Greetings from Bristol, Tennessee
From the travels and adventures of the
“World’s #1 Trackchaser”
Bristol International Speedway – asphalt oval
Lifetime Track #108
THE EVENT It’s Bristol baby! Bristol is a town of just 26,702 residents. Nevertheless the city is home to a stadium that seats 160,000 people, the Bristol Motor Speedway. Bristol is known as the “last great coliseum”. Bristol is the “twin city” of Bristol, Virginia. The border between these two cities is also the border between the states of Tennessee and Virginia. Bristol is known as the “birthplace of country music” began by Jimmie Rodgers and the Carter family. Tennessee Ernie Ford, a favorite of my grandparents and me, hails from Bristol, Tennessee. Through 2015 I have now been to Bristol three times. It’s a special place. I don’t have to be at the track to have a good time with the Bristol race. I enjoy watching it on TV too. However, I’ve had a GREAT time during each Bristol visit. I hope you have fun reading about my experiences at the track. Bristol…a very special place. I first went to Bristol back in March 14, 1982 for their day race. At the time the “Bristol International Raceway” was my 108th lifetime track. I didn’t begin writing my famous Trackchaser Reports until I had seen about 430 tracks. That being the case I have no formal report documentation from that event. It was fun seeing Benny Parsons up close. Nevertheless, I do remember (from my notes) that Darrell Waltrip in #11 won the race. This was back in the day when fans could go into the pit area after the race just as if you were at any short track. I recall watching and listening to Benny Parsons “hold court” with his fans following his finish of ninth. NASCAR wasn’t as big as it would become with just 27,000 people. Lots of people (usually NASCAR haters) seem to think the racing was better “back then”. Really? On that day in 1982 the race covered 500 laps. Just three cars finished on the lead lap. One other car made 499 laps and two others completed 498 laps. Was THAT better racing to have 27 of the 30 starters two laps or more behind at the finish? Me does not think so. Only 21 cars were RUNNING at the end of the race. Race attendance was 27,000. Racing misses these guys. There were several big names in that race just 33 years ago that are no longer with us including Dale Earnhardt Sr., Bennie Parsons, J.D. McDuffie, Neil Bonnett and Dick Brooks. Several past NASCAR champs raced that day including Terry Labonte (4th), Bobby Allison (5th) and Richard Petty (7th). Seeing Bristol at night was fantastic. I would return to Bristol in 1988 with my stepfather Bill Virt for the August night race. We saw Larry Pearson win the Grand National race on Friday night. Then on Saturday night Dale Earnhardt Sr. came away with the win. The race attendance was announced at 42,000. NASCAR was growing. Soon after they started adding more and more seats. I remember getting a pit pass for the Saturday night race. I don’t remember how I got it. Nevertheless, it was fun to “lurk” around all of the NASCAR stars that I have been following since the old Wide World of Sports days. My first ever NASCAR race visit was to the Atlanta 500 back in 1971 won by A.J. Foyt. Duck tape was my friend. It was a brutally hot and humid day in August at Bristol. As is my custom I was wearing shorts. However, NASCAR had a strict rule against anyone in the pit area wearing short pants. I don’t recall if I had any long pants with me on this trip or not. However, our car was parked a very LONG way away so I wasn’t walking back to the car to change. I also was NOT going to forego the benefits of my pit pass. Somewhere I scrounged up two white towels. Remember this was now 27 years ago so some of the details escape me. I duck taped those two towels around my shorts and ankles. This allowed me to pass NASCAR’s “muster”. As soon as I was safely in the pits I ditched the towels for the rest of the night. No one else said a word to me about wearing shorts in the pits! If this happened today the fans would riot. This race wasn’t exactly the most competitive either. Thirty-two cars started. At the end of the event just two cars had completed all 500 laps Dale Sr. and Bill Elliott. Another three cars were a lap down and sixth place finisher Harry Gant was three laps behind. Just 15 cars were still running at the finish. Virtually the entire driver roster has now turned over. Drivers in the race that are no longer full-time NASCAR drivers included: Geoffrey Bodine, Davey Allison, Alan Kulwicki, Harry Gant, Darrell Waltrip, Richard Petty, Rusty Wallace, Bobby Hillin Jr., Rodney Combs, Sterling Marlin, Kyle Petty, Neil Bonnett, Ernie Irvan, Ricky Rudd, Butch Miller, Mike Alexander, Phil Parsons, Lake Speed, Ken Schrader, Terry Labonte, Rick Wilson, Dave Mader III, Brett Bodine, Dale Jarrett, Mark Martin, Dave Marcis, Rick Mast, Derrick Cope, Michael Waltrip and Brad Noffsinger….just to name all of them! It was time to get back to Bristol. Fast forward to 2015. One of my 2015 trackchasing goals is to return to some of the best race tracks I have seen in the past. I would be working against that goal today by returning to the Bristol Motor Speedway in Bristol, Tennessee. ON THE WAY TO THE RACES I woke up this morning in Boone, North Carolina. I sat by the hotel fireplace and watched it pour rain outside. I went to bed in Roanoke, Virginia. I would “racechase” not trackchase in Bristol, Tennessee. The next day, Monday, I flew from Baltimore, Maryland to Las Vegas, Nevada. I spent the next four days at my annual golf outing with my Delta Sigma Pi fraternity brothers playing at two very high-end private country clubs. I know! Somebody has to lead this lifestyle right? This is how the day turned out. The ‘Last Great Coliseum’. Bristol’s nickname is the “last great coliseum”. Although the Bristol concrete oval is only one half-mile in length the stadium that surrounds it can now seat 160,000 people. The average major league baseball park has a seating capacity of 40-45,000 people by way of comparison. I had stayed in Boone, North Carolina last night. Boone is just about 60 miles from the racetrack in Bristol. There were major problems with the weather in Bristol today. Rain was moving in at about 9 a.m. The rain forecast called for 70-100% chance of showers pretty much all day. They couldn’t possibly race today with this rain and the forecast. When I awoke in my Comfort Suites Hotel, a very nice place to stay, it was pouring down rain. I could see the radar for Bristol. It was raining there too. I didn’t feel any great rush to get out of the hotel and over to Bristol. The racing was scheduled to begin at 1 p.m. but I didn’t think that would be happening. By the way I didn’t have a ticket to the races. I figured I would solve that problem once I got on property. It’s important to stay close to your friends. Before I could leave the hotel I had two very important phone calls to make. First I had to call the widow of my good friend from Jefferson City, Missouri Bud Heineman. His wife Florene had emailed me to say Bud passed away after a long illness about a month ago. Carol and I first met Bud and Florene on a trip to China about 20 years ago. They were the nicest couple. Bud was about 20 years older than us. It takes some effort to stay in touch with people you meet on a trip like the China trip especially when we lived 2,000 miles from each other. However I worked at that and Bud and Florene actually joined us at some local Midwestern tracks on two different occasions. They were nice enough to host me in their home when I was staying overnight in their area. Florene and I had a nice chat. I assured her that Bud was going to be missed. He was one of the nicest guys I’ve ever met. He was an avid reader of my Trackchasers Reports and frequently sent me notes telling me how much she enjoyed them. He always finished with “I read every word”. Bud will be missed and we wish the very best for Florene and family as we keep them in our thoughts and prayers. A few years ago I made a very substantial, well into the six figures, financial investment with a college fraternity brother of mine who resides in Las Vegas. He’s been doing a lot of work in Zürich, Switzerland to make our investment a success. He told me that last year he spent 104 days in Zürich! Apparently all of that work is now paying off and the return will be coming my way from the investment I made. This gives me breathe a sigh of relief. As you all know I don’t have the financial wherewithal of the dreaded East Coast Trackchasers. Now it was time to get to Bristol…had I waited too long? When those calls were wrapped up I could focus 100% of my attention on getting over to the Bristol Motor Speedway. It was about this time that I realized the route from Boone, North Carolina to Bristol Tennessee was not going to be a straight line. In point of fact I was driving through some very mountainous and rural roads. I couldn’t drive much faster than 30-40 miles an hour on the switchbacks along the two lane highways that Waze was recommending for me. The Bristol race was scheduled to begin at 1 p.m. Waze told me I wasn’t going to get there until about 2:30 p.m. Initially I didn’t think that was a problem since they had been in a rain delay. I was listening to the race broadcast on Sirius/XM channel 90 satellite radio. I was surprised to hear that the rain had stopped in Bristol and the track dryers were making great progress in getting the track ready to race on. At a track like Bristol it normally takes them about an hour to get the track dry after the rain stops. However NASCAR has come up with some state-of-the-art racetrack drying technology. The machines they have developed are called “air titans”. They dry the track about 50% faster than the jet airplane engine dryers of the past. I was bagging Bristol. Let’s go to Baltimore. I could see from my estimated arrival time that I was going to arrive at least 30 minutes after the race will start. That meant I might miss as many as the first 120 of the 500-lap event. I didn’t like that much. I did a few equations. I was going to miss too much of the race. I decided to “bag” the Bristol race. I plugged “Baltimore, Maryland” into my GPS system and began thinking about getting to that destination. I had no longer laid my phone on the seat with Baltimore as the GPS destination when I heard the race announcer saying it was raining again in Bristol. They had raced for just 22 laps. THE RACING Bristol Motor Speedway – Bristol, Tennessee Bristol was back in the plan. This result put Bristol back on my radar screen! I knew the rain was hard enough for them to “lose the track”. That meant that whenever it did stop raining there would be another one hour delay to dry the track. This would give me plenty of time to get situated at the track. Free parking. I pulled into the Bristol Motor Speedway venue and immediately found free parking. How many professional sporting events can you go to where the stadium itself offers free parking. I think the answer is NASCAR is the only place you’ll find that. Yes, NASCAR rocks on free parking. It was raining steadily. There was no need to do anything other than stay in my car. That was no problem I had a Trackchaser Reports from the weekend to work on. I was probably in the car for 2-3 hours. Maybe they WOULD race after all. Looking at the weather radar on my phone I could see there was a “window” of space where they might be able to restart the race. When it stopped raining and the folks on the NASCAR channel told me they were about ready to resume racing I got out of the car. Now my attention was directed toward acquiring a ticket. As mentioned the place seats 160,000. I don’t know how many people were in the stadium before the four hour rain delay. I suspect with the weather forecast a number of people didn’t even attempt to come to the track and just gave up on the race for the day. Lots of shuttle buses for the fans. I hopped on one of many shuttle busses. I rode it to within a few hundred yards of the track. On the way I quizzed a fellow from Maine on what the readmission policy might be. Would they just let everybody come in, would they require people to have a ticket? The answers to these questions would directly affect my pocketbook. I will be brutally honest with you. I’ve got to be honest with you. Nobody gets into the big NASCAR events and lots of other places with tickets purchased at the prices I pay. I’m sorry. No, I am not sorry. They just don’t. I knew there would be people returning to the grandstands with an extra ticket or two. There were bound to be groups of 4-6 people who had one of their friends “flake”. When the rains came maybe some people in the group left and some decided to stay for the race. Whose got an extra ticket? With a very small trickle of fans returning and the race starting very soon I simply stood at the entrance ramp and ask “Anybody got any extra tickets?”. I probably stood there for three minutes before I got a “bite”. A race fan soon came up and told me, “Yes I’ve got an extra ticket”. I asked him how much he wanted for it. He replied “I’d like to get half price for it”. I’m sure he would’ve liked to have gotten half of the money he spent on this ticket back at this point. That was not going to happen. Without even seeing the ticket’s location or its face value I told him “I’ll give you 20 bucks for it”. That was probably a high offer given the circumstances with the rain delay but I was feeling generous. I also didn’t have any bills lower in value than a twenty. I would have felt guilty buying the guy’s ticket for a pittance and then asking for change! You’ll do better when the other person does not have a strong negotiating position. He looked at me and said, “I’m not in much of a position to bargain since there are no other buyers out here. I agreed with him and told him that we were probably each getting a good deal since he was getting 20 more dollars than he would have gotten and I was getting in for most reasonable price. I handed him a 20 and he handed me the ticket. I didn’t really care where the seating location was. I knew I could sit pretty much anywhere in the rainstorm depleted population I wanted. I would estimate 10-15% of the grandstands were full. I had my ticket scanned and entered the grandstand. When I had time I looked down to see what the face value of my ticket was. I was a bit surprised. The face value on the ticket I purchased for $20 was $93! NASCAR…a cheap date. I had parked for free. I had gotten a $93 ticket for $20 and I paid four dollars for a smallish bottle of water. Overall I think I got a bargain. What do you think? By the way this admission “policy” for me was not an anomaly. Please don’t think I would have paid $93 to watch the race on a sunny day. My average NASCAR purchase price for all of the races I have attended in the past 5-6 years is right at twenty dollars. Here’s the deal. Most folks who paid $93 for their ticket bought it 3-12 months ago. I only buy tickets, on sunny days, in the very best locations. Do I feel sorry for someone who laid out a lot of money several months ago to buy their tickets? No, I do not. We are a capitalistic nation. In life there are “expenses and revenues”. My objective, always in an HONEST fashion is to maximize revenues and reduce expenses. In today’s example I simply asked the man if he would take twenty dollars for his ticket. I did not threaten him. I did not coerce him. I did not hold a gun to his head. I simply made an offer. He accepted. It’s a bit like the lion eating the gazelle. It happens. Let’s go racing! With the weather radar looking good for the time being I didn’t even bring my umbrella or rain hat into the front gate. NASCAR was not waiting around. Within five minutes of my sitting down at a start/finish line seat location about 50 rows up they started the race. What service! Who WERE these guys? Initially I didn’t like what I was seeing. The cars tour this ½- mile high-bank oval in about 15 seconds. The cars were going so fast it was hard to keep track of them. Additionally with today’s sponsor driven world quite a few of the cars change their paint schemes and colors from week to week depending upon which sponsor supporting them. It was a little difficult to tell who was who. However the longer I settled in the more I began to enjoy the action. The rain delay had been so long that I was going to see the last half of the race under the lights. That was a good thing. I didn’t need to be in Baltimore, a seven hour drive, until 7 p.m. TOMORROW night. I very much enjoyed my time with NASCAR Sprint cup racing today. Priceline….one of my biggest sponsors. While I waited out the rain delay in my car I took the time to use Priceline to get a hotel in Roanoke, Virginia. Roanoke would be a 2 1/2 hour drive after the race. I figured that was far enough to go with the race getting over much later than originally planned. ‘Class envy’ always a bad thing. Some short track racing fans say they don’t care much for NASCAR. Frankly I think that’s a case of “class envy”. Some folks always seem to resend the “guy who has made it”. I guess it’s just human nature. It’s certainly not a very attractive human nature trait. Anyone who looks at the situation objectively would have to conclude that NASCAR offers a better racing program than 90% of the short tracks operating today. Let’s take a look at some comparisons. To be clear we are not exactly comparing apples to apples when NASCAR is compared with short track racing. A short track feature if a run without any yellow flag delays might last for 10 minutes. A NASCAR race run without any caution flags would run about three hours. NASCAR races on tracks as large as 2.6 miles. Very few short tracks are larger than a half mile. Therefore NASCAR runs races that are much longer in time and on much bigger tracks than the short track operator. Nevertheless NASCAR offers several important elements that the short track operation does not. Unless affected by weather NASCAR starts their races on time. The majority of short track racing events do not start on time. NASCAR offers a full field of race cars. Every one of the Sprint Cup races starts with 43 cars. If you have visited your local short track lately you’ll see a large number of feature events having anywhere from 5 to 12 cars. I’d rather see 43 cars in the feature on the right sized track than a dozen or less cars competing in a dirt track feature on a small track. At a NASCAR race I can use my race scanner (like I did today) to listen to the communications between drivers and crew as well as to the TV broadcast of the racing action. At a short track all you’re going to get on the scanner is communication amongst the race organizers themselves. If you know what you’re doing a NASCAR race is very inexpensive. Actually it’s downright cheap! You’ve already seen now I can park for free and buy a ticket for 20% of the face value. That is not unusual. I do that at virtually every NASCAR race I attend. Yes, four dollars is a little pricey for a 16.9 ounce bottle of water. However cheeseburgers are only five dollars at the Bristol track. You won’t be able to buy a five dollar cheeseburger at a major-league baseball or football game. You can’t even buy a five-dollar cheeseburger at some short tracks! Here’s another real advantage of NASCAR compared to the short track race operator. There is a 0% chance that any short track I’ve ever been in the United States would’ve raced on a weather day like today. However NASCAR hung in there and completed the full distance of the race. Yes it took them 10 1/2 hours to run a 3 1/2 hour event. NASCAR never gives up on the weather. However they never gave up. They know their fans travel long distances and that Monday is a workday. They will do everything in their power to get the race in and they did today under some of the most trying weather circumstances. If short track racing only behaved like NASCAR! Okay if you’re on the fence about NASCAR take a look at what I just listed above. Disregarding the length of the race and the length of the track which sanctioning body NASCAR or a dirt/asphalt short track offers the better situation? I’d be surprised in anybody who doesn’t pick NASCAR. I wish I could tell you what all the chuckling was about. I listened to the Fox TV broadcast over my race scanner for most of the evening. Some of the most interesting commentary came when the TV broadcast went to commercial break and the announcers talked amongst themselves. I would love to tell you, but I can’t, of the sexual double entendre that had the announcers still chucking after they came back on the air. Send me an email and I just might tell you privately. With about 175 laps to go there was another brief rain delay. Fortunately they only stopped for about 15 minutes because of the wet stuff. Toward the end of the race there were a few more caution flags as drivers got impatient. A rain delay on lap 498? With less than 50 laps to go the announcer said that rain was on the way again. Believe it or not on lap 498 a slight rain sprinkle developed again. This forced NASCAR to bring the cars down on the pit road and use the track dryers again. I had a decision to make. First I had to pee. Secondly I didn’t fancy getting into a traffic jam and delaying my arrival into Roanoke any later than the estimated 1:30 a.m. it would be if I left the track at this point. The rain looked like it was going to be heavy. I didn’t really think they would restart the race. I headed for the exits but not before stopping at the restroom. It was a 10-minute walk or more to where the shuttle buses were located. By the time I got to my car the rain had stopped! They were restarting the race. I was glad there were no major events during the last two laps that I missed. Matt Kenseth was the race winner. I was a winner to because I had seen a race that I had all but given up on. I also didn’t have any after race traffic with the strategy I used. Under “dry” conditions I would never leave a NASCAR race before the checkered flag dropped. Tonight I just figured with all of the rain delays up to that point, and if heavier rain came in at nearly 11 p.m. they would call the race. I was wrong. AFTER THE RACES And then the skies opened up. As I drove away from the racetrack I listened to the victory lane presentation on satellite radio. In the midst of that interview the announcer ran for cover as a major thunderstorm released its fury. What a strange strange weather and racing day. I’ve got to thank NASCAR for letting me see any racing today whatsoever. The racing was finished for me. The rest of the week was for seeing old friends and golfing. Monday-Thursday I had no problem getting over to Baltimore for my Monday night flight to Las Vegas. Once in Vegas everyone’s flights arrived on time and we hustled over to the Luxor Hotel on the strip. Over the next three days we would play on two private courses set up my our missing (in Zurich, Switzerland) fraternity brother Jim Hammer. Were the club’s exclusive? The guest green fees on the first course we played were $257 per player! I was afraid to ask what the fees were on course #2. Just the caddie fee on the second course was fifty bucks per player. Of course, our golf for all three days was COMPLIMENTARY. Yes, it always pays to know people. I have no skills. I didn’t play all that well. I shot 93, 91 and 89. That’s really horrible golf but it beat all of my fellow fraternity competitors. I was terrible but they were terrible too! Nevertheless, we had a good time. By the time I got home Carol has just left on a trip to Denver to see her mother and sister. I figured with her being gone for a few days I might as well try my luck with some trackchasing fun for the upcoming weekend. Yep. We travel some. By the way….just in case you are keeping track. My overnight travel totals through the end of April now equal 55. Carol comes in at 32. We are on pace to meet our 10-year historical averages of about 160 nights out for me and 100 for Carol. If you are lucky enough to get your spouse to travel away from home for 100 nights….you are lucky enough. 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 Tennessee sayings: Dang, don’t she look good for her age. QUICK FACTS PERSONAL CAR San Clemente, CA McCarran (Las Vegas) International Airport – 282 miles AIRPLANE McCarran (Las Vegas) International Airport, Las Vegas, NV (LAS) – Baltimore-Washington International Airport, Baltimore, MD (BWI) – 2,100 miles RENTAL CAR #1 Baltimore-Washington International Airport, Baltimore, MD – trip begins Kingsport, TN Coeburn, VA Boone, NC Bristol, TN Baltimore-Washington International Airport, Baltimore, MD – trip ends – 1,230 miles AIRPLANE Baltimore-Washington International Airport, Baltimore, MD (BWI) – McCarran (Las Vegas) International Airport, Las Vegas, NV (LAS) – 2,100 miles PERSONAL CAR McCarran (Las Vegas) International Airport San Clemente, CA – 282 miles Total air miles – 4,200 (2 flights) Total personal car miles – 564 (1 car) Total rental car miles – 1,230 (1 car) Total miles traveled on this trip – 5,994 miles TRACK ADMISSION PRICES: Kingsport Speedway – $7.50 Lonesome Pine Raceway – $7.50 Mountain View Speedway – Complimentary pit pass Bristol Motor Speedway – $20 (Ticket face value $93, not a trackchasing expense) Total racetrack admissions for the trip – $15 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 450 tracks of my lifetime total. Don’t blame me. Total Trackchasing Countries There are no trackchasers currently within 10 countries of my lifetime total. Current lifetime National Geographic Diversity results That’s all folks! Official end of the RLR – Randy Lewis Racing Trackchaser Report Highlights from the 2015 Food City 500 in Support of Steve Byrnes race. 
