Editor’s note.
I lead a pretty simple life. For me so many things revolve around financial strategies, traveling the world, and sports, in this case, auto racing…in no particular order. Some might look at this and say “What a boring life”. For me, it’s the best I can do.
I am fully aware that some folks think these reports are too long. Life is all about expectations, isn’t it? Too long? When you buy a book do you begin by first counting the pages? No, these reports are not meant to be sound bites.
However, for the reader who feels what I write IS too long I feel your pain. To alleviate some of that pain, I add headlines. It is hoped that these headlines will allow the time-constrained reader to “skip around” to the parts of the story they might find most interesting. For the reader who demands more detail, I think I am meeting your needs. You should also know that I value and appreciate anyone who takes the time to open one of these messages!
Videos. Yes, he said videos.
Of course, for my racing fans, I have videos from the racing in Belgium and The Netherlands.
Belgium auto cross racing
Netherlands auto cross racing
Time for one last trip to Western Europe…and then I will finish up in a mystery location.
This is Part 1 of a two-part series. Part 1 will see me traveling in Western Europe (Germany, Belgium, and The Netherlands) chasing racetracks, eating some gourmet food, seeing the sights, and making some witty (my words) observations.
Part 2 has me visiting a “mystery location”. Mystery location? Yes! I was flying into and out of Frankfurt, Germany. Rather than just come to Europe for three or four days to see racing I might as well visit a special place for a few more days since I was “out here”. I don’t want to spoil the surprise. I’ll tell you about that mystery location in Part 2. You good with that?
I never know when my next trip will be.
It is true that when I went trackchasing in South Carolina and Maryland two weeks ago I thought my trackchasing for 2022 was wrapped up. It is true that when Carol and I went to Germany and the Czech Republic three weeks ago I thought my international travel was finished for the year. None of this ended up being true. What did I learn from this misinformation? It’s impossible to predict the future! I already knew that. I just need to be reminded of that fact from time to time.
Always in search of a better mousetrap.
For years I used Evernote to dictate the details of these trips for inclusion in my newsletter as time permitted. However, if you aren’t willing to change then you might just end up doing things the hard way. I am now using Apple’s “Notes” app to record the basics of my adventures. I think that’s an improvement.
Which is worse? Folks who do the wrong thing on purpose or who do the wrong thing unknowingly?
I’m going to say that people who do the wrong thing on purpose is the worst of these two choices. The night before this trip commenced, I went to the UCLA basketball game in Los Angeles. On the way home I stopped to charge my Tesla Model X in preparation for this trip.
When I arrived at the Tesla supercharger (I do ALL of my EV charging at a supercharger) it was nearly midnight. At this late hour, I was the only Tesla owner using any of the twenty supercharger stalls. Did you know that despite there being 20 individual chargers that each two of these chargers are tied to the same “circuit”? What does that mean? It means that people who use chargers 1A and 1B are sharing the electricity and are totally independent of any other drivers using stalls 2A and 2B, 3A and 3B, etc.
If I am the only driver using a two-stall circuit then I might be able to charge at a rate of 450 MPH. However, if someone pulls into the other side of my “circuit” both of our charging speeds would be reduced to 250 MPH of charge in general. This is why, if you’ve ever seen a Tesla supercharger that isn’t full, drivers will be parked in every other spot.
Tonight, at midnight, being the only driver in twenty stalls I parked on the end of a row of superchargers. Then I went for a walk. I checked my Tesla app. I was charging at 450 MPH. Then, almost unbelievably, another driver showed up and parked right next to me even though 18 other stalls were open. My charging speed immediately dropped to around 250 MPH. Oh my. I couldn’t believe anyone would do the wrong thing on purpose. They must not have known how things worked.
Now my charging was going to take much longer…for no good reason. What should I do? Did I need, at midnight, to approach the driver and his/her darkly tinted windows and give them an “educational class” on Tesla charging etiquette? Not everyone is looking to attend that class! This didn’t seem like a good idea so I just kept walking and lamenting my slower than it should have been charging speed. I don’t much care what people do in their personal lives on any subject…except when it directly affects me. Am I being fair in that assessment?
Routines in general and travel routines in specific.
Everyone has their routines. I normally go to bed at about 11 p.m. I will normally wake up at 7 a.m. or a little bit later. When I do wake up, I will commonly grab my phone and check social media and read the news for 30 minutes or so in bed.
I am suspecting that about 95% of the people reading this have a routine that is exactly opposite to what I do. Some people might be saying to themselves, “How could Randy keep those hours?”
I have some friends who get up at four or 5 o’clock in the morning. Often times they get up that early and they’re not even going to work. I couldn’t possibly imagine doing that.
When I was playing golf a couple of times a week every week for 20 years, I absolutely hated early morning tee times. Some of the guys loved that. I played golf for fun. It was not that much fun to me to be getting up at 5 o’clock, so I could be on the driving range at 6:30 in the morning for a 7:15 a.m. tee time…and all the while freezing my butt off.
Left to my own devices I would be wanting to play the 18th hole just as the sun has gone over the horizon. I commonly say I learned pretty much everything I know in life by playing golf and watching NASCAR races. Playing golf certainly taught me a lot about people. NASCAR taught me a lot about strategy and logistics.
People are different. People do things differently.
All of this reminded me that people don’t do things the same way. I don’t think it’s ever a good idea for me to judge others when they have preferences I don’t have. The only exception I have to that life approach is when others’ preferences screw up my preferences as I shared in the supercharger example!
My personal appearance routine.
Speaking of routines, I have a very simple personal appearance routine. More than 99% of the time you’ll find me wearing shoes maybe socks but just as likely not, a pair of short pants (some folks just say shorts!), and a T-shirt. That’s it. This is one of the reasons I enjoy living in Southern California.
My travel routines.
This routine makes packing for a trip really easy for me. I calculate how many days during the trip I will need a new set of clothing. For me, that’s once a day. For this trip, I will be gone for nine days. At least that’s the expectation at this point in time although it could change. I would leave on day number one. Please stop me if I’m going too fast for you. I would fly overnight and land on day two in the middle of the afternoon. This meant the clothes I was wearing on day one would also be the clothes I would be wearing on day two.
Doing the math meant that I would now need seven more days’ worth of clothing. Would this approach work for you when planning a trip to another continent?
My answer would be “Yes”!
I live in Southern California. If a friend called, and said, “I’d like you to join me for a trip to London for 10 days. If you want to go, I’ll be in your driveway to pick you up in 10 minutes. Can you do it?” My answer to that question would nearly always be yes.
For a 10-day trip or less I would simply use my Costco rolling bag, which has been a real workhorse. I think that bag is probably going on 10 years old. It still works perfectly. If my bag could talk, it would have travel stories even longer than mine.
What goes in the travel bag?
Using that travel bag on this trip, I will throw in a pair of socks, a pair of underwear, and a T-shirt for each of my days on the road. If I’m going to a place with really cold weather as in 40° or less, I would likely bring along a pair of long pants. If the temperatures were only 30 or 40°, there’s a reasonable likelihood I would never ever wear those long pants, but I would have them just in case.
I’ll also throw in a sweatshirt or light jacket and my toiletries. Of course, I would include a few snacks, some of which have been in my bag for a couple of years if I had to guess!
The “information” bag.
Most importantly, I would also be carrying my computer bag. The computer bag will house my MacBook Pro, Apple iPad, Bose headset, and Apple AirPods. Of course, I will have a few different cables, a Covid mask and a bunch of four-calorie candies, and some other miscellaneous stuff. There will be more on my relationship with my computer bag later.
I was in the Marines during the Vietnam War but luckily didn’t go to Vietnam. If I had ever been in combat, I would have been the guy carrying the most ammunition on his person. I feel you can never have enough of whatever you need to complete the mission.
Information is key. Information is power.
For these trips information is key. Having the right information can save me both time and money. That means I need all of the hardware I can carry to provide that information. All of this stuff needs to be fully charged and ready to go no matter what the circumstances. I love the technology that comes with this hardware. Technology is there to make your life easier. I always want to take the easy way while not sacrificing results.
What if I lost all of my bags…and it was just me?
If I lost my rolling bag, and if I lost my computer case, that really wouldn’t make me abort my trip. I will always be carrying the three most important things on my person that I need for a successful journey. Without reading the next paragraph, can you guess what those are?
The two most important items on any domestic trip would easily be my cell phone and my driver’s license. Without a driver’s license, I couldn’t get a rental car. Without a cell phone, I couldn’t do really much of anything. For an international trip, I need to add my passport to the critical list. Heaven forbid if I ever lose my cell phone. I would just have myself committed at that point.
Cash used to be king. Not so much anymore.
Of course, I’ll have some cash on me. That would be United States currency and the currency for whatever countries I plan to visit. However, in reality, whenever there is an opportunity to pay by credit card, I will. My Apple Watch comes in very handy here. I will use Apple Pay from my watch or maybe my phone for 95% of my travel purchases.
Checking bags…a good idea or not?
I never ever WANT to check a bag when I fly. Sometimes, based on the duration of the trip I must. Sometimes, like today, the gate agent makes me check my rolling bag. I don’t like that for three reasons.
My computer bag is heavy. I attach my computer bag to my rolling bag to prevent the back pain that can come from hauling that heavy computer bag for a couple of miles. I also don’t want to risk the airline mishandling my bag. Normally when I land at an airport, I am immediately going to drive somewhere else and not return to the airport until the end of the trip. With a lost bag an airline will have a very difficult time tracking me down. Finally, I just don’t like to wait for checked bags at the end of a trip.
Roll with the advances in technology.
Technology in the travel business is advancing all the time. I wear glasses for reading and driving. When the agent required me to check my bag today, she reminded me that I would need to take my glasses off when I boarded the plane. The airlines were using biometric scanning, which is where they have a machine that reads the retina of your eye to confirm your identity and let you board the plane. Technology continues to march on. If we don’t march on with it, we march at the back of the line. By the way, I had a friend tell me once, “I never want to go to the airport without a paper ticket”. Folks, that’s old school!
A special reward for people who read this far!
Speaking of packing I have another travel strategy that I have used for years. My rolling bag cannot always comfortably handle my clothes and the rest of what I want to carry on these longer trips. No problem. I bring along a light jacket. I don’t necessarily bring a jacket to wear on the trip. The jacket is used like a carry-on bag! I stuff the sleeves with 3-4 days’ worth of shirts and underwear!
I had a little problem with the TSA airport security folks today.
A few weeks ago, I came upon the chance to buy some small 100 ml Coca-Cola Zero cans. That was perfect. I love Coca-Cola Zero and those small cans would be allowed through airport security. The upper limit on moving liquids through airport security is 100 ml. What a perfect plan…until it wasn’t.
TSA has cleared me with these cans several times. Most times they will stop to further inspect my bag but I will proudly tell them the cans are “100 ml”. This comment resonates with TSA personnel. I am permitted to pass. The same thing happened this afternoon at LAX. However, the outcome was different.
I’m always sticking to your rules.
I had the Coke Zero cans in my clothing-stuffed golf windbreaker. People do stuff like that, right? When the TSA agent looked at the cans I went with my standard “100 ml” comment and followed up with “I’m always sticking to your rules”. Maybe that was more than what was needed for the situation today.
It’s the serving size, stupid.
The agent looked closely at the can. I pointed out where the information on the can said, “100 ml”. However, I was not dealing with a rookie TSA agent. He noted that the “100 ml” was referring to the SERVING SIZE for this 150 ml can. The can did indeed hold 150 ml of liquid and somehow the consumer was expected to get 1 ½ servings from this near thimble-sized container. Oh my. Busted. At least I wasn’t going to have to visit “secondary” at the airport. No one wants to go to secondary. However, I had bonded with the TSA guy. He told me he was going to let me slide today. I was both surprised and grateful for that. There is no need for anyone to “tell” on this guy with the authorities.
Don’t tell your buddies.
This reminded me of the time I was stopped for speeding in Iowa during my first year in business. The copper noticed my sales bag sitting in the front seat. He looked at me and said, “I know you sales guys are busy. You’re always thinking about your next sales call and not watching your speed. I’m going to let you off just don’t tell any of your buddies about this”. I nodded in understanding if not agreement. What was the first thing I told my buddies and have repeated hundreds of times? The fact that the cop didn’t give me a ticket because I was distracted. Don’t blame the police officer. This is on me.
Thursday, November 3, 2022.
Entertainment on the plane.
This trip began with a 12-hour flight from Los Angeles to Frankfurt, Germany. I always load up my iPad with Netflix shows for viewing on the plane. I love documentaries. I watched one about the Woodstock music festival from upstate New York in 1999 celebrating the initial Woodstock get-together in 1969. The ’99 version sounded like a wild and sordid affair! I recommend this show if the topic is of interest.
I also watched a finance documentary, “Get Smart with Money”. This show analyzed four individuals/families’ financial situations including one NFL player. Did you know that 78% of NFL players experience financial hardship at some point? This documentary reminded me that most people in America can’t handle a $400 unexpected expense. I would say the majority of Americans and I suspect people all over the world are nearly financially illiterate. That’s not good, is it?
Just keeping an eye on financial stuff.
Someone once said that “If you don’t know where you’re going you might end up there!” Another person said, “History tends to repeat itself”. I use these adages with our household budgeting. I have our household budgets dating back some thirty years or more. I commonly say the very FIRST element of a good financial plan is to have a good household budget. However, there are exceptions to every rule.
If you are in your 70s and have a million dollars and spend $10,000 a year you do NOT need a household budget. You might need someone to explain to you how to spend your money but you don’t need a budget. You will never run out of money during your lifetime. On the other hand, if you are in your 70s, have $500,000, and spend $100,000 every year you might want to start buying lottery tickets!
The real value of a household budget.
With our household budget, we have 15-16 different categories. Each category has its own inflation rate. Some of our expenses are fixed for a number of years. Other expense categories will increase every year. The value of budgeting is not so much to see what you have spent in the past. The real value is using what you have spent in the past to predict what you will spend in the future.
Here’s how it works.
Let’s say I spent $100,000 last year. Then let’s say I know that some budget categories won’t increase next year or the year after at all. On the other hand, some expense groups may be expected to increase by 5% or 10% or whatever each year. In a somewhat simple Excel spreadsheet, I can inflate or not each budget category by what I think the “change” number should be in the future.
I can run the numbers on what I expect last year’s numbers to be next year and for as many years out into the future as I want to calculate. That, my friends, is the practical value of understanding your historical household budgeting expenses.
There are two sides to every coin.
Of course, understanding what you spend is one thing. Knowing what you will earn and/or can spend is equally important. Let’s say you have a million dollars. You spend $78,000/year and your investments earn 6.93%. You are 65 years old and your spouse is thirty-three. Sounds interesting, huh? You will need to run the numbers to determine if your spending (household budget results and future projections) will be covered by your assets and/or expected earnings for a very long time into the future. If you see some blue sky in that analysis then I say go to Europe as often as your heart desires.
I liked Condor Airlines.
For my long flight to Europe, I flew in economy class on Condor Airlines. This is a German airline. I was very impressed. They gave me an exit row seat with at least three feet of legroom. Yes, those are my own bare-skinned legs. The interior of the plane was brand new. Economy class doesn’t get much better than this.
When I landed in Frankfurt navigating the airport was easy. Carol and I had been here just three weeks ago. There is a learning curve to travel. The steeper the learning curve the more challenging and interesting a trip can be. The shallower the learning curve is the less stimulating a trip might be.
Not Europe again!
This marks my sixth trip to Europe this year. That might seem like a lot of travel to some. However, from a trackchasing point of view, I’ve only seen racing in one country for the first time, Slovenia. I will end up traveling about 175,000 miles (air and rental car) in 2022 for these trackchasing/touring trips.
Back around 2010, for a three-year period, I saw racing in 39 new countries! As I look back on it, I find that pretty remarkable. This year’s European trips began in these cities.
Munich
Stockholm
Edinburgh
Amsterdam
Frankfurt
Frankfurt
Eleven weeks of traveling long distances.
Counting this trip, I will have been out of the country for 79 days this year. This has netted me 28 European new track visits, one in Mexico and nine in Canada over several trips.
Just move along buddy.
Today at German border control there was no wait. The guy didn’t ask me a single question. He just stamped my passport and I was off to baggage claim. The wait to get my bag was longer than I wanted. Did I ever tell you I don’t like checking luggage?
I will be driving in style.
I picked up a nice Audi A6 station wagon as my rental car. The car was diesel-powered. I know that I will get better fuel economy with a diesel engine. Conversely, diesel fuel is about 70 cents U.S. more expensive a gallon than gasoline in Europe. I don’t know if I “win” with diesel or not. Nevertheless, the Audi A6 should be an excellent car for this trip where I only expect to drive about 500 miles.
Did you know this?
Here’s a fun fact about European vehicles. You will be hard-pressed to see any pickup trucks here. You will not see one pickup truck in a hundred cars passing by on the highway. Europeans like their SUVs, hatchbacks, and certainly, in Germany their BMWs, Mercedes, Audis, and VW-made cars.
In order to be positioned properly for tomorrow’s racing. I needed to drive from Frankfurt up toward Minderhout, Belgium. That’s where tomorrow’s race was going to be. The driving time was four hours. In my world driving four hours is like what many people would think of as driving across town.
I do a lot of driving.
This year I will drive my Tesla a bit more than 12,000 miles. I will drive a series of 40-50 rental cars for more than 27,000 miles. I just won’t, in most cases, drive a rental car for four hours after I have flown for 12 hours and landed in a time zone where I will begin driving at 4 a.m. California time.
Time zones need to be accounted for.
It was good landing later in the day at 3 p.m. European time. Last week Europe changed to Daylight Savings Time. This week we Americans will do that. This meant that when I landed in Germany the time difference from the Pacific time zone would be eight hours and by the time I left for my “mystery location,” the time zone would be nine hours between Europe and California. I don’t even want to tell you the time zone difference between Europe and the “mystery location”. If I did that you might try to connect the dots and then it might no longer be a mystery to you!
I didn’t sleep very much on the plane. I didn’t feel too tired. Nevertheless, from the time I landed at the Frankfurt airport at 3 p.m. I needed to get my four miles of walking in before I got to my hotel at about 10 p.m. I did that during bathroom breaks and after I arrived at my hotel.
If I have a goal I want to meet and exceed that goal.
If I could get four miles of walking wrapped up by the time I went to bed on Friday evening European time I wouldn’t have to get up by 8 a.m. European time in order to finish my walking by midnight California time! Did you follow that? Don’t worry you don’t need to. I’m on the case. I did know this. I didn’t want to get up early on Saturday morning in the Netherlands to complete my FRIDAY walking requirements for California!
When German highways are under construction, traffic is diverted into lanes that are very narrow and separated on either side by a two-foot-high solid barrier. A driver definitely has to be on their guard when driving through these spots. I did notice I was beginning to feel tired toward the end of this drive as I was closing in on a 24-hour day with very little sleep. Have I ever told you that European drivers are much better in general than American drivers? They are.
This is how the magic happens.
I selected my hotel with the aid of these tools. I used my MacBook Pro to access the internet with my AT&T International Day Pass as my internet connection. Then I opened Google Maps to see what towns were on my route from Frankfurt to Minderhout, Belgium. This netted me the city of Eindhoven, Netherlands. From there I used Expedia.com to get a hotel. I would be staying in a Campanile branded hotel. This is a modern basic hotel chain perfect for an overnight stay where I would be arriving at 10 p.m. and leaving by 10 a.m. the next morning. I have used this identical process literally thousands of times.
It was chilly!
After I checked in, I couldn’t figure out how to turn on the heat. If Carol had been with me, she would have solved that problem. She wouldn’t have gone to bed until she did. Me? I didn’t have the energy to pursue the matter. I just snuggled up in those big comforters that European hotels are known for and enjoyed the sleep I deserved after not getting much in the past 30 hours.
Saturday, November 5, 2022.
I flew into Germany. I slept overnight in The Netherlands and my entertainment for the day would be in Belgium.
I’m happy to tell you I slept through the night. I probably got a good seven hours of sleep. When traveling to Europe, that result is pretty good.
I woke up in Eindhoven, Netherlands. I would be trackchasing this morning in Minderhout, Belgium. The distance between my hotel and the racetrack would take me about an hour to drive.
I am not an addict. O.K. I am an addict but it doesn’t seem to be hurting anyone else.
While I relaxed in bed before getting my day started, I dined on a package of Kellogg’s Frosted Mini-Wheats. I netted that package from some previous hotel breakfast. This was supplemented by the infamous 100 mL per serving but actually 150 mL per can of Coke zero. I don’t smoke. I have never ever smoked. However, waking up and having a Coke zero seems like being addicted to cigarettes to me!
I don’t want anyone to get the mistaken impression that I wake up every morning and have a Coca-Cola Zero. I do not. However, if I wake up in a hotel room and I’m not going to be having breakfast for a while and I have a Coca-Cola Zero anywhere near me, I’m probably gonna drink that soda. Coca-Cola Zero gives me a nice jolt. It’s kind of funny in one way. I grew up on soda. Carol and our three children did not. I couldn’t count on one hand if I had lost three fingers the number of times that I have seen Carol and the kids have a soda. I have long thought that is very extreme behavior on their part!
Unwanted text messages. What to do?
As I write this, the United States midterm elections are happening in a couple of days. You’ll never hear me supporting one particular political party, or one particular religion in any of these newsletter messages. We live in a world where if you did that about 50% or more of the population would “write you off” for your views. Heck, there’s another 25% of the people who will write you off if you simply didn’t say who you supported because that would indicate to these folks that you didn’t support them. Oh my. That’s just the way the world is and I’m not going to change it.
The reason I mention the above is because when I woke up this morning, I had a couple of spam political text messages supporting different candidates in my cell phone text feed.
These messages did say that if I replied with “stop” the messages would stop. I didn’t necessarily believe that, but it was worth giving it a shot right?
I couldn’t just say “stop” in my text message and leave it at that. I had to take it just a little bit further. To each one of the political messages that I received regardless of political affiliation, I replied with “Stop sending me these frigging messages you frigging idiot”. However, since “frigging” is not a word, as far as I know, I didn’t use frigging I used something a little stronger.
Do I expect my replies to get these messages to stop? No, I don’t. I do know that if I ever ran for President of the United States that these text messages would pop up and potentially put an end to my candidacy. However, at this point in time, I’m not planning on running for president, so I don’t really care. In point of fact, my responses will likely indicate to the sender of the original message that they have a “live one”, and they will probably send me even more messages. However, I would be lying if I didn’t tell you that I got a lot of personal satisfaction out of pressing “send” on those particular text communications.
Not my first trackchasing rodeo in Europe.
The good thing about trackchasing in western Europe is the countries are located close together. For the most part, the tracks are as well. The weather was going to be chilly. I would be seeing my 165th different racetrack on the European continent in 42 European countries.
How a big corporate policy affects a little girl.
Our granddaughter loves the toys that McDonald’s offers. There was a McDonald’s right next to my hotel. I figured I would go over and pick up a toy for her. That wasn’t going to happen this morning. I was surprised to see that every day this McDonald’s opens at 10 o’clock in the morning. Have you ever heard of such a thing? No toy for my granddaughter!
We have reached the time for me to share my first photo album of the trip. This album will share with you in pictures what I have just been telling you about. If you would like to see the photos in this album click the link below.
Just getting to Belgium was an adventure!
I need to know “when and where”.
One of the most important things, maybe the most important thing with my trackchasing hobby, is to find out when and where the races are happening. Local racing is not like the Daytona 500 or the Super Bowl or the World Series. Months in advance, people know when those events will begin and they don’t change. That’s not the way it works with short-track racing.
People on the ground.
That being the case I need help from people on the ground. “People on the ground” in Europe don’t speak my language, at least on their websites. I for sure don’t speak their language. It’s important for me to find local people who can help me with the when and where aspect of my hobby.
One European fellow did a great job in providing the location for today’s racing. He answered a number of my questions. I really appreciated that. He even sent me a Google Maps link to the location of the track.
Almost all auto cross racing in Belgium and The Netherlands is done in farmer’s fields. Did you know that? That’s right. When the harvest is finished or when the field is available, they simply plow the field into race track configuration and they’re ready to race.
I was just following directions.
Today I followed the Google Maps link just as directed. When Google Maps told me I had “arrived” I looked around. All I saw was flat, Belgium farmland. Luckily, a young woman driving a car just ahead of me had been following the same link. I drove up to her and lowered my window to ask what was up. She told me she would make a call to her friends to get more details.
I waited about a minute and then off she went with me close in tow. The racetrack location was only about a mile away. I’m not sure what I would have done had this young woman not been in the same predicament that I was in pretty much at the same time. I might still be sitting in that rural intersection, trying to figure out where the race track was.
At the entrance to the track, I paid my €10 admission. The fellow selling me my wristband didn’t speak a lot of English. He indicated I could park just about anywhere I wanted as long as I was out of the way of the race cars.
It pays to know people. I always go to the top.
I had made some advanced contact with a fellow by the name of Danny Heremans. Danny was very helpful in giving me information about today’s racing promoted by Belgium’s EACB auto cross group.
I always try to meet the people who have been helping me from afar when I get to the racetrack. Today it was easy to find Danny. He was in the center of all of the action being club president.
This is how they do things with EACB.
Danny explained to me how today’s program is going to work. There were essentially four classes racing today. This was “endurance” auto cross racing. I’ve seen quite a bit of auto cross racing in Europe. Those races have always been short, maybe four or five laps in distance.
However, with endurance racing at least the way EACB does it they have a race in the morning for each class on the bigger road course that lasts one and a half hours. Then in the afternoon, those same classes run for 1 1/2 hours, three hours in total, to complete the race. The winner is the driver who has completed the most laps.
Wow! What a pleasant surprise!
Trackchasing is a counting hobby. If it don’t count the trackchaser don’t go. Today I was surprised that a class called “mini buggies” was racing on a smaller track. This track was an oval configuration, whereas the larger track had a chicane in it, making it a road course.
The mini buggies are sort of Europe’s equivalent of America’s senior champ karts. it looked as if most of the drivers were younger in the mini buggy class.
Hey Danny, answer me this.
I asked Danny, the club president, what the driver’s age range was for the mini buggies. I was asking for a reason. Trackchasing rules allow us to count any race class that is open to drivers 18 years of age or more. Racing classes that are limited to drivers younger than 18 don’t count by trackchasing rule.
Danny told me there was no official or printed age range for this class. I asked him if a driver showed up who was 18 years old would he be he or she be allowed to race in this class? Danny indicated that they would be allowed to race. This was very important. Coming from the club at president this meant the mini buggy class was a separate and countable group.
What made this even more important was that the mini buggies were racing on a different race track configuration than the bigger cars were. I was going to be able to count two tracks at this location. When I had pulled into the paddock/pit area earlier this morning I expecting only to see racing on one new track.
First time ever!
Danny also told me that this was the first ever time they had competed at this farm. This meant that I was also the first trackchaser to see racing here pretty much by default.
At the end of the day, I had seen 87 new tracks in 2022 in 12 countries and 20 American states. At forty-three of those tracks, I was the first trackchaser ever to attend a race at that location. I’m going to guess that the vast majority of those 43 tracks were not even known to me as little as a year ago.
Will this never end?
It is true that I am running out of new track locations to visit that are previously known to me. However, if I’m going to be able to find so many “new” racing locations, my hobby could go on for a very long time!
Today’s weather was chilly with a temperature in the low 50s and a wind. It is always the wind that makes the cold colder.
What’s for lunch?
At lunchtime, I dined on Belgium sausage, fries, and a delicious spicy yet sweet yellow curry sauce that looked more like mustard, but the jar said curry. It was all delicious. One of the things I really enjoy about foreign short-track racing is seeing and consuming the different concession offerings.
A very good day of trackchasing!
When my day was complete, the records will show that I have now seen racing at nine tracks in Belgium and 164 tracks in Europe. There was a time, probably about 17 years ago, when I didn’t think I would ever be able to march into these foreign-speaking countries and move around seeing new tracks as I do in the United States. Thankfully, that time has passed. Back in 2005, a fellow from Belgium told me I could do this routinely. I didn’t believe him. He was right. The internet and technology made most of those opportunities happen.
I think you racing fans will find there are many differences and many similarities between the racing I saw in Belgium today and what you might be used to. Take a look at my photos from the auto cross racing I saw today to see if you agree.
This is autocross racing from Minderhout, Belgium!
Now how did I figure out where to stay for the night?
Following the racing, I drove about 30 minutes to Turnhout, Belgium. I made a reservation at the Turnout City Hotel in Turnhout. I use different Internet sites to find unique and highly rated hotels in these small European towns. For this hotel, I used Expedia.
The Turnout City Hotel was part of a converted train station that was now partially a hotel. My room was excellent. It was located within a couple of blocks of the downtown square.
Why Turnhout, Belgium?
I chose the town of Turnout because it was located between today’s racing in Minderhout, Belgium and tomorrow’s racing in Horst, Netherlands. I rarely book my hotels in the U.S. or internationally earlier than the day I plan to stay there. My schedule is normally so tentative that not only do I not know what city where I will spend the night, but sometimes I don’t know what country where I will stay the night. Would you be comfortable with that arrangement?
I am absolutely amazed at how reasonably priced traveling in Western Europe is right now. I paid only $80 for my room. What a steal that was for this particular location.
I must say people go out of their way to help.
The hotel desk clerk even helped with the paid parking that was located right in front of the hotel. In some pretty chilly weather, she came out and helped me navigate the process of paying at a kiosk. The parking fee was only six euros for the next two days. I’ll only be here for one more day so six euros were still a good price to park overnight.
Where would I have dinner?
The hotel clerk also gave me an excellent recommendation for a restaurant this evening. I told her I might like to eat Italian food. She recommended a place called “Gusto”. She even called them to make a reservation. The Turnout City Hotel provided great service.
Men don’t ask for directions?
If it hasn’t been obvious up to now, I ask a lot of questions. My mind kind of works like this. I try to decide how much time it will take me to find the answer to my question or to figure out the directions to where I want to go. Then I compare the time it would take to do things on my own and compare that to how quickly someone else might be able to help me with whatever question I have. Men are famously not noted for asking for directions or help. I am not that man.
I had tried to walk as much as I could at the race track so that later on in the day, I would be pretty close to my 4-mile daily walking goal. Being able to walk two or three blocks to the restaurant as well as afterward would help as well.
Gusto! Yes, Gusto!
The Gusto restaurant was outstanding. I was lucky I had made an advance reservation. Initially, when the greeter didn’t know that I had a reservation he told me there were no tables available. Then when I cleared that up, they happily seated me right in the center of the restaurant.
This was gourmet Italian eating. Don’t miss the photos. I ended up having a glass of wine, two Coke Zeros, a complimentary appetizer, an entrée of ravioli with scampi, and a delicious dessert for the grand total of €37 which right now is about US$37. There is pretty much no way that I could have dined in a high-end Italian restaurant in the United States with those choices at that price.
Just strolling around in a town I had never heard of and would likely never see again.
Following dinner, I still had about a mile to walk to meet my daily goal. That was going to be easy to do. Most of these small Belgium towns have a large square in the center of the city. These squares usually feature a huge church overlooking the square. That’s the way it worked in Turnhout, Belgium as well. Again, I would ask that you check out the photos that I took from tonight’s dining experience, and touring by foot.
Who doesn’t like a casino…especially a foreign casino?
Just as I was getting back to my hotel, I noticed that a “casino” was also part of the train station renovation next to my hotel. Casinos like this in Europe are often only a series of slot machines. I needed to go in and check things out just to make sure.
If you’ve been to Las Vegas very often, you know that you simply walk into a casino there and enjoy the sights and sounds. That’s not really how it works in Europe.
Where do you live? What do you do?
To simply get into the casino I had to show the woman doing the admitting my passport. She entered all details of my passport into her computer and took a photocopy of my passport.
Then she asked me where I was staying. I told her right next door at the hotel. She looked up and smiled and said, “That makes it easier for me because I don’t have to ask you your home address”. Then she asked me if I was still working or on “pension”. I allowed that I was indeed retired. I was soon admitted to the casino.
Not much to see here, please move along.
As I expected, this was a series of electronic machines with a maximum occupancy of just 49 people. There wasn’t much happening inside. I bought a soft drink for one euro, sat in a chair, and just soaked up the ambiance. I did take a few photos which normally are forbidden in places like this. Nobody said anything and when I had seen what I had come to see, I headed back to my hotel. Today had been a good day. I had trackchased, eaten at local restaurants, and simply seen the sites of a small, random town that I had selected based upon its location being between one track and the next.
Sunday, November 6, 2022.
The UCLA gods were calling.
For some reason, I woke up at 4:30 a.m. local time this morning. That wasn’t the end of the world. Just at that time back on the West Coast, the UCLA football game was just starting against Arizona State.
I grabbed my iPad and the Fox Sports 1 app where I could watch the game live. I was a little surprised that the app wouldn’t work with the hotel’s Internet system. However, it would work with my AT&T cellular connection. Since I have unlimited data with my $10 per day AT&T International Day Pass, I was able to watch the Bruins take a win over the Arizona State Sun Devils. When the game was finished, I went back to sleep for an hour and a half before getting up to prepare for the second and final day of this Western Europe practicing trip.
Why have tourists come to The Netherlands in the past?
Lots of people over many decades have come to the Netherlands, also known as Holland to see something unique to the area. What’s that? Windmills!
In today’s more modern era, those old historic windmills have been replaced by wind machines that dominate the landscape in Belgium and the Netherlands. I don’t know how much of the total energy production is handled by renewables in these countries. I have read that the state of Iowa gets nearly 60% of its energy from wind machines. I find that remarkable.
Seeing how local people live in faraway places is one of the best experiences I get to have on these trips. Check out what Turnhout, Belgium was like.
Exploring small European towns is one of my most favorite things to do on these trips!
Speaking of finding things, finding the auto cross race location in Horst, Netherlands was easy. One of my European racing friends had provided me with some excellent Google Maps directions. Today’s track was only about an hour from yesterday’s track location despite them being in different countries.
Trackchasing in The Netherlands.
Today’s auto cross racing was a local affair. There was no admission charge. The car count was small by auto cross standards with maybe 25 or 30 entries.
Auto cross racing in the Netherlands, and Belgium, as well, is most frequently done in a farmer’s field. When the field becomes available, sometimes after the harvest is completed, they simply plow a dirt track into the field, and they are ready to race.
These are temporary racetracks as you might imagine. They don’t put up any formal safety barriers to protect the fans from the speeding racecars. What do they do to keep the fans safe? They did two or three trenches, each about two feet deep. In the rare circumstance where a racer might veer off course, the trenches would be expected to stop the car before any hard was done.
Trackchasing rules allow us to count racing with cars and trucks when done on an oval, road course, or figure 8 configuration. With this type of auto cross racing, you’re going to most likely find the oval and road course configurations being used the most.
There are several different auto cross sanctioning groups in Europe. I spend quite a bit of my time researching these racing organizations to find out when and where they will compete. A group may have competed in a farmer’s field at a particular location last year and now a new farmer’s field might become available only a mile or two away this year. That location becomes a new “track”. This makes getting a high track count in Belgium and the Netherlands much easier than just about any other place in the world.
Today’s weather was chilly with a little bit of wind. I was wearing a stocking cap and long pants. I only wear a stocking cap and pants a time or two each year.
What was for lunch at the track and how would I pay for it?
I haven’t had anything to eat today, so when I saw a concession offering of hamburgers and sausages, I was immediately attracted. I picked out what I wanted. The fellow started to hand it to me and asked for payment. I pulled out some euros. Nope. That wasn’t going to work.
There are a few tracks in the United States, and seemingly a few more in Europe, where you can’t buy racetrack concessions with cash. First, you have to go to a separate location at the track and exchange your money for tickets. Then you go back to where they have the food and give them a ticket for what you want to order. That’s how it worked today.
Why do they do it this way? Employee theft! They figure the fewer people who handle the cash the better. Hence “food tickets”! Have you ever imagined a world where there was zero crime? That would be bad. The unemployment rate would skyrocket!
I like to think of myself as being pretty good with numbers. Today one ticket would cost €2.5. The price of a hamburger or a sausage was 1.5 “BON”. I assumed BON meant euros. But when I checked Google Translate, I was told in Dutch this meant “receipt”.
I was in a foreign country with a nine-hour time zone difference. I hadn’t gotten used to the time zone change and was a little spacey. I spent much of the afternoon trying to figure out exactly how much I had paid for my sausage sandwich in U.S. dollars. Whenever I thought I was getting close, I usually wasn’t. Do you know the answer to that question?
Did you know that people race VW bugs?
At the track today I took pictures of virtually every competitor. They were racing a little bit of everything including VW bugs. I don’t see many of those racing, although the VW bug was the taxi of choice when we visited Acapulco Mexico.
When I began to see some of the cars coming out for their third race of the day, I figured I had soaked up all of the racing and ambiance at this small race promotion that I needed to. Now I needed to head back to where this trip began in Frankfurt, Germany.
Every track that I visit is just a little bit different. That’s why trackchasing is still interesting to me after all these years. Here’s my photo album from The Netherlands.
This is auto cross racing from Horst, Netherlands!
Two for the price of one when I only wanted one!
Along this drive, I would learn things and see things that were notable. I saw a sign for McDonald’s. I was attracted to their location because I was on the hunt for McDonald’s toys for our granddaughter in Texas.
Of course, I’m not the kind of guy who can simply walk into McDonald’s, buy a toy and walk out. I ordered an Oreo McFlurry to go. There was a little confusion with my order. They ended up making two Oreo McFlurrys. Oh my. They gave them both to me for the price of one. Because I was raised in the Midwest and told to clean my plate, I ate both of them. That’s on me.
It pays to pay attention.
Carol and I had been to Belgium and The Netherlands just last month. One of the things that I noticed was that gas stations located on the highway were quite a bit higher priced than if I drove into town a short distance. Learning from that experience I noticed diesel fuel that was selling for €2.40 per liter at a highway rest area type location. A station just one mile away off the highway had diesel fuel at €2.04 euros per liter. That was a savings of almost $1.50 a gallon.
I had selected a hotel within a mile or two of the Frankfurt airport for the night. This was a “B&B hotel”. That’s the brand name. They offer basic but clean and modern accommodation. Basic, clean and modern all work for me when I’m by myself. They also had free parking despite being right next to the airport.
It was still earlier in the evening when I checked in. This hotel was in an area of other hotels. There didn’t seem to be much of anything in the way of restaurants.
When I checked in, I asked a friendly female clerk, what my restaurant options might be. She gave me three choices. I selected the Indian food location.
When was the last time you offered up a sincere compliment? Try that today.
Then as she completed the check-in process, she asked me my birthdate. I told her. Then she looked up and said, “You don’t look anywhere close to the age your birthdate indicates”. I said, “Thank you”.
What did I take away from that comment? Skeptically, maybe she says that to just about everyone. On the other hand, maybe she’s one of those rare people who just likes to give people a sincere compliment, that she actually means. I know this.
People like to get compliments. People remember those compliments for the rest of the day and maybe the rest of the week. I like to give compliments because I know how good it makes people feel.
I’m going with Indian food.
The clerk told me that it would be about a 15-minute walk over to the Indian restaurant called Indian Curry House, a tandoori & curry restaurant. I still need to get some steps in so a 15-minute walk seemed just fine.
I also asked the clerk if this was a safe area to walk in. She assured me it was. As I was walking along in the dark, with very little vehicular or people traffic in the area, I begin to wonder about that. The area didn’t look 100% safe, maybe 60% safe. However, since I didn’t get mugged in my case it was 100% safe.
White man spicey? Did he really say that?
The Indian food was excellent. Carol and I enjoy Indian food often. We always ask for them to make it medium spicy. I will often follow up with the less-than-politically correct comment, “I don’t mean white man spicy”. Which, of course, wouldn’t be very spicy at all. Tonight, I received “white man Indian spicy”. Nope. My food wasn’t spicy at all. I love spicy food.
I was a little bit surprised when I left the restaurant that a very light rain was falling. I didn’t have an umbrella because I rarely ever do umbrellas. My car was a 15-minute walk away. It is a rare circumstance indeed that I leave a restaurant and have to walk 15 minutes in light rain. Whatever. It was what it was.
Fubu! Just $99/month to watch one sporting event?
When I got back to my hotel, I remembered the nine-hour time zone difference back to the United States, I knew that the NASCAR Cup championship race was happening at just about that moment.
I tried to use various apps to get the broadcast, but couldn’t get anything to work. I did some more searching and came up with a streaming website called fubo.com. I could watch the race from that site.
Fubo was offering a free one-week trial membership after which I would be billed $99 a month, presumably forever. I accepted their challenge and watched the race. Then I made a Google Calendar note to unsubscribe to the subscription before they started charging me!
Monday, November 7, 2022
My trackchasing was finished for this trip.
My trip again last Thursday. After just four nights on the road, my trackchasing in Europe was finished. However, I didn’t want to fly all the way from Los Angeles to Frankfurt, Germany, and back for a four-night trip, did I? No, I did not.
The European portion of my trip was wrapping up. This photo album shows a little bit of everything as I transitioned from racing to what would be another unique and interesting international adventure.
Closing out Part 1, the European part of this trip, had me in some unique situations
So…where would YOU go?
Frankfurt, Germany’s airport is a lot like Chicago or Atlanta. You can fly just about anywhere in the world nonstop from Frankfurt. I have a really good smartphone app called “Flight Board”. This app shows me all of the nonstop flights from one airport to another.
I looked at the Frankfurt flights. I made about 15 screenshots, which included 20-25 flights with each. That meant I had somewhere between 300 and 400 flights that I could use on a moment’s notice to well over 100 cities.
I was a little bit surprised when I looked at my options. I noticed that for virtually every major city that was recognizable to most folks I’d already been there. I couldn’t decide if I wanted to go back again or maybe try some unknown to me location like Malaga, Spain.
Bingo! I’m going there!
After quite a bit of research, I selected a city in a country that will be known in this report as the “mystery location” visit. I would fly there and spend four days enjoying the culture and the ambiance.
Stay tuned!
Where was this mystery location? I’ll tell you all about it in my next posting.
Randy Lewis
San Clemente, California, USA