Trackchasing truly does take me just about everywhere. It’s good to have friends to visit at many of my stops. The idea of getting from “Point A to Point B” played a big part in this trip as it almost always does. I hope you enjoy reading about the adventure as much as I did doing it.
Just click the links to see what the racing looked like at these venues.
Racing from way up north at the Thunder City Speedway just outside of Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada
Stock cars and sprint cars from the Dixieland Speedway in Elizabeth City, North Carolina
Wednesday, June 22, 2022.
I woke up this morning in a Motel 6 in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada. Mississauga is a suburb of Toronto. I have stayed in my share of Motel 6 properties. This location easily ranks in my Motel 6 top five Hall of Fame. I’ve been here many times and look forward to it on every visit.
Last night I trackchased in Courtland, Ontario, Canada. This evening I was planning on trackchasing in Oliver Paipoonge (near Thunder Bay), Ontario, Canada. Some might think that since both of these track locations were in the province of Ontario, I would simply drive from one location to the next. It don’t work that way.
Nope! Thunder Bay was a 15-hour drive Courtland! I had a better idea than making that long drive. My best bet was to drive two hours from Courtland back to Toronto, stay at a hotel, then grab an airplane to Minneapolis and drive six hours up to Thunder Bay and six hours back to Minneapolis. Each one of those plans required nearly 15 hours of driving. However, it would be better to end up in Minneapolis rather than Thunder Bay when I was finished. If I was going to get to Oklahoma for Friday night’s racing I could do it a lot easier from Minneapolis. Yes, there is a lot of logistical strategy required planning in the hobby of trackchasing.
This meant I needed a 5:45 a.m. wake-up. The drive from the motel to the airport would take 30 minutes. I always fuel up my rental car the night before I’m returning it. This makes the process of returning my car in the morning a little bit easier.
I had to get a boarding pass at a kiosk flying on a standby ticket. That can be a little more challenging in a foreign airport. Nevertheless, that worked well. Next, I needed to clear security by carrying a cooler bag filled with bags of water and ice. What could possibly go wrong with that idea? I was a little concerned about that but they didn’t say anything. My Global Entry capability allowed me to get through customs much faster than normal. This worked out so well that I had time to do some power walking in the airport. When I stepped on the plane, I had already logged 2.5 miles.
I was flying on a regional jet. Those are smaller planes. They usually seat just 50-75 passengers. The overhead luggage lockers are smaller than normal. My super stuffed rolling carry-on piece of luggage wouldn’t fit. Luckily no one was sitting next to me. I could put my big piece of luggage on the floor in front of me. That was a stroke of luck.
For the two-hour flight, I dined on blueberries and thinly sliced turkey breast that made up the majority of my cooler’s contents. The ice was melting fast. When I got up to leave the plane, I noticed a substantial pool of water in the seat next to me. That wasn’t ideal.
From there I headed directly to pick up my rental car in Minneapolis. Today there was a very small selection of cars and no Toyota Camrys. I made a request, as I always do in situations like this, that they look down in the wash bay to see if they could find me a Camry. That took 10-15 minutes but they did get the car for me. I’ll be driving more than 600 miles in a day and a half. Having a good car that gets excellent fuel mileage will be important.
Today was a beautiful 78° Minnesota day with blue skies punctuated by white puffy clouds. I’ve been very fortunate with the weather this year. I can’t complain a bit.
This trackchasing trip has me knocking off a lot of unusual tracks that race during the week. Some of them race only once a year. In the past, I’ve never been able to integrate these tracks into a normal trackchasing plan logistically. For this trip, I took all of these “widows and orphans” and tried to put them together in one big trip.
I had just flown from Ontario, Canada (Toronto) back to the United States (Minneapolis). Now I had to turn around immediately and drive BACK into Ontario, Canada (Thunder Bay) for tonight’s racing at the Thunder City Speedway.
I have somewhat of a long and most unusual “history” with the racing in and around Thunder Bay. When I think about it my history with racing here might be the most unusual of any I have in the entire world. After you read what I have to share you can help me make that judgment.
All the way back in the winter of 2012 trackchaser Ed Esser and I drove up to Thunder Bay’s Mission Bay Ice Track to see their ice racing. This was Ed’s first-ever trackchasing trip to Canada or anywhere outside the United States. The weather was rough. It was windy and cold and windy and dreary and did I say windy?
The weather was so bad these Canadians ended up canceling the second half of their show because of the weather. Nevertheless, Ed and I had a good time on the trip. We shared a hotel room. We ended up talking into the early morning with the lights out about all of the many common experiences we had on the long and dusty trackchasing trail.
The night before the ice races Ed and I went to dinner in Northern Minnesota. We had a nice meal. During the meal Ed complained that he had been experiencing quite a bit of pain in his arm.
When we wrapped up the abbreviated ice racing on Sunday, February 26, 2012, we drove back to the United States. At the border, the border control people stopped us to give a closer inspection of our rental car. We were delayed at the border for the better part of an hour. I thought that was great. This was Ed’s first trip to see racing in Canada. I wanted him to get the full experience! I think I was even more thrilled than he was to see Ed get his first-ever foreign country stamps in his passport!
Back in Minnesota, I dropped Ed off where we had left his car. Ed was a quiet guy to most people. However, when he was with me, he talked a mile a minute. That’s why it came as just about the biggest shock ever to hear that Ed died from a heart attack just four days after we said our goodbyes in Minnesota. Ed was a “good guy”. He is missed. The next year the Thunder Bay Auto Sport club ran an ice race in Ed’s honor.
Somewhere in front or behind that visit to the Mission Bay Ice Track, I got an email from a fellow named Mark Stewart. Mark raced on the ice with the Mission Bay group. Mark and I stayed in touch from that point as we do today.
I have been able to make a lot of friends all over the world with my hobby of trackchasing. The internet and Facebook and Facebook Messenger allow me to stay in touch with these folks. Messenger allows me to text and phone people all across the world just as if they were just across town. This is one of the best parts of my hobby.
Mark Stewart told me about the racing up at the Mosquito Speedway in Nolalu, Ontario, Canada. I was aware of the track. It’s just that the speedway’s location was just so remote it was difficult to get to. They only raced on one weekend each year. In September 2019 I finally bit the bullet. Mark was going to be racing. I wanted to see that.
I was most impressed with the racing at the Mosquito Speedway. They were having a modified stock car special. The hospitality set up in advance by Mark Stewart with the track made my visit even more enjoyable. I had the run of the place.
This was my first chance to meet Mark in person. He was driving his #17 Toyota Celica hornet stock car. It was fun watching Mark race on dirt when I think most of his experience had been on ice. Following the race, he and stayed in touch.
With Mark following my trackchasing activity he noticed an opportunity for me outside the U.S. No, this was not a racetrack in his home country of Canada. The track he was recommending was in Mexico!!
To make a long story minorly shorter Carol and I headed off to the Mexican state of Yucatan. We would spend a few days in Mexico that included seeing the racing at the Autodromo de Yucatan Emerson Fittipaldi. That was fun. To make the trip even better Mark hooked us up with his friends Dave and Sue. They have a vacation home in the Yucatan. It was fun hanging out with them. Later, on the trip, we had a nice Mexican dinner with them.
Now as I look back on my trackchasing experiences with Thunder Bay and Mark Stewart I definitely feel my experiences chasing tracks have been some of the most unusual I have encountered anywhere. Later today I would build on those experiences watching my buddy race that red #17 ice racer/dirt racer at the Thunder City Speedway.
Today’s drive from Minneapolis to Thunder Bay took me on a six-hour driving odessy through northern Minnesota into the southwestern tip of Ontario, Canada. The drive was scenic, rustic, and done mainly on two-land roads with Lake Superior on my right side for much of the way. I entered Canada at the Pigeon River border crossing.
I had been traveling pretty hard. I figured I would have an hour to take a nap once I reached my hotel and before I needed to leave for the races. I was looking forward to that nap!
Then it seemed as if my AppleWatch was acting up. That never happens. I had been driving in Minnesota all day. Minnesota is in the Central time zone. I hadn’t kept track of the time but when I did check the time it seemed as if it was later than it should have been. My watch told me, all of a sudden, that I might not have time for a nap. Oh my. I thought about how I had somehow lost track of the time without noticing it. I would come to find out that when I left Minnesota and crossed into Ontario, Canada I had entered the Eastern time zone and lost an hour. That was a shocker. No nap!
For the most part, I stay in chain hotels. I guess I do that for the same reason McDonald’s has become so popular. When you stop in these places you know what to expect.
Today, in Thunder Bay I did something different. I made a reservation at the Prince Arthur Waterfront Hotel. The hotel overlooked the Thunder Bay marina and came with its own most interesting history.
Construction began at Prince Arthur in 1910. That’s more than 100 years ago! To make the hotel nearly fireproof the hotel was made almost entirely of concrete and marble including the walls. The construction cost at the time was $850,000 U.S. or $28,000 Canadian. O.K. I’m kidding about that conversion rate. I kid because I care!
In the beginning, the rate for a regular room was two dollars a day and three if you wanted a bath. I paid a higher rate on this day and simply imagined the history that had been created simply in my room! I had a great view of Thunder Bay!
Soon it was time to head out to the Thunder City Speedway. This track had been built to replace the Mosquito Speedway. Why? I don’t know for sure. For one thing Thunder City would race every Wednesday night. The Mosquito Speedway raced just one a year. Thunder City had a rain date of Thursday following each of their Wednesday race dates. With good weather today there would be no need for a rain date.
My plan was to meet up with Mark tonight. However, when I headed over to his pit he was nowhere to be found. That being the case I checked out all of the hardware in the pit area. Then I ventured over to watch the racing from the grandstands.
There was a good crowd on hand. The stands were packed…and this was a Wednesday night. I looked around for something to eat. A food trailer called the Tastebuds Pit Stop caught my eye.
There is one food I always try to eat on every trip to Canada. What’s that? Poutine! Tonight I went with the pulled pork with green onions and pepper poutine. Outstanding! No…really outstanding. Yes, I was still eating on the Nutrisystem plan but with modifications! I couldn’t resist having a sundae from the ice cream vendor. I’ll make up for my indiscretion tomorrow!
Then I went back to watching the racing. They had some good-looking modifieds just like the Mosquito Speedway did when I went there three years ago. Please. Don’t miss the video from the racing at the Thunder City Speedway.
It was fun seeing Mark Stewart race in the hornet division. I was impressed with how fast the cars in the hornet division were running. Mark drove the same car he races during the winter on the ice, his red #17 Toyota Celica.
When the racing was finished I went back to the pit area in search of Mark Stewart. I found him. We talked a bit and he invited me back to his home for a “fire”. I had never been invited to a “fire” before. Off we went with me following his truck and his racecar.
So what’s a “fire” in Canada? It’s where folks go into the backyard, build a bonfire, drink some beer and BS with their friends. This was the highlight of the trip for me.
I had the chance to visit with Mark’s wife, Hanna. She had a most interesting story. Although a native Canadian she was recruited for the swim team at Auburn University in Alabama. When she finished her college career she returned to Canada. What do I always learn from these types of conversations? Everybody has a story and they are always interesting and surprising.
Also at the fire tonight were Mark’s brother Don, as well as Dave and Sue whom Carol and I spent time with in Mexico. We all had a good time tonight. I will tell you this. The Canadian mosquitos ate me alive. Luckily for me, Hanna saved the day with some mosquito spray. I really hope we get the chance to do this again in Canada or in Southern California. If these folks come to SoCal they won’t need any bug spray! Of course, we won’t be able to invite them into the backyard either. We can’t afford a house with a backyard!
Thursday, June 23, 2022.
There will be no trackchasing for me today. Today was a “relocation” day.
All I had to do today was drive six hours from Thunder Bay, Ontario down to Minneapolis and return my rental car. My plan was to try to catch a flight this evening from Minneapolis to Dallas, Texas. If all of that worked out well, I would be in good shape for Friday evening’s racing in Oklahoma. However…things did not work out well.
I started my morning with a nice walk around the marina in downtown Thunder Bay. The weather was perfect. It was cool and invigorating. I got in a couple of miles walking before I headed out of the Prince Arthur Hotel, a 100+-year-old establishment, and headed south.
Clearing customs at the Canada/US border was easy. The woman border control agent asked me the same question that virtually every other agent has ever asked me in my life. It goes something like this, “You came all the way up here to see a stock car race and that’s it?” I told her I did. She let me pass. I was back in Minnesota.
Earlier in my drive today I got a message from Frank Bardaro (above with wife Michelle), the Oklahoma track promoter. Frank had bad news for me. Because of the extreme temperatures expected for this weekend in Oklahoma with temps reaching 103° he was forced to cancel his show. That meant there would be no need for me to fly down to Dallas, Texas tonight.
Now I needed a new plan. I would find a hotel in Minneapolis and just relax for the evening. I am trained to go with a new plan as soon as I know the old plan won’t work. This takes a flexible mindset. I have that.
Using Priceline.com I found a Four Points by Sheraton hotel located just a couple of miles from Minneapolis airport. I have stayed in this hotel many times both in the dead of winter and during the summer. Priceline gave me a deal that was $50 less than the best rate I could get on the Sheraton/Marriott website. I love Priceline.
I spent much of the evening on various travel websites making my hotel reservations for a trip to Sweden coming up in just 10 days. It was kind of fun to mix and match the different hotel choices located in Swedish towns that I had never heard of. As a matter of fact, I could never spell or even pronounce the names of these towns. I know that this plan is definitely subject to change. Most of my plans are. That’s why I made my hotel reservations on a fully refundable basis. Now I’m all set on the hotel and rental car front and eagerly awaiting the trip to Sweden.
Friday, June 24, 2022.
When I got the news yesterday that the racing down in Purcell, Oklahoma had been canceled due to extreme heat it was time to come up with a new plan. Finding a regularly scheduled race track that races on a Friday is nearly impossible for me. I only have one or two tracks remaining to see that fall into that category.
My best Friday night racing opportunity that holds races on Fridays would be the Dixieland Speedway in Elizabeth City, North Carolina. Why hadn’t I been here before? The track is located in a remote part of the Tar Heel State.
When I say that a track is situated in a remote spot, I’m talking about its proximity to any major airport. Elizabeth City is about five hours from Charlotte, North Carolina, and about five hours from the Washington D.C./Baltimore airports. Being five hours from the closest major airport has slowed me down from visiting the Dixieland Speedway in the past. Today that was going to change.
If things turned out properly tonight, I would be seeing racing at my 2,799th-lifetime racetrack. My nearest fellow competitor is nearly 900 tracks behind that total. Someone asked me the other day what was the best way to compare one trackchaser’s results with another. I told them not to bother. Nobody in the hobby of trackchasing will ever match my country numbers or track numbers. Why do I say that? Because it’s true.
Getting from Minneapolis to Elizabeth City, North Carolina today was going to be a daunting task. I had to get up at 4:45 in the morning central time in order to fly on standby for a 7 a.m. flight from Minneapolis to Baltimore. I ended up getting the last seat on the plane. After I landed in Baltimore it was going to take a little bit more than five hours to drive on down to the Dixieland Speedway.
I wanted to mention that I get some really good service from the National Car Rental. They have various levels of “status” based upon how often somebody rents a car from National. I hold the executive elite frequent renter status.
My rental car of choice at this moment and for the past couple of years is the Toyota Camry. I just returned a car to Minneapolis this morning after having done a 734-mile drive. The Camry gave me 46.7 miles per gallon in fuel mileage. Two things helped me achieve these results.
The first is that for most of the drive with this car I couldn’t go over 60 mph because of the two-lane roads of northern Minnesota. Secondly, when I fill the tank, it doesn’t come off of full for 150 miles and sometimes longer. When I pick up the car at the airport I never know how “full” the tank really is. My responsibility is to return the car “full”. Normally, when I get within a 150-mile radius of where I will return my rental car, I fill the tank. I might not fill it the way you do. I fill the tank until the fuel begins to overflow. This way I know the tank will still show full by the time I get back to the airport. I’ll take 46.7 mpg!
Today when I arrived at the National Car Rental location in Baltimore there were no Toyota Camrys to be had. That didn’t faze me. I asked if they might be able to find one in the wash area. I was amazed that within about two minutes here came a nearly brand new Toyota Camry with only 1,000 miles on the odometer with the water from the car wash still dripping off the car’s body.
To top off my good fortune there was a little bit of a snafu when I went to leave the parking garage with my contract. The delay took about five minutes. I waited patiently which in this case was probably the right thing to do. When the National manager finished his work he told me he would knock $25 off the cost of the rental to compensate me for my patience. I didn’t even need to ask for his help. Sometimes it just pays to be nice…but not too nice.
After tonight’s races, I’ll be driving overnight from Elizabeth City, North Carolina to Charlotte, North Carolina. Did I really need to mention “North Carolina” twice in the previous sentence? I think I did. A large percentage of my readers live outside the U.S. They might not know that Elizabeth City and Charlotte are both in the same American state!
The drive would take me about five hours. If I got out of the races by 11 p.m. I wouldn’t get to Charlotte until 4 a.m. and that was with no stops. I needed to be at the airport no later than 6:15 a.m. I might have an hour or maybe two to catnap. I knew I would need to be “on the gas”. This was definitely going to be a 5-Hour energy drink night for me.
I’m always telling you that logistics is one of the top three things which makes the trackchasing hobby so challenging and at the same time so enjoyable. Much of the hobby is spent figuring out and then implementing a plan to get me from point A to point B. Today would be a tough logistics both day and night. I was doing my best to conserve my energy so I would be ready for the challenge.
I might also mention that I have been aggressively planning my trip to Sweden for 10 days. I will be in Sweden for nearly two weeks. I had originally planned on seeing just three tracks in Sweden. However, I ended up getting in contact with a fellow named Nicklas Åkerlund. What a godsend he has been for me for my Sweden trip.
I would estimate that Nicklas and I have messaged back and forth a minimum of 100 times. Nicklas has been doing Sweden trackchasing research for me. He has added three tracks to my trip so if all goes well I will see six new tracks in Sweden during my vacation. Thank you, Nicklas!
I did have an interesting experience at the Waffle House once I arrived in North Carolina. You need to know there is a Waffle House at nearly every interstate highway exit in the south. This is how it went.
Today I saved all my Nutrisystem calories for the day for one blowout meal at Waffle House. Boy was that good! I felt like someone who had been a prisoner of war. I vowed to give my server a $5 tip and if she came over just one time and asked how I was doing she would get a 10 spot.
She did bring my check to the table but never asked how I was doing. Close enough. I’m a softie. I gave her a ten-dollar tip just because I was in such a good mood. When I paid the bill, I told her I had just gotten out of prison and had been looking forward to the Waffle House for a very long time. She recoiled just a bit and timidly smiled. That wasn’t the chick magnet line I expected it to be! Nevertheless, I will bet she shared her experience with others when she got off work!
I was impressed with the Dixieland Speedway. The track seemed to have a large number of racing fans who felt the same way. Tonight, the place was packed. It was only a regular weekly program with the addition of the Virginia sprint car club.
General admission was $15. I did receive a two-dollar military discount for having been in the United States Marine Corps some 50 years ago. Thank you for your service!
I did check out the concessions menu. However, after my epic stop at the Waffle House, I didn’t need anything at the track. I was surprised they didn’t have the stereotypical bologna sandwich as almost as southern tracks offer.
This was the largest crowd at a short track that I had seen in a very long time. I would say the place was virtually full. I squeezed into a top-row seat to watch the action.
Initially, I was a little bit concerned about how efficiently the show was going to be run. The advertised start time was 8 p.m. That’s a little late but I can understand the reasoning on a Friday night. Some people still work for a living! They need time to “get it together” at the end of a long work week.
At 8 p.m. they began time trials. I am NOT a big fan of time trials. Nevertheless, I must tell you that as a boy at my hometown track, the Peoria Speedway, we always arrived before the gates even opened. We wanted to get a top-row seat! Today, I wouldn’t do that in a million years.
I guess I should have had more patience. It is true the track continued with time trials until about 8:30 p.m. They were pretty efficient with their time trials. They timed in two cars at a time. Few smaller rural tracks can do that.
The cars pitted in the infield of the track. I used to love that when my hometown track the Peoria Speedway (mentioned again!) did it that way back in the day. I don’t like this kind of pitting arrangement when it blocks the view of the spectator like at Eldora and tonight at the Dixieland Speedway.
There were six divisions racing tonight. The aforementioned Virginia sprint cars brought about 10 cars. That wasn’t a big field but big enough to have a decent feature race. They also had a class for mini-stocks. The other divisions were various forms of late-model stock cars. They all looked pretty much the same. I’m sure there were differences in engine and tires but for the casual fan, they were all very similar.
The one thing I REALLY liked about the Dixieland Speedway is that they ran features only. Several tracks in the south do that. I long ago gave up on time trials. Now, for the most part, I have given up on heat races! During the mini-stock feature race, the drivers went “yellow flag crazy”! Finally, the officials began to count the yellow flags as “laps run in competition”. That’s the way track announcer Wendy McDonald always described things at my home track of Manzanita Speedway back in 1974.
The track announcer was entertaining and descriptive. He could be heard well over a strong PA system. I’m amazed at how many tracks don’t have a very good announcer and often times they don’t have a strong PA system. I have always maintained that, for the fans, the most important employee at the track is the track’s announcer. The announcer creates drama. Drama is important when entertaining the fans in the stands.
Knocking off the Dixieland Speedway was a big deal with my trackchasing. Dixieland races every Friday night or about 15-20 events every year. Now that I’ve seen racing at the Dixieland Speedway those 15-20 trackchasing opportunities are wiped from my calendar.
Most county fair race events happen just one time each year. If I see a county fair race that removes only ONE date from next year’s calendar. See a big difference?
When I leave California on one of these trips the ideal situation is to see some racing on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Long ago I ended up seeing all the tracks that race on Sunday nights on a regular basis. Now I have pretty much seen all of the tracks that race on a Friday on a regular weekly basis.
This means that on future trips I’m going to have to find a track that’s having a special event on a Friday and/or Sunday. Saturday is the most popular day of the week for sure for short-track racing. I wouldn’t leave California to fly across the country to see one race on a Saturday night. Already in 2022, I have knocked out several of the few remaining weekly shows that I hadn’t seen up until now. It’s getting more and more challenging to put together the classic trackchasing weekend (Classic: Friday, Saturday, and Sunday) trip that has been the staple for me for all these years.
I got out of the races at 11 p.m. with just one feature race remaining as far as I know. My car was parked in the last row of the parking lot. On the way out some teenagers were getting a little rambunctious and ended up in a fight. From a distance, I observed a pretty good round of fisticuffs.
From the Dixieland Speedway, I had about eight hours to make a 5 1/2-hour drive. The first thing I did was down a bottle of 5-Hour energy drink…berry flavor. I don’t use 5-Hour energy drink all that often but on the drive tonight it was required. I needed to be at the Charlotte, North Carolina airport in time for a 7:30 a.m. flight. This was going to be a long overnight drive. I listened to podcasts to try to keep myself entertained.
This will be the second night of the trip where I would go without a hotel for the evening. I don’t like to do that any more than I have to. Sometimes this is required. In order to see racing way up in Michigan tomorrow night I needed to drive overnight tonight and catch and early morning flight from Charlotte to Detroit.
This trip began with my trackchasing in Idaho. Then the trip continued on to first Pennsylvania and Ontario, Canada. Tonight, I trackchased in North Carolina. The next two nights of trackchasing would be up in Michigan. The entire trip (air/rental car) was going to be more than 9,000 miles in the space of a week or so. Now, do you see why no one else is ever going to challenge my trackchasing numbers?
Yes, I move around quite a bit. See you tomorrow at what I hope becomes lifetime track #2,800.
Randy Lewis
World’s #1 Trackchaser
San Clemente, California USA