Panic.
The definition of panic. “Sudden uncontrollable fear or anxiety, often causing wildly unthinking behavior”. Oh my. I felt panic on this trip.

For my traveling readers…what would YOU have done in my Canadian circumstance? The last half of this post describes the sheer panic that I faced.

Finally, I’m hoping the headers and photos I provide let you jump around to the sections of this post you find most interesting. Also, thanks to the folks who send me their comments and feedback. I always appreciate that.

Junk car racing in rural Pennsylvania, Sykesville Ag & Youth Fair

From the best “backyard” track I’ve ever seen…Little Middleton Speedway, Courtland, Ontario, Canada

Sunday, June 19, 2022
I woke up this morning in the driver’s seat of the National Car Rental Racing Chrysler 300 in a highway rest area in Brigham City, Utah. I had trackchased in Idaho only a few hours ago. Overnight temperatures were about 70° so sleeping was most comfortable. However, at one point the wind blew so strongly across the Utah desert that I thought the car was going to flip over! At least my lodging budget didn’t take a hit with these arrangements.
  
I was kind of disappointed in the fuel mileage I got from the Chrysler 300. It came in at about 26.8 miles per gallon. Of course, that was driving at just a little bit over 80 MPH most of the time. The speed limit is eighty in much of Idaho and Utah. Had I been able to rent my preferred option, the Toyota Camry my mileage would have been very close to 40 miles per gallon.

 
It does take some planning to do what I do. 
I had put in a ton of legwork reserving cars and making flight reservations in an attempt to get to Sykesville, Pennsylvania for tomorrow night’s racing. In the end, I settled for a nonstop flight from Salt Lake City to Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Flying into Canada will work out best on the back end of this trip which is why I did it that way.
 

 
I’m getting used to the new Salt Lake City (SLC) airport. Since I was here last, they replaced the entire airport with a new terminal. It’s nice but so much different than the old place.

 
Masks? Really? Wasn’t the pandemic over? 
There was something about my flight on Air Canada that surprised me. The Canadian government still requires flyers to wear a mask while on an airplane. The United States discontinued that practice a couple of months ago. It is what it was. I don’t complain very much about any rules that I encounter. I simply do my best to comply.
 

Welcome to Canada!
 
Clearing customs in the Toronto airport was easy. Officials have done a lot to streamline the process. It didn’t take me any more than five minutes to be officially allowed to enter Canada.
  
I was able to get a Canadian rental car from National Car Rental quickly. I asked for a Toyota Camry. Just as I made that request a National driver pulled up in a Camry straight from the cleanup area. Excellent timing.

 
Location. Location. Location. 
Once I knew that I was going to make the flight I felt confident in making a hotel reservation. My plan was to stay in Buffalo, New York for the next couple of nights. I had just left Idaho where a Motel 6 property was selling for $150 a night. This is not all that unusual. During the summertime properties in and around Yellowstone Park can be very pricey.
 

Inflation! 
Speaking of high prices lots of people like to complain about inflation whether or not they are being majorly affected by it or not. I believe these people have their own “agenda”. That agenda doesn’t have all that much to do with inflation specifically. There are some pretty pissed-off campers out there. This is one of the biggest complaints they can think of until things turn around for them… if you know what I mean.
 

 
Speaking of inflation, I recommend that each person knows his or her “personal inflation rate”. Most people’s largest expenses, i.e., house payments, car payments, and maybe real estate taxes are either fixed or can’t go up much in the next few years. Does it really matter if a two-dollar loaf of bread doubles in price when your $3,000/month mortgage payment or $500/month car payment is fixed? No, in the big picture it really doesn’t.
 
 
Despite what the Motel 6 price was in Idaho, Priceline.com told me I could rent a Super 8 hotel in Buffalo for $35 a night. I could get a full-scale Marriott hotel for only $80 a night. Which did I choose?

 
I don’t buy cheap stuff cheap. I buy good stuff cheap. 
I have some very strong personal and financial philosophies that I try to practice at every turn. One of my financial philosophies states that I don’t want to “buy cheap things cheap”. I want to “buy good things cheap”. I chose the Marriott hotel at the higher price for my two-night stay in Buffalo, New York.

I have been to Canada literally hundreds of times. I could probably count in single digits the numbers of times I have come to Canada and NOT had poutine. This trip would not be one of those trips. I stopped at McDonald’s and ordered the poutine treat. Some poutine snobs don’t think much of poutine from Mickey D’s. However, it is fast, convenient, reasonably priced, and…it’s poutine.
  
I had an easy time crossing the border from Canada into the United States despite the fact that I was an American from California driving a Canadian rental car with Ontario plates. I might have waited two minutes in total to cross.

 
With the pandemic ending things are returning to normal. 
Carol and I first went from Canada to the United States several months ago during Covid. We talked to one of the U.S. border agents. He told us during the height of the pandemic he might go a month or two without seeing a single car trying to cross back into the U.S. That must’ve been a fun job!
 

 
Tops Friendly Markets.
Before I got to the Marriott, I stopped at a Tops grocery store. These stores are called “Tops Friendly Markets”. It was not lost on me that there was a terrible mass shooting with more than 10 people killed at a Tops grocery store in Buffalo, New York less than a month ago. The United States has its share of crazy people. These crazy folks have access to guns. Often times these are copycat killers. With today’s firearms, one person can take down a lot of people. I don’t read much about other countries having a problem like ours. What would that tell you?
 

 
When I checked into the Marriott hotel at nearly midnight the clerk couldn’t do enough for me. He soon recognized I held a titanium elite membership in Marriott’s Bonvoy frequent stay program. Despite the fact that I bought my hotel room using a “third party” seller, meaning Priceline, he gave me several upgrades. These upgrades included a better room and a complimentary breakfast when others were paying $20 for breakfast. Also thrown in were free high-speed Wi-Fi which normally costs 13 bucks and free snacks which are called “market items” in Marriott lingo. I’ve done a lot of traveling. I’m pretty good at working the system.
 
  
Monday, June 20, 2022
It’s nice but not common when I can stay in a single hotel for two nights or more. This allows me to sleep in and simply relax. With that free time, I can choose to seek out a local trackchasing tourist attraction. Or I can just hang out in the room until it’s time to leave for the race that evening.
  
Staying in a “full scale” Marriott hotel reminded me of my business career. I spent so many days in Marriott hotels attending meetings with early breakfast meetings that the pain is indelibly imprinted in my mind.

What I absolutely hated the most was the 7 a.m. eastern time zone breakfast meeting. That meant I was starting my business day at 4 a.m. California time. Even if I tried to convince you, you wouldn’t understand exactly how much I hated that. I can tell you with 100% honesty that I have never looked back for a single day or hour or minute or second and wished I was still working from the time I left the building. I might also mention that I never ever met an eastern-based manager who expressed any sympathy whatsoever for the inconvenience placed upon western-based employees.
 

 
Right now, I’m working with the Nutrisystem eating plan. I was able to use the hotel’s one and only microwave oven to “cook up” a nice lunch of green beans, sliced turkey, carrots, and a banana. I wouldn’t want Carol to know that I can fend for myself when needed. That’s just our little secret.
 

Let’s go to the Keystone State. 
Tonight, I would be trackchasing in Sykesville, Pennsylvania. Sykesville is home to the “Sykesville Ag & Youth Fair”. This race location has been part of my “future race database” spreadsheet for well over a decade.
  
There aren’t very many tracks that have escaped my attention for years and years. A large number of the tracks I see today have only popped up more recently. For most tracks, if I know about them, I will visit the track within a maximum of five years. That was not the case with Sykesville.
 

Just do the math. 
I have made one interesting observation about today’s trackchasing. Virtually every trackchaser is seeing tracks that in most cases I’ve already been to. I have seen racing at almost 2,800 tracks. The most current trackchasing census says there are only 1,700-1,800 tracks in existence today. You can do the math. It is rare that any of my fellow competitors go to a race track that I haven’t been to.
  
On the other hand, I don’t have their luxury. My group of “remaining tracks” that I have not seen is small. It’s a lot easier to plan a trackchasing outing when there is the better part of 1,800 tracks to see than when there are only 100-200 left to visit in my situation. That’s why I am constantly on the lookout for tracks that are so far off the beaten path they don’t even make the radar of the trackchasing census.
  
One of those “remaining tracks” was waiting for me tonight in Sykesville, Pennsylvania. Their county fair was opening up tonight. They were going to have some junk car racing on a Monday night. I’ve seen racing at more than 500 county fairs. I would hazard a guess that the least popular night for racing at a county fair is Monday.
 

No McDonald’s. That’s rural! 
The driving distance from Buffalo to Sykesville was going to take three hours to cover. I’ve been on my share of rural out-of-the-way drives in the past. I would have to say the drive from Buffalo to Sykesville has to be one of the most rural drives I will take this year. For nearly three hours I didn’t pass a single McDonald’s. Folks, that’s rural.
 

 
I have a great idea for saving the state of Pennsylvania some big money. In Pennsylvania, they must have one million or maybe two million warning signs for deer. Here’s my idea. I would simply put up a sign on every road that enters the Keystone State warning of deer. That way as soon as you entered Pennsylvania you would know that you were on the hook for the possibility of hitting a deer. Wouldn’t that save the state a lot of money? I have more ideas where that came from.
 

 
Bears? No friggin’ way.
When I drove through Limestone, New York just north of the New York/Pennsylvania border I started seeing not only deer warning signs but bear warning signs. I was a little skeptical about that. Bears? What was I doing on route 219 driving through a zoo?
  
My skepticism turned into reality on the drive home tonight. While I was talking to Carol on the phone a huge black bear ran in front of my car. I missed that bear by about five feet. He was on all fours but looked as if he could stand up and be about my height. Now I believed in the bear warning signs!
 

 
Finding Sykesville, Pennsylvania was pretty easy. Finding the fairgrounds inside of Sykesville was much more difficult. My GPS is almost always spot on. Tonight, the GPS took me up two one-lane roads that ended in dead-end stops. I’m not sure that has ever happened.

They say that Pennsylvania is simply Alabama with Philadelphia on one end and Pittsburgh on the other. I think there is a lot of truth to that statement.
 

Small-town America. I love visiting small-town America. 
Tonight’s fair was a rural country fair. It was in a small town in the middle of nowhere. Most of the facilities were rundown. Nevertheless, the Sykesville Fair had a lot going for it.
 

 
I paid my $10 admission to the fair. There was no charge for parking. I took a short walk down to where the cars were pitted. I wanted to see what kind of racing machines were on hand tonight. These were just definitely junk cars. It turned out there were about 15 of them.

No. This was not the Daytona 500.
This was not the Daytona 500. However, I already knew that. Not being the Daytona 500 was one of the reasons I expected to have a good time tonight.
 
 

The carnival part of the fair was pretty rustic. They had an old ride called the “cobra”. I couldn’t ever recall seeing that ride. It squeaked and then it squeaked some more. The ride looked to be very dangerous when it picked up speed.
 

Fair food. Real good! 
 
What was impressive was the food selection. I’ll bet they had 15-20 or more food vendors. They were selling just about every form of fried food that could be fried. Fried Oreo cookies and most fair food are so much fun to eat. I didn’t try any of it because I’m eating low-cal for the time being. This strategy did require almost all of my willpower.
 

Big name entertainment.
 
The fair also had an Elvis impersonator who was entertaining a very small “crowd” of about four elderly women. They were probably teenagers during Elvis’ heyday of the 50s and 60s. They also had a stuntman standing on his hands at the top of about a six-chair pyramid. I found all of this very impressive for a small county fair on a Monday night.
 

 
I came for the racing.
I walked into the seating area to see tonight’s paper clip dirt oval. The track markers were a series of Jersey barriers and huge tractor tires. The track had straightaways nearly 100 yards in length. The turns might have been only about 20 yards in distance. This was just about as long and narrow as any track I had ever seen.
  
As soon as I walked in, I noticed fellow trackchaser Paul Weisel of Orefield, Pennsylvania standing at the top of the grandstand with an umbrella. I wasn’t sure why he had an umbrella. My weather app, Weather Underground, told me there would be absolutely no rain to speak of while we were at the track tonight.
 

 
Fellow trackchasing competitors.
Standing next to Paul was a fellow I didn’t recognize. Soon I was being introduced to Jim Hanley of Danbury, Connecticut. Jim is a fellow trackchasing competitor. He told me he was seeing his 559^th lifetime track this evening. Paul Weisel has been to about 1,025 tracks. Those are pretty competitive and impressive numbers in the hobby.
  
We chatted about things that trackchasers seem to talk about on rare occasions when they meet up. Paul was returning to the Sykesville track to catch racing on their oval tonight. Previously he had seen Sykesville’s figure 8 racing. Jim and I were newcomers to Sykesville.
 

 

It’s just fun to be a fan…a fan of Aunt Kelly’s.
I was impressed with the crowd tonight. A couple hundred people were watching. Remember, Sykesville is a very unpopulated area. Its population is only 1,157 people. This was a Monday night. I think that people are so intent on getting out of the house and enjoying some form of entertainment after being huddled up because of the pandemic. They will go to just about any length to have some fun.
 

 
From what I could tell there were 14 racing machines competing tonight. It was a little hard to keep track of what the announcer was telling us. It looked as if there were three heat races, a consolation race and an 11-12 feature race.
  
Yes! Watch the video.
It is at this point in my story that I always remind you to look at my YouTube video and photo album from the Sykesville Fair. Remember my YouTube channel name is “Randy Lewis”. I have nearly 3,000 YouTube subscribers.
  
I bet you after you look at those two items, you’ll have a better understanding of things than simply reading my description. Of course, I would love it if you took a look at all three of my social media forms. In the end, you’ll have to decide how best to get your entertainment from what I am sharing with you.
  
As soon as the races were finished at about 8:30 p.m. Paul and Jim headed for parts unknown to me. That’s what trackchasers do. I hung around the fair a little bit longer. I had come to Sykesville, Pennsylvania from California via Idaho and Canada. I “only” had three hours to drive over the most bear-infested rural roads I would likely encounter for some time.
 

 
I like to see the entire county fair.
I checked out the animal barns. I took a look at the 4H displays. This in all likelihood would be my one and only visit to Sykesville. I like these kinds of fairs. They allow me to see an entire slice of life that is very foreign to me.
  
I had to pay a little bit more attention on the drive back to Buffalo tonight. The two-lane roads of rural Northern Pennsylvania are treacherous. I didn’t mind. I was going to get back to my hotel a little past midnight. I could sleep in tomorrow as late as I wanted. I would be traveling back to Canada tomorrow for the fourth time in the past couple of weeks. The logistics of that effort did not seem all that daunting.
 
  
Tuesday, June 21, 2022
One of the advantages of staying in a Marriott hotel is that I can check out as late as 4 p.m. with no extra charges. That comes from having my titanium elite status with Marriott. It’s important in life to have status whenever and wherever you can get it.

 
 

Life on the road.
That being the case I slept in this morning. Then I did some laundry and folded it. I recapped my past trackchasing trips and planned future ones. It’s nice knowing that this evening’s new track visit is only 2 1/2 hours up the road. Nevertheless, I will have to be cognizant of the fact that I am crossing a foreign country’s border to get there.
  
The weather in Buffalo is a very breezy 73°. For late June that’s pretty nice weather. Knock on wood but I haven’t been rained out a single time in 2022 yet. I’ll take those results especially when my geographical trackchasing options are becoming more and more limited.
  
With a little free time on my hands, I went out to explore Buffalo, New York. I’ve been here several times in the past. I’ve already done a good deal of touring here. This is a list of my previous Buffalo forays.

 
Forest Lawn Cemetery – Buffalo
 
Frank Lloyd Wright Darwin House Tour – Buffalo
 
Queen City Ferry Company Riverboat tour – Buffalo
 

I’ve eaten at the Anchor Bar & Grill in Buffalo where “Buffalo wings” were invented. Those are good. However, my personal favorite up to now has been the Nine-Eleven Tavern. This is sort of a neighborhood bar with all of the ambiances you would expect from eating wings in Buffalo. 
  
For today I would add two more unique Buffalo visits to my list. One of those would be a very tragic scene and the other much more tranquil.
 

 
Site of the mass shooting in Buffalo, New York.
Just about a month ago, on May 14, 2022, another mass shooting was conducted in the United States. A shooter walked into a Tops Friendly Markets grocery store and killed ten people. A few days later he pleaded “not guilty”. This pisses me off often more than you might imagine. I don’t have a solution to our mass shooting problem in America. I do know this. Mass shootings are not a major problem in other countries. What the F is the matter with us?
 

 
Canisius College, Buffalo, New York.
After driving past the shooting sight, I took a driving tour of Canisius College in Buffalo. Canisius is a private Jesuit college founded in 1870. What a beautiful campus. I didn’t have time to search out the three things I always look for during my college and university visits. What are those three things? The basketball arena, the football stadium (Canisius doesn’t field a football team), and the book store (possible t-shirt purchase)!
  
Now it was time to head to Little Middleton Speedway in Courtland, Ontario, Canada. No trackchaser had ever been to this track. I was hoping to be the first.
 

 
Panic! No options! This gave me a very bad feeling.
Have you ever felt panic? If so, do you recall the last time you had a panic attack? What would cause anyone to feel panic?
  
I thought about that question just a little bit. I think someone would be a good candidate for being panicked when they could see an outcome heading their way that they didn’t really want to experience. The expected outcome would have absolutely no positive options. Does that sound like a good reason to panic?
 

What was about to happen was not part of the plan. 
Normally when I go trackchasing things go pretty much according to plan. Well…not exactly according to plan but not so far off as to cause actual panic.

You see…it is the idea of visiting a new racetrack that brings me to wherever I end up. As you have also come to realize once I head toward a racetrack all kinds of people, scenery, experiences, and attractions just sort of “pop up”. That’s what makes trackchasing such an interesting hobby. I never really know what to expect.
 

Panic appeared on the horizon. 
I normally fly somewhere and then rent a car. I use my GPS to drive to the racetrack. I enjoy myself and then repeat the process time and time again. I was attempting to do that up here in Ontario, Canada this evening. Then… all of a sudden things didn’t go well. I could see panic on my horizon!
 

 
Trackchasing dates back nearly 100 years!
As I mentioned no trackchaser in the history of trackchasing, which dates back to track counting from 1928, had ever visited the Little Middleton Speedway. Anyone who reported seeing a track in 1928 would not have been a good candidate for tonight’s track anyway. I was told Little Middleton had only been running for three or four years.
  
Little Middleton races every Tuesday night during the summer. There are very few tracks that race on a regular basis during the week. This trip was all about seeing these kinds of tracks. I wanted to show up at tracks that race during the middle of the week. Except in the United States and Canada, there are almost no tracks racing on Monday through Thursday.
 

Difficult but not impossible. 
Those mid-week tracks are difficult to tie in with others on a consecutive day trackchasing trip. This trip was all about seeing those tracks that race on Monday or Tuesday or Wednesday or Thursday. Finding those tracks, that I had never ever visited, and putting them one after the other would be difficult. Difficult yes. Impossible no.
 

Information is power. I had little information.  
I didn’t have a lot of information about the Little Middleton Speedway. I got what I got from their Facebook page. I had the name of a sponsoring company. That was it. I Googled the company’s address and put it into my GPS. I noted the company’s phone number. Off I went. Normally that process works very well. Tonight, it did not.
  
The track’s Facebook page told me the facility was located in Courtland, Ontario. There was also some information that seemed to make me think the track might also be in Tillsonburg, Ontario. Both of these towns were adjacent to each other. I figured I would simply drive into Tillsonburg the larger of the two towns. Maybe I would pass the track on the way in. If I didn’t see the track, I could certainly ask somebody and get some directions from there.
 

 
I am never afraid to speak to strangers.
I did just that. When I couldn’t find the track, I began to ask innocent bystanders where the place was. First, I saw two carpenters repairing the façade of a local retail store. No luck. Next, I stopped to talk to a man working in his yard. Again, no dice. This reminded me that auto racing is a niche sport. Not everyone knows about it even in small towns when the track is within a few miles.
  
My casual approach of simply driving into town to find the track was not working. Talking to local people was not working. Now I needed to get just a little bit more serious. I was not panicking at this point. I plugged in the address that I had for the track’s sponsor and off I went again.
 

The GPS directions took me to a business called “Chesterman Power Products”. I could see from the Facebook page that Chesterman seemed to be a sponsor of the Tillsonburg Outlaw racing group. That was all fine and good that I had found the group sponsor but I still hadn’t found the race track. Time was beginning to be of some concern.
  
Courtland, Ontario is a small town. They only have one gas station. Wikipedia tells me the population of Courtland is 917. That’s a small town. Sidewalks only exist on the main streets.
 

 
There wasn’t much happening at 7 o’clock on a Tuesday night in Courtland. I drove past a community center where several cars were parked. I stopped and walked inside the building. I had no idea what they were up to inside. It looked as if a large number of high school girls were preparing for a prom or some sort of celebration. One of the moms came up to ask what I wanted. She told me she knew how I could get to the race track. Thank goodness!
  
I tried to follow the directions she gave me with no luck. I ended up talking to a guy who was putting in some potted plants for his springtime landscaping. We talked for a few minutes. He thought that maybe the woman was referring to the “motorcycle track” located on the edge of town. He seemed amused once he learned I was from San Clemente, California and had come all this way for this purpose. Off I went toward the motorcycle track hoping that that might have been converted into a go-kart racing track.
 

 
I found the motorcycle track. The place was called “Gopher Dunes”. They weren’t racing this evening. The picture above shows what Gopher Dunes looks like during a race meeting.

This wasn’t where the go-karts were racing. A young man in motorcycle gear walked up to see what I was all about. This guy looked like a young Jimmie Johnson and was as nice as even Jimmie Johnson would be. He told me he had grown up in Cortland. He was obviously a racer. He had no idea whatsoever about a “go-kart” track. I was majorly concerned at this point. If a guy who grew up here and was into racing didn’t know where the go-kart track was how was I going to find it?
 

The local people couldn’t help me. I was in a pickle! 
Yes, I was in a pickle. It was now past 7 p.m. I didn’t know what time they would start the racing. I didn’t think they would begin any later than 7 p.m. I had already asked eight or ten local people about the track. No one had ever heard of it. I began to wonder if there might be two “Courtlands” in the province of Ontario. If so, maybe I was at the wrong Courtland!
  
I left a message for the one and only phone number that appeared on the track website. This was the phone number to Chesterman, the group’s sponsor. They were closed for the day by now. O.K.  I WAS beginning to panic. I sensed a negative outcome of not being able to find the track. I was out of options. It was panic time.
  
It was now time to rely on the two basic tenants that have defined my life. Those were? I have learned most of what I know about life either playing golf or watching NASCAR races on TV.
 
 

Keep flying the airplane.
From golf, I learned it’s important to “keep flying the airplane”. What does that mean? If you’ve had a bad shot you can’t dwell on it. All you can do is look at your current situation and try to make your best shot of the day the next shot.
 

 
From NASCAR racing I’ve learned that no matter how bleak the circumstances, you also need to keep “flying the airplane”. You pit, change the tires, fill the car with gas and try to get the best finish that you possibly can. What better teachers than golf and NASCAR to help with a young man’s desire to be the best?
  
That’s all fine and good to say that you are going to keep flying the airplane but if you don’t know how to fly the airplane that presents some problems. I pulled into Courtland’s one and only gas station. I stopped and thought. Time was fleeting. What could I do? I didn’t know where the track was. What can I possibly do?
 
 

I thought this was a very creative solution under the circumstances.
I checked the track’s Facebook page once again. I saw that a message had been posted about their racing from last week. Some 38 people “liked” that message. I began to message each and every one of those 38 people. My message was simple. It went like this, “I’m trying to find the track so I can see the racing tonight. Can you give me some directions”?

I had no idea which of, or if any of these 38 people I messaged would be checking their FB Messenger in the next few minutes on a Tuesday night. Then of the few who might see my question who might take a moment to try to help? Time was running out. I did not fancy the idea of coming all this way to Canada from California to Idaho to Pennsylvania and NOT seeing the race!
  
Believe it or not this approach worked! Two or three people got back to me. One fellow was extremely helpful. His name was Matthew James Hill. He probably messaged me 10 times or more. The last message was a link that would provide directions to the race track. That was a lifesaver. Without him, I might still be sitting at that Courtland gas station parking area trying to figure out how to fly the airplane.
 

 
Found it!
I had been within about 4 km of the racetrack. There was only one small sign on a rural two-lane highway signifying the entrance to a Little Middleton Speedway. I would come to find out this was a “backyard” track. What’s a “backyard” track? It’s a track that somebody built in their backyard for gosh sake!
 
 

I followed a narrow one-lane dirt road for nearly a mile until I came upon an opening. There was the track! I breathed a huge sigh of relief. I talking about a HUGE sigh of relief.
 

First time ever! 
About a week ago when I was doing research on the Little Middletown Speedway, I learned that in order to see the races I would need to sign a liability release. The liability release needed to be completed online. I did that a week ago. I don’t think I have ever been required to sign a liability release online in my life. This made my entry into the track much easier….along with a $10 Canadian bill.
 

 
I wasn’t panicked anymore.
I hurried to park my car so I wouldn’t miss any more of the racing. In point of fact, I hadn’t really missed much. I would come to learn they were racing three classes of winged karts. This included beginners, box stocks, and opens. The open class was the only class open to adults which meant it was the only class that would make tonight’s track “count”. Each class had about a dozen competitors.
 

 
Nicest backyard track ever.
This was quite a plush backyard track. I’ve never seen a better one. They had a series of Jersey-type barriers, they probably call them something else in Canada, surrounding the entire track. There were some nice bleacher grandstands. The track had a good lighting system on several tall poles. The pit area was outside the track paralleling the backstretch.
  
I would come to find out that the beginner’s class would have three races. The other two groups would have a heat race and main event. I would also discover a couple of other interesting items. One of those I had seen just once in 2,800 track visits and the other…never.
 

 
Mosquitos!
The track was located in a clearing of what looked like a dense forest. Canada has been always been known for their mosquito population. I got quite a few bug bites tonight but then I always do.
  
I took a banana out of my cooler in the rental car. That’s part of my current Nutrisystem eating plan. When I finished, I looked for a place to deposit the banana peel. Nothing. I had seen a sign upon entering that said, “if you pack it in then pack it out”. This track did not have a single trash can on the property. I held onto that banana peel for a very long time until I put it back in my car so I could dispose of it later. Never had I ever been to a track without a trashcan…ever.
 

 
The racing was very good. The track’s hardscape was leagues beyond what I would have ever expected from a backyard track. This had been a memorable trackchasing experience. I’ve had my share of fun, unusual, and simply entertaining trackchasing outings. This ranks pretty much at the top for simply finding the track!
  
Please check out the video from both the Sykesville fair and the winged kart racing in Canada. The two tracks were about as far apart from each other as they could get. Importantly, for you the race fan, I’m going to guess the racing from these two tracks is very different from what you are likely to see at your hometown Saturday night track.
 

 
After the races, I stopped to get gas in Canada. The price for regular was $2.069 Canadian per liter. Roughly, that’s about $5.70 U.S. per gallon. Canada’s high fuel prices force me to buy as much fuel in the U.S. (where they tend to give gas away) and buy as little fuel in Canada as is needed to get me back into the good ol’ USA.
  
This trip began in Idaho. Then I moved to first Pennsylvania and Ontario, Canada. From here I had one more track to see in Ontario. Then I will run down to North Carolina and finish with two tracks in Michigan. I know. I’m not like most people you know.
 
 
 
Randy Lewis
San Clemente, California USA
World’s #1 Trackchaser