Greetings from Charleston, Illionis

 

 

From the travels and adventures of the “World’s #1 Trackchaser”

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 Charleston Speedway

Dirt oval 

Lifetime track #116

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Charleston Speedway

Dirt road course 

Lifetime track #717

 

   

 

 

 

Charleston Speedway – Lifetime Track #116 – All the way back in 1982!

I’ve been at the trackchasing game for a while.  I didn’t begin writing my famous Trackchaser Reports until I had seen about 430 tracks.  Therefore I will have to go on my memory (scary) from that 1982 visit.  I can tell you a few facts about this time frame.  From 1980-83 my family and I were living in Inverness, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago.  The Charleston Speedway sits just 213 miles due south of Inverness.

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During that time I had been working with a “buyer’s broker”.  I was interested in buying a small business or rental property.  Among the properties I looked at were a mobile home park and a racetrack.  The mobile home park had about 90 spaces and a few houses on the property.  The racetrack that was for sale at the time was the Charleston Speedway no less.  The asking price was $225,000.  I ended up not buying any of the properties on the market at the time.

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Instead I “demanded a trade” within my company.  I told them in a nice way I was leaving the company for a job in Dallas, Texas.  I couldn’t stand the cold weather in Chicago any longer after having lived in Southern California for four years in the mid-70s.  My company asked me to give them 24 hours to work on an opportunity for me.  The next day the personnel manager called me.  They had a great job for me in Los Angeles, California!  I turned down the company and geographical change to Dallas and in a few months the company moved us lock, stock and barrel to San Clemente, California.  And now you know the rest of the story.  Well, actually you don’t.  There was a LOT of “behind the curtain” stuff that went on to make such a decision in 24 hours.  Maybe when all of the people who were involved in the process are dead I can tell you more.

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I went to the Charleston Speedway on July 31, 1982.  The night before I had seen Tom Hearst win the feature event at the Davenport (IA) Speedway.  Tonight’s later on August 2nd I was watching Sammy Swindell win at Kokomo Speedway.  My note say I left the Charleston Speedway “after the heats”.  I don’t know why I would have done that.  Overall, I have very little recollection of my 1982 visit.  

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However, I returned some 22 years later on June 13, 2004 to see more racing in Charleston.  I was attracted by their “dirt road course” special event.  I also got to see more racing on their 1/4-mile dirt oval.  Here’s what I had to say about that visit.

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Reprinted with permission from my June 13, 2004 Trackchaser Report.

 

 

GREETINGS FROM CHARLESTON, ILLINOIS,

 

 

 

PEOPLE/TRAVEL NEWS

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Roger Ferrell and I left the Doe Run Raceway on Friday night at about 11 p.m. He headed in one direction and I headed in another. That’s how trackchasers do it after they’ve watched a race together. We both expected to meet up again in Charleston, Illinois on Sunday afternoon. I don’t need to be at Charleston Speedway’s Road Course until 1 p.m. on Sunday afternoon. That means I have 38 hours to get there. Charleston is only 251 miles away, which is about a four-hour drive. This should be easy. It wasn’t exactly easy. Here’s what happened.

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This reading is for the serious and hardest of the hardcore trackchasers. No one else should attempt to read this section. Miles in ( ) from final destination of Charleston, Illinois.

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38 hours left to race time (251) – 11 p.m. Friday, Doe Run, Missouri – left Doe Run and drove to Festus, Missouri where I grabbed a hotel.

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37 hours left (218) – 12 midnight Friday, Festus, Missouri – Caught some shuteye before heading out Saturday morning.

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30 hours left (218) – 7 a.m. Saturday, Festus, Missouri – I awoke too heavy thunder and lightning and dark skies at 7 a.m. in the morning! I started driving toward Eldora Speedway in Rossburg, Ohio for a Saturday night show. Festus is 443 miles from Rossburg. Eldora’s running a $100,000 to win late model show. This is probably the largest purse for any late model short track race anywhere all year. I’ve been going to Eldora for years with Jim Sabo. Jim now resides in Jacksonville, Florida after having moved there from Cleveland, Ohio during the past year.

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Jim recently participated in the Richard Petty Driving School at the Daytona International Speedway. Yes, this is the very same track where the Daytona 500 is run every February. Jim averaged a top speed of 158 M.P.H. during his race school there. Not bad! Ed Montgomery of Cleveland has been joining us over the past few years and Stew a mutual friend of Jim and Ed’s joined us. Ed is a sports car racer and drives a Porche at many Midwest and eastern road courses. Driving to Eldora in Ohio came with two problems. First, Eldora is five hours BEYOND Charleston, Illinois. That meant I would drive right past Charleston and then drive for five more hours to Eldora. Maybe even more important was the fact that it poured down rain for my entire drive across Indiana. There was an excellent chance Eldora would be rained out making the 10-hour roundtrip drive from Charleston-Eldora totally useless.

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22 hours left (212) – 3 p.m., Saturday, Richmond, Indiana. I’ve driven past Charleston and now I’m driving AWAY from Sunday afternoon’s race. I’m in constant communication via cell phone with Jim who’s driving up from Dayton. He’s in constant communication with Ed and Stew who are driving from Cleveland, Ohio. Even though I’ve driven in a pouring rain for more than four hours through Indiana, the weather out toward Eldora looks promising. I decided to try to cover all of my bases. I’ll drive two hours BEYOND Eldora (which is seven hours BEYOND tomorrow’s Charleston, Illinois venue) so I can be ready to go to Midvale, Ohio if Eldora gets rained out. The weather channel says it’s going to rain in Eldora but not in Midvale. I might even get both an oval and a figure 8 at Midvale, whereas I won’t get any new track at Eldora since I’ve been there many times before.

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20 hours left (312) – 5 p.m., Saturday, Columbus, Ohio. I’m in the Ohio state capital waiting for the call from Jim. I have to make a decision. If I continue eastward toward Midvale, there’s no turning back. If Eldora were to race, I couldn’t make it back in time to see the $100,000 to win race. If I decide to drive back to Eldora and they get rained out there will be no time to backtrack to Midvale. What to do? Jim’s now at Eldora and says the weather looks good (no promises) and they will probably race. I decide to go with Eldora.

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18 hours left (257) – 7 p.m., Rossburg, Ohio. I’m at Eldora Speedway now. There are 144 late model stock cars on the grounds of Eldora. Normally, they get around 200 cars. I’m sure the rain has kept the car count down. Also, usually all the cars are time trialed on Friday with the actual racing on Saturday. When there are no weather problems each car gets three separate timed laps with the fastest lap counting as the official qualifying lap. Time trials were completely rained out on Friday. The actual races were supposed to start at 7 p.m. on Saturday. Because the track is so wet, they couldn’t start time trials until 7 p.m. on Saturday night. Time trials for the 144 cars were done in just two hours. That’s very quick.

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16 hours left (257) – 9 p.m., Rossburg, Ohio. Actual racing finally begins. This marks my 35^th trip to Eldora and extends my string of races there to 12 consecutive years. The track was good because it had been so wet. There wasn’t much dust. I said hi to Earl and took his picture. Scott Bloomquist won the “A” main easily. There wasn’t that much passing and we’ll have to decide next year if we’ll continue to go back. Eldora is one of the few places you can still purchase a can of soda for 75 cents. Their food is good (I had two pizza steaks) and they sell a lot of it. New menu additions include the Carmel corn for $1.50 and the chicken wings for $3.00.

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11 hours left (257) – 2 a.m., Rossburg, Ohio. The races at Eldora can finish up at just about any time the weather dictates. If the weather is not a problem, you can always count on Eldora starting exactly on time. If the weather is a problem, you can count on promoter Earl Baltes to not give up the ship. He will do everything possible to get the track ready and run the show. There have been many occasions where the feature race ended at 5 a.m. or so after being delayed by rain. With a two-hour late start, finishing at 2 a.m. was just about what we expected. I’ve already driven more than 600 miles today. A couple of times during the feature I felt my body go totally limp from exhaustion as I fell asleep. I’m sure I jerked a bit when I awoke. I can only remember one other time being so tired I couldn’t stay awake at the races. That was at the old Reading Fairgrounds. Neither of these times is a reflection on the racetrack as these are/were two of the best in the country.

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11 hours left (212) – 2 a.m., Richmond, Indiana. I drove back to my hotel in Richmond, Indiana. I gained an hour from the Eastern to the Central time zone. I have to sleep quickly because I have a four drive in the morning. There were several other Eldora Speedway patrons arriving at the hotel after I got there. Rossburg, Ohio where Eldora Speedway is located is a small rural Ohio town. Its population is less than 1,000. There are not many hotels within an hour’s drive of Rossburg considering there are 20,000 fans in town for the races.

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4 hours left (212) – 9 a.m., Richmond, Indiana. I checked out of the hotel with a bit less than seven hours sleep. Because I got to the hotel’s orange juice machine at about two minutes past 9 a.m., it wouldn’t work. The desk clerk said there was nothing she could do. The computer shuts off the machine precisely at 9 a.m. That’s what I love about standardization and cost control. On the drive over to Charleston, I stopped at the New Castle Motorsports Park. They were having a racing event that involved go-karts. Nothing looked countable. The facility is first class. Their indoor concession area rivals anything I’ve seen at the most well-known road courses in the U.S. They also have a huge parts store indoors that looked like an Auto Zone retail outlet. I decided I wouldn’t stay to watch the races since I can wait a few years and watch these drivers in NASCAR or the IRL. I’d rather go to Charleston to watch people race who are going absolutely nowhere (Martha, there he goes again).

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Exit 123 off of I-70 is also home to the Indiana High School Hall of Fame. This is one of the best HofFs I’ve been too. It features such bball notables as John Wooden (Editor’s note: As I was writing the word “Wooden” we started to have an earthquake…no kidding. It’s the first one I’ve felt in the new house. Maybe I shouldn’t make any more go-kart tracks cracks), Larry Bird and Oscar Robertson. This is a very worthwhile shrine.

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Race time – (0)1 p.m., Charleston, Illinois. I pulled into the Charleston Speedway parking lot at just a few minutes past race time. Roger Ferrell’s self-sponsored racing Ford was already in the lot. We would reunite some 38 hours after leaving Doe Run Raceway on Friday night. This is the life of a trackchaser.

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Back to the general People/Travel section

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The Indy Racing League raced in Dallas/Ft. Worth last night (Saturday). As I was driving through Indianapolis, where most of the Indy car teams are headquartered, I started to see the big racecar haulers semi-trucks rolling in. They must have driven all night. Indy is 925 miles from Dallas. That’s about a 14-hour drive. I’m sure they left right after their race and driven straight through the night.

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CUMULATIVE DRIVING DISTANCES:

St. Louis, Missouri Airport – trip begins

Highland, Illinois – 47 miles

Fredericktown, Missouri – 434 miles

Doe Run, Missouri – 463 miles

Charleston, Illinois – 1,389 miles

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TRACK ADMISSION PRICES (U.S. Dollars): 

Highland Speedway – $20

Fredericktown Raceway – $10

Doe Run Raceway – $7

Eldora Speedway – $43 (includes pit pass)

Charleston Speedway-RC – $8

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RACING NEWS:  

The Charleston Speedway Road Course is my 717^th track. Oddly enough, I was at Charleston’s oval just two weeks ago.  Below is a snippet about that brief visit.  Ed Esser and I had seen the complete program at the Coles County Speedway and decided to make the 15-mile drive from Mattoon, Illinois over to Charleston, Illinois.  That way we could catch the best races of the night at Charleston.

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“Ed and I enjoyed talking racing and trackchasing at Coles County Speedway. Their race program ended at about 8:30 p.m. so we both decided to run over to the Charleston Speedway to see the last part of their program. We had both been to Charleston previously but wanted to see if we could catch a couple of their features. I followed Ed on the 15-mile trip to Charleston Speedway. Ed drives at the legal speed limit. What’s up with that?

 

When we arrived at Charleston Speedway, they were still charging admission. We each had to cough up 8 bucks to get in. We were in time to watch the sportsman late model stock cars as well as the IMCA modifieds. The races at Charleston were loud because we were under a covered grandstand. The P.A. was a little too loud. The track was dusty and not too well lit. The complete Charleston race program was over by 9:35 p.m. Ed and I spent several minutes in the stands and then the parking lot talking before we both parted and headed our separate ways into the star lit night. Safe travels, brother.”

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The Maoraracing off road group was in town today. The grandstand was populated with about 30 folks including Roger and me.  This type of racing does not draw big crowds.

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Before I attempt to describe the road course configuration, I ask that you get your protractor out. You’re going to need it. Here goes:

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RANDY’S ROAD COURSE MAPPING CONTEST 

Yes, the contests just keep coming. The winner of this contest will get a $5 gift certificate to In n’ Out burgers. Simply fax your diagram of the Charleston Speedway Road Course to the fax number listed below by June 25, 2004. The winner will be the one whose drawing most accurately matches the actual road course layout at Charleston Speedway. Of course, Roger Ferrell (or anyone he’s talked too about this track are not eligible). I will announce the winner, if there is one, in one of my future race reports.

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The flagman was in the same location as he would be for a normal oval track show on the quarter mile oval. The cars went under his flag on the front straight of the oval. Directly at the flag stand was a small dirt jump. The cars and trucks took the flag and drove down the front stretch. Instead of turning to go into turn two of the oval they kept going straight through a small opening just beyond the beginning of turn one. They then drove for the most part out of sight for 20 seconds or so on the flat spaces beyond turns one and two. Soon they reappeared through an opening in the outer oval fence at the oval’s turn two. They raced diagonally across the oval’s infield as if they were running a traditional figure 8 course and heading toward turn four of the oval. Just before they would have entered turns three and four of the oval in a counter clockwise direction they made a U-turn in the infield and raced parallel to the backstretch in the opposite direction of the oval’s normal race pattern. At a point on the backstretch, they made another u-turn onto the backstretch and raced in the proper direction through turns three and four and down the front straight to the flag stand. If you’ve understood any of this, you’re a candidate for Mensa. Please fax me at 949-366-1767 with a diagram of what you think this track’s configuration looked like. I will grade your paper and return it to you.

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Roger and I talked about racing and stuff in general. The P.A. was nearly non-existent but I did notice they kept running races continuously during the 90 minutes I was at the track. General admission was $8. Admission was free at my last Maoraracing event in Casey, Illinois. Roger’s got a new cell phone. Someday he will know his number. Roger, this is key because if someone steals your phone you can at least call them! These road-racing events aren’t much but at least they’re in the day and can bridge two night races in the general area.

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RACE TRACK FOOD:  

They advertised strawberry shortcake for $3.00. I passed since I was on a high from my customer service success at the McDonalds in Terre Haute.

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RENTAL CAR UPDATE:    

I’ve got more than 1,400 miles on the Avis Rental Car Racing Chevy. I can’t sleep very well in it like Roger can with his self-sponsored racing Ford. At least I’ve got the money from my Lexus sale to pay for a couple of motels. I must admit I do look a little funny walking along the California interstate system with my golf bag on the way to the golf course.

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ED ESSER UPDATE: 

The update on Ed’s escapades will appear with the last report of this trip. Yes, tomorrow you’ll all get updated on what that tricky Ed Esser has been up too.

  

 

 

Randy Lewis

#1 Trackchaser living west of the Mississippi

 

That’s all the news that’s fit to print from San Clemente where the women are strong, the men are good-looking, and all of the children are above average.

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Racetracks visited in 2004 (** not the first time to visit this track)

 

717. Charleston Speedway – Road Course, Charleston, Illinois June 13

 

**Eldora Speedway, Rossburg, Ohio, June 12

 

716. Doe Run Raceway, Doe Run, Missouri, June 11

 

715. Fredericktown Raceway, Fredericktown, Missouri, June 11

 

714. Highland Speedway, Highland, Illinois, June 8

 

713. Pine Ridge Speedway, Baldwyn, Mississippi, May 29 (Carol’s #153)

 

712. Memphis Motorsports Park-Road Course, Memphis, Tennessee, May 29 (Carol’s #152)

 

711. Simpson County Speedway, Mendenhall, Mississippi, May 29 (Carol’s #151)

 

710. Southern Speedway, Hattiesburg, Mississippi, May 28 (Carol’s #150)

 

**Charleston Speedway, Charleston, Illinois, May 22

 

709. Coles County Speedway, Loxa, Illinois, May 22

 

708. Lincoln Trail Motorsports Off Road Park, Casey, Illinois, May 22

 

707. Warren County Speedway (oval track), Indianola, Iowa, May 21

 

706. Warren County Speedway (Figure 8 track), Indianola, Iowa, May 21

 

705. Firebird International Raceway – East Course, Chandler, Arizona, May 2 (Carol’s #149)

 

704. Pagota Motorcycle Club, Birdsboro, Pennsylvania, April 25

 

703. Mahoning Valley Speedway, Lehighton, Pennsylvania, April 24

 

702. Shellhammer’s Speedway, Leesport, Pennsylvania, April 24

 

701. Hill Valley Speedway, Orbisonia, Pennsylvania, April 24

 

700. Thunder Alley Speedpark, Evans Mills, New York, April 22

 

699. Belle Vue Greyhound Stadium, Belle Vue, United Kingdom, April 12

 

698. Buxton Raceway, Buxton, United Kingdom, April 12

 

697. Brampton Raceway, Brampton, United Kingdom, April 12

 

696. York Autograss, York, United Kingdom, April 12

 

695. Sheffield Stadium, Sheffield, United Kingdom, April 11

 

694. Blyton Raceway, Blyton, United Kingdom, April 11

 

693. Hunmanby Raceway, Hunmanby, United Kingdom, April 11

 

692. Skegness Stadium, Skegness, United Kingdom, April 10

 

691. Silverstone, Silverstone Circuit, Silverstone, United Kingdom, April 10

 

690. Mildenhall Stadium, Mendenhall, Suffock, United Kingdom, April 9

 

689. Bovingdon Circuit, Bovingdon, Hertfordshire, United Kingdom, April 9

 

688. Sunshine Speedway (figure 8), Pinellas Park, Florida, April 3

 

**Sunshine Speedway (oval), Pinellas Park, Florida, April 3

 

687. Lubbock Motor Speedway, Lubbock, Texas, March 21

 

686. Thunderbird Speedway, Crandall, Texas, March 20

 

685. Kennedale Speedway Park, Kennedale, Texas, March 20

 

684. Texas World Spdwy (Road Course), College Station, Texas, March 20

 

683. Heart O’ Texas Speedway, Waco, Texas, March 19

 

**Central Arizona Raceway, Casa Grande, Arizona, January 20        

 

 

 

Planned new racetracks for the remainder of 2004 (on the last day of each racing trip I will post my tentative plans for my next trip)

 

13-Jun       Evening              Belle-Clair Speedway           Belleville, IL

 

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Do you have any experience with auto racing at the Charleston Speedway? 

By the way you might have remembrances about the racing at Charleston.  If so, please feel free to share them in the comments section below.  If you have any photos from back in the day, send them to me at Ranlay@yahoo.com.  I’ll try to include them here.