Club Midgistas del SUR

Have you ever bought a package of Cracker Jacks? I’m sure that at some time in your life you’ve done that. You certainly know when you get that package of Cracker Jacks that it’s going to include what else…Cracker Jacks! However, a box of Cracker Jacks always comes with a “prize”. Isn’t it the uncertainty of the prize that makes opening up a package of Cracker Jacks so intriguing and fun?

I sometimes find it difficult to explain my hobby of trackchasing to people who have never heard of it before. I think I have finally found the best way to explain it. Trackchasing for me is like opening up a box of Cracker Jacks!

For me, the racing part of my hobby is the metaphor that equates to Cracker Jacks. When I buy a box of Cracker Jacks I certainly know that I’m going to get some Cracker Jacks. When I go on a trackchasing trip I know I am going to see some racing. With Cracker Jacks I get a prize. What is the real prize from trackchasing?

Yes, just like when opening up that box of Cracker Jacks, and feeling through the kernels of corn, until I get a hold of the prize, trackchasing has a prize as well. Like with the Cracker Jack prize, the trackchasing prize has nothing to do with the Cracker Jacks. It’s separate.

In trackchasing, the “prize” may be better sometimes than at other times. What’s the prize? It’s the experience of the trip. It’s a chance to meet new and interesting people. It’s the opportunity to try new food and experience cultures far from my own. This is the trackchasing prize.

I traveled down to Argentina back in 2009 for my very first trackchasing effort in the southern tip of South America. For that trip, I met up with an Englishman named Jerry Fisher. Jerry was living in Buenos Aires at the time. Later Carol and I would visit Jerry and his wife-to-be Katia in Brazil where they then lived. Now more than a decade later Jerry and Katia are back in England.

With Jerry back in England this left me with absolutely no contacts whatsoever in Argentina. What was true in 2009 and is equally true today is that very little English is spoken or understood in Argentina. The websites are in Spanish. It’s difficult to come up with a good trackchasing plan if you don’t understand the language.

As I tell you my story, I want you to ask yourself one simple question. How would you have planned this trip? Would you have traveled this far (more than 15,000 miles round-trip) and gone where I went with the amount of information that I had? If you answer, yes to these questions, you are a pretty adventuresome traveler!

As with any long foreign trip that I take for trackchasing I have to find racetracks that are having an event where I’ve never been before. I’ve seen racing at nearly 2,900 tracks in 86 countries. Even outside of the United States, I’ve seen racing at nearly 500 race tracks. This makes finding track locations I haven’t been to more and more difficult with each trip that I make.

I sat down and asked myself how I was possibly going to get any information about racing in Argentina. I did a couple of Google searches on Facebook for Argentina. I focused on racing-oriented pages. I used Google Translate to send messages in Spanish to as many people as I could find who might have been linked to racing.

Yes, I was fishing. I hoped someone would read and understand my messages. Then I hoped they would have the kindness to take some of their time and help me with the answers to the millions of questions that I was likely to have before I could commit to making a trip like this.

At first, the going was slow. Very slow. Finally, I came across a man by the name of Alejandro from up around Santa Fe, Argentina, north of Buenos Aires. He was connected with an auto racing group in his area that races open-wheeled midget race cars.

I’m going to tell you that Alejandro and I exchanged literally hundreds of messages using Facebook Messenger. We even talked on the phone. Alejandro was providing me with as much information about the race trip as he possibly could. My requirement was that I needed to see racing at two different tracks during my trip to Argentina to make things worthwhile. This would protect me against a potential rainout if I only scheduled myself to see one track.

In the end, Alejandro and I concluded that his racing location was just too far from Buenos Aires where I could see one road course race event. There was another midget racing location in Bahía Blanca, Argentina.

I will tell you that I actively considered the idea of driving overnight in Argentina on desolate, sometimes unpaved two-lane roads with huge potholes, and potentially Argentina bandits awaiting my arrival. In the end, Alejandro and I just could not make his part of the racing equation work. I felt bad about that since Alejandro had put so much time and effort into my trip plan.

It was at this point that Alejandro handed me off to one of his fellow racing press people in another part of Argentina. This was a fellow named Maximiliano who lived in Bahía Blanca, Argentina.

At this stage with Alejandro still helping me in the background, Maxi and I started corresponding and creating our own list of hundreds of messages back and forth pretty much daily for weeks.

When we were finished a plan had been established. I would fly from Buenos Aires, Argentina to Bahia Blanca to see their midget racing on a Friday. Then on Saturday, I could fly back to Buenos Aires to see the national-based TC 2000 group compete in Buenos Aires the next day on Sunday.

Remember the box of Cracker Jacks? With these two races as part of my plan, I now had the Cracker Jack portion of the plan in place.

Now I was interested in exactly what kind of “prize” I would find in the trackchasing “Cracker Jack” box in general. The price I received was more than anything I could have ever expected.

I have seen auto racing in 86 countries. I have had so much help from so many foreign friends. In my terminology, several of my trips are classified as “best”. A trip that receives this classification cannot be beaten by any other trip. My trip to Argentina in 2009 was a “best” trip. Now my trip back to Argentina in 2023 also gets the highest rating possible of “best”. You can’t get better than the best but more than one trip can be tied for the best!

I will be dividing my report from Argentina into two parts. The first part that you’re reading now will be my activity outside of Buenos Aires, in Bahia Blanca. Part two of the trip will include everything that I did inside Buenos Aires, which includes, their spectacular “carnival”, futbol/soccer, and much more.

I suspect that you have taken your share of personal vacations, both in the United States, and likely in certain foreign countries. Have you ever flown into a smaller city in a foreign-speaking country by yourself? Have you ever done that and had some people pick you up at the airport that you had never met in your life but only emailed back and forth up to that point? I did that on this trip. I’ve done it on other trips to such faraway places as Ukraine, Sri Lanka, Tunisia, and Zimbabwe. It’s sort of how I roll.

Bahia Blanca – Day 1
I landed at about 7 p.m. Maxi and his family were there to meet me. For the next three days, I would spend just about every minute of my time in Bahía Blanca with one member of the family or another.

They took me over to my hotel, the Hotel Argos in downtown Bahía Blanca. I checked in and freshened up.

I brought a couple of bottles of wine from Buenos Aires as housewarming gifts and a box of chocolates. On the way out of my hotel room to meet everyone in the lobby I was juggling the bottles of wine. I dropped one. It broke all over my hotel room’s bathroom floor. That was a bummer. I hated losing the wine. I hated, even more, the idea that glass shards were now going to be on my bathroom floor for the next three days. I explained the situation to the hotel staff. They were most gracious and cleaned everything up while I was gone.

I think one of the very best things that can happen when I go on one of these foreign adventures is to be invited into the homes of my new friends as their guest. This would happen in spaces on my trip to Bahia Blanca.

Maxi and his significant other Pipi have a beautiful family home. They and their family would share it with me. The family’s three children, Coti, Juan, and Lucas were all part of the big family. Then Coti’s girlfriends Fio and Mika were part of everything as well as Delfina Juan’s girlfriend. The traditional Argentinian welcome is a hug and one kiss on the cheek. I had Coti write down everyone’s name in English so I could try to remember all the players when I first met everyone!

On my first night in Bahia Blanca, they invited me over for dinner. In Argentina people eat very late. I’m talking about having dinner at 10 or 11 p.m. We eat at about 5:30 p.m. in California! We go to bed by 11 p.m. or so.

I got over to the house at about 8:30 p.m. We started drinking a special drink called Fernet Branca, which is a family favorite. Fernet is an Italian style of bitters and goes about 39% alcohol by volume. Our conversation group for most of the evening was Maxi and Pipi who didn’t speak any English at all. Of course, I don’t speak any Spanish. We were saved by Coti and Fio who acted as our translators. That’s nine-year-old Lucas keeping his eye on everything!

In Argentina, they eat a lot of steak and sausage. This is a meat-eating country! On this evening, we dined on steak, chorizo, empanadas, and for dessert, Pipi’s special tiramisu concoction, which was delicious. By the way, chorizo sausage with bread is called choripan!

We talked about every subject under the sun while we ate and drank. It’s a lot of fun when you can make a point in your language, and then someone else translates it to the people who don’t understand, and the lightbulb goes on in their language as to what was originally said. We had a lot of lightbulbs going on back and forth as we talked. I was amused when I said it was going to be a fun time when Maxi’s mother and family came to visit for the coming weekend. When Pipi got that translation she shrugged and rolled her eyes!

I was pretty well shocked when I checked the time toward the end of our discussions. It was 2 a.m. We had been talking for more than five hours and more than half of us didn’t speak the language of the other at all! We had a great time.

If my trip had ended right there, the “Cracker Jack trackchasing prize” would have been better than anything I could’ve expected to pull out of a Cracker Jack box. But my trip didn’t end there. It was just beginning and would be continued with even more fun, entertainment, and in general love.

Bahia Blanca – Day 2

When I woke up in my hotel, I needed to get my steps in so that I didn’t miss out on doing my 4 miles or more of walking every day. It’s always fun to walk in foreign cities. Bahia Blanca is reported to have 300,000 people. To me, the town looked dramatically smaller than that. BB reminded me of many towns that I’ve seen in Mexico of similar size.

By mid-morning Maxi and stepdaughter, Coti were picking me up at the hotel. They had a lot planned for me today.

Our first stop was at an engine building shop. This was the engine builder for last year’s midget champion. I don’t get to visit many places like this. It was a pretty good-sized operation. They worked on anything from four-cylinder open-wheeled midget race engines to big diesel truck engines.

The owner of the shop explained everything in Spanish. Then Coti translated. I don’t think Americans come to Argentina all that often. They certainly don’t come to Bahía Blanca very often. It’s only a guess on my part, but I’m going to guess that several of the people working in the engine shop might not have ever seen an American. I was treated like a celebrity.

When we wrapped up the engine tour, every employee in the shop gathered around to have their picture taken with us as a group. They even gave me a T-shirt from the shop. That was a fantastic experience.

In the early afternoon, it was time for lunch. Coti’s mother Pipi joined us for lunch at a very festive place. Following lunch, we took a walk in the park next door.

There happened to be a train track that crossed over a fairly wide river. I saw a few youngsters trying to cross the train tracks pretty much on their hands and knees, for fear of falling a long distance into the water.

I was surprised when Pipi and Maxi suggested we walk across the train tracks. I thought they were kidding. At first, I said sure let’s do that. Then they started walking across those elevated tracks! At that point, I backed out! First, I was surprised they were willing to do it. Secondly, they were equally surprised that I wasn’t willing to do it. I told them that watching the kids inch their way across on their hands and knees was enough to discourage me.

From there we went over to one of the midget race car shops. The driver from this race shop was Mika Mata. Mika had been in the car when I was picked up at the airport. She doesn’t speak any English but you can tell that she is a real firecracker. Mika was going to be my favorite driver when I got to the track tomorrow night. It’s always fun to see all of the behind-the-scenes activity at a race shop.

We had already had a very busy day. Things were only going to get busier. The midget racing at the Bahia Blanca race track is considered to be the best in all of Argentina. Tomorrow night they would be beginning the first week of their six-week playoff program after finishing the earlier part of the season.

On this one particular Thursday night they were having what was called a “presentation”. They presented the top 18 drivers eligible to race for the championship. These drivers earned that right after being the top drivers in the point standings earlier from racing earlier this year. Tonight, each would be interviewed and presented to the race fans.

This was a fun outdoor event. Of course, everything and I do mean everything was conducted in Spanish. I would say that easily 95% of people don’t speak any English whatsoever in their daily lives. That number is probably closer to 99%.

Maxi works in the video department with the race track and does “press”. He introduced me to several drivers. I did interviews with nearly 10 of them. It was fun getting my first look at the race cars. I’d like you to look at my video from these interviews. Even if you don’t speak a word of Spanish I think after listening for a couple of minutes you’ll be impressed with the enthusiasm and friendliness of the drivers. They were fantastic.

When the presentation was over, we went back to Pipi and Maxi’s house. It was going to be dinner time again. We were having a “barbecue”. Barbecue in Argentina simply means steak and sausage grilled outdoors over hardwood coals. Juan was in charge of the barbecuing tonight and did a great job.

For the second straight evening, Pipi, Maxi, Coti and Fio and I sat around the table. We talked, again, until 2 a.m. Folks, I don’t stay up talking, or for any other reason for that matter, until 2 a.m. more than once or twice a year, and maybe not that much!

Coti (right) and Fio (left) are both 26 years old now. They have known each other since kindergarten and are best friends. Coti was nice enough to take time out of her schedule to be my constant companion in helping translate everywhere we went while we were in Bahía Blanca. Fio was such a good friend to come and spend two evenings with a friend of the family. These two young women are going places!

Fio is an outstanding English speaker. You might think she had grown up in the United States. Both of these young ladies were on top of their game and could answer any question or talk on any subject that was brought up. They were the people who really “made” the evening with their ability to keep the conversation going back and forth from Spanish to English, and back to Spanish.

Bahia Blanca – Day 3

I think Maxi and Coti just wanted to keep me busy so we went out to see one of the tall ships that were docking in the harbor at Bahia Blanca. By the way, the Bahia Blanca harbor is the deepest in all of Argentina and is very well known for that fact.

The weather throughout my visit was very warm during the day with temperatures reaching nearly 90°. Like California, the temperature dropped rapidly in the evening. By nine or ten o’clock a sweater was needed.

When we were at the harbor, I thought I was feeling the effects of the hot sun. In point of fact, I was just realizing the symptoms of what would later be diagnosed as a case of Type A Influenza (flu). I tested positive for that affliction when I returned to California. Now I’m taking medication for the next two weeks.

Although I hoped no one noticed my onset of the flu every part of my body felt like I have been run over by a truck. It was difficult to sit down or stand up without some major discomfort. I did not mention it while I was there. But just in case anybody was wondering why I might’ve been a little “slow” that was the reason.

This evening was the big racing event, yes, the “Cracker Jack”, that had drawn me to Argentina in the first place.

The name of the track was Club Magistas del SUR. Tonight, the first week of the six-week playoff, drew 84 midgets. Somewhat like the NASCAR playoff system not every car in the field was eligible for the championship tonight. Just eighteen of the racers, based on their achievements earlier this year, would be eligible for the championship.

I had a chance to take pictures of the colorful and well-sponsored race cars. Maxi knew all of the drivers and crew and introduced me to several people. Coti was standing by my side throughout translating back and forth between me and the drivers.

Back around 1950 after WWII, midget racing was the most popular form of auto racing in the United States. Sadly, the midget race cars, which are open-wheeled and open-cockpit cars, were replaced by the less expensive jalopy-type racing. This later turned into what we know as stock car racing today.

In Bahía Blanca they routinely get as many as 100 midget race cars for a regular race event in front of 5,000 fans. The track facility tonight was on par with the very best dirt short tracks in the United States.

Like most everything else they start things just a little bit later in Argentina than in the United States. Maxi had told me that the racing would finish at about 2 a.m. There are almost no short tracks in the United States that run that late in today’s world.

Just as Maxi had explained the first actual race didn’t hit the track until about 9:30 p.m. The feature or what is known here as the “final” took the checked, as promised, at 2 a.m. The track was very efficient and well-organized. They just had a lot of races. If you don’t start until 9:30 p.m. it’s not going to be a shocker that the races last until 2 a.m. By the way, they don’t have any type of national anthem at events like this.

For the first two nights that I have been in Bahía Blanca, I left the family home and got back to my hotel at 2 a.m. Now for my third and final night in Bahía Blanca, I wasn’t getting back to the hotel until 3 a.m. That’s a lot of late nights.

After the races, I rode back to the hotel with 26-year-olds Coti and Fio. They said goodbye to me at 3 a.m. They were going clubbing. Coti told me she got home at 8 a.m. the next morning! Ah, to be young again.

Bahia Blanca – Day 4
This morning I had an early flight. With almost no sleep Pipi and Maxi were pulling up right at 9 a.m. to make sure they could take me to the airport. During the trip, they couldn’t do enough for me.

We drove to the airport and stopped at the coffee shop to have a drink and say our goodbyes. I think they were happy to have had me visit and sad to see me go.

I can tell you this. I couldn’t have expected any more from the family. Pipi made sure we had plenty of food. Maxi made sure that everything that I wanted to see and do with the racing happened in the best way. Coti was so nice to spend her time making sure I understood what was happening with everything I was experiencing and with all of the people I was meeting. Their friends were fantastic, friendly, and nice.

As I close Part 1 of my two-part Argentina trackchasing series, I feel minorly ill-equipped in describing the entire Bahia Blanca experience.

For me, and for maybe most people a trip like this is so unusual. Most people who go on vacation, including me, never get invited into the homes of local people to see how they live and what they eat and hear what they talk about. I’ve been able to do that a few times and in each one of those cases, the trip ends up being categorized as “best”.

All I can say to Pipi, Maxi, Coti, Fio, Mika, Juan, Lucas, and everyone is “Muchas Gracias”. My longest and best memory of this entire trip will be meeting each of you. If and when you ever come to the United States I will make it your best-ever trip as you did for me.