Flatlanders Speedway – A true tri-oval.
Greetings from Kindersley, Saskatchewan, Canada
From the travels and adventures of the “World’s #1 Trackchaser”
Lifetime Track #1,852
Pressure…Rain…No cell phone…This ain’t easy……………more in “The Plan”. The most fun aspect of trackchasing is the challenge of “figuring it out!……………..more in “The Trip” Garage sale sign: My wife won’t let me buy a gun until I sell these tires………..details in “The Experience”. The Thunder Stox brought five cars to the track today. Was that the largest or smallest class car count? ………..details in “Race Review”. SPECIAL REPORT Editor’s note: I see some fellow competitors referring to their goal achievement against goals that were never publicly stated. It’s pretty easy to list your results and THEN AFTER THE FACT say you met your goal without ever having mentioned you even HAD a goal. Oh, my. The challenge of setting aggressive goals and then working hard to meet them lies in the dissemination of the goals in advance. Set some goals. Tell folks who might care what those goals are. Then monitor your results. Second Quarter Trackchasing Goals Status Update Period ending June 30, 2013 I think it’s important to set goals in life. This is especially true if you’re focusing on some form of self-improvement or where others are depending upon your success. There’s a great book on this subject entitled, “If You Don’t Know Where You’re Going You’ll Probably End Up Somewhere Else” (You can buy this book on Amazon). I have successfully used goals for my entire life. Goal-setting has allowed me to have a wonderful family, retire early and stay healthy so that I can enjoy the rewards of establishing and meeting all kinds of future goals. Trackchasing is one of my main hobbies in life as you might have guessed by now. Years ago, I decided what aspects of the trackchasing hobby were most important to me. Then I set about putting in place a set of goals that focused my trackchasing attention in those areas. It is impossible to predict the future. However, it is not impossible or even that difficult to set small goals that when achieved again and again will allow me to be in the places I want to be within the hobby of trackchasing and elsewhere in life. Below is an update of my progress against my 2013 trackchasing goals. My goals are both quantitative and qualitative. Lifetime trackchaser totals Stay within 10 tracks of my nearest fellow competitor, Guy Smith. At that rate it will take him more than thirty years to catch up. He’ll be in his mid-80s by then! Current results through June 30, 2013 Through the end of the second quarter I have seen racing at 39 new tracks. I had a very soft second quarter but should more than make up for it in the third quarter. Guy Smith, my nearest fellow competitor has seen 34 tracks during this time. I’m well on my way to achieving this goal. Foreign country trackchasing Add, at a minimum, four or more new countries to my trackchasing list. This will bring my lifetime “trackchasing countries” total to at least sixty-seven. Current results through June 30, 2013 I’m off to a good start here with the addition of Russia and Lithuania, my 64th and 65th different trackchasing country. Believe it or not I have a minimum of two more foreign countries in the “active planning stage” for the remainder of 2013. Adding countries will be difficult from this point. However, I still expect to add more countries for many seasons to come. Lifetime National Geographic Diversity results Maintain my leadership position in the NGD lifetime category. My 2012 lifetime NGD score of 5.10 topped the list for the fourth consecutive year. At this stage it will be difficult but not impossible for anyone to beat this score in the near future. Staying on top of the lifetime NGD rankings is one of the three most important trackchasing statistical categories to me. Why is that? Because the NGD stats measure both numbers of tracks and numbers of states where a chaser has trackchased. You can’t be a “regional” trackchaser and do well in the National Geographic Diversity rankings. You can’t be a foreign trackchaser and do well in the NGD results. The NGD category rewards American trackchasers who pursue the hobby frequently all over the United States. Maintain leadership position in 12 of the 13 Far Western states (x California). Current results through June 30, 2013 I have an advantage with this goal. I live in the Far West. Virtually all other leading trackchasers live in the east. They won’t come out to the Far West to trackchase very often because the pickings are so slim. There isn’t all that much happening in the Far West for me trackchasing wise now either. I’ve already seen the majority of tracks in this vast region. However, during the second quarter I trackchased in Montana and California. I must report that the racing Eckels, Bruce and Pat, added two new tracks in Arizona giving them a total of thirty. That beats my results of twenty-nine. Carol and I elected to vacation in Maui, Hawaii rather than add to my Arizona track total. I now have six months to scare up a new track in Arizona or risk missing out on this goal. Exercise at least 45 minutes per day on three times as many days as I trackchase. As an example if I trackchase on 60 days I will need a minimum of 180 days of strong aerobic exercise in order to meet this goal. Current results through June 30, 2013 During the second quarter I only trackchased 12 days. I exercised for a minimum of 45 minutes 44 times! I’m very pleased with that result. However, it doesn’t offset my poor first quarter performance. Cumulatively (for the first two quarters!) I trackchased 31 days and exercised 67 times. That gives me a score of 2.16 still short of my 3.0 goal. I expect to do a good deal of trackchasing during the third quarter. Given that expectation I will likely fall further behind against this goal. However, I won’t trackchase as much during the fourth quarter. Nevertheless, I may still go trackchasing about 80 days during 2013. That number sends shivers up the necks of my fellow competitors. If I do trackchase that often then I will have to exercise 240 times to meet my goal! Ouch. However I have begun to experiment with “two a days”. We’ll see how that goes. First quarter score – 1.21 Second quarter score – 2.16 Trackchasing Tourist Attractions Continue to be the leader in the trackchasing hobby when it comes to Trackchasing Tourist Attractions. Strive to see all kinds of “fun stuff” when I’m away from home trackchasing. Current results through June 30, 2013 Just touring Moscow, Russia for five days satisfied my goal with Trackchasing Tourist Attractions for the first quarter. During the second quarter our 10-day trip to Europe (which included trackchasing in Lithuania) helped us visit lots of first class Trackchasing Tourist Attractions. TTA’s at this stage are hard to get. Yes, it’s difficult to fly on a plane or two everyday, drive 100-300 miles and still go to Disneyland for the day. However, I will strive to “see and do” as much as possible because there is simply so much to “see and do” on the trackchasing trail. Racechasing Go to 3-5 major race shows for the year without regard to existing trackchasing opportunities. Go to at least one NASCAR Sprint Cup show. Current results through June 30, 2013 I did very well against this goal in the second quarter. I tacked on two track re-visits at the end of personal non-trackchasing vacations. RESULTS February – Lucas Oil Late Models – East Bay Raceway – Florida March – World of Outlaws Sprints – Silver Dollar Speedway – California June – Wingless Sprints – Placerville Speedway – California June – Stock cars – Sycamore Speedway – Illinois Take a look at my leading fellow competitors. You will see them making almost no attempt at racechasing (that’s returning to tracks they have already visited) on a national basis at tracks beyond their backyard. It’s a tough balancing act but this is a good goal to have. Free time diversification This is my most revolutionary goal for 2013. Pursuing any one hobby to the exclusion of others is a bad idea in my opinion. I plan to take off a minimum of 23 weekends (a complete weekend is Friday, Saturday and Sunday) from trackchasing in 2013. Through the second quarter of the year I’ve taken eleven weekends away from trackchasing. I’m well on my way to meeting this goal. At this time, I expect to meet and/or exceed this goal by the end of the year. Have Fun I saved the most important goal for last. I plan to see as many new tracks in 2013 as I want too. If I don’t go trackchasing, it won’t be because of bad weather, a lack of tracks to see or any other form of restraint on my part. It will be because I found something more fun and interesting to do not because I couldn’t find a place to go trackchasing. Current results through June 30, 2013 If you get time check out the guestbook tab of my website at www.randylewis.org. I get lots of comments like this one from race fans and travelers, “You are living my dream”. Heck, I’m living my dream as well. Trackchasing is OPTIONAL for me. If I didn’t want to do it I wouldn’t do it. On the other hand, despite my “love for the road” it’s never a good idea to do anything too much. Right now I’m very happy with the frequency of my trackchasing. My current pace is one I would be comfortable with for many years to come. It ain’t easy but it’s fun. Pressure. Rain. No Cell phone. This ain’t easy. I’m feeling the pressure of having such a long streak of no trackchasing rainouts. Can you believe it’s been 735 days (more than two years!) since I last tried to trackchase and was rained out? As you will see rain was in the area for today’s racing. I had two Saskatchewan choices and one in Montana for this afternoon. However, once I decided to drive toward one there would not be enough time to get to the other two if the first one I chose rained out. To combat this problem I did not have a working cellphone since some still call Canada a foreign country. When are all these countries going to get on the same page with regard to telecommunications. My National Rental Car Racing Chrysler 300 was my hotel tonight. Tonight I stayed at the Hotel Chrysler 300. I woke up this morning in Medicine Hat, Alberta, Canada. I went to bed in my National Rental Car Racing Chrysler 300 in Great Falls, Montana. If nothing else I guess I really am a struggling young trackchaser in need of all the sponsorship I can get. This is what today looked like. Two years, six days….195 tracks. I was trying to extend my “trackchasing rainout free” streak to two years and six days covering some 195 new tracks. However, it was going to be tough. I had three candidates but each one was having serious weather problems. Avoiding a rainout is not just having it be rain free during the race event. In today’s racing world promoters cancel if the weather looks bad or if the rains from the previous days have flooded the parking lot or any number of other items that might be loosely attached to past or future weather. These promoters are tricky but it’s my job to stay on top of them. I was expecting a text message from a race promoter in Montana. However, since I was in a foreign country I couldn’t receive the PHONE message he left me until after I returned to the U.S.A. late on Sunday night. The phone message told me they were racing in Montana. Oh well, next time. An early morning call to Flatlanders confirmed they were racing today. That was good enough for me. They were the shortest driving option for me. What did “short” mean. I would only need to drive about 600 miles today. When I left Medicine Hat it was raining. It continued to rain for the better part of the next hour. Since I didn’t have a data plan for my iPhone in Canada on this trip I couldn’t check the radar. It’s amazing on how much I rely on the information provided by that little gadget. When I don’t have access to information my trackchasing advantage is blunted. However, Weather.com told me yesterday that it should be rain free where I was headed. There was just one little problem. By the time I reached Kindersley in the Canadian province of Saskatchewan I would be as far from this weekend’s home base (Great Falls, Montana) as I had ever been. It would be a LONG ride back to Montana if I got rained out! I’ve got to give a shout out to the National Rental Car Racing Chrysler 300. That big hulk gave me 37 M.P.G. The ride was smooth and the satellite radio worked flawlessly during my entire 1,264-mile drive. It even served as my hotel back in Great Falls on Sunday night. Alas, a Chrysler 300 is not meant to be a Marriott Hotel. Montana shares 14 border crossing with Canada. By filling up at the Sweet Grass/Coutts border crossing in Montana just BEFORE I entered Canada I was able to almost make it back to the states before I needed gas. I might have chanced it but in such a desolate area this would not be the place to run out of gas. I purchase just eight liters (about two gallons) of Canadian fuel at $1.259 per liter just as I was leaving Canada. That comes out to about five bucks a gallon in U.S. funds. The remainder of my fuel was purchased in Montana at prices averaging about $3.60 U.S. After the races…. When it was time to cross back into the U.S. at the Couttes, Alberta, Canada crossing there was no wait at all. I simply drove up to the U.S. border agent, answered a few simple questions, (Have you been hunting or fishing this weekend?) and cruised on down interstate 15 toward Great Falls, Montana. I didn’t arrive and get situated until 12:30 a.m. I had to be at the airport by 4:45 a.m. There just wasn’t enough time to get and use a hotel. That wasn’t a problem. In circumstances like this I will “rough it” overnight in the car. I don’t like to do it this way but I will. I found a Wal-Mart that looked more like a KOA Campground. There had to be 25 camping rigs in the lot. Wal-Mart doesn’t mind this a bit. They think it keeps the area safer and it gives them business from the folks camping for free. GETTING HOME….. This is summer tourist season. When kids get out of school then “it’s summer”. Folks are traveling full steam now. This (crowded airplanes) is going to make it tougher getting to racetracks but I love the challenge. I returned my rental car at the airport in Great Falls before the National folks opened for business. Then I checked into flights going to Denver and Salt Lake. The Denver flight was leaving first. That was the flight I preferred. However, they had a “mechanical” and I couldn’t wait for them to figure things out. I walked down the hall and boarded the flight to Salt Lake City. Remember, I’ve mentioned many times it is the FLEXIBILITY of my airline sponsorship program that is so valuable and not the money I save. I love both aspects but flexibility, like information, is key. When I landed it Salt Lake it soon became obvious I would not get on the plane to LAX, the Los Angeles International Airport. That was troublesome. My car was parked at LAX! However, it was still early in the day. I would have time to “figure it out”. That’s one of the best things about trackchasing….the challenge of figuring out a successful plan when the original plan goes down the tubes. My first best alternative option was to fly into the Los Angeles area airport, Burbank named after comedian Bob Hope. From Burbank, I would grab a train to Los Angeles’ Union Station. Then I would catch the “FlyAway” bus to LAX, pick up my car and drive 65 miles home to San Clemente. Remember this was the “simple” travel plan was after I drove 600 miles yesterday and slept overnight in my car. Folks, if the “Dreaded East Coast Trackchasers” could do this (which they can’t) they wouldn’t. Any questions? However, at the last minute I missed the flight to Burbank by one seat. The next “bank” of flights would not be leaving for another two hours. This gave me time to have a hamburger from McDonald’s and then pour over flight schedules and “loads”. I love doing this. It’s the challenge that is so fun. I looked at about twenty cities that had seats from Salt Lake to their location AND for the same cities that had open flights back to Los Angeles in time to get home tonight. I went as far west as Kansas City, as far north as Seattle, as far east as San Francisco and as far south as Houston. I came to the conclusion that Boise, Idaho and Houston, Texas were my two best choices. Both of those cities had open late night flights to Los Angeles. It was just a question of whether or not I could get on a flight from Salt Lake City to either Boise (first) or Houston (second). I ended up choosing Boise, Idaho. After being in Boise for a few hours I got the very last seat on a flight back home to Los Angeles. It was after midnight when I pulled into my San Clemente driveway. If this were easy everybody would be doing it! My wife says I can’ t buy a gun until I sell these tires! I want a gun. I come on these trips for the experience. My powerwalks allow me to cover 3-4 miles on foot. I can see a lot of the “local color” doing that and it helps keep my blood pressure down. Truth be told I have always had low blood pressure and hope to keep it that way. Carol says I don’t have high blood pressure I just give it. What does she mean by that? The most interesting item I noticed on my Sunday morning walk was the number of “garage sales” going on. I guess people were trying to raise a little money from their excess junk that was hanging around the house. At one house a pile of four used automobile tires were stacked on top of each other. The attached sign read, “My wife won’t let me buy a gun until I sell these tires”. Driving up too and returning from Kindersley was interesting. Several things surprised me. First, there were no people! When I left the track I passed one gas station in the first two hundred miles. There were no places to eat, other than gas station convenience stores along almost all of the drive. However, there were lots of cattle, oil wells and natural gas wells. Cattle easily out populate the people up here. I’d recommend you take a look at the photos from this trip. There are both interesting and very different than much of what I see. Supper. For dinner after leaving the track I bought food to go from a convenience store. What did I have? A Diet Mountain Dew, an egg salad sandwich and a Canadian buttercream tart. Yummy! FLATLANDERS SPEEDWAY – KINDERSLEY, SASKATCHEWAN, CANADA I’m a trackchaser not a racechaser. The Flatlanders Speedway was the last stop on a three-day tour that would have me driving nearly 1,300 miles in 72 hours. You’d have to think the racing at Flatlanders would be “pretty top notch” to make me do that wouldn’t you? Not so fast! I am a “trackchaser” and not a “racechaser”. My primary focus is not the racing but the adventure, the ambience. Remember my hobby is not about the destination but the journey. It is thinking like this that allows me to enjoy places like this regardless of what kind of racing I see. I had made three calls to the track’s promoter, “Dan”. The first call yesterday drew this response, “If we get anymore rain we will cancel”. I called later in the day yesterday and Dan told me, “Yes, we’re racing tomorrow. However, you should call me in the morning and I’ll know for sure”. Wow! That didn’t sound too definitive did it? I called at 9 a.m. on race morning. Calling this early would allow me to try for my other two Sunday afternoon options (that were also having weather problems) if Dan gave me bad news. He didn’t. “We’re racing” he told me. That was good news. It would be a three-hour drive up to Kindersley. That meant I had time for a 45-minute power walk. Off I went. Later in the morning I headed off to Kindersley. I’m gullible. Racing was scheduled to begin at 2 p.m. I’m gullible. I always believe the schedule even when three tracks out of four never start to time. I ended up arriving at about 2:10 p.m. They were still packing the track. I could see why Dan was hesitant to race in bad weather. The entry road was only one-lane wide, dirt and mushy from all the wet weather they have experienced recently. Admission was more than reasonable at just $6 Canadian. However, refreshments were over priced. A “smokie” (hot saugage) ran me $7 and a can of Diet Coke was $2.50 Canadian. However, they had a captive audience so I had my lunch at the track. The temperature was in the low 60s with a strong 20 M.P.H. wind. I’m glad I brought my jeans and military field jacket. With that wardrobe and a seat cushion I was comfortable in the top row of the grandstand. I would guess there were 300-400 people in the two large and steep grandstands. The track, nearly ½-mile in length was a true “tri-oval”. There were essentially three turns connected by three straights. The dirt racing surface looked “soft” and there was no dust. Nevertheless, it was nice to have the wind blowing at my back. The announcer was of the “DJ” variety. He told the crowd he was being asked back for his 12th season at Flatlanders. He had a strong voice, a good sense of humor and was entertaining to listen to over a stout P.A. system. He even gave me a nice “trackchaser mention”. I always wonder how these folks even know I’m at the track! I was anxious to see what type of racing was on tap. Soon I would find out. There were four classes racing this afternoon. The first, the mini-stox, brought TWO cars to this party. The second racing group, the thunder trucks featured full sized pick up trucks. Their car count dwarfed the mini-stox statistically with three. The street stocks were not to be out done. They brought three racers too. However it was the thunder stocks that won the car count of the day award. There were five thunder stocks. Let’s add all this up. Mind you I’m doing this in my head. If you “carry the one” and all that other stuff you are likely to come up with a total car/truck count of thirteen. Folks, thirteen racers is not very much for ONE class let alone four. Whatever. I certainly wasn’t going to drive back to Great Falls, Montana (413 miles one-way) without seeing the racing. I would stick around and see what the racing looked like. All of the heat races covered ten laps. That’s a pretty long race over a ½-mile track with just 2-3 cars in most of the races. At least the car counts kept the yellow flag delays down to almost zero. There were two heats for each class. That meant I got to see the two cars in the mini-stox class race TWENTY laps. At intermission the announcer told the crowd their share of the 50/50 was more than $400 Canadian. He kept saying the prize was “tax free”. The Canadian government might have something to say about that. The announcer also told us that intermission would take about 15-20 minutes. If the 50/50 pot was as accurate as the intermission time estimate then the winner only got about $200. I didn’t have much to do, other than drive more than 400 miles back to Montana so I could sleep in my car and take a 5:50 a.m. airplane ride. I decided to sit it out and watch the exciting upcoming feature events. They didn’t have a tow truck today! However, my patience was tried when the intermission took about 40 minutes. However, I hung in there. The two-car mini stox feature race was first up covering a distance of 15 laps. About midway through this race the leader lost control and slip into the swamp of what was the track’s infield. It was then that the crowd got some surprising news. The speedway did not have a tow truck on hand today. They would have to have some brave young folks wade out into the mud to attach a rope to the stranded racecar. This took another few minutes. About this time I was questioning my decision to sit through a long intermission to see this type of racing. It was during the 3-car thunder truck feature event that I decided to head toward the exits. Despite the really small car counts I enjoyed my day at the Flatlanders Speedway. No other trackchaser that I know of has ever been there. The weekend allowed me to see racing in Montana and the Canadian provinces of Alberta and Saskatchewan. How many people get to do that? PROVINCE COMPARISONS Saskatchewan The “Bread Basket of Canada” province This evening I saw my fifth lifetime track in the “Bread basket of Canada” province, yes the “The bread basket of Canada” province. Thanks for reading about my trackchasing, Randy Lewis World’s #1 Trackchaser Peoria Old Timers Racing Club (P.O.R.C.) Hall of Fame Member Saskatchewan sayings: Buttcrack: Derogatory term for rural Saskatchewan. It’s right next to the middle of nowhere.
AIRPLANE Los Angeles, CA (LAX) – Salt Lake City, UT (SLC) – 589 miles Salt Lake City, UT (SLC) – Great Falls, MT (GTF) – 463 miles RENTAL CAR Great Falls International Airport – trip begins Missoula, Montana Medicine Hat, Alberta, Canada Kindersley, Saskatchewan, Canada Great Falls International Airport – trip ends – 1,264 miles AIRPLANE Great Falls, MT (GTF) – Salt Lake City, UT (SLC) – 463 miles Salt Lake City, UT (SLC) – Boise, ID (BOI) – 291 miles Boise, IA (BOI) – Los Angeles, CA (LAX) – 671 miles Total air miles – 2,477 (5 flights) Total rental car miles – 1,264 (1 car) Total miles traveled on this trip – 3,741 miles TRACK ADMISSION PRICES: Big Sky Kartway – $5 U.S. Medicine Hat Speedway – $10 Canadian ($2 senior savings) Flatlanders Speedway – $6 Canadian Total racetrack admissions for the trip – about $21 U.S. LIFETIME TRACKCHASER COMPARISONS The three most important trackchasing comparisons to me are: Total lifetime tracks seen Total “trackchasing countries” seen Lifetime National Geographic Diversity results Total Lifetime Tracks There are no trackchasers currently within 300 tracks of my lifetime total. Don’t blame me. 1. Randy Lewis, San Clemente, California – 1,852 Total Trackchasing Countries There are no trackchasers currently within 10 countries of my lifetime total. 1. Randy Lewis, San Clemente, California – 65 Current lifetime National Geographic Diversity results 1. Randy Lewis, San Clemente, California – 5.10 That’s all folks! Official end of the RLR – Randy Lewis Racing Trackchaser Report
Current results through June 30, 2013
Far Western states lifetime rankings
Exercise
Current results through June 30, 2013
Kudos to my Chrysler 300.
No I had not been hunting or fishing.
For the next three months travel will be tough.
There are no certainties in life.
This was a true tri-oval.
Where were the cars.
I was trying to hang in there.