Greetings from Birch Run, Michigan
From the travels and adventures of the
“World’s #1 Trackchaser”
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Birch Run Speedway
Asphalt figure 8
Lifetime Track #489
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Birch Run Speedway
Asphalt inner oval
Lifetime Track #490
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Birch Run Speedway
Asphalt outer oval
Lifetime Track #956
THE EVENT Today’s undertaking was just one of more than 2,000 trips that have taken me up, down and around the long and dusty trackchasing trail. If you would like to see where I’ve been and experience those adventures here’s the link: If you’ve got a question, comment or whatever please leave it at the bottom of this report. It’s very easy to do. I’ll try my best to respond. Thanks! My visits to the Dixie Motor Speedway came in 2001 and then again in 2005. The 2001 trip began on a Friday night at Dixie, June 29, 2001. Later in the weekend I went to the Cleveland Grand Prix, Painesville Speedway (OH) and on Sunday Angola Motor Speedway over in Indiana. When I returned in 2005 my Friday trackchasing trip began with a stop for the figure 8 races at the Eagle Park Fairgrounds in Eagle, Michigan. I was able to catch the feature events later in the evening at the Dixie Motor Speedway on their 4/10-mile asphalt outer oval. The rest of the weekend had me trackchasing at the Richmond Good Old Day Festival (figure 8 racing) in Richmond, Michigan. There I was joined by Roger and Brenda Ferrell. The Saturday evening race plan had me at Sandusky Speedway for their sprint car racing. Finally, on Sunday I went to the Mercer County Fairgrounds to see antique car racing in Celina, Ohio. The year 2005 was my record-breaking trackchasing year. I had not yet secured any airline sponsorship at that time. Nevertheless, I ended up seeing 182 new tracks in 2005, a record that stands to this day. Greetings from Birch Run, Michigan TRAVEL/PEOPLE NEWS The wakeup call came at 5 a.m. in San Clemente. Touchdown in Detroit was 4:30 p.m. Eastern time. Arrival at Dixie Motor Speedway in Birch Run, Michigan was at 7:30 p.m. just in time for the national anthem. A simple 11 ½ hours from my door to Dixie’s door. I took this trip on United Airlines. My normal carrier is American Airlines. As a matter of fact I have 5.6 million miles lifetime in the American Airlines Aadvantage program. So why United? My AAA Visa card gives free tickets for just 16,000 points (one dollar equals one point). Most frequent flyer programs require 25,000 miles/points for a free ticket. The AAA Visa card is a great bargain in this regard. Tickets can be redeemed on United or Continental. I connected in Chicago on the way to Detroit. When you travel you see all kinds of people. The one I noticed, in particular, was a young boy about 6 or 7 years old lying on the floor screaming and yelling at his grandmother. After a short while he got up and started kicking her in the ankles. Nice kid. Mental note: avoid this boy! On board I settled into my aisle seat and made myself comfortable. As time went by and the plane filled it looked like I would have the seats next to me empty. Unfortunately, that would not be the case. Who would sit next to me other than monster boy and his grandmother? Monster boy, I would later learn he was named “Mikey”, sat next to me. This was not a good thing. Mikey liked to whine. First it was, “I’m hungry”, then “I’m thirsty”. Then, “I want to sit by the window”. Mikey would not fasten his seat belt. Grandma begged and pleaded but Mikey wouldn’t and didn’t fasten his seat belt. He discovered his tray table next. Tray table down. Tray table up. Tray table down. You get the picture. I began to doze off. Tap, tap, tap on the forearm. It was Mikey. He wanted to raise the armrest between us. I sternly said, “No!” He wanted to know why? I told him I didn’t want him raising my armrest. Can you spell A.D.D.? I decided to recline my seat. Mikey wanted to recline his seat but he didn’t see how I did it. I watched him struggle to recline his seat without success. That was fun! Next came the pretzels. After a while Mikey began to throw them at Grandma. We were nearing the end of the flight when the pilot came over the speaker and announced he had bad news. We would need to circle the Detroit airport for 30 minutes……and we had only 30 minutes of fuel. That’s all he said! If I were an infrequent flyer this announcement would have worried me. I decided to turn on my laptop for a few minutes. About this time Mikey began to drink/play with Grandma’s seven-up drink. Let’s see…..the Seven-up is about 18 inches from my laptop. This was more nerve-wracking than the fuel problem. As you might imagine we landed without further incident or you would have heard about it before you saw this email. I figure I have 10 more years to watch races in Michigan. In 10 years Mikey will be 16 and begin driving. I will then suspend trackchasing activities for a three-year period in Michigan. During this three-year hiatus Mikey should be safely locked up in one state penitentiary or another for a good long time. I can then resume Michigan trackchasing pursuits. Allan, keep an eye out for this kid. RACING NEWS Dixie Motor Speedway is a well-organized operation. This is the first track I’ve ever been to that features an official greeter, just like WalMart. “Welcome to Dixie”, with direct eye contact. Another first, it was church bulletin night. Everyone bringing his or her church bulletin got $1 off the $10 admission. They started on time exactly at 7:30 p.m. Their grandstand was large, about 30 rows high. They had an enthusiastic announcer and a great P.A. system. I’ve never seen cleaner bathrooms at a racetrack anywhere. Refreshments were racetrack traditional. I tried the specialty, popcorn chicken at $2.75. The concession stands are located underneath the grandstands like a lot of fairgrounds tracks. It was about 90 degrees and humid outside. Underneath in the concession/souvenir area it was about 120 degrees. It was hot. I don’t know how the concessionaires could work there. The track offered an excellent program. They had a special section sort of like a telephone yellow pages directory that included info on: banners and signs, fan conduct/profanity, lost and found, paging, etc. I sat in the non-alcohol section. There were a couple of guys drinking beer, but not causing any trouble, in my section. One of the track personnel went to them and asked them to move. They initially resisted but then finally moved. I’ve never seen tracks enforce this policy before. I like that. They had several classes of racecars. These included: late models, figure 8s, modifieds, super mini trucks and the black and blue division. The track is a low banked 1/3-mile asphalt oval with a traditional flat figure 8 track inside. The first race of the night was a figure 8 feature that had been postponed from two weeks ago. It had been postponed because of a serious accident. It was fairly uneventful but the cars were fast and entertaining. Usually figure 8 races are the last event of the night. The figure 8 race gave me my 489th lifetime track. The oval track races were only fair. There were lots of yellows, about 2-3 for every heat race. There were 10-12 heats races. At about 10 p.m. it was time to make an exit. Just too many delays. The Dixie Motor Speedway was my 490th lifetime track. Maybe on a different night the racing would be better at Dixie. Everything else about the track was good but 2 ½ hours of three laps and a caution was not very entertaining. Best billboard: Bronner’s – World’s largest Christmas Store (same exit as the track) Weather: t-shirt and shorts, it was hot and sticky Current rental car mileage: 262 miles when I reached the hotel in Toledo, Ohio Editor’s note: The URLs listed below were active in 2001. What are the chances they still work today? Do you feel lucky? Go for it! 482 Savannah Speedway, Savannah, MO (no web site) Greetings from Eagle, Michigan and then Birch Run, Michigan AND THE READER’S RESPOND George R., formerly of Eden, North Carolina and now a resident of Fountain Valley, California writes regarding my visit to the Tri-County Motor Speedway in Hudson, North Carolina and then about my recent visit to Peoria Speedway in Peoria, Illinois. “You are one lucky person for avoiding the interview at the Tri-County Motor Speedway in Hudson, NC! You have put your life in jeopardy on several occasions- the Georgia Klan Rally, visiting the church in Harlem, NY, staying in Super 8 motels- and now you can add the intended interview in NC, especially if you were going to say that the #11 race car is anything but C-A-R-O-L-I-N-A Blue! These charming people in the South are only charming if you don’t push their buttons. People in the South may take their religion, race and politics lightly but they for sure take their school and state allegiance very seriously. (Let me point out here that at Chris and Sara’s wedding they used “Carolina” Blue for their colors!) As a matter of fact, you may want to at least share your love for the Bruins with a team and school in the South since you like to travel there and long to be a Southerner. Just remember, the Tarheels are here to stay and you would have God on your side. As they say, if God wasn’t a Tarheel the sky wouldn’t be Carolina Blue!” Wow! What a touching memory of your childhood and friends. I’m glad you had a chance to see your family for the weekend. PEOPLE/STRATEGY/TRAVEL NEWS Most of the racetracks of America are located in the Midwest and Eastern parts of the country. In order for me to reach a new track in this part of the country on the same day I depart California, I need to be on the very first flight of the day. Today, my flight leaves the Orange County Airport at 6:45 a.m. After losing three hours to time zone changes, I will arrive into Detroit’s airport at 4:20 p.m. By the time I get my luggage and rental car it will probably be about 5:30 p.m. It is a 105-mile drive from the airport to the Eagle Park Fairgrounds. If the planes are on time and there are no major traffic delays, I should make it for the 7:30 p.m. start time. I will not have much time to dawdle along the way! There is a good deal of activity that actually takes place before my plane departs. First, I set my alarm clock for 5:01 a.m. I wanted to be leaving my driveway just 14 minutes later for the airport. Do you give yourself more than 14 minutes from the time you wake from a dead sleep to the time you shift the car into reverse on the way to the airport for a cross-country flight? Yes, I thought you did. I was very comfortable with the 14 minutes. That would allow time for a shower, but no shaving. It doesn’t take long to put on a t-shirt and a pair of shorts. Maybe next time I will try to cut those 14 minutes down. The drive to the airport is 28 minutes. There is never any traffic at this time of day so I travel at freeway speeds. I get a bonus today. Carol has volunteered to drive me to the airport. My use of the word “volunteered” is similar to my season’s definitions. It may not be totally accurate but it’s close. This plan puts me into the Orange County Airport at 5:43 a.m. The Orange County airport is the most consumer friendly, modern and full of amenities place you can fly from. I quickly check in with the first class ticket agent. The only comment I get is “that’s a BIG bag you’re checking”. Yes, it is. Because I have flown more miles than anyone reading this would ever want too, American Airlines lets me board the plane first at 6:11 a.m. We still have 34 minutes before our scheduled take-off. Of course, veteran Orange County flyers know the airport doesn’t open for flying business until 7 a.m. We won’t be flying until at least then. That means I will be on the plane, guaranteed, for at least 49 minutes until we take off. I always have plenty of reading material so the delay doesn’t faze me at all. Once we are ready to take off, the pilot warns the passengers about the unusual take-off procedure at the Orange County Airport. Our runways are shorter than normal. This means the plane needs a “head start”. How does a commercial jetliner get that head start? The pilot stands on the breaks while he revs the engine. When he has significant RPMs from the engine, he releases the brakes and we’re off. If you imagine being in a dragster or one of those roller coasters that goes from zero to 60 M.P.H. in a couple of seconds you have the feeling. Next we climb to 1,000 feet faster than the space shuttle. Once we reach 1,000 feet, the pilot cuts back on the throttle. The power cutback is so severe that some people think the plane is going down. I guess they got this take-off idea from the folks at nearby Disneyland. From that point and for the next several hours, I will work on my future trackchasing plans. I will also spend time working on our family financial plan, which I do nearly every day in one form or another. Golf is starting to reappear on my radar screen and the preparation for the links will rival and sometimes surpass my trackchasing prep. Actually, it’s a very relaxing day. I don’t have to be anywhere until 7:30 p.m. tonight. That’s when the real fun starts! RACE TRACK STATS: EAGLE PARK FAIRGROUNDS, EAGLE, MICHIGAN – TRACK #955 This track in Michigan is my 51st countable track to see in the state. DIXIE RUN SPEEDWAY (OUTER OVAL), BIRCH RUN, MICHIGAN – TRACK #956 This track in Michigan is my 52nd countable track to see in the state. It is my 35th new track to see in the Wolverine state this year. I have never seen more new tracks in a single state in a single year. I am ranked ninth in Michigan tracks. Here are some incredible numbers. I still have 76 countable tracks I have not seen in Michigan. Only nine of those tracks are weekly oval programs at facilities I have never visited. Michigan has more “one off” shows than any other state in the country. Allan Brown leads the state totals with 126 tracks. RACE TRACK NEWS: EAGLE PARK FAIRGROUNDS, EAGLE, MICHIGAN We are now in the “fall season” of trackchasing. The “fall season” runs from the day after Labor Day to Thanksgiving weekend. By the way, these are my definitions of seasons and don’t necessarily agree with the calendar you have in your pantry. In case you haven’t noticed I just love this trackchasing stuff! With the summer season only put to bed last weekend, I wanted to get a fast start for the fall trackchasing season. Soon fall will fade to winter and I will have to switch to my winter wardrobe. What will that entail for a Californian? I will be trading in my lighter colored shorts for the dark ones. Mid-week racing programs are over for the most part now. Like the grizzly bear that goes into hibernation, the mid-week events won’t reappear until the late spring/early summer. What does that mean for you, the avid Trackchaser Report reader? Fewer Trackchaser Reports! I will be forced to go back to my more traditional trackchasing trip. That means flying out on Friday morning and returning to the little Spanish city by the sea on Mondays. That type of trip should yield 3-6 tracks per outing. The fall season also introduces competing activities for my time. Carol and I are big UCLA (winners over San Diego State last weekend) football and basketball fans. She likes football best and I like basketball. We have season tickets for both sports as well as a mini-ticket package for the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. Our plan is to go to four of the six home football games. We will bypass Rice, this weekend, since UCLA is a prohibitive favorite. We are also likely to miss one other home game in favor of our attending a NASCAR Nextel Cup race. Fortunately, the basketball season rarely conflicts with trackchasing because many of the games are mid-week and almost no one races in the U.S. in the winter. As we go further into the fall season, the weather gets a bit iffier. In 2004, I had 61 successful days of trackchasing and another 7 days of rainouts. Two of those rainouts came in Nov/Dec. This year I have already had 96 successful trackchasing days with just three rain days for the entire season. The weather in Michigan is beautiful today. There are cobalt blue skies and temperatures are in the high 70s. The forecast for the rest of the weekend is excellent. I arrived at the Eagle Park Fairgrounds just 14 minutes before the 7:30 p.m. start time. I am lucky there were no fight delays or problems getting the Budget rental car. I did run into some Friday night traffic, which is to be expected. I was shocked by the size of the crowd at tonight’s county fair type event. There looked to be 2,000 cars in the rambling parking lot. I think there must have been about 2,000 people in the grandstands. It was packed. Apparently, everyone drove to the track by himself or herself! When I arrived there were about 100 people in line to buy tickets. Rather than stand in that line, I noticed I could watch the event through the fence. My position was only 15 feet from the track. When cars came through the final turn they through mud on me. I glanced over at the packed grandstand. There did not look like there were any seats to be had. After the line at the ticket window went down, I decided to continue to watch the races from where I was. I could also move to a similar fence position on the backstretch and watch from there. This strategy saved me $10, allowed me to view the action similar to how I would watch a road course race by walking around and gave me a chance to walk the very small fair between heat races. The track was unusual. First, imagine you are looking at the circle made by your wristwatch. Now squeeze on your watch at 9 p.m. and 3 p.m. so it takes the shape of an oval. Now at about 2 o’clock put a little loop in your oval where the cars can crossover each other before returning to a straight part of the track at about 3 p.m. Then put a small piece of chewing gum at three o’clock and nine o’clock to simulate jumps and you have probably ruined your watch but have a replica of the Eagle Park Fairgrounds scrambles track. The racing itself was not very entertaining. The track was very wide is most spots. Wide means limited contact in a class that needs contact to be entertaining. They started 14 cars in each heat race. They had two rows of seven cars each. The cars began from a standing start. You can imagine how wide the track was to accommodate seven cars side by side in each row. They also heavily watered the track and this decreased the speeds. The announcer was terrible. He hardly said a thing. From my position the P.A. wasn’t very good. I suspect that was the case at all locations on the track. They started 10 minutes early. That was a good thing. I had hoped to stay for two hours and see the complete program. My plan was then to drive for an hour over to the Dixie Motor Speedway for a traditional double. I was watching the fifth heat after being at the track for about an hour and a half. I had now seen 70 cars race. I am not certain how many cars attended. The announcer asked for “someone in the concession stands to turn on the rest of the track lights”. He repeated his request a couple of times. Just as he was about to ask again, all of the track lights went out. Of course, this brought out the red flags during the middle of the fifth heat. After about 10 minutes, they either found the switch or paid their light bill. The mercury vapor lights began to come on very slowly. No, make that very, very slowly. I have mercury vapor lighting in the RANLAY Events Center at home. Those lights are used to simulate the lighting that full-size gymnasiums have. When my lights have been on for a while and then are shut off, it takes 10-15 minutes for them to come back to full strength. We had already had a 10-minute delay waiting on the lights. I didn’t want to wait another 15 minutes or more for a program that wasn’t very good to begin with. The racing tonight was sub-par for these reasons. The track was too wide for much contact at all. In addition, the track was too wet for the cars to reach any real racing speed. One good thing was the jumps. These were tall jumps placed in the middle of both straights. The jumps had to be 10 feet tall. Unfortunately, even with jumps that big the cars still only achieved about a foot of “air”. I decided to make the Eagle Fairgrounds Park the first half of a blended double without seeing a feature at the first track. That makes this my ninth such double of the year out of my 147 tracks. After seeing the races at the Dixie Motor Speedway, I was very pleased from a racing standpoint with my decision. DIXIE MOTOR SPEEDWAY (OUTER OVAL), BIRCH RUN, MICHIGAN The Dixie Motor Speedway has three countable tracks. Very few of the venues I attend, maybe less than 20% has more than one countable track. Dixie offers a one-third mile asphalt oval and a traditional figure 8 course. I saw each of these tracks run in 2000. When I was there in 2000, they were in the midst of constructing the banked turns of what would become the four-tenths mile outer asphalt oval. I believe that track first ran in 2003. This new outer oval was the countable track for me tonight. I did not see any racing on the two tracks I had counted in 2000. I arrived at about 10:05 p.m. The program was scheduled to start at 7:30 p.m. I didn’t know if they would still be racing or not. One thing I did know, they were still charging the full $20 admission this late into the evening. I asked the ticket seller for a reduction. In great negotiating style, she said she had no authority to reduce the price. She suggested I talk to the ticket taker who was right around the corner. I went over to breach the subject with the ticket taker and he was not at his post. I am still looking for him with my twenty dollars. It was dramatically cooler at Birch Run than in the city of Eagle. I don’t know why that would be since they are not very far apart. The local fans were ready for it as almost everyone wore long pants and a jacket. I went with shorts and a t-shirt. The grandstands at Dixie are some of the largest I’ve seen for a short track. The stands were nearly packed for a $20 admission price. This was the first day of a two-day show. The program consisted of time trials for their big 200-lap late model show, three 20-lap qualifiers for the late models, the truck feature and an Auto Value Super Sprint feature. I arrived near the beginning of the truck feature. They could not have run very many laps before I got there because they ran a lot of laps after I arrived. I never got the feature length, but I saw about 20-25 laps. There were 18 trucks and they put on a good show. The Auto Value Sprint feature was one of the better races I have seen this year. It made me happy I had left the poor racing show that was going on at the Eagle Park Fairgrounds. The Dixie Motor Speedway is a first class track. They had two announcers, one for the visiting sprint cars and the other for the remaining classes. The sprint car announcer gave some interesting stats about sprint cars. He told the crowd they only get ONE M.P.G.! That surprised me. They cost about $50,000 per car, must weight 1,600 pounds or more at the finish and have engines that produce 800 horsepower. That horsepower to weight ratio is one of the highest of any form of racing. Twenty-three sprints started the 30-lap feature. The season champion, Cameron Dotson had the option of starting in the back, and if he won from there, he would win double the winner’s prize money. He elected to start on the tail of the field. Somehow after a couple of restarts he was up to 12th after just one lap. I’d have to study the video on how he was able to do that. During the next 25 laps Dotson drove like a wild man and reduced a one-half lap lead to just a car length. The crowd loved it. On lap 26 a yellow flag slowed the field. The crowd expected Dotson to blow by the leader on the restart, but he didn’t. I did like the fact that under the yellow flag, Dotson drove up under the leader to show him he was there. You need to let those ahead of you know you’re coming through! Dotson made a bonsai pass in the third turn of the last lap. He got by for first place, but then wiggled in the fourth turn. This allowed the driver (whose name I did not get) who had led the entire race until the last turn to regain the lead and win. The crowd went wild. I felt I got more than my money’s worth! RENTAL CAR UPDATE: I will be driving the Budget Rental Car Racing Nissan Ultima. The Budget location was very busy. I was about eighth in line when I entered the rental building. The counter agent told me they are this busy “every day and every night”. If that’s the case, maybe they should raise the rates on their full-size car from just $21.99 per day. LIFETIME TRACKCHASER STANDINGS UPDATE: These worldwide trackchasers are within 100 tracks (plus or minus) of my current trackchaser total. Other notables 2005 TRACKCHASER STANDINGS * Trackchasing “New Tracks in One Season” record Thanks for reading about my trackchasing, Randy Lewis Trackchasing’s #1 trackchaser of the 21st century Randy Lewis is a freelance writer, who winters in San Clemente, California and frequently flies in economy class. CUMULATIVE DRIVING DISTANCES: Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport – trip begins Eagle, Michigan – 105 miles Birch Run, Michigan – 185 miles Air travel Orange County, CA – Chicago, IL – 1,726 miles Chicago, IL – Detroit, MI – 281 miles TRACK ADMSSION PRICES: Eagle Park Fairgrounds – Free Dixie Motor Speedway – Free September 10 – Figure 8s, Richmond, Michigan September 10 – Sandusky Speedway, Sandusky, Ohio September 11 – Mercer County Fairgrounds – Celina, Ohio September 11 – Windy Hollow Speedway (figure 8), Owensboro, Kentucky “TRACKCHASER CHEESE CHALLENGE 2005 PACE OF THE RACE REPORT BROUGHT TO YOU BY FRONTIER AIRLINES” This is a comparison of how many new tracks Ed Esser has seen in 2005 and how many tracks I saw through the same date in 2004 on my way to seeing, at then a record, 127 tracks. In order for Ed to win the “Cheese Challenge”, he must see 128 new tracks. Through September 6 – Ed – 95 tracks Randy – 88 tracks* *Note: To properly evaluate Ed’s chances, remember I added six new tracks on and after December 26, 2004 in Australia. At this point in time, Ed has never trackchased outside of the United States. He will have a difficult time finding U.S. based tracks in late December. Net, he needs to stay 6-7 tracks ahead of my pace of last year through early December in order to win this challenge. Prize: If Ed sees more than 128 new tracks in 2005, he wins a round-trip domestic airline ticket to anywhere Frontier Airlines flies. If he cannot see at least 128 new tracks then I win 10 pounds of the Wisconsin cheese of my choice. Editor’s note: Ed did win the Cheese Challenge! ** Great Yarmouth Stadium (oval), Yarmouth, England, March 27 ** Tucson Raceway Park (outer oval), Tucson, Arizona, April 30 ** U.S. 30 Speedway (outer oval), Columbus, Nebraska, May 26 ** Rocky Mountain National Speedway (oval), Commerce City, Colorado, May 28 ** Hawkeye Downs (outer oval), Cedar Rapids, Iowa, June 3 ** 81 Speedway, Wichita, Kansas – July 21 ** Spartan Speedway, Mason (oval), Michigan – August 7 ** Galesburg Speedway (oval), Galesburg, Michigan – August 14 
New racetracks visited in 2001
Upcoming new racetracks
Racetracks visited in 2005 (** not the first time to visit this track)