Canadian Tire Motorsports Park
Greetings from Clarington, Ontario, Canada
From the travels and adventures of the “World’s #1 Trackchaser”
Track #1,844
HighlightsThe PlanThe TripThe ExperienceAttractionsRace ReviewVideosPhotosQuick Facts
THE KEYS TO THE TRIP
Who goes to a shoe museum?…………….more in “The Experience”.
Why doesn’t Carol cut the grass OR that Carol is a really smart cookie……………..more in “Race Review”
I’m a Canadian for the weekend………..details in “The Plan”.
Did you know I was a Canadian for this weekend, eh?
I’ve made my trackchasing “living” acting like a “local” trackchaser. What do I mean by that? I live in Southern California. There are almost no racetracks within a day’s drive of my house. In order to be a trackchaser I must fly to a particular location for the weekend.
This weekend I flew to Toronto, Canada. After I arrived I pretended to be a lifelong resident of Toronto for trackchasing purposes. What did that mean? It meant that I would use Toronto as a base, just as if I lived there, for the weekend. I would stay in the Toronto area, drive out to a track somewhat nearby and then return to Toronto after the races. I would do that for all three days of my stay in Toronto. I wouldn’t have to drive much. At the end of the weekend I would have added four tracks to my lifetime totals.
I’ve been using this plan for well over ten years in the 50 biggest metro areas of both the U.S. and Canada. However, my success is beginning to catch up with me. This weekend I knocked out three more regularly scheduled oval tracks. This leaves me with just TWO weekly scheduled tracks in all of Ontario left to see.
I have now seen 53 tracks in Ontario. This total comes mainly from the weekly oval tracks and the plethora of county fair figure 8 tracks here. It’s going to be difficult putting together 3-4 track Ontario weekends from this point forward.
Will I make my year long exercise goal?
I woke up this morning in Mississauga, Ontario, Canada. I went to bed in the same place. This is what today looked like.
It’s a real luxury to be able to stay in the same hotel for two straight nights. I can sleep in until I wake up. Not having to drive a long distance is a real plus.
I spent part of the day trying to improve on my aerobic exercise goal. Remember I’m trying to exercise three times as many days as I trackchase. In order to meet each exercise goal I must exercise aerobically for a minimum of 45 minutes.
Including today I have trackchased 25 days so far in 2013. In order to meet my trackchasing exercise goal I would need 75 aerobic exercise sessions. I haven’t quite made that number yet but I’m gaining on my less than stellar first quarter results. I’m not giving up on making this goal.
Continuous improvement…the only way to live life.
In mid-afternoon I headed out toward the day’s “Trackchasing Tourist Attraction”. I’ll tell you more about that below. It’s nice to be able to use the Google Maps! function of my Apple iPhone. I loved my Garmin GSP unit. However, my iPhone capability blows away the production of the Garmin. That’s what life is about….continuous improvement.
Onward.
The day’s “experience” came from my Trackchasing Tourist Attraction activity. Without further ado let’s take a look in the “Attractions” area.
TRACKCHASING TOURIST ATTRACTION
I very much enjoy the racing when I go on trackchasing trips. However, I am not the type of person who would feel the trip was complete if I simply left home, went to the race and came back home.
I do a good deal of traveling. I want to do my best to see the local area when I come for a visit. There are usually unusual attractions that one area is noted for more than any other locale. I want to see those places. I want to touch them and feel them. When I leave an area, I want to have memories of these special places that I call Trackchasing Tourist Attractions. I will remember those experiences long after the checkered flag has fallen on whatever race I have seen that day.
Yes, the Bata Shoe Museum.
The Bata Shoe Museum – Toronto, Ontario, Canada
What else could I see in Toronto?
I, often along with Carol, have done a lot of touring in and around Toronto. We’ve take a guided tour of the Toronto Blue Jays’ home field at the Rogers Centre. I’ve seen the Jays play the New York Yankees there too. We’ve tour the National Hockey Hall of Fame Museum in downtown Toronto. During that visit we actually had our picture taken with the Stanley Cup! Of course, we’ve toured the famous CN Tower and eaten in several of the best restaurants in the city. If memory serves we’ve also seen a play in Toronto.
And now previewing at #40…..
So, with a free afternoon, what kind of TTA could I visit in a city I’ve been too many times? I didn’t know where to go. So, I checked out TripAdvisor. Soon I was headed to the Bata Shoe Museum. The Bata Shoe Museum ranked #40 out of 244 attractions. The Toronto symphony was #1.
Number 40 was good enough for me on a Saturday afternoon. The museum, located across the street from the University of Toronto, was easy to find. The $14 Canadian admission price seemed a bit steep but you can’t take it with you. I was too “youngish” to qualify for the senior discount.
Luckily, for me they were having a special “sneaker” exhibit. Everyone wears some form of athletic shoes today. I rarely wear anything else. However, as a boy I can’t recall getting my first pair of athletic shoes until I was in high school! I do remember running around the block for exercise as a kid in black LEATHER street shoes! Oh, my.
The Bata Shoe Museum can be seen pretty well in an hour or a bit more. The highlight was seeing Shaquille O’Neil’s size 20EEE shoe. The signboard said he would later wear a size 23 after he stopped growing. Seeing Winston Churchill’s somewhat feminine boots was a treat.
I received my first pair of Chuck Taylor Converse All-Star basketball shoes for free as a high school basketball player. Back then they were called “tennis shoes” although we didn’t play much tennis at the time.
Would I go back anytime soon to the Bata Shoe Museum? Probably not. However, I am committed to seeing as many interesting local attractions as I can on my trackchasing trips. Who in their right mind would travel the distances I do to ONLY see what happens at a racetrack?
CANADIAN TIRE MOTORSPORTS PARK AKA MOSPORT OVAL – CLARINGTON, ONTARIO, CANADA
Corporate speak.
After last night’s near perfect racing experience at the Ohsweken Speedway I guess I was ready for a letdown at tonight’s track. In my opinion, the evening’s entertainment fell far short for a few reasons. In most of my Trackchaser Reports you’ll hear some good and some improvement opportunities (aka bad things). That’s how we were taught to talk in the corporate world. People performance was either good or some areas were “improvement opportunities”. No one ever did “bad” work. Yes, it was a little bit like “every kid gets a blue ribbon”.
Why doesn’t Carol cut the grass?
Tonight’s weather was coolish at 16 degrees centigrade. When Carol and I travel in “centigrade territory” she does all the converting. I just wish I had been able to get her to take responsibility for cutting the grass as easily as she enjoys converting centigrade to Fahrenheit temperatures.
Note: I can’t put all the blame on Carol for not mowing the grass. Truth be told I have not mowed any grass since 1983. After leaving a one-acre plus lot and my riding long mower in a Chicago suburb we moved to Southern California. In SoCal there isn’t much room for a lawn or a lawnmower. We normally have a gardener who “trims” and “blows leaves” away.
Carol did lay the pearl of wisdom on me recently. She told me “When it’s 16 degrees Centigrade it’s 61 degrees Fahrenheit. Just reverse the numbers”. That Carol is one smart cookie!
Opening night.
The oval track I was seeing tonight opened in 1989. The companion Mosport International Raceway road course opened all the way back in 1961. It has a strong history of hosting such major sanctioning groups such as F1 and Indy cars. According to the track website, “Mosport is one of only two race tracks to have hosted Formula One, IndyCar, FIA World Endurance Championship and Can-Am races”. From my seat in the grandstand I could see the Mosport go-kart track and just a bit of the road course track. Carol and I visited the road course more than ten years ago in 2002.
It was opening night at the Canadian Tire Motorsports Park oval track. There was a huge crowd on hand at $15 per. The senior discount was generous. Seniors, those 65 years of age or older, paid just $10 Canadian to get into the show. As I am several months shy of tonight’s “magic number” I paid the higher total.
Disappointed.
I was majorly disappointed in two things tonight. First, I thought the asphalt oval track was just too big. It’s advertised as a half-mile but looked longer. The track size made the car counts look even smaller than they were.
There were four classes racing tonight. The modifieds, late models and thunder stocks (similar to street stocks) had just 8-10 cars in each division. The pure stocks had only three. That didn’t compare very well to last night’s show at Ohsweken where they had about three times as many cars in their four divisions.
At least they didn’t try to run heat races with just 4-5 cars in them. On such a big track that would have been terrible. As it was seeing 8-10 cars on a large track isn’t all that entertaining. There was very little side-by-side racing.
I would call the early races “heats”. However, the track announcer called each races “qualifying events”. With such low car counts each class ran two “qualifying events” or heat races. I am not a fan of “double heats” especially with small car counts. A few cars blew up or had other mechanical issues early on. The 8-10 cars in each class kept getting smaller as the night wore on.
This was an asphalt track. When a car drops fluid on the racing surface it causes a 5-10 minute delay to get things “dried up”. On a dirt track there would be almost no delay. I strongly prefer a dirt-racing surface over an asphalt surface in the short track world.
The announcer gave me a very generous trackchasing mention. He was a knowledgeable commentator but there was too much “dead air” to create much entertainment. He also attempted to inform the crowd about different things as the 50/50 drawing. That didn’t work. When the cars were racing the P.A. announcements were just about impossible to here.
Comparatively speaking.
By the way, tonight’s 50/50 drawing was $360 compared to last night’s amount of more than $1,200 from similarly sized crowds. After seeing eight races with the same cars in each class race I headed for my hotel. I had been at the track for two hours. The prospect of sitting through intermission to watch the same cars (actually a few less due to attrition) race a THIRD race but with more laps didn’t sound like entertainment to me.
This was probably the highlight of the evening and it wasn’t that great.
I did see the special “King of the Hill” racing at intermission. This is also known at the “spectator drags”. There were eight participants but nothing special to report with these one on one single elimination one-lap drag races with spectators driving their streetcars. Fans watch the spectator drags in hopes that one or more drivers will ruin their street machines. Alas, that did not happen tonight.
It was notable to see several fans leaving the track at intermission. I just can’t imagine this track drawing such a huge crowd at a relatively expensive admission price in the future unless car counts and the racing improve a great deal.
PROVINCE COMPARISONS
Ontario
The ‘Province of Opportunity’ Province
This evening I saw my 53rd lifetime track in the ‘Province of Opportunity’ province; yes the ‘Province of Opportunity’ 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
Ontario sayings: Tim’s, Timmy’s, Timmy Ho’s, Timmy Ho-Ho’s: Tim Horton’s doughnut chain
TRAVEL DETAILS
AIRPLANE
Los Angeles, CA (LAX) – Minneapolis, MN (MSP) – 1,535 miles
Minneapolis, MN (MSP) – Toronto, Canada (YYZ) – 678 miles
RENTAL CAR #1
Lester B. Pierson (Toronto) International Airport – trip begins
Ohsweken, Ontario, Canada
Clarington, Ontario, Canada
TRACK ADMISSION PRICES:
Ohsweken Speedway – Complimentary admission
Canadian Tire Motorsports Park – $15 Canadian
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 – 1,844
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