetime Track #2,748
Lindsay Exhibition
Dirt figure 8
Lifetime Track #2,748
THE EVENT
Editor’s note: Carol and I have trackchased all over the world. Combined we’ve seen racing in 85 countries and at more than 3,400 tracks. Our nearest fellow trackchasing couple competitors are pretty far back in our rearview mirror. I’ll take the title of “World’s #1 Trackchasing Couple”.
I AM A TRACKCHASER.
My name is Randy Lewis (above with Englishman Jerry Fisher and his wife, at the time, as we were trackchasing in Argentina). I live in San Clemente, California. 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.
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.
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 more than 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!
Most of you know that I publish two newsletters. They focus on the subjects of travel, finance, racing and everyday life. If you are not a subscriber to these newsletters you may be reading them from time to time on one or more social media sites that I frequent. If you are not a subscriber and want to be just send me an email and I’ll get you signed up. There is no charge.
Every trip that I take includes certain “elements” that can make for a fun mini-vacation to some faraway spot. It is during these trips that I get all of the material I need and more to create “the story”. Each one of these trips is all about the story.
This particular adventure was going to involve Carol, a foreign country and the ups and downs that are part of EVERY trip. Sit back, grab your favorite drink and imagine what you might have done had you encountered the same experiences that we did.
TRAVEL
The travel portion of this trip was, simply put, an unmitigated disaster. Virtually everything that could go wrong did go wrong. No, we didn’t encounter a tornado but we might as well have.
COVID
The Covid pandemic continues to play havoc in one way or another with lots of people. It was Covid that nearly ruined this trip and not for the reasons you might expect.
RACING
The true highlight of this trip was the racing. We visited three race locations in Ontario, Canada. This part of the trip couldn’t have worked out better.
EATING
A major part of every trip that I take involves eating! I’m a big fan of “fun foods”. This trip met my expectations even though it might have been a little too much for Carol.
TOURING
As usual, we got in our share of touring opportunities. Touring just seems to be a little bit more exotic when we’re doing it in a foreign country. I might point out that I don’t really think of Canada as a foreign country. I think of it as more “Minnesota Lite”. That’s both a compliment to Canada and Minnesota.
PEOPLE
We truly do get to meet so many people on these adventures. Some are old friends and some are new friends. In the end, they are all friends.
NAVIGATING
We would use our Waze GPS system to navigate ourselves all over Ontario. I’ve heard people tell me that they “don’t need no damn GPS”. They already know how to get to everywhere they are going.
I truly do shudder when I hear someone say that. I never want to know how to get everywhere in life that I’m going. If I did that, I would never discover anything new across town or across the world. GPS systems are for people who want to go to where they don’t know how to get to. That’s my kind of people.
LET’S GET STARTED.
A few weeks ago, I learned from the trackchasing email group about a race promotion outfit called Impact Motorsports. They were planning to have racing at tracks I had never been to for four nights in a time period of only five days. As a trackchaser, how could I pass that up?
I make about 35 or 40 of these trips a year. I’ve been retired for 20 years. I’ve been taking this trackchasing stuff seriously for about 30 years. If you run the numbers that makes for well over 1,000 trips up to this point.
Carol comes along with me on about 1/3 of my trips. Sometimes people ask when I’m by myself, “Doesn’t your wife come with you?” Well…yes, she does. She just doesn’t come with me all the time. Trackchasing is my hobby, not hers.
I told you I’ve taken more than 1,000 trackchasing trips in the past 30 years. This doesn’t include those vacations that Carol and I take that don’t have anything at all to do with racing. If I had to guess there’s probably another 150 of those trips to add to my list. Yes, we like to travel.
If you run the numbers, and I always “run the numbers” that makes for well over 400 long-distance trips that Carol has taken with me during the past 30 years. Do you know any other spouse that travels that much? Does that answer the person who askes, “Doesn’t Carol ever come with you?”
I was happy when Carol immediately accepted my offer to come on the Canadian voyage. When Carol comes along the elements of the trip change a good deal. When that happens, I not only have to be concerned about what I’m trying to do but I have to make sure that she’s comfortable and entertained.
THE TRACKCHASING PLAN.
The first racetrack we wanted to visit was going to have their racing on Wednesday. Then there would be a day off from racing followed by events on Friday, Saturday and Sunday all through Ontario.
I do most of my traveling by air. Carol and I have lived in California for more than 40 years. We lived in the Golden State for four years during the 70s (’74-78) and then returned for good in 1983. At the end of 1983, I had seen racing at a grand total of 137 racetracks. After this weekend I will have seen racing at 2,749 tracks. That means that almost all of the tracks I’ve seen have been when we lived in SoCal. Southern California is a LONG way from most of the tracks that I visit.
I estimate that the average travel distance between Southern California and the tracks that I have visited is well over 1,500 miles. On the other hand, of the hundreds of people who are part of the trackchasing hobby, I would estimate their average travel distance to the tracks they have visited is something less than 500 miles. There’s a big difference between traveling less than 500 miles and traveling more than 1,500 miles…for just about every track that is seen!
I need to take an airplane to begin almost every one of my trips. Mostly I fly on a standby basis. If there is an unsold seat, I might get it at a reduced price. For this particular outing, I would purchase airline tickets for two reasons. First, I hate to see Carol stress over the idea of whether or not we’re going to make a flight on a standby basis. Secondly, there was only one flight that would take us nonstop from Los Angeles to Toronto in time for Wednesday night’s race.
After we purchased our airline tickets on Air Canada, we learned that the Wednesday night race had been moved to another date. Now we were locked into our airline tickets with a couple of extra days of no racing. These last-minute changes are one of the reasons I prefer to fly standby rather than have paid-for non-refundable, non-changeable airline tickets. Whatever. This wasn’t the end of the world. At least I knew Carol and I would be traveling when we expected to and that’s not always the case with standby flying.
A LITTLE PROBLEM THAT WOULD BECOME A BIG PROBLEM.
There was just one little (big problem!) problem with flying on Air Canada and into Canada in general. This has been a worrisome situation for me and in the back of my mind for a while.
It turns out that right now Americans must have a negative Covid test taken within 72 hours of getting on an airplane bound for Canada. The right kind of Covid testing is somewhat difficult to find. Those rapid tests that you read about where you can get the results in 15 minutes are called “antigen tests”. Air Canada doesn’t accept those!
We would need to get a test where the results could be turned around quickly in order to satisfy Air Canada’s requirements. Our plane left on Wednesday morning. I was traveling on a previous trackchasing trip until mid-day on Monday. This shortened up the time that we had available to get our tests and most importantly to get the results back.
I called around everywhere. The places that you might expect where getting a Covid test would be easy were not available. Drugstores only gave the test by appointment in our area and there were no appointments to get.
Finally, I found a place called Memorial Care. Our primary doctor is a member of this group. They gave Covid tests that met Air Canada’s requirements on a walk-in basis. We walked in. I told the receptionist we needed the test results back as quickly as possible because we had a trip coming up. That was exactly the wrong thing to say!
It turns out that Memorial Care doesn’t do Covid tests to satisfy travel requirements. They will only give you a Covid test if you have any of a long list of Covid symptoms.
Here we were. It was now Monday late afternoon. Our plane was leaving on Wednesday morning. We needed a Covid test and we needed to get those results back within 24 hours. Now they were telling us they wouldn’t even give us the test because we were “only” traveling.
The nurse looked up from her desk and said “Do you have any of these symptoms?” and pointed to a chart. I looked at the chart. I looked at Carol. I looked at the nurse and said “Er….shortness of breath?”. The nurse asked, “Does your wife have ‘shortness of breath’ as well?” I looked at Carol. I looked at the nurse and…nodded yes. Now we were going to get the test.
I was not trying to be unethical. I was simply trying to get from point A to point B. I don’t mind bending the rules to my advantage when I think the rules are sort of dumb. The nurse must have felt the same way. She’s the one who suggested the symptoms chart!
The tests were given outdoors by a medical doctor. I wondered what the medical doctor had done wrong in his previous life to be giving Covid tests outside in a parking lot? Whatever. The doctor told us we would get our Covid test results back 12 hours before we needed to fly.
I mentioned previously that the travel portion of this trip was an unmitigated disaster. What would make it that way? We didn’t get our test results back in time to make the Air Canada flight! That qualifies as an unmitigated disaster in my world. C’mon man!
On Wednesday we drove to LAX for the 9:30 a.m. flight departure. This required leaving the house at 6 a.m. I was hoping that sometime just before the flight the Covid results would show up on my phone. They didn’t. That meant that $750 of airline tickets were down the tubes. We are retired people. We live on a small seemingly fixed income and losing $750 was not part of our long-term retirement plan.
However, I am a very competitive person. I started playing competitive sports in the second grade. I enlisted in the United States Marine Corps when I graduated from college. I worked my way up the sales management ranks of a Fortune 500 company. I know competition and I like it.
I’m pretty good at getting from point A to point B in whatever aspect of life where that is required. Today that meant getting from Los Angeles to Ontario, Canada in time to make the first race of the trip which was now on Friday night. I went to work.
We would not be flying directly to Toronto, Canada now. However, we could standby for a flight that was wide open that would take us from Los Angeles to Detroit, Michigan. Once in Detroit, we could cross the border in Sarnia, Ontario. From there we could make our way to what I knew was going to be a fun weekend of Canadian trackchasing.
There were a couple of problems I needed to be overcome to make this happen. We would be arriving in Detroit at midnight on Wednesday. We still needed to get those Covid results back in order to cross the border into Canada. If we did by as late as Friday morning things would work out.
Off we went on Spirit Airlines to Detroit arriving at midnight. Wouldn’t you know it? There was a huge rainstorm that was dumping 2 inches of rain in Detroit when we landed. That meant a nail-biter of an approach and landing. I wouldn’t have been surprised if we had diverted to another airport.
We checked a bag on this trip. I can tell you that 99% of the time I never check a bag. Checking a bag just delays everything and it can be expensive. I hate checking bags!
When we arrived at National Car Rental in Detroit it was raining cats and dogs and cows and ponies. It was past midnight. Nowadays with Covid and chip shortages and more, the large car rental companies often have almost no cars to rent.
We needed a good car that would get good gas mileage. We were going to be driving well over 1,000 miles. When the rental car bus driver pulled up there were only two cars in the lot. One was a gas-guzzling SUV. The other was a Ford Fusion hybrid.
There was one other guy on the rental car bus with us. As the bus began to stop, I looked at him. He looked at me. Then the two of us looked out into the rainstorm at the two and only two rental cars available. Then for whatever reason, he got into a discussion with the bus driver. Sucker! I darted through the parking lot that was filled with an inch of rain and grabbed that Ford fusion. My fellow competitor was left with the gas-guzzling SUV.
From there Carol and I drove up towards Sarnia and the Bluewater Bridge border crossing location. We would be staying at a Marriott hotel. I told you that when Carol comes along, I stay in better places and I eat in better places. She would be housed in a Marriott hotel for the entirety of the trip and by association, I would too.
When we went to bed our Covid results had still not come in. Happily, when we woke up the next morning on Thursday the email results of our Covid tests were in. We both tested negative. We both had the right kind of tests needed to satisfy the Canadian authorities.
CROSSING THE BORDER.
We crossed the border in Sarnia. They have about a dozen lanes for cars to cross into Canada from the United States. I’ve been here in the past when all of those dozen lanes were backed up 15 to 20 cars deep. Today there are only four cars including us crossing the border this morning.
The Canadian border control agent was a young but stern fellow. I gave him our passports. I gave him the paper copies of our vaccine shots. Then I gave him my phone which showed we had our negative Covid tests taken within the last 72 hours. He asked us a series of other “normal” border crossing questions and then we were through and into Canada! Wow. This hasn’t been all that easy!
I might point out that I could have used my POSITIVE covid test results of a few weeks ago to get into Canada on a land crossing. That means driving. Apparently, the Canadian government thinks that someone who has had and recovered from Covid is as good as someone who has recently tested negative for Covid. However, I couldn’t leave Carol stranded at the border if her negative covid results has not been received.
Now that we were actually in Canada, I could reserve a hotel for the next three nights of our stay. I decided to make a reservation at a Residence Inn by Marriott hotel in Toronto. Toronto was going to be sort of the center of a spoke wheel that would connect us to the three racing locations in Clinton, Wainfleet and Lindsay. Each night after the races we would return to Toronto and be a little bit closer to the next night’s racing action.
Because I travel so much, I hold elevated frequent flyer, frequent stay and frequent user ranks with lots of major travel companies. I am a “titanium elite” member with the Marriott hotel chain. This translated into our getting a one-bedroom suite for our stay. Our room had to be at least 1,000 square feet if not more. Then the desk clerk did me a “solid”. I can’t tell you exactly what she did. I can only say that she saved us well over $100 by her “working the system”. I love people who can work the system.
EATING
I am a big fan of Tim Hortons. Tim Hortons is sort of a bakery/coffee shop named after a former national hockey league player. I am partial to their Canadian maple doughnut and their “Timbits” which are donut holes of various flavors.
We probably stopped at Tim Hortons five times during the trip. Carol is a “good” eater. I am a “bad” eater. Nevertheless, up to now, my blood tests are 100% perfect despite the fact that I eat at the equivalent of Tim Hortons virtually every day and often times multiple times a day.
When I travel, I use a smartphone app called “Yelp”. Yelp offers up user reviews on all kinds of subjects. I use Yelp mainly for restaurants. Imagine this. If you pull into a town that you’ve never visited before and you’re looking for something to eat, would it be a good idea to get some advice from people who have already tried out the local restaurant scene? I think so. These reviewers have been to these restaurants. They can tell me, via Yelp, about the places they didn’t like and the places they did like. I think it’s always a good idea to get advice from other people. You can take the advice or not.
Canada has a large Indian population. I’m talking Gandhi and not Sitting Bull. That means they have a large number of Indian restaurants. Carol and I love Indian food and eat it in San Clemente often.
I checked Yelp and soon found a restaurant named Coriander Green. They had a solid Yelp racing with lots of good comments about their food and ambiance. I called them up just to make sure they were open before we drove over there.
Yes, they were open. Then the woman asked me in a strong Indian accent “Do you have your shots?” I’ve never been asked that by anyone when calling a restaurant. This was a first. I love firsts! Yes, we had our “shots”.
We drove over to the restaurant in the city of Oakville. Coriander Green was your traditional Indian restaurant with a beautiful decor. I was excited to show them that we have been fully vaccinated. I had all the proof on my phone.
However, when I reached into my pocket to prove that we did indeed have our vaccinations the man who was seating us said, “Don’t worry about it we trust you”. Bummer! I wanted to show him our shot screenshots! Later he watched several other couples come into the restaurant. They all had to show proof of their vaccinations. I guess we just looked trustworthy. Nevertheless, the food was great and we enjoyed our first Canadian restaurant visit of the trip.
What good is it to have your vaccinations (other than to possibly save your life) if you can’t get a special “reward” for being so diligent? I want my vaccination status to get me to the head of the line, get me into restaurants where the non-vaccinated can’t go. Carol is much less competitive. My competitiveness both amuses and confounds here?
Later in the trip, we would eat pasta in downtown Toronto and Chinese in the small town of Clinton. We never did eat at the complimentary breakfast at the hotel. We were operating in a time zone that was three hours different from back home. Breakfast at the hotel ended at 9:30 a.m. That was 6:30 a.m. our time. I don’t get up that early and I certainly don’t eat breakfast that early.
We ate some food at the race tracks. Probably the highlight for me was the pulled pork over poutine in Wainfleet. We also had poutine at McDonald’s. They do a pretty good job with that considering McDonald’s is a hamburger place. Carol is not a big fan of poutine or Tim Hortons’ donuts or fun food in general. I don’t worry about it. She’s just missing out.
TOURING
Touring and seeing the special places of whatever area we are visiting is very important to my trackchasing hobby. When we tour like this, I called the places we visit, “Trackchasing Tourist Attractions”.
Just like when I use Yelp, I use TripAdvisor to find the best places to visit when we are in locations that we’ve never been to before. Normally a simple Google search that reads something like, “Things to do in Toronto” will yield a large number of fun places where we can spend a few hours.
It’s getting more difficult to find good Trackchasing Tourist Attractions. We’ve been doing this for more than 30 years. I’ve done more than 1,000 trips. I’ve been to the Toronto area 10-15 times and maybe more. A lot of the area’s highlights have already been seen.
Even the smallest population centers and towns have “something” of interest. On our way to the first race of the trip in the small town of Clinton (population: 2,625), we arrived early. Remember, as Gerry O’Reilly always taught me, “If you’re not early…you’re late. This gave us time to drive a few miles over to Lake Huron, one of the five Great Lakes. I don’t know that I had ever seen Lake Huron up close.
We always seem to find someplace fun to visit that is “local”. We were staying in Toronto. Today’s destination was another small Canadian town, Wainfleet. Wainfleet is a rural township in the southern Niagara region of Ontario.
Our first stop was a visit to St. Lawrence Market which is in a huge old two-story building in downtown Toronto. St. Lawrence Market dates back to the early 1800s. This truly is a market where they were selling all kinds of fruits, meats and cheeses. They had lots of eateries and souvenir locations. I love seeing places like this even though we are rarely in a position to buy a 35-pound rack of lamb and take it with us.
We parked a few blocks away. It was fun and educational and relaxing to see people in their neighborhoods and small parks on a Saturday morning. When we reached St. Lawrence Market, we did a quick walk-through. We ended up getting some meat ravioli with pesto sauce for lunch, a liter of Canadian maple syrup (not for the pasta) and some postcards. Carol don’t like donuts but she likes postcards.
From downtown Toronto, we drove straight to Niagara Falls, Ontario. What a cool place. We’ve been here several times. We didn’t have time to ride the “Maid of the Mist” sightseeing boat tour…but if you come here don’t miss that. Today was a cloudy, damp and windy day. Nevertheless, Niagara Falls was packed with tourists, many of them Indian. We took some pictures and I hung my iPhone over the rail getting those pictures at just the right angle that it would not have shocked me if I had dropped my phone into the raging waters of the falls.
The next day, when we visited Lindsay for the races, we again arrived early. That gave us enough time to again do a search for things to do. We came up with a visit to the Ken Reid Conservation Area. This was the #1 attraction in the area. Carol questioned that rating! We like hiking and ended up at the park and taking off on one of the trails.
There was just one minor concern. There was a large sign at the beginning of the trail telling us this was bear season. Anyone who decided to hike this trail was taking the hike at their own risk.
I thought about that for a while. Could I outrun a bear? Did I really need to outrun a bear or did I simply need to outrun Carol? Could I do either? These were the thoughts that ran through my mind but I didn’t mention anything about it to Carol.
RACING
What had brought us to Canada in the first place? The racing! That’s how these trackchasing trips work. We come for the racing and then we get all kinds of experiences with travel, eating, touring and meeting people. It’s been a pretty good formula over the years.
For this particular trip, we were going to see three consecutive nights of county fair type racing promoted by an organization called Impact Motorsports.
I’ve now seen racing at more than 70 locations in Ontario. Most of those racing events were at Canadian fall fair operations. The fairs run events featuring figure 8 racing, demo cross and demolition derbies. I’ve been surprised to learn that most Canadian fairs are privately owned whereas in the U.S. almost all fairs are government-owned and sponsored.
Over the years I’ve been a big fan of Thrill Show Productions promoted events. Their tagline was “Canada’s #1 Demolition Derby”. I followed them for 20 years. I knew the guys who ran Thrill Show. Walter Williams was an original founder. I met him several times and he was still enthused about being part of the show when he was in his 80s. Walter’s nephew Willie was also a good friend who I enjoyed seeing on so many of my visits. I loved that group.
Unfortunately, when Covid came along they decided to shut down their organization. They had been in business for more than 50 years. That was sad but they decided it was time to move on. I actually got in touch with the owners and told them how much fun they had given me over the years when I learned of their closing.
Canadians in Ontario like their fall fair racing. There are no other provinces in Canada that have racing of one sort or another at as many fairs as Ontario. Quebec is the most popular province for ice racing but Ontario gets it for fair racing.
A couple of years ago I met the fellow who ran Impact Motorsports. I was impressed by one thing that he told me. He mentioned that he had run demolition derby events in Israel! Wow. I figured if Israel had demo derbies maybe they had figured 8 racing or ANY kind of racing and I could make a trip to Israel one of these days. I’ve seen racing in 85 countries but never in Israel.
Then a little bit later this gentleman told me that he was shutting down his Impact Motorsports demolition derby/figure 8 racing organization. That bummed me. I had just made a good contact. Now he was out of the industry. This must be a tough business.
However, when there is a demand from the people somebody in the business is going to satisfy that demand. This turned out to be Kristi and Devon Germain. They bought the name and the rights to Impact Motorsports. They were promoting the events we were going to see this week.
A few days in advance of our trip to Canada I gave Kristi Germain a call. I almost always try to call the promoter before I travel to their promotion. I would much rather talk to a person about the racing plan than try to read about it on their website or take a look at their Facebook page. Sometimes websites and Facebook pages are not updated with the most current information. If I don’t have the current information, I could really screw up a long-distance travel plan.
I’ve seen racing at more than 2,700 racetracks. It wouldn’t surprise me if I have talked to more than 1,000 racing promoters. Once in a while, the race promoter won’t return my phone call or email. Most of the time I will hear back from them in one fashion or another. Sometimes the promoter is really enthused about my trackchasing. They are impressed that someone who lives a very long way from them might be interested in what they were doing. That was the case with Kristi Germain.
Let me give you an analogy and you can tell me whether or not you agree with my point of view or not. When you have a guest in your home don’t you want your home and everything in it to be looking as good as possible so that your guests are comfortable and impressed? When you visit other people’s homes do you get the same feeling that they want you to have a good time and they want everything looking just right for your visit?
That’s kind of how it is with the racing promoters I contact. Their racing organization is their “baby”. They know that I’ve seen racing all over the world from the Indianapolis 500 to Monaco to Daytona and down to the very smallest county fair or backyard raceway located in a cornfield.
They want to showcase their organization. They want me to see what they do. There’s no better way to showcase a racing group than with someone who has seen as many racing organizations and locations as I have. In effect, I am a “guest in their home”. They want me to feel comfortable and leave with a good impression.
Kristi and I talked for several minutes. She told me that when Carol and I visited we could have the “run of the roost” at their events. There would be no charge for our admission. When we arrived, they actually backed up that pledge 150%. As soon as we arrived at the first event we went looking to meet Kristi.
CLINTON RACEWAY
The first of the three race events that we would attend would be on Friday night in Clinton, Ontario. Clinton is home to the Clinton Raceway. This is actually a harness racing track that began in 1970 with pari-mutual betting. They are a non-profit group and run about 15 dates each year over a track that looks to have a limestone surface to me.
I’m not sure we would’ve been able to find this location all that easily but we latched onto the bumper of a demolition derby car being towed to the track. Soon we found the place. We were a little bit early so we drove up the highway about half a mile to a non-Yelp recommended Chinese restaurant. The food wasn’t that great but the people were.
When we arrived at the Clinton Raceway, we found a very nice covered grandstand and picked out a seat in the lower rows. From here I could get some good video of the figure 8 racing. Impact Motorsports runs their figure 8 races first with demolition derby to follow. I made a mental note. Don’t show up late!
The demo “ring” which is really a rectangle and not a ring was small. Kristi had mentioned that Clinton would be the smallest ring of the three events we were going to see. I actually liked the competition in the smaller area more so than the larger areas that we would see as the trip continued.
Kristi Germain is the track announcer. In all of the races I have attended I could probably count on all of my fingers the number of women announcers that I’ve heard. Simply put, Kristi is the best of all. She is a conversationalist and can eagerly inform and entertain the crowd. Kristi is just a natural. She was one of the best announcers I’ve heard all year.
When the figure 8 racing was finished Carol and I made our way down to the stage where Kristi was doing her announcing chores. This was our first chance to meet. Kristi could not have made us more feel more welcome and at home. She pulled up a chair for Carol and the two of them sat together as Kristi told the crowd about us and tonight’s racing activity. We also go to me Devon Germain, Kristi’s husband, who was running the show on the track. I moved about taking some photos and videos to share with you that you’ll be able to find elsewhere in this report.
I was super impressed with the demolition derby tonight. I like a demolition derby. However, in smaller rings I find the contact and the hits to be that much stronger. I’m going to ask that you take a close look at the video that I produced from each night of racing. You’ll get a good chance to see exactly what I’m talking about. When the very last demo derby car was being towed from the ring Carol and I headed back to Toronto. Our first night of trackchasing had gone very well.
WAINFLEET
The very next evening we stopped in for the figure 8 and demolition derby racing in Wainfleet, Ontario. Kristi had warned me about this place. She said it was really rural, out in a field with none of the amenities that we had experienced at the Clinton Raceway. I was expecting the worst.
I think when I meet people for the first time and they begin to hear about my trackchasing hobby they somehow think that I am looking for the Daytona 500 at every track I attend. That truly is not the case. For me the smaller and more off the beaten path the better.
I pointed our GPS toward Wainfleet and off we went. It rained most of the way from Toronto down to Niagara Falls and then over to Wainfleet. That was the weird thing about the weather on this trip. The rain forecast had been terrible. It did rain almost all the time when we were not at a race or we were not at one of our touring stops. Then when we got to the places that we wanted to visit there wasn’t any rain. Amazing.
Wainfleet is a very small town. I knew that my GPS would take me to the center in Wainfleet. On the way there I expected to see one of the race cars being towed to the track. If that happened like it did last night, I could find the track easily. Follow the race car!
If once we reached the town, and I still didn’t see anything I would stop and ask. I’m one of those rare men who are more than willing to stop and ask for directions. I’ve done it a thousand times.
However, when we pulled into Wainfleet there wasn’t any place to stop. There were no gas stations. There were no convenience stores. There weren’t even any people out walking their dogs in the neighborhood. There was nobody. That’s when I saw a sign that read “arena”. Someone had told me that the track might be right behind the arena. It was.
I have spent a lot of time up in Canada. I’ve seen my share of winter ice racing in Canada, mainly Quebec. One of the things that every small town in Canada has is an indoor hockey rink. I’m not talking about most small towns. I’m talking about all small towns.
When I pointed this out to Carol she said, “Don’t they ever want to play outside?” No, not really. It gets pretty cold and windy up here in Canada in the wintertime. A nice indoor hockey rink is just what Wayne Gretzky grew up using.
The Wainfleet racing location wasn’t nearly as rural as I had feared. Rural to me is 10 miles off the nearest two-lane highway on a winding gravel road that ends up in a cornfield. I’ve actually seen races in bean fields and cornfields and gravel pits. Wainfleet was just about the Indianapolis Motor Speedway compared to a lot of places I’ve been.
Tonight, there was a special purse for the winner of the figure 8 feature event. They were paying $1,250 Canadian to win the figure 8 race. In the world of figure 8 racing that’s a very large purse.
They had so many figure 8 cars that they needed to run six seats, a cancellation and a feature event. Six figure eight heats are a lot. I’m sure the increased purse drew all of these racers to Wainfleet. There were more than forty F8 cars. Only one could win. What did all of this really say? Racers are a confident lot!
The Wainfleet demo ring was larger than last night’s ring in Clinton but would be smaller than tomorrow night’s ring in Lindsay. Maybe veteran demo fans can tell me what the demo “ring” is always a rectangle?
I asked Carol last night which she preferred…figure 8 racing or demolition derby. She voted for demo. It’s true that demolition derby is still the biggest attraction for motorsports at county fairs all across the United States. Demo derby offers more “action” than you are likely to see with a figure 8 race. There’s no reason a promoter can’t have both at their events.
I am attracted to figure 8 racing because that’s what “counts” in trackchasing. Demo derby does not count in the hobby of trackchasing. There’s no doubt about it. Trackchasing is a counting hobby. Trackchasers wouldn’t walk across the street to see a really competitive stock car or sprint car race if there was an off-the-wall figure 8 race happening 200 miles from their front door. They just wouldn’t.
Tonight, I got Carol a perfect grandstand seat in the middle of the two figure 8 markers. She was instructed to save two seats. Carol hung out there for a few minutes while I took some video of the figure 8 racing. Then we sat and watched some very competitive demolition derby. Those guys hit hard. Demo has got to be a chiropractor’s delight.
There was a little bit of an incident during one of the figure 8 races. The drivers were doing a lot of pushing and shoving. That’s what a figure 8 race looks like on a small track. One of the drivers being pushed hard slammed into the concrete block retaining wall. He was pretty much just along for the ride. This created a bit of a scare. In the end everyone was good to go with no major injuries and racing resumed.
LINDSAY EXPOSITION.
The next night Carol and I ventured over Lindsay, Ontario, Canada. This was going to be the biggest event of the weekend. What do I mean by “big”?
First, the town of Lindsay has a population of about 20,000 people. Tonight’s car count was the biggest of the weekend as well. Some 98 cars signed in for the figure 8 and demolition derby. That’s a huge car count. Finally, the grandstand at the Lindsay Exposition offered the most seating of all three tracks we visited.
I had heard that tonight’s demo derby had sold out LAST WEEK! That was 1,500 seats. Luckily, we “knew the right people” and getting in to see the racing would not be a problem for us.
I did find one item most interesting. When we pulled into the fairgrounds huge signboards told us the demo was sold out. However, two hours into the program the ends of the grandstand seating area were nearly wide open. I hope no one that really wanted to see the show was turned away when there were a couple hundred seats open.
I found the racing and demo in Lindsay to be the least entertaining of the three nights of our Ontario visit. The demo ring was much larger. It was also the muddiest of the three tracks we visited. We still had a good time but I would rate Lindsay behind Clinton and Wainfleet.
I don’t find figure 8 racing with four-cylinder junk cars to be as entertaining on a larger figure 8 track. On a bigger track, the cars get spread out and there’s very little contact. The good thing about tonight’s demolition derby is that they started about 20 cars in each class and that created its share of mayhem. Luckily for the competitors, there was quite a bit of slickness in the demo surface. That cuts down on the speeds and increases the safety especially compared to Wainfleet the night before.
PEOPLE.
A huge part of my trackchasing is meeting new people and seeing old friends again. Quite a few people reading this will be folks that I’ve met at the track.
I already told you about Kristi Germain. We saw Kristi each night. She was as friendly and bubbly and welcoming as anybody could be. She’s going to have a lot of friends in her life with that approach.
The highlight of the “seeing old friends” idea came at Wainfleet. One Graham Shirton, showed up to sit with us. I had invited Graham to come and be with us.
I always hate to invite my friends in advance to join us on these trips. Why? Our destinations are so fragile. The race location can change at a moment’s notice with the weather or a last-minute cancellation or a flight problem on our part. Somehow it just seems like every time I invite someone to meet up with us 10 minutes later our trip plans change.
Graham has been a long-time reader of my Trackchaser Reports which have been published on my website and on other forms of social media for decades. I couldn’t remember how he and I first met. Then Graham reminded me. He mentioned that I had run a contest asking my readers to guess where my next foreign country trackchasing trip might be. He ended up winning that contest by guessing “Lithuania”!
Later I would meet up with Graham who lives in London, Ontario, Canada for the Oswego, New York super dirt week racing. His brother Glenn joined us on that night. A year or two later the three of us met up for the indoor TQ racing in Syracuse, New York.
Tonight, Graham pulled in just before the start of the first figure 8 race in Wainfleet. He was familiar with the town having played junior hockey here for several years.
This would be Graham’s first opportunity to meet Carol. The three of us sat and talked about all manner of things during the evening.
I ask a lot of questions of my friends. Someone told me that the best way to be a good conversationalist is to allow the other person to do most of the talking. I have found that the other person in a conversation can do most of the talking if I’m asking the questions.
I learned a little bit more about Graham this evening. For the first time, I discovered he grew up on a farm. I hadn’t known that. It was interesting to hear his take on the Canadian medical system. Graham, despite living in Canada, is a huge University of Michigan football fan. He’s a little disappointed that one of Michigan’s best running backs has transferred to our team on the West Coast, UCLA.
I was away filming the races for a few minutes and this gave Carol and Graham a chance to get to know each other. That’s always a good thing. It was great seeing Graham tonight. He’s a big dirt motorsports fan at the tracks located all over Ontario, Canada. I think he might be a little skeptical of the idea of seeing a lot of figure 8 racing at these really small venues. Graham has now see racing now at 62 race tracks and adds to his list whenever he can.
I get the chance to meet up with a lot of race fans simply when I’m in the grandstands. In Lindsay, Carol and I sat next to a father and son combo. It’s always interesting to get a “foreigner’s” view of the United States as well as hear about what is happening here in Canada. The gentleman wanted to know if the homeless situation was as bad as he was hearing on his local news. The answer to that question is somewhat subjective. I assured him that in my opinion, the homeless problem was not a big deal. Our friend Graham told us the night before he felt safer in New York City than in Toronto.
The man I was talking to might have been in his early 60s. I have a hard time guessing people’s ages. He told me he had just retired. I congratulated him.
Then he mentioned that he had just bought a VW “hippie” van. He was going to restore it. He told me he had hoped to travel in retirement in the van. He also mentioned that his plans for retirement included traveling with his brother. Then he told me his brother had just died. He mentioned that his wife was going to be doing a lot of traveling with him in retirement as well. He then confided in me that his wife had also died in the last year too. That was a sad story.
This reminded me of all the people I’ve heard during my life say something to the effect that “when I retire, I’m going to do this and I’m going to do that and life is going to be grand”. The fellow sitting next to me was a prime example of exactly why I never want to hear someone say, “when I retire… I’m going to do this or that.
Many years ago, I came across an essay written by Robert Hastings. The essay is titled “The Station”. I read it at least every year and oftentimes more often than that.
The Station simply says there is no special experience in your life that is going to happen be it your kids graduating from high school, or getting your mortgage paid off (generally a bad idea!), or Covid ending or when you retire everything in your life is going to be golden if it wasn’t golden before. There is no station. We never reach the station… until we die.
Here’s “The Station” in its entirety. You can read it in a couple of minutes. After you finish reading think about your own life. Are you postponing some enjoyment “today” until “tomorrow” so that life can really be ground after you reach “The Station”?
THE STATION
“Tucked away in our subconscious minds is an idyllic vision. We see ourselves on a long, long trip that almost spans the continent. We’re traveling by passenger train, and out the windows, we drink in the passing scene of cars on nearby highways, of children waving at a crossing, of cattle grazing on a distant hillside, of smoke pouring from a power plant, of row upon row of corn and wheat, of flatlands and valleys, of mountains and rolling hills, of biting winter and blazing summer and cavorting spring and docile fall.
But uppermost in our minds is the final destination. On a certain day at a certain hour, we will pull into the station. There will be bands playing, and flags waving. And once we get there so many wonderful dreams will come true. So many wishes will be fulfilled and so many pieces of our lives finally will be neatly fitted together like a completed jigsaw puzzle. How restlessly we pace the aisles, damning the minutes for loitering … waiting, waiting, waiting, for the station.
However, sooner or later we must realize there is no one station, no one place to arrive at once and for all. The true joy of life is the trip. The station is only a dream. It constantly outdistances us.
“When we reach the station that will be it!” we cry. Translated it means, “When I’m 18, that will be it! When I buy a new 450 SL Mercedes Benz, that will be it! When I put the last kid through college, that will be it! When I have paid off the mortgage, that will be it! When I win a promotion, that will be it! When I reach the age of retirement, that will be it! I shall live happily ever after!”
Unfortunately, once we get it, then it disappears. The station somehow hides itself at the end of an endless track.
Relish the moment” is a good motto, especially when coupled with Psalm 118:24: “This is the day which the Lord hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.” It isn’t the burdens of today that drive men mad. Rather, it is regret over yesterday or fear of tomorrow. Regret and fear are twin thieves who would rob us of today.
So, stop pacing the aisles and counting the miles. Instead, climb more mountains, eat more ice cream, go barefoot oftener, swim more rivers, watch more sunsets, laugh more and cry less. Life must be lived as we go along. The station will come soon enough.
TRAVEL
Our trip was now winding down. Our first trip to Canada since the beginning of Covid had gone really well. We had met the finest people. We had seen some very entertaining racing. We had toured and we had eaten and we just had a good time. Now the main objective was to get back to our modest seaside cottage in the sleepy little seaside village in San Clemente.
I told you that when our negative Covid test results did not come in on time that our flight from Los Angeles to Toronto on Air Canada was canceled. When the outbound leg of our journey was canceled that also canceled our return trip on Air Canada from Toronto to Los Angeles. We would have to figure out a way to get home on her own!
I have the capabilities of flying standby at a dramatically reduced cost. We can save money doing this but trying to get on airplanes when they’re full can sometimes be an issue.
We had a rental car that we had picked up in Detroit so unless we wanted to spend a lot of money, we would have to return that car to Detroit. There were a few nonstop flying options from Detroit to Los Angeles but most of those planes were nearly full. I had appointments the day after we were expected to return so I couldn’t risk trying for a nonstop flight and not making it.
I began to look at flights from Detroit that would take us non-stop somewhere near Southern California or flights from Detroit that would connect somewhere in the United States and then take us to Los Angeles. I’m not exaggerating when I tell you that I looked at more than 50 flight combinations trying to achieve our subjective.
I settled on a flight from Detroit to Las Vegas, Nevada. The flight had plenty of open seats. In a perfect world, it would have been best to land in Las Vegas and then fly standby over to Los Angeles but all of those flights were jampacked. The purchase price of a simple Las Vegas to Los Angeles one-way flight was more than $500!
When we landed in Las Vegas we would rent a car and drop it in Los Angeles. This was a decent plan but not the preferred plan. Sometimes “decent” is the best you can do.
We had to get up early and drive from under the shadow of the Bluewater Bridge in Michigan down to Detroit. We were able to hop on a 4 1/2 hour flight from Detroit to Las Vegas and things seemed to be going well.
Remember I told you that I hate checking bags. I truly do. It adds to the time of the trip and once in a while can cause a problem like we experienced today.
We waited for our bag to come off the luggage conveyor belt for 45 minutes. It never did. No bags came. Then they told us that the bags were going to come on a different carousel in a different part of the airport. We trudged over there and waited another 20 minutes.
Then we were told that the system itself had broken down. Apparently, the conveyor belt had gotten jammed. It was now going to take two hours to get it repaired. We didn’t have two hours to wait. We filled out some electronic information online regarding our lost bag. We just hoped that Spirit Airlines would deliver our bag to our house in the near future! I hate checking bags. As this is written…no bag.
I am not a big fan of Las Vegas. When we lived in Phoenix my sales territory included Las Vegas. I’ve been to Vegas for work, racing and shows well over 100 times. I’ve seen race tracks at 15 locations that all had a Las Vegas, Nevada address. I am not exaggerating.
One of my best 50-year friends lives in Las Vegas. Nevertheless, I don’t like Vegas simply because it’s overbuilt, too hot and way too crowded. I first came here in the 70s. You could walk across the street from the eight gate airport terminal and pick up a rental car in five minutes.
Today it took us nearly 30 minutes simply to get to the offsite remote car rental terminal. When we got there, they didn’t have any cars. We had to wait another 15 minutes until we grabbed a Toyota Camry with 45,000 miles on the odometer. I don’t think I have ever rented a car in my life with that many miles on it. That car came to the EXECUTIVE section of the lot which is reserved for National’s most frequent renters.
Our drive from Las Vegas was relatively uneventful but we did have a beautiful sunset. LAS to LAX is nearly a five-hour one-way drive. Once at LAX, we needed to pick up my car that was parked at the LAX airport and then return the rental car and then drive my car back home… another 65 miles of driving.
THE FINISH
What I do and what Carol does with me about a third of the time is not for everybody. Who is it for? It’s for people who want to have a GPS at their side to take them to places where they’ve never been and don’t know how to reach…without a GPS system. It’s for people who want to use Yelp so they can stop at a restaurant that they never would’ve known existed without the use of technology.
These trips are for people who want to meet folks like Kristi Germane and the fellow whose loved ones had died and changed his retirement outlook. It’s for people who want to meet up with old friends like Graham Shirton who live a couple of thousand miles away from us.
This lifestyle and the trackchasing hobby are for people who want to do things just a little bit differently than most. The travel takes some stamina. The overall adventure takes some financial planning. Finally, to do this one simply needs a passion to make it all happen. I have that passion. I’ve still got several more trips planned for the rest of the year. I’ll tell you about them as we go along.
Randy Lewis
San Clemente California
Randy Lewis – 85 countries – 2,749 tracks.
Ontario
The Heartland Province
On this trip I saw racing at my 71st, 72nd and 73rd-lifetime tracks in the Heartland Province, yes, the Heartland Province. I hold the #4 trackchasing ranking in Ontario. Ontario ranks #2, amongst all the provinces, in tracks seen for me in Canada.
Here’s a link to my all-time Foreign Country Track List where you’ll find my Ontario, Canada updated list. I have made 39 separate trips to Ontario to see these tracks.
