Piteå Motorstadion

Now…let’s go to Sweden. Let me know how you liked your virtual trip when you’re finished. I hope the adventure doesn’t make you too tired!

Oh! One more thing. Don’t miss the video links to each of these track visits at the bottom of this Trackchaser Report.

Leading up to the trip…to Sweden!

On a beautiful spring day in Southern California, I was wrapping up the plan to visit Sweden for my third trackchasing trip. Back in 2008 Carol and made a Scandinavian racing trip that included adventures to both Denmark and Sweden. Then in 2020 just before the pandemic began, I came back to Sweden during the winter to see some racing on ice.

During that ice racing trip, I met a young man who races in Sweden. His name was Simon Tiger. At that ice race Simon gave me a great heads up on some racing that takes place every summer in northern Sweden. He told me if I came back to Sweden, I would be able to see racing at three tracks there in the space of about ten days. The event was called “Norrlandsveckan”.

Now based upon Simon’s recommendation I was coming back to Sweden. My “classic” international trackchasing trip, of which I have made more than 150, has me arriving for a weekend of trackchasing. Then I’ll spend a second weekend of trackchasing in the country or in the area as well. I use the five days, Monday through Friday, that connect the two weekends for touring. This Swedish trip would include several elements of a “classic” international trackchasing trip.

There are a number of logistical activities and processes that are required for one of these trips. Do these things right and the trip goes much better. Unless you have a lot of experience it’s very easy to get some or even all of these logistical requirements wrong. If that happens the trip will be slowed, more expensive and just difficult. I have a good deal of experience doing this and I still don’t get it right all the time.

Normally the first thing I try to wrap up is my airfare for one of these trips. For this adventure to Sweden, I selected an American Airlines flight that was being operated by Finnair Airlines. I would get many of the benefits of being a lifetime platinum member of AA during the trip. I always fly coach when I am paying for a ticket internationally.

Some of my friends prefer to pay for business class for this kind of trip. In my opinion that would be extravagant for my spending tastes…and totally unnecessary. There’s no doubt about it. I would much prefer to fly in business class or first class. I’ve seen racing in 86 different countries. I’ve been back to many of those countries multiple times. Carol and I have traveled internationally without racing activity nearly as many times as we have traveled outside the U.S. for racing.

I would say that for 30 or 40% of those trips or more I flew in business class or first class…but always on a standby basis. I have never in my life purchased a first class or business class ticket for international travel.

I paid $800 round-trip for my round-trip nonstop flight from Los Angeles to Stockholm, Sweden for this trip. That’s a couple of hundred dollars more than I would normally pay but then we are in a pandemic inspired inflation economy. I would guess that the cheapest business class fare would probably be somewhere in the ballpark of $3,000-$4,000. I would much rather pay $800, fly in coach for 8-10 hours and land with more than $2,000 in my back pocket. I could then spend that $2,000 on other elements of the trip and NOT on a business class or first class airfare. I do understand that for people who might only take one or two of these trips each year or even less that flying upfront is a nice perk.

I use a company called Auto Europe for my rental car reservations. They have a great website which allows me to pick my options such as automatic transmission, unlimited miles etc. Then the website gives me the pricing from all of the major rental car companies and I can choose what’s best for me.

For this trip I would have my rental car for 11 full days even though the trip would take me 13 days coming and going. I reserved a full-sized rental car with unlimited miles and an automatic transmission. I don’t need an automatic transmission but it’s just easier. A couple of weeks ago I was in Scotland on a similar trip. I had a right side steer car with a manual transmission.

Normally, I don’t book my hotels in advance on any trip that I take. However, with this journey I would be visiting a lot of small towns in Sweden 8-10 hours north of Stockholm. I knew that the racing would attract a lot of competitors and fans. I didn’t want to risk being shut out of a hotel when there weren’t very many hotels to be had in the first place during the European summer vacation season.

That being the case from the comfort of the world headquarters office in San Clemente, California of Randy Lewis Racing I used Booking.com. I made a reservation for every night of the trip except for one in advance.

You really need to know that I don’t like doing that. I want to be “free as a bird” and have the ability to point my rental car north or south or wherever on a moment’s notice. With locked in often non-refundable hotels, you can’t do that. I’m going to guess that my average hotel expense won’t be much more than $100 a night. I think for the middle of the summer in an expensive country like Sweden that’s a steal.

Booking.com is really good about listing hotels that you would never see with a general search of the big chains. They provide a lot of pictures of each hotel property, customer reviews and decent prices. Since I didn’t know anything about the small towns in Sweden such as Kalix and Petiå and such that I would be visiting Booking.com was very helpful.

With my airfare, rental car and hotels wrapped up I felt that I was very well prepared to make this trip. Of course, I almost always feel that way.

I must mention this. Since I retired 20 years ago, I have made nearly 1,000 of these trips both domestic and international. I’m a pretty well-organized person. I always have a plan. I usually have a backup plan or two. Despite all of the advanced planning that I do I would say it is extremely rare that a trip comes off exactly as I have planned it.

There’s no problem for me if the plan changes. I think of myself as being the most flexible person to come up with a backup plan and implement it on a few minutes notice as anyone. I actually enjoy being put in a position to where I must change the plan. It makes everything just a little bit more exciting.

There was one very important part of the “pre-plan” that I haven’t mentioned yet. In reality, to me, this was the most important part. I had already lined up all of the stuff that would get me from point A to point B and to most of the other “points” in the English alphabet.

It is “trackchasing” that brings me to these faraway places. However, I will be gone on this trip for thirteen days. My original plan called for me to visit just three Swedish racetracks. I would be at each track for 3-4 hours. Let’s do the math. Thirteen days. Maybe 12 hours at the tracks. That left me a lot of “free” time!

Whenever I can I need to establish a local contact with someone on the ground in the country I am visiting. When I can do that, and I can’t always do that, I will have a much more complete and enjoyable trip.

How do I find that local person? Often times I will go “phishing “. This is fishing with a “ph” and not with an “f”. I will use some proprietary methods to try to identify local racing contacts that might be able to help me out with my trackchasing plan.

At first, I struggled with my phishing expedition in Sweden. Then the tide turned. Get it? Phishing? Tide turning? Oh well. I came in contact with a man named Nicklas Åkerlund. Nikolas was a Swedish rallycross racing fan. He also spoke and understood English really well. Soon he and I were corresponding almost daily via Yahoo Messenger.

I’m going to tell you that Nicklas and I messaged back-and-forth literally hundreds of times. He was very responsive and could answer any question I had about racing or Swedish culture or Swedish travel. I asked a lot of questions.

I expected my Swedish trackchasing trip to be very successful. I owe a great deal of whatever success I might achieve to Nicklas. His contributions made all the difference in this being just a good trip to it being one of the best I’ve had anywhere. Of course, if I were ever contacted by an international race fan about a trip they were planning to the U.S. I would go out of my way to help them.

I was willing to fly more than 11,000 miles round-trip back-and-forth to Sweden to see racing at three different race tracks. I got the idea from a local Swedish rallycross driver Simon Tiger. I had met Simon on a trip where I was willing to fly more than 11,000 miles to see just ONE race on ice in Sweden. Now I was tripling my racetrack viewing production for this trip. That was good, right?

Sometimes it’s difficult to determine what result is really good. You buy a new car and get a price $2,000 lower than your golfing buddy. That’s good, right? Then in your local quilting group you meet up with a friend that bought the same car for $2,000 less than you paid. Sometimes it’s difficult to quantify “good”.

With the addition of Nicklas Åkerlund to my trackchasing team in Sweden a “good” trip was about to change into a “great” trip. Nicklas came up with three more trackchasing visits for me to make during my trip! One of those was even located in Finland.

I first thought that spending the time and money that I did to come to Sweden was going to be worth it to see racing at three new tracks. Now with the input from Nicklas I was going to spend the same amount of time and money but I hoped to see racing at six different tracks. Later in the trip I would also get a chance to meet Nicklas and hang out. I was very much looking forward to that.

Now let’s get started.

Thursday, July 6, 2022

What could possibly go wrong at this stage? The trip hadn’t even started! The answer to that question? Lots!

When I woke up this morning, I learned that my 7 p.m. flight departure had been to delayed by two hours to 9 p.m. My nonstop flight from Los Angeles to Stockholm, Sweden was going to take nearly 11 hours. A two-hour delay was problematic.

I expected it might take the better part of two hours to get off the plane, clear customs, grab my checked baggage and get my rental car squared away. The original plan had me landing at 3 p.m. If I got out of the airport with my rental car by 5 p.m. I needed to make a four-hour drive up to my hotel. If I stopped for an hour or two along the way to stretch my legs and get something to eat, I wouldn’t arrive until 11 p.m. or so. Now that plan was being delayed by at least two hours.

On my drive up to the LAX airport I got a text message from our oldest son J.J. He had just been involved in the accident on the 405 freeway. When he slowed for traffic to about 30 mph the driver behind did not. That driver, driving without insurance, slammed into my son’s Tesla Model 3 at about 60 mph. It was a glancing blow. The heavier Tesla didn’t move. The offending driver drove his right front into the Tesla’s left rear end and careened off the Tesla like a pinball. When an accident like this occurs the Tesla’s cameras record the incident from all angles. At one point as seen on the video, the speeding driver had all four wheels of his car off the ground. He nearly flipped over the 4 foot high concrete median into the opposing traffic. He was taken away in handcuffs. I’m not sure if the cops did that for his not having insurance or finding something in his car or something more ominous. Check out these dramatic photos.

Not really THAT much damage to the Tesla considering the impact from the other guy’s car. Nevertheless, this resulted in $25,000 of damage to the Tesla Model 3.

Now our son was going to be without a car for three months. The timing of my trip was pretty good for his accident. He and his buddy Dustin can use my car for the next two weeks. They’ll figure it out after that.

With this new “incident” we were now operating on bang bang timing. I would divert from my drive to the airport (now my flight being delayed was a positive!) and pick up Dustin. He would drop me to the airport. Yes, all of this “new news” happened while I was DRIVING to begin my vacation. When we got to the airport it was packed with vacation travelers. Traffic in front of the terminals was chaotic. The place was packed with cars dropping off and picking up passengers.

Dustin and I rushed to double park, get all of my bags out of the car and get me on my way. Normally, I would just pull into my parking garage where I have had a sponsorship for more than 10 years. I would take my time, probably check email on my phone, get all of my stuff together and make the 20-minute walk from the garage to the terminal. That’s not how it happened today.

I had my bags and Dustin drove off in the Randy Lewis Racing EEOC sponsored Tesla Model X. I walked inside to check in for my flight. I had made my own reservation on American Airlines but was flying with Finnair from the international terminal at LAX.

When I went to check my bag, I encountered two problems. Remember, I create an advance plan so that I don’t encounter a single problem let alone two problems. I had called American Airlines a few days ago to confirm there would be no charge for me to check a bag. AA said my checked bags would be free. Now Finnair was telling me that I needed to pay $75 to check my bag!

I hold a lifetime platinum status in the American Airlines’ frequent flyer program. This makes me a “Oneworld Sapphire” flyer with American’s partner airlines. I maintained with the Finnair agent that I had already had a conversation about paying for a checked bag with AA and that I didn’t have to do that. She checked with her boss. Soon I was being allowed to check my bag at no cost. I have no idea how this is going to work on the return.

While I was “negotiating” with the Finnair agent I offered to call American Airlines and have them tell her that I didn’t need to pay for a checked bag. When I reached in my pocket, I didn’t have my cell phone! I never have my cell phone more than two feet from my left hand pretty much 24/7 365 days a year. Where I go my cell phone goes.

However, in the rush for Dustin and I to get to the airport and get me off all my trip my cell phone sat on the console of my Tesla Model X. No problem I thought. I would just call Dustin and ask him to come back to the airport with my phone. However, I didn’t have my phone! Yikes. That was a bad feeling. Fortunately, the Finnair agent allowed me to use her phone but I didn’t know Dustin’s phone number. I didn’t know our son J.J.’s phone number by memory.

The only phone numbers that I knew by heart were my wife’s home line and her cell phone number. I called both. She didn’t pick up. Oh my. Now I have no phone, I have no numbers that I can call with someone else’s phone and the agent is trying to collect $75 for a checked bag. What would Jesus do? Well Jesus probably has more resources at her disposal than I do. I thought for a moment.

That’s when I decided I could use my phone contact numbers stored in my iPad. I did just that. I called Dustin he didn’t pick up. I called J.J. He picked up despite knowing that the call appeared to be coming in from “Finnair”. J.J. called Dustin. Soon Dustin was returning to the airport with my phone! Is it just me or do I need a new lead an exciting life?

When the excitement had abated, I used my American Airlines Sapphire frequent flyer status to sit in the Oneworld airline lounge for the next couple of hours. I drank tequila, ate peach crumble dessert and generally relaxed.

My flight was scheduled to depart with a two hour delay. In reality the delay turned out to be a little bit more than three hours. The 11-hour flight itself was uneventful. I’m 6’3” tall. I had plenty of legroom in coach. I had an aisle seat with an open middle next to me so I was very comfortable. I watched some movies and some Netflix TV series on my iPad. I slept more than I expected. We landed in Stockholm at about 5 p.m.

Clearing Swedish customs was a breeze. Getting my checked bag was easy. I needed to walk quite a way inside the Stockholm terminal and then ride a bus to the Hertz rental car location. The Stockholm Hertz rental car office brought back some vivid memories.

Within a few yards of the Hertz office sits a 747 airplane. It is parked permanently in one spot. The plane has been turned into a hotel. It’s called “Jumbo Stay”. You might want to Google that place. For varying prices, you can sleep overnight in the cockpit or in different sections of the airplane. I did exactly that on March 10, 2020.

The next morning I woke up early in the Jumbo Stay Hotel and flew from Stockholm, Sweden back to Los Angeles, California. I landed at LAX late at night. When I landed, I learned that my flight was the last flight coming in from Europe that would be allowed to land at the beginning of the Covid pandemic without significant restrictions. Now with Covid subsiding but not having been fully eliminated I was returning to the Hertz location at the Stockholm airport.

Today I used my Hertz frequent renter status to get an upgrade to a brand new Volvo XC 60 rental car. My car came with unlimited miles and an automatic transmission. The agent told me it had only been rented for one day and had just 300 kilometers on the odometer. This was going to be a very comfortable and upscale car. I expected to drive a little bit more than 1,500 miles in 11 days. I wasn’t sure if this Volvo was going to give me fantastic gas mileage. With gas prices at more than eight dollars a gallon, it might cost me something in fuel economy but I would arrive in comfort.

Right now, SAS airlines the primary airline in Sweden, has just declared bankruptcy. They are fighting with their union pilots. The pilots are on strike. That’s made for a quieter than normal Stockholm, Sweden airport experience.

Getting out of Stockholm would be very easy even though this was Friday night. I was using my Bluetooth connection to link my iPhone with the Volvo’s audio system. Google Maps would take me everywhere I needed to go on this trip. I would use my iPhone to listen to podcasts that are stored in my phone and broadcast over the car’s audio system. I could listen to SiriusXM radio with this setup as well. In reality, even though I was in Sweden many of the everyday aspects of the trip were not much different than if I were traveling in Dayton Ohio. My iPhone was the heartbeat of the trip.

My four hour drive up to Sundsvalls was uneventful. The roads were nice. There was virtually no traffic. I was mainly traveling on the E4 highway. This wasn’t exactly a four-lane highway. It was a three-lane highway! The road’s traffic pattern kept switching from two lanes in one direction and one lane in the opposing direction to the other way around. I thought that was pretty slick. They probably save a lot of money doing things this way.

Tonight, I was staying at a “hostel” of sorts. This hotel named Gaffelbyn came highly recommended by Booking.com. I was only paying $65 for the night. I don’t stay in hostels at least hostels as you might imagine them.

I had a private room with a private bath. I think some of the rooms at Gaffelbyn actually were hostel type rooms with multiple beds occupied by people that you don’t know in one room.

The hotel reception was only open from 4-7 p.m. I didn’t get there until about 11 p.m. My late arrival at hotels would become a pattern for this trip. Most of the hotels I was staying at did not have a 24/7 reception desk.

I had notified the hotel about my late arrival. They left me the combination to the reception building. Inside the building was a mailbox that held my room keys. Surprisingly, to me, their system for my late arrival worked flawlessly.

I checked in and then I went about walking in the twilight. I needed to get the last part of my four miles of daily walking in. At this time of year, the sun doesn’t set until about 11:30 p.m. Then the sun rises again at about 2 a.m. That’s a pretty short period of “night” isn’t it?

I had already walked some in the airport when I landed. Then during my drive to Sundsvalls I made two or three stops for refreshments and potty breaks. I knew I needed to knock out another mile and a half during “California time”.

All of Sweden is nine hours ahead of my time zone in California. I will spend one afternoon in Finland. Finland is one hour ahead of Sweden. In order for me to be able to count four miles of walking each and every day I need to do it during “California” hours. This meant I needed to walk four miles each day from 9 a.m. Sweden time until 9 a.m. Sweden time the next day. If I didn’t get that right I might get “credit” for walking 4 miles in Sweden during their 24 hour period. But when I got back to California using my iPhone’s walking measurement system every step taken reverts back to “California time” no matter where in the world those steps were taken. I know. Kind of complicated, huh? However, I am almost always a stickler for achieving my goals. I will do what I have to do.

Photos!
Here’s a link to my SmugMug photo album up to this point in the trip. A picture is worth a thousand words, isn’t it? Photo albums, which are captioned, will be interspersed in my Trackchaser Reports so you can SEE what happened and not only READ about it. I hope you enjoy that feature.

Heading to northern Sweden…this trip is officially underway

Saturday, July 9, 2022.

Today is my first trackchasing day of the trip. I had a hard time sleeping last night. A nine-hour time zone change will do that to you. I woke up at about 3 o’clock in the morning and couldn’t go back to sleep. I’m sure I will pay for that later today.

Today was going to require quite a bit of driving to get everything done. It was going to be a 2 1/2 hour drive on two lane roads from my hotel up to the race track. Then after the races it would be a five hour drive again on two lane roads, to this evening’s hotel. It was what it was. This was as efficient as I could do it given the location of today’s race track in Krokom, Sweden.

The forecast for today called for a high temperature of 57° with off and on rain totaling about a quarter of an inch. It rained much of the way to the track. It rained almost all of the way after the races were finished. Luckily, there wasn’t any rain while I was at the track.

Today’s racing up in Krokom is called “folk racing”. Folk racing is very popular in Sweden. It involves low-dollar cars racing in a rallycross format. Today the cars raced on a dirt road course, with some minor elevation changes. These races are short…only 3-5 laps. They start a maximum of six cars in each race from a standing start all lined up side by side. Don’t miss the video!

Nicklas, my Sweden racing contact for this trip told me there would be 134 qualifier aka heat races today at Krokom. Folks, that’s a lot of heat races. I figured I could just show up about anytime I wanted and watch all of the racing that I wanted to see. Then I would head on down to my hotel. They would be still having heat races at Krokom for a very long time!

Admission today was 50 Swedish krona. Remember the exchange rate right now is about 10 kronor for each U.S. dollar. There was also a 20 kronor charge to park. All of that sounds expensive but in order to convert Swedish kronor to U.S. dollars I simply needed to divide the krona price by 10. That made things a lot more reasonable! It was just about five dollars U.S. to see the races and two dollars to park.

The parking area was a problem. It was a muddy swamp. I told the guy doing the parking that I had a rental car that was brand new. I didn’t really want to get stuck. I did my best to find a spot that was dry enough so that it wouldn’t get mired in the mud but it wasn’t easy.

I very much enjoy the ambiance of race events like this probably more so than I do the actual racing. I liked walking through the paddock area only I had to be careful in the mud. Remember the cars are parked in a paddock at a road course and a pit area at an oval track. Why? No earthly idea.

I did stop at the track’s concession stand. I ordered a Coke Zero, a hotdog that was pencil thin and a brownie cupcake. My bill came to 60 kronor. Interestingly, Coke Zero is everywhere in Sweden. Often times diet drinks are not readily available in foreign countries.

I arrived at the track at a little past noon. I think they started racing at about 10 a.m. I know they got rain earlier in the day. I’m glad I missed that. I always recommend that you look at the YouTube video that I provide from the racing as well as my SmugMug photo album. If you’re willing to click on those links you’re going to see pretty much exactly what I saw today.

The track had a good announcer over a stout PA system. However, his communication was exclusively in Swedish which was to be expected. There were no comments whatsoever in English.

They were very efficient at running the races. There were no mind-numbing yellow flag delays with this kind of racing. The races were short. Even when a car flipped over, they didn’t stop the racing. When one race was finished the next race was taking the green flag in very short order.

This is my third trackchasing trip to Sweden. Carol and I first came here back in 2008 to see some racing on an asphalt road course in Malmo. During the same weekend we saw racing in Denmark. Then in March, 2020 I came back for some ice racing. Now I’m back in Sweden for the third time.

I have now seen racing in eight different countries in 2022. I’ve added 42 new track visits this year to my lifetime list. I continue to be amazed that twenty of the forty-two tracks are venues where I was the very first trackchaser to visit that track. There are hundreds of people who have submitted their trackchasing lists. Track counting dates all the way back to 1928. I find it somewhat amazing that I can see all of these tracks for the very first time before anyone else gets there.

Photos!
Here’s a link to my SmugMug photo album for the racing at “Krokom Motorbana”. This is Swedish folk racing. In this album, you will see some very unusual-looking race cars.

Take a tour of the paddock, the muddy paddock at my first track of the trip

I have had very little sleep on this trip up to this point. I was working with a nine hour time zone difference. My athletic shoes were caked with mud. The five-hour drive on two-lane roads at speeds that rarely topped sixty made for some monotony.

After the race it was time to fill-up the Randy Lewis Racing Hertz Volvo XC 60 special with petrol. This would be the first of several fill ups that would be needed during this trip. When my gas gauge warning system dinged and the warning light turned to a bright orange, I started looking for a place to get some gas.

I randomly pulled into a small town and drove up to the gas station. Somehow things looked familiar. This area should have looked familiar! This is exactly where I had been 2 1/2 years ago when I came here for ice racing. I guess a big country like Sweden really isn’t so big as I had imagined! As a matter of fact, just across the street from the gas station was the Åsele Pizza and Pub Restaurant. I had eaten there during that 2020 ice trackchasing trip.

That restaurant turned out to be a memorable stop for me. I had ordered a pizza and a beer back then just like I did today. However, 2 1/2 years ago the proprietor couldn’t take my credit card because I didn’t have a “pin”. European customers use pins with their credit cards but Americans don’t. When he wouldn’t take my credit card, I offered him cash, Swedish kronor. Unfortunately, the cash that I had 2 1/2 years ago had been discontinued and replaced with a more modern currency. At that point in time, I was out of luck. I couldn’t pay my bill. Oh my.

Nevertheless, the proprietor could not have been nicer. He told me to go away, find an ATM, and come back the next morning to pay him. I did exactly that. At the time I took his picture. Now, this afternoon I was returning to his restaurant to order another pizza and beer. I tried to remind him of our first encounter but he didn’t speak any English. He had no idea what I was talking about. I even showed him the picture that I had taken of him in March, 2020. I think that confused him even more!

When I went to get gas at the station, I had a similar credit card “pin” problem today. I told the woman at the counter that I didn’t use a credit card pin number. She was confused. Her understanding of English wasn’t the best and my understanding of Swedish was non-existent. She ended up calling her boss to ask what to do.

We solved the problem of my not having a pin number by my simply using my Apple Watch’s Apple Pay feature. I tapped my watch against the gas station computer card reader. That worked. Everyone was happy.

Tonight, I was staying at the Källan Hotell Spa Konference hotel in Amliden, Sweden. This spa and conference center was literally in the middle of nowhere. It was actually a pretty cool place. It was the kind of place that a big company might send you for a “retreat”.

Most of the hotels I’m staying at during this trip have receptions that close by six or 7 p.m. Often times I don’t get to the hotel until 11 o’clock or later. That’s been the situation for the first two nights of this trip. Each time they have left my room key in a lock box with the combination code that they provided via text. This process has always worked well.

For some reason single (twin) beds are popular in European hotels. You’ll be hard-pressed to find a twin bed in an American hotel. Even though the Källan hotel was a very upscale property my room was appointed with two twin beds.

You will find me noting the things that I find unusual on these trips. One of the reasons I enjoy traveling so much is coming across the unusual. If every place I visited was exactly like my hometown of San Clemente, why would I wanna battle the crowds, jump on an airplane, rent a car and drive all over the world just to see what I had already been able to see at home? I wouldn’t want to do that.

I did see something that was pretty unusual today. It was a dollar store. You might be thinking to yourself, “Randy, a dollar store isn’t very unusual. They’re on every corner in America”. That is true. However, this was a dollar store in Sweden. The currency in Sweden is the Swedish krona! That’s unusual.

Sunday, July 10, 2022

First, I would like to wish a very happy birthday to my twin brother and sister Mark and Lynn. They were born when I was 16. I guess that means they will always be 16 years younger than me. I hope you enjoyed your special day!

I have a goal of walking more than 4 miles each and every day. That walking must be done during a 24 hour period using the California time zone. Yesterday in Sweden when I went to bed I was about a mile and a half short of my goal. That meant that if I could get the rest of the walking in today by 9 a.m. Sweden time I would still meet my goal. Hey, I don’t make the rules. Wait! I DO make the rules. Whatever. I knocked the remaining steps out this morning. My streak of more than four miles every day continues from March 2, 2022. These are the sites that I saw along the way.

Today’s drive through northern Sweden had me encountering a grazing reindeer on the side of the highway. Since it was just me and him, I stopped the car and took some photos and video. I wasn’t sure he’s ever seen an American before. My Swedish racing advisor, Nicklas Åkerlund, told me there was a good chance I would see reindeer on the trip. They look pretty scruffy. I guess they clean up well for Christmas Eve though.

The race today was advertised to be in Skellefteå. Skellefteå is a town of 73,000 people. I planned on finding the track by simply driving toward the city centre and hopefully seeing the track location along the way. I figured with that plan I had a 50% chance of finding the place. My plan didn’t work.

That meant I needed to go to Plan B. What was Plan B? I would begin interviewing local residents in the hopes that they could direct me to the track. I encountered a lovely, young, very well English spoken woman out for her Sunday morning walk. All though she was pleasant she had no idea where the track was.

Next, I encountered a young couple who had just finished their grocery shopping. These folks were heading back to their car. They were most helpful. The woman asked me to drive off the highway and park next to their car which I did. She then spent a few minutes googling Google Earth. She began to show me some very detailed instructions of how to find the track with her husband nodding in the background. Very nice people. I appreciated their help.

Off I went. However, even following these good instructions I still couldn’t find the track. It began to rain. I thought I surely must’ve driven past where I should’ve turned off. I stopped at a café and asked another foursome of folks enjoying their Sunday where the track would be. They gave me the final directions that would get me there. The track wasn’t in Skellefteå. It was actually in Klutmark just outside of Skellefteå.

Photos!
Here’s a link to my SmugMug photo album for that covers the sights and attractions that I encountered between the race locations of Krokoms and Klutmark. There is always a lot to see and experience when I’m not at the track. Often the photos show a story that I wasn’t able to cover in my Trackchaser Report.

There’s a lot to see and experience while traveling between racetracks

I should have learned from my earlier stop this morning. Racetrack road signs are designated as “motorbana”. I hadn’t seen that sign when I passed it up the first time but I did the second time past. This would lead me to the Klutmark Motorstadion race track.

Just like yesterday in Krokom, there was a separate parking charge of 20 Swedish kronor or about two dollars U.S. They were parking cars in a farm field. Little did I know at that point that this was not a primo parking spot.

I got parked and organized all of my gear. I brought my umbrella. I never bring my umbrella. Carol always tells me I should. Then I always say back to that particular comment, “I don’t need an umbrella. I don’t stand out in the rain”. It is true that no American racing done on ovals will compete in the rain. If it does rain and I’m at a road course I could probably find enough shelter to protect myself. Nevertheless, I brought my umbrella today. I guess I had a feeling.

I would come to learn that I had parked in the “secondary” parking lot. The secondary parking lot was a hell of a long way from the primary parking lot. I’m going to guess it was nearly a mile walk on a muddy dirt road that kept winding and winding uphill for what seemed like forever.

When I did reach the track, I found they were charging 250 kronor for admission. That’s about 25 bucks. Today’s race was a formal national rallycross event as opposed to yesterday’s “folk race”. That explained the difference in admission prices of 250 kronor today and only 50 yesterday.

The first thing I did was grab a can of Pepsi Max at the track’s concession stand. Pepsi Max is everywhere in Sweden. It looked to me like they were only selling drinks and hamburgers and maybe chips. I was going to forgo eating at the track today. This might allow for a more proper supper later.

The first thing I did was Facebook Message my Swedish racing contact Nicklas Åkerlund. Nicklas had really gone above and beyond in helping me over the past several months. He answered both my simple and once in a while complex questions. He also added three new tracks to my trackchasing itinerary that I had not planned on seeing during this trip. That made this a six track trip rather than a three track trip. I was indebted to Nicklas.

Nicklas was attending today’s event with his significant other Suzanne. Soon Nicklas popped up and we introduced ourselves. For the next couple of hours, we stood and chatted about racing and Sweden and took a long walk through the paddock area. From time to time it poured rain.

As you might imagine Nicklas was a fountain of knowledge. I felt badly for Suzanne. I imagined her huddled under an umbrella as the rain storms passed through every few minutes shivering by herself. Nicolas assured me she would be fine.

Today’s racing took place on a “mixed” racing surface. What does that mean? About 60% of the track was paved or asphalt. The remaining portion was dirt. Rallycross racing in this part of the world is done on mixed surface tracks. Racing on two different surfaces creates a bigger challenge for the drivers.

With rallycross racing all of the competitors are lined up side-by-side. This is opposed to American racing consisting of rows one behind the other. At Daytona, there are two racers in each row. At Indianapolis, there are three racers in each row to begin the race.

Rallycross racing starts a maximum of six racers side-by-side across only one row. When they get the electronic green flag, off they go. The races are short, only three or four laps. The racing is intense as well. You’ll see that from my videos and photographs.

Today there were three classes of racing. The classes were differentiated by engine size. There was the 2150cc class. This was the least expensive class. They were followed by the 240cc group and finally the unlimited class or super nationals.

As you might imagine all of the public address announcements were made in Swedish. That makes it a little bit more difficult for a non-native speaking person to understand exactly what’s going on. However, I’ve been to enough race tracks that I can pick up on the visual cues. I may not understand all of the nuances being explained by the announcer but I will certainly get the gist of the situation.

Today they had qualifying races. In the states we might call them heat races. The best drivers moved on from the qualifiers to the semifinal and then ultimately to the final. There would be it would be a maximum of six racers in each final race by class.

From time to time rain squalls moved in which provided some pretty hard rain. It was nice having our umbrellas. The racing was not affected by the wet weather in any way.

There are two really good things amongst many that I find with European racing. First of all, they race in the rain. Nicklas has been following Swedish rally cross racing for a very long time. He told me he could never ever remember a race cancellation. He did tell me that ice racing is moving further and further north in the country due to lack of ice in the more southern locations. If you can’t have Ice racing in a place like Sweden then where can you have it?

Another really good aspect of racing in Sweden and in Europe in general is that they almost always race during the daytime. This allows the race fan to go out and have a nice dinner and enjoy the evening when the races are finished in the late afternoon. In the United States almost all oval racing is done at night. American road racing happens during the daytime in just about every circumstance.

When I had seen all of the Swedish rallycross racing that I needed to see on a rainy afternoon I bid Nicklas farewell. We’ll see each other another time or two during the trip. I hope to meet Suzanne at some point as well.

Photos!
Here’s a link to my SmugMug photo album for the racing at “Klutmark Motorstadion”. This was would be the first event of the Swedish national rallycross series called “Norrlandsveckan”.

A fun trackchasing effort in the rain…and my first meet up with the rallycross man of Sweden…Nicklas Akerlund

The sun was beginning to shine as I made the long walking trek back to my remote parking lot. Nicklas and I had talked a little bit about a Swedish fast food hamburger chain called Max Burgers. I had seen one of their locations on the way to the racetrack today. I hoped to visit there for my evening meal.

My GPS took me to a place called “Krysset”, which I assumed was an offshoot of Max Burgers. I would find it have no relationship to Max Burgers. This place had kind of an In-N-Out Burgers vibe which is a good vibe. I ordered a cheeseburger, French fries, some jalapeño poppers, a chocolate milkshake and a Coke zero. I wasn’t sure when I would get back to a Max Burger like location so I figured I might as well try a little bit of everything. It was all excellent.

Now I was within an hour’s drive of tonight’s hotel. I was staying at the Piteå Stadshotell in Piteå, Sweden. This was a short drive compared to what I had done during the first couple of days of this trip. When I saw a highway rest area, I figured I needed to pull over and get a few minutes of rest. The nine hour time zone change was still kicking my butt.

I didn’t set an alarm. I figured a 15 or 20-minute nap would be just fine. If it went to 30 minutes no big deal. I woke up 2 1/2 hours later! This delayed my arrival into my hotel which was located in downtown Piteå until about 8 p.m.

We were about three weeks after the time when the most daylight comes to this part of Sweden. Even today they still get almost no darkness. The sun sets at about 11:30 p.m. Right now, the sun rises at 2 a.m. In that 2 1/2 hour period of “no sun” you could probably still play golf by the light that’s available.

The Stadshotell is a downtown hotel. I’ll be here for four nights. I rarely stay in one hotel for four nights when I’m trackchasing. Most of the time I stay in a different hotel every night. I was going to enjoy staying in one place. I was going to like being in the downtown location. I could walk anywhere and that’s what I did tonight.

My biggest trackchasing tourist attraction this evening was stopping at a Co-op. That’s the brand-name of a Swedish grocery store chain. Co-op was a beautiful place. I loved the way they merchandised things. I worked in an industry where our products were distributed and sold in grocery stores among other places. I’ve been in a million grocery stores in my life to check out our products. I still like going into grocery stores especially at international locations.

Please don’t miss my photo album from the grocery store. It was super modern. To my surprise most of the products were displayed behind acrylic plastic cases. I have never seen this application applied to this extent before. I picked up some turkey slices and blueberries and a couple of drinks. From there off I went.

The store was near enough to the Pite River that I could walk over and sit on a park bench and enjoy my grocery store selections and the river view. As it was getting later the sun was starting to set, sort of. I enjoyed my very calm and peaceful evening in Piteå, Sweden. There was only one interruption. What was that? Mosquitoes!

This part of Sweden reminds me of northern Wisconsin in so many ways. Mosquitoes are one of those ways. For some reason I attract mosquitoes like no other. I’m always wearing shorts and apparently, I’m a big easy target. I couldn’t sit on the park bench much longer or they might’ve only found my mosquito infested skeleton the next morning. I went back to the Stadshotell for my first at four nights here in Piteå. Today had been a very good trackchasing day.

Monday, July 11, 2022

My day began with the hotel’s buffet breakfast. I like the fact that they serve the breakfast until 10:30 a.m. during the week. It wasn’t the most lavish presentation but I enjoyed their cornflakes and milk. By the way, no racing today.

From there, on an absolutely beautiful weather day I took a walking tour of Piteå, Sweden. Piteå is Sweden’s 58^th largest city with a population of 23,000. Did you know that the population of Sweden is about 10.4 million people?

You’re just not gonna wanna miss my photos from this walking tour. I think they are some of the most beautiful that I have ever taken. I ended up having lunch at a place called “Bastard Burgers”. That was quite the unusual name, wasn’t it? I wasn’t sure that I needed to buy one of their souvenir T-shirts. Their food was excellent.

From there I checked out the local movie theater. At 6 p.m. they had a New Zealand film titled “Grandmother” playing. I love going to the movies. I love going to the movies in international locations. I’m going to guess that I’ve seen movies in as many as 20 different countries and maybe more. I enjoyed the movie with just two other people. All of us elected to sit in the last row of the theatre.

After the movie I made a visit over to the Co-op grocery store. Since it doesn’t get dark until at 11 p.m. going grocery shopping at 10 p.m. doesn’t seem that unusual!

I took photos of all of the American brand names that were sporting Swedish language packaging. I love visiting international grocery stores. While shopping I picked up a few items to take back to the room including some blueberries. Every time I visited virtually any business, I used my Apple Watch linked to my Chase Sapphire Reserve credit card to “tap and pay”. Very slick.

Tuesday, July 12, 2022

When I’m in a foreign city or a foreign country I often do a Google search for “things to do” in the local area. I am partial to the list provided by Tripadvisor.com. TripAdvisor told me that the Piteå Museum was the highlight of the city. After visiting the museum, I really wasn’t sure about that evaluation.

There is no charge to visit the museum. It was pretty much a series of static displays with small signs describing what I was seeing. Unfortunately, all the signs were in Swedish so other than looking at pictures I had no idea what I was seeing! To add to my “enjoyment” I was wearing my sunglasses, with tri-focals, and stumbled over one of their manikins knocking it to the floor. Fortunately, I was able to “right the ship” before I was arrested and taken to a Swedish prison. I could never recall doing that before.

I did pick up a postcard to send Carol at the Piteå Museum. When Carol comes along on any trip, she always searches out postcards to send to friends and family back home. In foreign countries finding an international postcard stamp is usually more difficult than getting the postcard. Carol still hasn’t received the postcard I sent her from Scotland that I mailed several weeks ago. I mailed that card from inside a U.K. post office!

Following my museum visit I stopped in a place right next-door to what seemed to be advertising “pizza by the slice”. I would come to find out they were not selling pizza by the slice. I was reminded that I really don’t understand the Swedish language or Swedish signs all that well.

Nevertheless, I did order two very small 5 inch pizzas. Another customer in the store helped me with my selection. Soon this Swedish gentleman and I were both sitting at the same table and talking about world matters in English. We sat at the table for at least 45 minutes. I very much enjoyed our conversation. It’s always a special treat to meet up with folks like this. These encounters tell me that people are so much more alike than they are different no matter what their country of origin is.

I then found myself visiting the Piteå Church located right next door to my hotel. This small church was built in 1676. There was a caretaker gentleman inside. He and I spent several minutes talking about the history of the church and the surrounding area. I am amazed that virtually everyone I run into here in Sweden speaks English and is beyond willing to answer my questions and help out. The folks are reserved but as soon as they are spoken to, they could not be more helpful.

As noted in the museum I had purchased a postcard. The postcard featured the Piteå church. In order for me to get that postcard over to Carol in sunny SoCal I needed a stamp. Stamps that will move a postcard from a foreign country to someplace as far away as United States can be expensive. Today the stamp cost me $2.60 U.S. I had to buy it in an ICA grocery store of all places. To do that I had to “take a number” and stand in line with people wanting to buy ice cream cones…and postage stamps.

This evening was going to be a trip highlight. My number one helper and supporter of my Swedish trackchasing adventure was a fellow by the name of Nicklas Åkerlund. Nicklas is a huge fan of Swedish rallycross. He knows all of the ins and outs of the sport. He shared much of his knowledge with me as I planned my trip. Without Nicklas my trip would have been much less robust and not nearly as much fun.

I had invited Nicolas and his significant other Suzanne to join me for dinner tonight. The hotel gave me a recommendation of a place called the Centrum Krog. The eatery was just a softball throw from the Piteå Museum where I had visited earlier today. The hotel clerk who recommended this place told me the restaurant featured had lots of “fresh Swedish ingredients”.

Nicholas and Suzanne are camping at the race track. They have a pretty cool set up. They sleep in an elevated tent (about eight feet off the ground) that attaches to the roof rack of their car. I had never heard of that. I didn’t want Nicholas to have to take his tent down to drive to the restaurant. That being the case I drove out to the race track and picked them up. This was my first opportunity to meet Suzanne. What a lovely young lady.

I asked Suzanne if she had ever ridden with a “crazy American driver”. She allowed that she had not. To try to live up to that moniker I missed the turn to the restaurant TWICE. I feel I had some justification in that result.

My GSP kept telling me to “keep right and take the first turn at the roundabout. In reality I had to take the first LEFT and then “keep right and take the first turn at the roundabout”! I pleaded my case with both Nicklas and Suzanne that I really was a good driver. I can only imagine what went on in their minds or what they talked about when they returned to camp after dinner. I will simply say this. I have not had a chargeable accident in well over two million miles of driving.

Our dinner and our service at the restaurant was impeccable. It was very helpful for me to get an English menu. The restaurant had a very unusual way of displaying their bread tonight. My appetizer was a combination of raw egg yolk and garlic sauce. Steak was my entree. We all had desserts which were lovely featuring various forms of fruit, ice cream and chocolate. I especially loved mine which was a cupcake filled with hot cocoa like chocolate and vanilla ice cream.

I suspect that as time passes and my memory of the rallycross racing fades the opportunity to meet up and enjoy a meal with Nicklas and Suzanne will be one of the very top trip highlights. Someone once told me that you can’t have a true friendship if you haven’t played a round of golf with someone or shared a meal with them. I believe that to be an accurate assessment. I am now true friends with Nicklas and Suzanne!

It had been a good day. I had been cooling my jets with tourist activities as I waited for the balance of my trackchasing racing adventure to commence. During the first week of my visit to Sweden I will see racing at two tracks. If everything goes well for my last week in Sweden, I would see racing at an additional four tracks. I can’t wait to experience that.

Photos!
Here’s a link to my SmugMug photo album. You’ll see what I’ve been doing as I tour the small towns of northern Sweden waiting for more racetrack visits to fill out my trackchasing dance card.

If you look at just one photo album…this is the one…Swedish touring

Wednesday, July 13, 2022

As I look back on the first week of my visit to Sweden and I look at the weather forecast for the second week of my trip I’m getting about 50% perfect sunny days and about 50% rainy days. Since none of the races in Sweden ever rain out, I guess I don’t mind the rainy days.

Today was going to be a sunny day. I woke up this morning, grabbed some cornflakes at the hotel’s buffet breakfast and went on a walk in a nearby residential neighborhood. There’s something about walking in these neighborhoods in Sweden that I really like. What could that be?

They have so many yellow houses! For the first 15 years of my life, I grew up in a yellow house. My mother loved yellow. Apparently, folks in Sweden do as well. In the space of a one-hour walk I took photographs of more than 15 various shades of yellow houses. I find that pretty amazing.

In my first week of travel to Sweden I have seen racing at two different race tracks. My second week here is going to be even more productive beginning with today. The local rallycross racing series, Norrlandsveckan is having their second event of their three track traveling series. It is this series by itself that brought me to Sweden by itself.

Today the Piteå Motorstadion was going to be my 2,804th lifetime track. It would be the fifth track I’ve seen in Sweden and the 44th track that I’ve seen for the very first time in 2022.

Somewhat surprisingly of the 44 tracks that I’ve seen this year half of them or 22 were at tracks where I was the very first trackchaser ever to come to that venue. There are hundreds of trackchasers. Tracks have been reported all the way back to 1928 nearly 100 years ago I think it’s saying something when you can show up at a track and be the very first person to ever do that…in 2022. I’m going to guess and I’m pretty sure this is 100% true. I don’t think any other trackchaser from the United States has been able to see as many as five tracks this year as the very first trackchaser at that venue.

People ask me how two trackchasers can be compared when they have vastly different track numbers. Here’s the best way to do that.

Let’s say trackchaser “A” has seen racing at 100 tracks this year. Let’s say trackchaser “B” has seen racing at 50 tracks this year. Has A been better than B? Not necessarily. Let’s say trackchaser B has already seen every one of the 100 tracks that trackchaser A saw this year. In reality trackchaser A is only visiting tracks that trackchaser B has already been too. With that being the case there is no way that trackchaser A has done better than trackchaser B this year, right?

I think the best way to compare trackchasers over a year or a lifetime is to figure out how many tracks that one trackchaser has been to that the other one hasn’t. The trackchaser with the highest told wins. Make sense?

After seeing today’s racing at the Piteå Motorstadion I can tell you that I’m beginning to really enjoy rallycross racing. Their program begins with qualifications which we would call heat races in the states. These are short races, just three laps with no full course yellow or red flags. If a car stops on the track, they will simply put a flashing yellow light in the area of the track where the stoppage occurs. If a driver passes another driver in this caution zone he will be disqualified. Racing on the rest of the track continues unabated.

The top two or three finishers in the qualifications advance to the semi-finals. Depending upon the car count the top two or three in the semis advance to the finals. Qualification races are three laps. Semifinal races are four laps. Then the final races are five laps.

All racing is done on a road course configuration with various elevations depending upon the property. Every rallycross track includes a “joker lap” opportunity. A driver must take the joker lap configuration once during each race but not more than once. The course is designed so that the joker lap takes just a few seconds longer than a regular lap. Drivers must use their own strategy to decide when they want to duck in for their joker lap.

Today’s crowd was announced at 3,110 people. That was a nice crowd that was able to sit in some formal bleachers near the starting line as well as in their own individual chairs spread out all around the track. How did I know there were 3,110 fans in attendance today when 100% of the PA announcements were in Swedish? I was sitting next to my buddy Nicklas Åkerlund and Suzanne. Whenever the announcer mentioned anything noteworthy Nickolas did the translation.

Today in Sweden we had a sunny weather day with temperatures at about 70°. A nice breeze blew constantly. With this type of racing, they take an intermission of 20-30 minutes between the first round of qualifications and the second round of qualifications and then the semi-final round before the finals. Today’s program started on time at 2 o’clock and finished at about 6 o’clock.

None of these tracks in Sweden that I have visited have lights of any kind. There is no need. The sun doesn’t set until about 11:30 p.m. and rises again at about 2 a.m. You shouldn’t think that it gets dark at 11:30 p.m. It doesn’t. During this time of year, it rarely gets dark during the entire 24-hour period. On the other hand, I can imagine during the dead of winter there isn’t a lot of sunlight. That might take some getting used to.

Today I roamed around the spectator areas getting video and photographs from all angles. I checked out the concession stand. I ended up ordering a Coke Zero and a hamburger for 70 Swedish kronor or about seven dollars. I gave the youngster, aged about twelve, a 1,000 kronor bill. He accepted my bill and once he knew that I was speaking English began to speak English with me. With a little supervision from his father and a calculator he correctly figured out my change of 930 Swedish kronor.

Right now, one U.S. dollar is the equivalent of about 10.5 Swedish kronor. This makes it easy to convert Swedish prices to U.S. dollars. I simply divide the krona price by 10. The U.S. dollar is extremely strong right now. I have always thought of Scandinavian countries like Sweden, Denmark and Finland as being extremely expensive. However, having been in Sweden for a week I think of their prices as being fairly reasonable, (except gasoline), maybe a little bit more than normal but not shocking.

Today parking was 20 kronor and admission of the races was 250 kronor. They accepted credit cards for my race admission. I paid by simply tapping my Apple Watch on their credit card machine. Sweden appears to be more technologically friendly than even the United States.

We’ve had a string of three really nice blue sky Swedish summer days. Beginning tomorrow and for probably the rest of my visit here, rain is going to be in the forecast. Tomorrow’s forecast up in Åsele is calling for a high temperature of only about 56° with a 90% chance of a half inch of rain. That’s going to be a lot less comfortable than it was today!

While roaming around the facility today I noticed that several people were wearing an event T-shirt. I’m a big fan of those kinds of shirts. I wasn’t sure if they were selling them or if just track workers were able to get those shirts. I mentioned this to Nicklas. When the races were finished, he came up with one of those event T-shirts for me and him. Thank you, Nicklas! I will wear it with pride.

Photos!
Here’s a link to my SmugMug photo album. These photos will show you what the rallycross racing looked like at the Piteå Motorstadion looked like.

Swedish track #3 was in the books…don’t miss the paddock activity and the rallycross racing from Pitea Motorstadion