Greetings from Gibsonton, Florida
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From the travels and adventures of the “World’s #1 Trackchaser”
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East Bay Raceway
Dirt oval (outer)
Lifetime track #72
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East Bay Raceway
Dirt oval (inner)
Lifetime track #1,007
The first after the “Group of 71”. I first went to the East Bay Raceway in Gibsonton, Florida back on February 6, 1980. There were a few significant things to come out of this visit to East Bay. The East Bay Raceway was my 72nd lifetime racetrack to see. I was thirty-one years old. Yes, I got a very late start in trackchasing. Actually beginning in 1980 and for the next 20 years, ending in 1999, I only saw 333 new tracks. That’s right. The fellow who was to become the World’s #1 Trackchaser had seen only 71 tracks by the age of thirty-one. Some twenty years later, at the youngish age of 51, I had seen just 404 tracks. In the realm of trackchasing having seen just 400 tracks or so as I entered my 50s was merely a drop in the proverbial trackchasing bucket. Who would have predicted (O.K. Tom Sivi DID predict I would reach the #1 ranking in the world) I would see well over 2,000 tracks in my trackchasing career? Up until the beginning of the 1980 racing season I had seen 71 different tracks. Those tracks are known at the “Group of 71”. Up until 1980 I didn’t think to write down the date when I saw any one of those seventy-one tracks. Nevertheless, I had great memories at the time of those track visits. Beginning in 1980 I began to record the dates of the races I attended and often the feature winners during my visit. It wasn’t until about track #430 that I thought to begin writing a “diary” of sorts about each track seen. Those “diaries” have morphed into what you see now at www.randylewis.org. Today, for each track visited, there is a very complete and fully illustrated Trackchaser Report. You get YouTube videos and photo albums as well. Nearly 100 newspapers, radio and TV stations have written or broadcast the stories about my trackchasing adventures. Yes, I got a late start in trackchasing. Yes, I am one of the very few trackchasers who took time away from racing to raise a family of three children always supported by my wonderful wife, Carol. It’s been quite a ride and it continues to this day. Don’t miss this. Have you ever taken a look at my “Favorite Tracks” tab at www.randylewis.org? It’s on my home page near the bottom in the center. Here’s a link to that page: I get asked a lot of questions about my trackchasing hobby. One of the most frequent is “What’s your favorite track?” Of course, my MOST favorite track is and always has been the Peoria Speedway. I’m from East Peoria, Illinois a “suburb” of Peoria. As that is written it comes to mind that I have never ever thought of my little town was a “suburb” of Peoria but I guess it was/is. I first saw racing at the Peoria Speedway when it was located out near the Mt. Hawley Airport in Peoria. Then in 1965, when I was sixteen years old, the track was relocated to a location on Farmington Road in Peoria. Beyond the Peoria Speedway I will tell folks who ask that other favorite tracks of mine are Ascot Park and Eldora Speedway among several. Of course names like Manzanita, El Toro, Sterling, Rockford, Santa Fe, Kokomo, Boone, West Liberty, Knoxville, Slinger, Wisconsin State Fair Park, Talledega, Zephyrhills, Darlington, Nashville International Raceway, Bristol, Devil’s Bowl (TX), Stafford Springs, Fantasy Speedway, Orange County Fair Speedway, Woodhull, Empty Jug, Race-1 Motor Speedway, Puffers Pond Ice Track, Martinsville and Pennsboro make the list too. To the veteran race fan these names are like “Elvis”. Just one name is used but everyone knows what you are talking about. One and done. In the hobby of trackchasing most tracks seen are “one and done”. A trackchaser may spend unknown amounts of time and money getting to a racetrack ONE TIME. However, once the “box is checked” for that track the normal trackchaser will never darken the door of that facility again. The top 10-15 hobby trackchasers will rarely go back a second time to as many as 10-20% of the tracks they have seen. That is the case for me as well. That’s really why I became a trackchaser in the first place. Somewhere along the line I discovered I would rather visit a track for the first time rather than the tenth time. There are exceptions to most rules. The East Bay Raceway is an exception to the above rule. East Bay is located in Gibsonton, Florida. Do you know how far Gibsonton is from San Clemente, California my home town? If you guessed 2,524 miles you would be correct. Let’s think about this. Trackchasers rarely re-visit tracks they have already seen. If you were to subtract “home town” tracks, let’s say tracks within a 250-mile radius of a trackchaser’s home, the “re-visit” rate drops a huge amount. I would estimate a trackchaser returns less than 5% of the time to tracks further than 250 miles from his/her home. Let’s take this process one step further. How many times does a trackchaser return to a track that’s MORE THAN 2,500 miles from their home. The answer? Not very damn often!! However, I am a trackchaser. I like the East Bay Raceway. I first went there in 1980. The East Bay Raceway is more than 2,500 miles from my home in San Clemente. Nevertheless, I went there in 1980, 1981, 1983, 1984, 1985, 1995, 1996, 1997 1998, 2003, 2006 and 2013. In total I have seen at least 22 race dates at the East Bay Raceway. I pride myself in making a real commitment to return to tracks I really like even though they don’t add to my lifetime trackchasing totals. I would say that making a dozen trips to a track located more than 5,000 round-trip miles from my home supports that point. East Bay Raceway, a place for some great racing. The East Bay Raceway is a tacky, well-lit 1/3-mile dirt oval. During Florida “Speed Weeks” they race late model stock cars and sprint cars. I prefer late models over sprints cars. I’ve seen both race at East Bay. As a matter of fact these are just some of the big name drivers I have seen win main events at East Bay. Jimmy Mars Don O’Neil Rick Eckert Steve Francis Booper Bare (Yep! Booper) Rick Aukland Doug Wolfgang Bobby Davis Jr. Sammy Swindell Danny Smith Keith Kaufman Unfortunately, I have not made any videos from East Bay visits. Most of my photos from that track are buried in the Randy Lewis Racing archives. Trust me on this. Some of the best racing I have ever seen came from the East Bay Raceway. Here are my comments from my last East Bay Raceway visit. However, in 2013 following an ice racing trip to New York I stopped by Florida. Yes, I “stopped by”. Florida is “on the way home” from New York to California right? Here’s what I had to say about that visit. Why not stop in Florida for a day on the way home? There was no way I could get back to California following today’s ice racing in upstate New York. The best I could do was get back home on Monday. That gave me an idea. Why not jet down to Florida to catch a day of SpeedWeeks and get back home a day later on Tuesday? That seemed like a wonderful idea. I haven’t been to Florida for the popular SpeedWeeks races in a long time. The Lucas Oil late model stock cars were racing at the East Bay Raceway near Tampa. The weather was going to be warm, and surprisingly I could likely catch a flight down there and then back home with little hassle. This was perfect. Before I became the “World’s #1 Trackchaser” I was a racechaser. I went to lots of races without a care in the world about whether I had been to the track before. As a racechaser I went to the track to see the races not simply to add a new track to my “resume”. How big of a “racechaser” was I? Well, my next visit to East Bay will be my 22nd. That’s not bad considering I live nearly 3,000 miles from the track. East Bay Raceway Park is one of my top ten favorite tracks. It’s a tacky third-mile clay oval with just a little bit of banking. I’ve seen cars come from the back to win the feature. I’ll tell you a little bit about my visit to East Bay in the “Race Review” section. EAST BAY RACEWAY PARK – GIBSONTON, FLORIDA (2013) This was not my first East Bay rodeo. Of course, I was not visiting the East Bay Raceway Park for the first time. Although my last visit was in 2003 (2006 East Bay Raceway – inner oval) tonight would mark my 22nd lifetime visit to “East Bay”. I’ve been down here with Carol, my stepfather Bill and long-time buddy Jim Sabo. Some of the coldest nights I’ve ever spent at a racetrack have been right here. As a trackchaser I am one of the few who will travel long distances to go back again and again to a favorite track. I don’t mind people who abhor racechasing in pursuit of trackchasing. However, it’s a bit much when some trackchasers call themselves racechasers and they are not. I don’t get to many of my top ten most favorite tracks anymore. East Bay is one of my top ten most favorite racetracks out of the 1,819 I have seen. The track is a slightly banked one-third mile dirt oval. It doesn’t get dusty, the track stays tacky. I’ve seen sprints and late models here almost always during Florida SpeedWeeks in February. Nearly perfect but not quite. Tonight’s program was nearly perfect except on one-major account. The program had just one class, super late models. That was good. There was a strong P.A. system with a good announcer. They started on time. That was good. They ran time trials for the 42 racers on hand tonight. I’m not a big fan of time trials. However, they ran three cars “on the clock” at the same time. That was good. Time trials were finished in about fifteen minutes. The race program called for four heats, two “B” mains, a non-qualifiers trophy dash and a 25-lap feature race. I sat next to racechaser Dave Garrison who was nice enough to save me a seat and even bring me a seat cushion. You can’t beat that for hospitality. The program took it’s final checkered flag at 9:20 p.m. That was VERY good. Heck, the lighting was perfect. The concessions were way above average. They even had strawberry shortcake (my favorite) and completely dipped and smothered in chocolate key lime pie. Here’s what wasn’t perfect. As a matter of fact it was very imperfect. “But Randy, this program seemed to offer all of the things you’ve told us you want in a good racing program for all these many years. You said it was ‘nearly perfect’. What didn’t you like?”, the curious reader might be heard to ask. There was very little passing for the lead in any of the main races. The fastest four cars in time trials started on the pole of each heat race. In three of the heat races the pole-sitter led every lap in the heat race. In the other heat the pole-sitter hit a rut while leading and the second starting car got by for the win. In the feature event the four heat winners started on the first two rows. Dennis Erb Jr. and Scott Bloomquist started on the front row of the “A” main and finished “1-2” with Erb winning. As a matter of fact, Dennis Erb Jr. (above) set fast time. Then he won his heat from the pole putting him on the front row of the feature. Then he led ever lap of the “A” feature for the win. Mr. Erb won “everything” tonight collecting $5,000 for his feature win. Here’s the kicker. Dennis Erb Jr. did not have to pass a SINGLE car for position all night. That is bad! I will tell you this. There was some hellacious driving, side by side, back in the pack. That’s what saved the program. I will admit the cars are very evenly matched. This is why the “cars and stars” of the program put pressure on the event promoters to let the fast timers start up front. The owners with the best equipment normally get the best drivers. That combination with time trials puts the fast guys up front. From there it is nearly a “no-brainer” for them to mash the gas and win from the front row. That is the single more irritating thing I find about the major late model and sprint car shows. EAST BAY RACEWAY (INNER OVAL) – GIBSONTON, FLORIDA (2006) Somewhat sheepishly I will tell you I returned in 2006 to the East Bay Raceway to see senior champ karts race on the facility’s inner oval. I saw the karts race on Friday, March 17, 2006. This was my 1,007th lifetime track. On that trip I also added the kart tracks from Barberville and Fruitland Park, Florida. Then on Sunday I went to the nearly phantom track in Fort Meade, Florida to see their odd-road racing event at the Sand Mountain Speedway. Sadly, I never got to see any racing on Sand Mountain’s oval track. Not many people did! However, by 2006 and track #1,007 I was writing Trackchaser Reports to describe my trips. Here’s what I had to say about the visit to see senior champs compete at the East Bay Raceway. Greetings from Gibsonton, Florida, THE REALLY BIG NEWS! We learned a few days ago that our daughter, Kristy, is planning to be married! She is the first of our three children to take the plunge and the Lewis family is very excited. Kristy is going to marry James Peters (Eldora Speedway hat! – above) of Madison, Wisconsin. They met at the University of Michigan Law School and are both practicing attorneys in Los Angeles. Now I will have double the legal firepower to battle less than forthright fellow trackchasers. Of course, a wedding budget will have to compete with a trackchasing budget. I am sure Kristy will understand if certain wedding expenses (wedding dress, photographer, flowers, etc) have to be eliminated in favor of an airplane ticket to some desolate, out of the way, loser town located somewhere “Back East” for a future trackchasing trip. It did not go unnoticed that my fiercest trackchasing competitor, Ed Esser, is also from Madison, Wisconsin. Could Ed have put James up to this (they have met!) in the hopes that he could cripple my financial empire with both wedding and trackchasing expenses? Naw, Ed’s from the Midwest. People are too nice in that part of the country to do such a thing. What is the first impact of the wedding planning process? My planned for trackchasing trip to Florida for the weekend of March 24-26 has been scrapped in favor of a trip to the potential wedding site. Fellow trackchasing competitors should not be encouraged by this short-term conflict of interest. It won’t happen often. CONTEST NEWS I’m happy to report that National Geographic magazine subscriptions are winging their way to the winners who have requested them in the National Geographic Diversity championship. I also want to offer special congratulations to Steve Shaw (North Carolina) and Andy Ritter (Pennsylvania – above). They are the winners of my most recent Randy Lewis Racing website contest. They paid great attention to detail when viewing my website and correctly identified the contents being transported via truck along Interstate 40. Yes, those were fire hydrants. Their Wal-Mart gift cards will be sent to them shortly. I will continue to offer more Randy Lewis Racing contests. You’ll have to keep up with the website in order to cash in on these online prizes. PEOPLE/STRATEGY/TRAVEL NEWS The Strategy One of the number one results of a successful strategy is meeting the goals for which the strategy was developed for in the first place. Of course, this might be an over simplification but that’s why I employ strategic thinking. Others may simply call their strategy a plan. Some may not even be as structured to call their ideas a plan. It doesn’t matter what you call your thought process. I can go with any way you want to define it. One of my 2005 annual report goals for 2006 was to improve my trackchaser worldwide ranking. I took a strong step forward tonight against achieving that goal. Tonight I tied Andy Sivi for 4th place in the worldwide rankings. When I entered the world of formal trackchasing, Andy was one of my trackchaser role models. This is the highest ranking I have ever had. One more track and I will pass my first fellow trackchaser of the season. The People On most of my trackchasing trips, I either go to the races with a friend or family member or visit them somewhere along the adventure. That will be the case for my three-day trip to Florida as well. I’ll have dinner tonight with Kindred (a great southern name) Powell (above) of Clearwater, Florida and stay at my stepfather’s home for the three nights of this trip. Kin and I have known each other for about 20 years. I first laid eyes on him in the hotel lobby at the Hilton Hotel in Athens, Greece. Little did I know that he and his wife, Stephanie, natives of Virginia but living in Atlanta would become our table partners for dinner during our entire cruise of the Greek Islands. Over time, we have each stayed at the other’s home. We’ve vacationed together several times and have the stories to go with those travels. I could tell you about the time Stephanie pulled a gun out of her handbag in our New Orleans hotel room, or the time Kin was stopped for speeding in a construction zone on a Sunday morning as we made our way toward North Wilkesboro. However, one of my most memorable recollections was on a beautiful and clear Sunday morning in Bermuda. Tourists are not allowed to rent cars in Bermuda. If you want to get around the island one of the most popular options, although mildly dangerous, is too rent a Moped. Since Carol didn’t have much experience riding motorcycles, I elected to have the two of us share one 50cc Moped. Kin and Stephanie each rented their own bike. We couldn’t have been more than 50 yards from the rental company’s office when minor tragedy struck. Carol and I were following both Kin and Stephanie by a few yards. Kin yelled over to Stephanie to throw him a large white cotton towel. She reached behind her, grabbed the towel, and flung it toward Kin. From our position, we had a slow motion view of the towel sailing from one bike toward the other. It seemed like it took forever for that towel to rotate end over end while we rode forward at about fifteen miles per hour. From our vantage point we could see what was going to happen. The towel didn’t reach Kin but it did reach the spokes of his back tire! You can imagine what happens when a fluffy white towel is thrown into the spokes of a moving Moped. Actually, at this point the fun was just beginning. Stephanie is not the self-professed “Mouth from the South” without good reason. Kin does not trail her in this category of verbal masochism by even one degree. When the dust had settled and the shouting had subsided, we all agreed we were lucky this happened just 50 yards from where we picked up the bike. It would have been a long walk back if the “Towel incident” had occurred on the other side of the island. With these stories and many more in mind, Kin and I enjoyed a very nice dinner at Floyd’s in the Seminole Indian Casino’s Hard Rock Café in Tampa. I come in contact with and know many very bright people. I can’t think of anyone I know who is any brighter than Kindred. He’s an interesting person to listen too on a very wide range to topics. Kin, thanks for treating me to dinner. I’ll look forward to our next visit when I can return the favor. The trip I have not been trackchasing for nearly three weeks! To the casual reader that may not seem like a very long time. However, based upon my trackchasing frequency over the last 2-3 years, three weeks is a very long time. I’m always seeking, although not always achieving balance in life. Carol and I have been going to UCLA basketball games the last two weekends. After a trip to Berkeley, California with the Moodys, we ended up last weekend at Staples Center in Los Angeles. There the UCLA Bruins blew away the competition in the Pac-10 tournament and won that tournament as well as the Pac-10 championship. With the Bruins firmly tucked away in the NCAA tournament with a #2 seed, I felt it was safe to return to the world of trackchasing. Of course, by the time you read this UCLA may be knocked out of the tournament (Not!). By the way, Carol has completed her NCAA brackets and submitted, who else, UCLA as her projected tournament winner. I won’t go that far, but will say that UCLA has one of the best defensive teams I’ve seen in a long time. The really noteworthy thing about the entire NCAA tournament is that Carol fills out her own NCAA bracket entry. She’s quite the college basketball fan and enjoys watching the different tournament games on TV. I think most men would love having a wife who can intelligently fill out an NCAA bracket. I know I do! This trackchasing trip is what I built my trackchasing career on. It’s the trackchasing “Classic”, “Out Friday and back Monday.” This is the type of trip I most often took when I was working for money. It gave me the opportunity to add 3-4 new tracks without taking much time off from work. Even though I no longer work for money, which by the way is my definition of retirement, this is still a great way to go trackchasing. EAST BAY RACEWAY, GIBSONTON, FLORIDA – TRACK #1,007 – 3/17/06 This track was my 45th to see in Florida. I currently rank second in Florida ahead of P.J. Hollebrand’s 41 tracks and behind Ed Esser’s 49 tracks. Florida ranks as my seventh highest state in my U.S. trackchasing totals. RACE TRACK NEWS: EAST BAY RACEWAY, GIBSONTON, FLORIDA This is a long way to come to watch senior champ karts race. I have seen racing on East Bay Raceway’s outer oval 21 times since 1980 (when I first kept track of individual race dates). I’ve only been to four tracks more frequently other than my boyhood track, the Peoria Speedway of course. These include Ascot Park (CA), Santa Fe Speedway (IL), Rockford Speedway (IL) and Eldora Speedway (OH). I first learned that senior champ karts raced on an inner oval at East Bay when Pennsylvania’s Andy Sivi went to the track. Little did I know that several years later I would use this track to tie Andy for 4th place in the worldwide rankings. We both have 1,007 countable tracks. Actually, learning of tracks in this manner is what I call “Trackchaser Welfare.” A hard working trackchaser does the work in finding the track, which can require hours of searching websites, reading racing papers, etc. Then someone else comes along and without any work on his or her part benefits from the hard work of the original trackchaser attendee. I know several trackchasers who won’t share their track information because of the “Trackchaser Welfare” situation. I really don’t blame them. This is not dissimilar to “Golf Welfare.” With golf welfare one golfer works his butt off taking lessons and improving his game. The better he gets the more handicap strokes he gives his fellow competitor who spends his afternoons drinking at the 19th hole. Following my dinner with Kin, I drove just eight miles and pulled into the East Bay Raceway. Tonight’s inner oval is entirely positioned inside the half-mile outer oval although it nearly touches the big track’s front straight. The lighting of the infield makes it almost seem like its daylight. There is no track announcer other than to make announcements about what class is racing next. There were 81 racing karts at the track tonight. The Senior Champ Karts had more racers, eleven, than any of the 10-12 other classes. The champs ran two six-lap heat races and a 15-lap feature event. Although the track started 15 minutes after the website announced 7:30 p.m. starting time, all of the heat races were completed by about 8:40 p.m. They took a 30-minute intermission before they began feature event racing. The racing was good in all classes. I will always maintain that we trackchasers are missing a bet by not counting all go-karts classes. Tonight during the 11-car Senior Champ Kart class, one of the drivers did a series of barrel rolls before coming to a stop in turn two. It’s very unusual to see this class of car flipping. The red flag was displayed and the driver spent a few minutes being administered too by track officials. Finally, he exited the car and walked over to the infield. I noticed that he was at least my age or older. He looked shaken up to me. I examined his racecar closely following the accident. The safety roll cage was bent down on one side about five inches. WEATHER CONDITIONS The weather forecast for my weekend in Florida has been good since I started looking at www.weather.com more than seven days ago. When I entered the track tonight, even though the sun was down and it was dark, it was a comfortable 71 degrees. The rain forecast for today was 0% so the weather was pleasant. This was one of the warmer Florida events I have experienced in recent memory. RENTAL CAR UPDATE: With the National Rental Car “Executive Selection” perk, I chose my current favorite rental car, the Pontiac Grand Prix. My GP has only 4,500 miles on it, so it definitely meets the need. I plan to drive about 500 miles on this trip, which is a very light driving plan for me. LIFETIME TRACKCHASER STANDINGS UPDATE: These worldwide trackchasers are within 100 tracks (plus or minus) of my current trackchaser total. Other notables These worldwide trackchasers are within 10 tracks (plus or minus) of Carol’s current trackchaser total. 2006 TRACKCHASER STANDINGS Thanks for reading about my trackchasing, Randy Lewis Trackchasing’s #1 trackchaser of the 21st century Trackchasing doesn’t have to be fun to be fun. CUMULATIVE TRAVEL DISTANCES: AIRPLANE Los Angeles, CA – Tampa, FL – 2,150 miles RENTAL CAR Tampa International Airport – trip begins Gibsonton, Florida – 23 miles TRACK ADMSSION PRICES: East Bay Raceway – $10 February 18 – Volusia Speedway Park (inner oval), Barberton, Florida February 19 – Sand Mountain Speedway (road course), Ft. Meade, Florida 1,000. Auburndale Kartway, Auburndale, Florida – February 10 1,001. Ocala Speedway (asphalt oval), Ocala, Florida – February 12 1,002. Speedworld Speedway, Surprise, Arizona – February 19 1,003. Lowe’s Motor Speedway (1/5 mile asphalt oval), Concord, North Carolina – February 25 1,004. Concord Raceway, Concord, North Carolina – February 25 1,005. Antioch Speedway, Antioch, North Carolina – February 25 1,006. Green Valley Speedway, Gadsden, Alabama – February 26 1,007. East Bay Raceway (inner oval), Gibsonton, Florida – March 17 You might have remembrances about the East Bay Raceway. If so, please feel free to share 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. Monday, February 4, 2019. I could have flown back to California today. However, I was on the East Coast. I figured I might jet down to Florida for one night of dirt late model stock car racing at East Bay Raceway. East Bay is my all-time favorite Florida racetrack. I am I dirt late model fan from way back in the day. I remember when dirt late models were ’57 Chevy’s! I had to get up at 4:15 AM, which is 1:15 AM California time. I will have to do the same thing tomorrow when I actually do fly back to California. This morning I landed safely in Tampa, Florida. I had just enough time to take in a Trackchasing Tourist Attraction. None of the more traditional attractions appealed to me. I did a search for “car museums” in Tampa. I enjoy car museums. I soon came up with the Tampa Bay Automobile Museum. It was only 15 minutes from the airport. I took a trip over there in the National Car Rental Racing Nissan Maxima. That black beauty had less than 500 miles on it and dual exhausts! This museum is privately owned. It’s a very unusual and relatively small museum with about 65 to 70 cars. I had never heard of the makes of more than half of the cars. The museum included models such as these: 1938 Panhard Dynamic, 1928 Alvis, 1929 Ruxton and a 1937 Puegeot Darl’Mat. Could you have picked these out of a litter? They were all extremely rare and coming from companies that didn’t last all that long in the automotive business. I took a picture of every car in the museum I’ll be sharing it on my website for your enjoyment. If you would like to move over to my Tampa Bay Automobile Museum page click on the following link: From there I checked into my Howard Johnson’s hotel located near the Tampa airport. Let me tell you this. It was no king suite from an upscale Sheraton. I just hoped the cockroaches wouldn’t carry me away in the middle of the night. I took about an hour’s nap and then got all my gear together for a night of late model stock car racing at the East Bay Raceway. Tonight would be my 23rdvisit to the EBR after first visiting in 1980. I was very much looking forward to tonight’s racing. THE RACING East Bay Raceway – Gibsonton, Florida Dirt late model “speedweeks” has been going on since the 50s and 60s. Several of the tracks that hosted those races are not active anymore. In today’s world major sanctioning bodies like the Lucas Oil Late Model Series and the World of Outlaws totally dominate the late model scene. Back in the day, just like today, fans migrated from cold weather climates to take in a week or two of auto racing in the relatively warm winter climate of Florida. The dirt short track guys raced at long gone speedways such as the Deland Speedway. My all-time favorite race car driver, Darrell Dake won the week long speed weeks’ championship in the car pictured above in about 1970. Tonight I sat next to two guys, one from Illinois and the other from Michigan. The lady in front of me and her husband were from Louisiana. I was seated in the top row of the section C grandstand. The VIP box just above our seats provided a great wind block although it was not that cold this evening. We all talked to each other about racing like we had known each other for years. The guy from Illinois (Streator) had a background in racing very similar to mine. He knew the same drivers and tracks that I grew up with. He even told me about going to the Rockford Nationals to see Dick Trickle race. He laughed at his one visit to the Freeport Raceway Park. They raced on Sundays. My friend had seen Trickle race at Rockford on Sunday afternoon and then on the dirt at Freeport that evening. I did the same double! The gentleman from Michigan used to drive push trucks for the super modifieds at Kalamazoo. He remembered Allan Brown’s brother selling peanuts at local Michigan tracks. The lady from Louisiana sat in front of me. She must have turned around to talk to me fifty times with comments and questions. I got a little self-conscious after a while. I didn’t want her husband to take offense! However, I could tell she was a “keeper”. Do you know the racing phrase “How many they takin’”? That’s a question people ask when they want to know “how many cars will transfer from the B to the A”? If a woman knows that AND comes with a good boat motor you know you got something. This woman was a Tim McCreadie fan. He drives late models. I asked the woman if she had ever heard of Tim’s father, Bob. She didn’t. Tim’s father was the famous “Barefoot” Bob McCreadie. Barefoot Bob was probably ten times better known than son Tim and with many more racing accomplishments. Barefoot Bob was my all-time favorite DIRT modified driver from the Midwest. I asked the fellow from Michigan if he liked NASCAR racing. He sort of snarled and said, “Too much money in it. Not as good as when Fireball raced. Their TV ratings are way down”. Hmmmmm. Everybody comes with a different opinion. Yes, there are a lot of NASCAR racers that have the support of some big name sponsors who bring a lot of money to the race team. However, it’s not just a few teams that have the money. Probably 20-25 of the forty starters are high dollar teams. Who cares if they are big money teams? It is true. NASCAR TV ratings are down a lot. Did the viewers who used to watch NASCAR move over to some other form of televised motorsport. No, they did not. IndyCar is probably the second most watched racing series on TV. Their TV eyeballs are probably less than 25% of what NASCAR gets. Saying NASCAR doesn’t get the attention is a lot like saying the rich guy who lives down the block from you doesn’t have as much money as he used too after a stock market crash but he STILL has ten times more money than you do! The guy from Michigan told me the racing was a lot better when Fireball raced than now. Really? How would that be measured? Would the closeness of the racing be a rating factor? Would the speeds being something to compare things by? Would the number of entries be better in one era compared to the next? I think so. So….NASCAR racing was better “back in the day”? Really? I did some research and randomly picked the 1964 “World 600” race at the Charlotte Motor Speedway. In that race they started 44 cars. Today the same race would have 40 starters. Pretty comparable on the number of cars competing. Star drivers like Richard Petty, David Pearson, Buck Baker, Bobby Isaac, Stick (not Bill or Chase) Elliott and Junior Johnson were in the race. So how did that race turn out? Jim Paschal (above) won the race by FOUR laps over second place finisher Richard Petty! If one car won a NASCAR Cup race by four laps in today’s world the fans would tear down the grandstand. The third place finished was SEVEN laps behind the winner. Nearly half of the field didn’t finish half the race. NASCAR racing was better back in the day? I don’t think so. Think I just picked the 1964 World 600 because it would prove my point? Not. Take a look at any of the Greg Fieldon historical books (or any other source you want). You’ll see similar results where the winner won by a lot, their weren’t that many drivers finishing on the lead lap and lots of cars dropped out early. In the 2018 World 600 race Kyle Busch was the winner. Some nine cars finished on the lead lap and 23 drivers completed 399 of the 400 laps or more. Only three cars from the field of forty failed to finish half the race. Think the “lucky dog” is responsible for so many cars being on the lead lap? Not really. “Back in the day” when a caution came out the leader would slow down and sometimes five or ten cars got their “lap back”. In the modern world ONE car gets a lap back. There’s no question that NASCAR racing is much more competitive today than “back in the day”. Think NASCAR crowds are down? Yes, they are down from their historical highs. How were the crowds back in the day? In 1964 the Nashville Cup race had a crowd of 9,000. The Firecracker 400 from Daytona’s crowd was 34,681 and Watkins Glen had 10,000. Compare today’s NASCAR crowds to any other form of American racing. With the exception of the Indy 500 no other race comes close to the average attendance at a NASCAR race. Yes, opinions are like elbows most everybody has a couple. I don’t care for opinions that are supported much more by emotion and irrationality than facts. Then, that’s just me. People ask me if I ever get tired running up and down the highway with all of this trackchasing. I will say this. I am 70 years old. However, I feel as if I am 35 years old. My behavior is that of a 35-year old and not a 70-year old. As long as I feel like I’m thirty-five I will never be seventy! I talk to a lot of people in my line of work. That’s why I find what I do so interesting. Some of the people I talk too are older than me. Most are younger than me. I really don’t like talking to people who are 5-10 years younger than me who come with the “old guy” attitude. Everything was better back in the day! Come on people. Look at your life. Look at all of the things that you enjoy and that make your life easier than 30-40 years ago. Folks, it ain’t even close. I also don’t like talking to younger people who look at my physical appearance and immediately think I’m one of those “old guys” with the “it was better back in my day attitude”. I’m not. Not even close. I can handle a phone and a computer better than half of the youngsters I meet. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had to give a tutorial (just yesterday as a matter of fact!) to a McDonald’s employee on the use of ApplePay with my iPhone! I was only going to be at East Bay for one night, tonight. The late models were racing for six nights. I could have stayed for another night or two. However, I have a goal of reducing my nights out for the year by 20%. I needed to get home. I was leaving in three days for Minneapolis for the fifth Friday in a row. I wanted to get a good seat. Tickets, both reserved and unreserved, were $35 each. That seemed a bit strange. Reserved seats were the same price as non-reserved? The first 17 rows were unreserved. There were only 21 rows in section C where I would be sitting. The top row was priced at $40. Since I was only here for one night and since I love sitting in the top row I grabbed a $40 ticket. There were only two left. Considering I showed up while they were running hot laps I was pretty happy to get such a good seat. I tried to pay by credit card. I try to pay for 100% of the things I buy with my credit card. I absolutely HATE carrying change. You won’t find a coin on my person 99% of the time. I don’t like to spend my cash bills either. The more that happens the more times I have to visit my bank’s ATM. If could pay for everything all the time with my credit card and even better with my phone I’m all for it. Of course, the older lady couldn’t get the credit card machine to work. She threw up her hands in frustration. Lots of older people don’t handle tech real well. We waited. The machine wouldn’t work. I could feel the eyes of the people waiting behind me with cash in their hands. I always feel self-conscious when paying by credit card in situations like this. Credit cards always take a little longer even when the machine works well. I feel the people waiting behind me with cash think I’m some rich guy paying by credit card. So? Wouldn’t everyone like to be wealthier than they are with no other change in their life? Lay off the rich guys, not saying I’m one. For whatever reason the lady gave me the top row seat for $35 cash and not the $40 she originally quoted me. Then I asked how much more to upgrade to a pit pass. She didn’t know. When I showed my ticket to get into the grandstand area I asked the same question. This woman didn’t know either. When I had called the track earlier in the day to ask what time the races started the lady didn’t know. She asked me to call back. She told me she wouldn’t answer the phone and it would roll over to the office. They might be able to tell me what time the races started. They didn’t know either. Folks, I just spent time last month at something called the “Race Track Business Conference”. Most of the time was spent talking about social media and other technology that in many cases even I didn’t understand. I was with the movers and the shakers of the auto racing industry. Those women and men know their stuff. Now I was at “ground level” of the auto racing industry. This wasn’t some rural racetrack out in the middle of nowhere running seven hobby stocks in their feature event. This was the friggin’ East Bay Raceway. When I called they couldn’t tell me what time the racing started. They couldn’t get their credit card machine to work. They didn’t know how much a pit pass would cost. Is it just me? No, it is not just me. Things like this have driven race fans away and they are not coming back. At the conference I attended I heard a racing statistic that was said in jest but had so much truth to it. One of the racing leaders said they did a survey last year. The survey told them that the average age of their racing fan was 54 years old. This year the average age of their racing fan would be 55 years old. Very few new fans were coming into the sport. Tonight’s crowd was typical of a traveling, experienced race fan attending a top level short track racing show. They were older and they were male. I felt right at home! There were several t-shirt trailers located inside the grandstand area of the track tonight. Folks, the ship has sailed on that industry. I didn’t see virtually anyone buying anything. There were no customers. Don’t get me wrong. The racing at East Bay tonight was excellent. I might not see any better racing all year and I will see racing at about 100 different tracks. I did find out how much it would cost to upgrade my grandstand seat to a pit pass. It was only five bucks That was a steal! That was the bargain of the night. Despite having been to East Bay more than 20 times I couldn’t recall ever having been in the pits before. They were busy. This was a one class show. There were 53 late models in the pits tonight. The pits were small, busy and more than cramped. One had to be on their toes so as not to get run over. I was in my seat when the first heat began at 7 p.m. I was using my Race Monitor app to see the lineups. What a great app with live scoring. I first used it at the USAC midget show last year at Indy. For one month’s usage the price is only 99 cents. A year’s subscription will set you back only $4.99. I chose the 99 cents option because I didn’t like the automatic renewal policy. The 99 cent option automatically renewed as well. I wonder how many people don’t buy the $4.99 option because they fear they will forget to stop the auto renewal the following year if they don’t want this feature anymore? When I got back to the hotel I cancelled my one-month subscription. I just don’t go to that many races when I could use this feature. A good dirt late model show will have lots of passing, few yellows, little to no long delays between races, name drivers, quality refreshments, a good announcer and PA system and get fans out at a reasonable time. If every show in American could do these simple things with any racing class and will only drivers known locally they would have a success on their hands. How did East Bay do? The East Bay Raceway did very well!. Folks, they had 53 late models. They started on time. Duh. They ran six heat with nine cars in each heat race. There were no four car heat races. Duh. They ran two B mains, a dash for 16 cars and a thirty lap feature. Remember, they started at 7 p.m. Any guesses on when the A main took the final checkered flag? Guesses? That happened at 9:04 p.m. Wow! Double wow! They didn’t have an intermission of any consequence. The announcer was good. The PA system where I sat in section C wasn’t the best. I could hear the announcer better when I was BEHIND the grandstand getting some kettle corner from an outside vendor. The had a scoreboard that counted the laps and show the leading drivers. In the top row there was no dust until the feature events. Remember, I sat in row 21. Fans in the first ten rows would be going to the emergency room immediately seeking lung transplants. Admittedly, with high powered dirt late it is almost impossible to now have any dust. At least the dust controls the gender population. With dust you’ll get 80% plus males and not have to worry as much about keep the ladies’ restroom clean. In closing was I happy with my 23rd visit to East Bay. Absolutely. There will not be many times (any times?) where I will see 53 late models race, have lots of passing and have the show finish in two hours and four minutes. Success! Overall experience: 9+. AFTER THE RACES I had parked on the entrance road coming into the track. I couldn’t recall doing that in the past. It really wasn’t needed despite a good-sized crowd showing up on a Monday night. I was remined that Florida is one big sandbar. There really is now dirt, only sand. They must have to import all of their corn! I wasn’t looking forward to going back to the Howard Johnson’s motel near the Tampa airport. There were two risks if not more. First, I might be mugged in the parking lot. Secondly, my computer might have been stolen despite the fact that I locked it to the coat rack. Yes, I could be carried away by the aforementioned, way aforementioned, Florida state animal, the cockroach. I took a chance and walked around the room on the mostly carpeted floor barefooted. Carol would never do that! Tuesday, February 5, 2019. It was time to head home now. Last year I traveled overnight away from home for 213 nights. That was too much. I set a goal to reduce that by 20%. How am I doing. Not well. In 2018 through February 5 I had travelled overnight 11 times. This year, 2019, I have traveled 16 nights in the first 36 nights of the year! At least I have almost eleven months to right the ship! This morning’s wake-up call came at 4:15 a.m. My day will finish with my fellow Californians on the west coast in the Pacific time zone. That meant I will have awakened for the day at 1:15 a.m. “our” time. I’m not sure I will meet up with another Californian who got up that early this morning. My flight was leaving at 7:30 a.m. bound for Los Angeles. My hotel was only three miles from the airport. Why get up so early? I was to use my Priority Pass sponsorship. Yesterday, when I arrived into Tampa, I had lunch at the Café by Mise en Place. Pretty fancy name for an airport eatery. They are located in terminal F. At the Tampa airport each terminal has its own security entrance. That’s not very convenient especially for a traveler like me. I wanted to have breakfast in terminal F and then fly home from terminal C. That meant two security clearances just to have my sponsor pay for $28 of my breakfast expense. However, that is how I live my life. The Café by Mise en Place served me their French toast option and an order of huevos rancheros. Each entrée came in the $13-14 price range. That meant that Priority Pass, one of my newest trackchasing sponsors picked up all but about $1.50 plus tip for my breakfast. Thank you P.P. From there I headed over to terminal C for my flight. After I cleared security there I remembered I had left my credit card back at the restaurant. Yikes! That meant I would need to clear security one more time in terminal C and one more time in terminal F. Don’t worry. It’s what I do. When I get to LAX I will land at terminal 1. Terminals 1, 2 and 3 don’t connect with any other terminals at LAX out of the eight terminals they have. I chose today’s airline because they land in terminal 1 and Rock & Brews, a Priority Pass option, is in terminal 1. That way I won’t have to clear security anymore while getting my lunch. However, when I finish lunch I will head to terminal 4 (security clearance) so I can get supper to bring home to Carol from the Tom Bradley International terminal. In the space of about 30 hours Priority Pass will buy me $126 in gourmet food. Don’t worry. This is how I roll. Randy Lewis – 82 countries – 2,527 tracks. Click on the link below to see the video production from the racing action today.
Click on the link below for a photo album from today’s trackchasing day. You can view the album slide by slide or click on the “slide show” icon for a self-guided tour of today’s trackchasing adventure. My 23rd lifetime visit to the East Bay Raceway Park 
UPCOMING TRACKCHASING PLANS
RACETRACKS VISITED IN 2006 (** not the first time to visit this track)
