Greetings from Charlotte, Michigan
From the travels and adventures of the
“World’s #1 Trackchaser”
Eaton County Fairgrounds (Dirt Road Course) –
Lifetime Track #1,975
42 days…are you kidding me? Not my first rodeo in Charlotte, Michigan. What was I talking about after my 2005 visit to Charlotte, Michigan? I needed to call the promoter before I made this trip. I’m hooked on getting the most with the least cost and the least effort. Brotherhood. I would need to pace myself. This was just day one of forty-two. Rubber dust….soak it in. This was not the Daytona 500. Nobody expected it to be. I always have a good time. 42 days…are you kidding me? I woke up this morning at home in San Clemente, California. I went to bed in Angola, Indiana. This is how the day turned out. Can you believe this is the first day of a 42-day trackchasing trip? Have you ever taken a 42-day vacation? Not many people have. I’m starting the trip with 1,974 tracks in the rearview mirror. I don’t plan to see a track during every day of this trip. However, if I don’t see a track you can just about bet I couldn’t find anything to see. It’s good-bye to Carol for a few days. Carol drove me to the John Wayne Orange County Airport (SNA) this morning. SNA is the closest airport to our home. However, I normally use the Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) because they offer so much more service. The SNA airport is small, modern and extremely convenient. It’s even more convenient when someone drops you off at the front door. Carol will not begin this trip with me. Nevertheless, she will join up at two different junctures for her part of the adventure. We’ll both see family and friends on this trip as we traipse all across a good deal of North America. Not my first rodeo in Charlotte, Michigan. Today would not be my first visit to the Eaton County Fairgrounds in Charlotte, Michigan. I had come here in 2005 to trackchase. That was track #898. It’s always fun to read my old Trackchaser Reports from earlier visits. If I didn’t have such good records from those days gone by so many things would have been forgotten. What was I talking about after my 2005 visit to Charlotte, Michigan? Here are a few highlights about what I was talking about more than 1,000 tracks ago during that initial visit to Charlotte. From 2005…… “The day began with my playing a Golf Digest 5-star rated course (Timber Ridge – one of only 11 5-star courses in the country). I talked about the time I gave $8,000 in cash to a guy I had met on a San Clemente golf course just that afternoon. No, I didn’t lose a golf bet. I was in the market to get Carol a diamond ring. That’s right. He came over to our house. I gave him eight grand in cash. He took the money and drove on down the road. I had only met him once before and that was when we were randomly paired at a public golf course. I’m glad to report he came back with the ring that Carol wears to this day. Back in 2005 I had just clawed my way past Eleanor Weidman for 15th place in the Michigan state standings. At the time I had just 22 tracks in the Wolverine state. After tonight I will have seen 108 tracks up here. I commented about feeling the pressure of a 36-day trackchasing rain-free streak. Little did I know that I would go on to have an 835-day, 254-track rain-free streak, which ended in 2013. That’s a record that will never be broken. I doubt anyone could achieve 25% of those numbers. I mentioned that I didn’t even know how to categorize the track I saw during my ’05 visit. Was it an oval, road course or figure 8? I was congratulating Guy Smith on his moving up to third place in the worldwide trackchaser standings. He had just passed Andy Sivi. I was in sixth place at the time. Guy has moved up one spot in ten years. That’s pretty slow progress. During that time I have advanced from sixth to first. What had I seen in 2005? Here’s how I described the track in 2005. “Let me try to explain the configuration. Imagine a very short oval track. Tonight’s oval portion of the track was maybe one-tenth of a mile in length at most. There were a couple of dirt speed bumps placed on the track to keep the speeds down. This plan was successful. When the cars exited turn two, they drove down the backstretch, made a sharp right turn, did a circle around a large track tire, and then continued down the backstretch into turn number three.” At the time I didn’t know HOW to classify the track. I went to the trackchasing commissioner, Will White, for advice. The track was counted as a figure 8 track because when the cars did a circle around the tractor tire the track “crossed over itself” which is what defines a figure 8 track. In consulting Ed Esser’s lifetime track totals I noticed he had seen this configuration in 2004 one year before I did. In 2003 Ed saw racing at the Eaton County road course. That proved to me that they did indeed race on two different track forms here. I needed to call the promoter before I made this trip. Nevertheless, I contacted Sonny the owner of USA Derby for tonight’s 2014 race event. Sonny was promoting tonight’s competition. The racing was labeled an “autocross” event. However, a trackchaser cannot get caught up in what an event is “called”. It’s the track configuration that counts. In point of fact a USA Derby autocross race is really done on a figure 8 track. All USA Derby autocross configurations “except Charlotte” according to Sonny cross over themselves. He told me this is done to keep the speeds down. How lucky was it that I was in town to see the one and only “non-F8 autocross” during the entire USA Derby season? O.K. it wasn’t all that lucky it was part of the plan. I’m hooked on getting the most with the least cost and the least effort. Some folks don’t understand the above headline. They think I’m going to give a sub-par effort or deliver a sub-par result. All I can conclude from that line of thinking is that these folks are poor readers or poor listeners or both. I want to get maximum results with the least cost and the least effort. Any questions? Getting a good rental car was important when I landed at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport (ORD). Although I expected to have three rental car contracts over the next 15 days I was hoping to have just one rental car. Remember there is a lot of strategic planning that goes into each of my trip. Why use so much strategy? I’m hooked on getting the most with the least cost and least effort. I would have just two significant requirements for my car. I wanted good fuel mileage and I wanted satellite radio. This would likely mean I would be getting a Hyundai Sonata. If I was lucky I might even get a Hybrid model. If I could pull that off I might save a couple hundred dollars worth of fuel. Once I left ORD I would have to clear the traffic in and around Chicago’s “loop”. Chicago and Boston have the worst city traffic of anywhere I drive. It was a three hour and nineteen minute drive (3H19M) from ORD to Charlotte, Michigan. I would lose an hour driving from the Central time zone to the Eastern time zone. With traffic and the time zone I didn’t have a lot of time to waste. After the races…. Brotherhood. When the races were finished I headed south to the small town of Angola, Indiana. I would be meeting up with fraternity brother Mike Skonicki at the Ramada in Angola. Mike would be driving some 200 miles over to Indiana for just the one purpose. We would be playing golf in Angola tomorrow. That takes a good friend to drive 400 miles round-trip just for a round of golf. Of course Mike and I can gab for hours. We’ve been doing that since college. We would have time to talk when we went to bed, when we had breakfast, when we played golf and when we had lunch. If we couldn’t solve all of the world’s problems with 15-20 hours of talking we would just have to get together again. Eaton County Fairgrounds – Charlotte, Michigan I would need to pace myself. This was just day one of forty-two. It was a clear day over to Michigan from Chicago. However, by the looks of the large mud puddles this area had received more than its share of rain over the past couple of days. This is summertime. Michigan gets a lot of rain during the summer. I bypassed all of the temporary carnival food trailers offering up such delicious items as Italian sausage, onion rings, root beer floats and chocolate dipped cheesecake. I had to pace myself. This was just track #1 at the beginning of my 42-day trackchasing trip. I joined a couple hundred local folks in the covered grandstand at the Eaton County Fair. The previous day’s rain had made the track a quagmire. They were working feverishly with heavy duty earthmoving equipment to get things “raceable”. There might have been some debate on whether or not the track WAS raceable. I say it was. How do I know that? They RACED on it. Rubber dust….soak it in. The first event of the night was a “burnout” competition. This is where a driver places his front bumper against a large immovable track tire. Then he mashes the accelerator to the floor. Since the car can’t move forward the rear tires spin like crazy in place. This creates a huge amount of tire smoke, which is really just burning rubber. Tonight the tire smoke wafted into the turn one grandstands. Luckily I was sitting in turn four! The smoke was so heavy it blocked my view of that end of the grandstand entirely. Those folks were breathing in 100% rubber dust. All I could think when I saw that smoke and thought about the carnival rides and fair food on the back side of the grandstand was, “This is America”. It’s what I think every time I have this experience. Pretty amazing indeed. I have been to more than 300 county fairs. I can never recall being rained out at a single one of them. I find that rather amazing. If you look back just a few days to the Hoagland Community Park (Indiana) figure 8 show you won’t ever see more water than they got. This was not the Daytona 500. Nobody expected it to be. Tonight’s “oval” track was so muddy the cars could barely (and in some cases could not) complete a lap without getting stuck. No, this was not the Daytona 500. That wasn’t a problem. No one coming tonight expected to see the Daytona 500. I always have a good time. After a bit the track dried out and they worked on the track some more as well. They finally got to the point where the cars could complete a few laps without getting stuck. Despite some of the difficulties encountered tonight I had a good time. I always have a good time. In all of the trips I have taken over all of the years I can never remember not having a good trip. It’s just the way I look at things. Michigan The Wolverine state This evening I saw my 108th lifetime track in the Wolverine state, yes the Wolverine state. Thanks for reading about my trackchasing, Randy Lewis World’s #1 Trackchaser Peoria Old Timers Racing Club (P.O.R.C.) Hall of Fame Member Michigan sayings: Driving is easier in winter because the potholes are filled with snow. QUICK FACTS AIRPLANE Los Angeles, CA (LAX) – Chicago, IL (ORD) – 1,745 miles RENTAL CAR #1 O’Hare International Airport – trip begins Charlotte, MI TRACK ADMISSION PRICES: Eaton County Fairgrounds – $10 LIFETIME TRACKCHASER COMPARISONS The three most important trackchasing comparisons to me are: Total lifetime tracks seen Total “trackchasing countries” seen Lifetime National Geographic Diversity results Total Lifetime Tracks There are no trackchasers currently within 425 tracks of my lifetime total. Don’t blame me. Total Trackchasing Countries There are no trackchasers currently within 10 countries of my lifetime total. Current lifetime National Geographic Diversity results That’s all folks! Official end of the RLR – Randy Lewis Racing Trackchaser Report Reprinted with permission from my July 13, 2005 Trackchaser Report. GREETINGS FROM CHARLOTTE, MICHIGAN, PEOPLE/TRAVEL NEWS When I do not have long driving distances from one track to the next, I often have time for a round of golf in the local area. That was the case today. I always carry with me my 1,081 page Fodor’s Golf Digest’s Places to Play book. Maybe that is why my luggage is always pushing the 50-pound weight limit. There are a few drawbacks to playing golf on the road. In the summer when I travel to the east or the Midwest it is likely to be very hot. I am staying in the Lansing, Michigan area and yesterday they reached 96 degrees or higher for the sixth consecutive day, a record. Of course, they have humidity to match their high temps. The second inconvenience is in order to beat the heat, I have to play early. An 8 a.m. tee time in the eastern time zone is 5 a.m. for my California body clock. The Golf Digest book carries ratings on 6,500 public golf courses in the U.S., Canada, Mexico and the Caribbean. The ratings come from players who have played the golf courses. The rating scale runs from zero to five stars. There are only 11 five star rated courses in the entire book. Previously I have played two of these courses, the Belgrade Lakes Golf Club, Belgrade Lakes, Maine and the Pebble Beach Golf Links, Pebble Beach, California (twice). Today, I would play another five star course, the Timber Ridge Golf Club in East Lansing, Michigan. There is surely a degree of subjectivity in the course ratings. I certainly did not think the 5-star rated course in Maine compared well with Pebble Beach. The Timber Ridge course today was nice, but I doubt I would have given it five stars. Maybe four stars would have been my rating. I had called ahead the day before to make my reservation. I had asked to be paired up with other players, if possible. The greens fees were fantastic. I paid the senior citizen rate (age 55 or older) of just $36. The regular rate was $57 and my rate included a golf cart. Playing a five-star rated course for $36 is an outstanding value. It is entirely possible that I will be the first golfer to ever play a five-star golf course while wearing an Eldora Speedway hat. When I arrived, there were no employees to help with my golf bag. When I entered the pro shop, it was small and had very little golf apparel and merchandise. The young woman behind the counter told me she had both twosomes and threesomes playing soon and she would likely put me into one of those groups. In the meantime, I went out to the driving range and found only mats, no grass tees, to practice from. A bit later, the counterwoman came out and informed me she had been unable to pair me up with any other groups. She told me just to go to the first tee and play as the “course was wide open”. I mention all of the items in the above paragraph to point out that this course would not get a five star rating from me at this point. As you might imagine the course was not “wide open”. On the second tee, I was allowed to play through a threesome of golfers. On the third hole, I was invited to join a father/son combo and I played with them the remainder of the day. Now, as a threesome, we waited, on nearly every shot, behind a group of four players for the rest of the round. Once out on the course, I found it to be in excellent condition. The course was heavily tree lined, the fairways were lush and rolling and the greens held better than any course I have played recently. When I play on the road, I am usually paired with other people. I very much enjoy meeting people, especially other golfers. Nearly every time I enjoy my newfound friends for the next four hours. The son in today’s father/son combo was just 11 years old. Although he was small and weighed less than 100 pounds, he was a serious and experienced golfer. Golf is a great game for a parent and their child to play together. Golf is a great game as it parallels the lessons of life. In just four hours, you have both good times and bad in a round of golf, just like in life. It is said that you can get to know someone better in four hours on the golf course than you can by living next door to them or working in the same office with them for years. I believe that statement. I recently calculated that I have written nearly 500 Trackchaser Reports since I started doing this. Yes, I know you thought it was more! I hope I do not repeat certain stories too often, but if you watch Seinfeld often enough you are bound to see reruns. I cannot recall if I have shared this story or not, although I probably have. I love meeting people on the golf course. I am always asking them questions about their interests, job, etc. Of course, I like it when they ask about my interests as well. I met a man several years ago on the golf course and we enjoyed each other’s company a good deal. On about the 17th hole I discovered this gentleman had been in the jewelry business in Los Angeles during a previous period of his business career. It just so happened I was in the market for a diamond ring for Carol (yes that was awfully generous of me!). I mentioned this to my newfound golfing friend. He immediately began to educate me on the “4 Cs” of diamonds, which are 1) color, 2) clarity, 3) cut and 4) carat. He told me that he could get me a “good deal” on diamonds from his contacts at the Los Angeles jewelry mart. He offered to bring several samples by the house for Carol and my inspection. He did just that. Carol looked everything over and I did as well. We selected a diamond that cost $8,000. My friend told us that we could go with him up to Los Angeles to have the diamond fitted into a ring or he could simply take Carol’s measurements. I told him that I had already taken her measurements. He informed me he was talking about measuring her finger. O.K., I knew that. He told us that after he measured her finger, he could take the diamond to L.A., and return with the ring when the diamond was set in the ring. Not wanting to drive all the way to Los Angeles, we opted for the in-home measurement idea. My friend then informed us we would have to pay in advance and in cash. He seemed like a nice guy, so I went along. I gave him $8,000 in cash and he drove away. Remember, I had only met this person a couple of days before and our “in the kitchen” jewelry meeting was only the second time I had ever seen him in my life. I feel I am a good judge of character (doesn’t everyone). Nevertheless, when he left our driveway with $8,000, we didn’t even have a receipt. I am happy to report that he returned with Carol’s ring a couple of days later. The ring appraised at our local jewelers for substantially more than we paid for it. I have not seen my jewelry friend since he delivered that ring more than 10 years ago. Next time you see Carol, check out her ring, it’s very beautiful. I felt comfortable with the entire transaction, although I would not recommend that most people conduct business this way. Anyway back to today. I shot an 89 in some very trying weather conditions. My score would have been better except that I have not played much with the amount of trackchasing I have been doing recently, I have a serious lack of golf talent and I am out of shape because of my trackchaser diet. Some day I will play more, return to taking lessons from my best ever golf pro, Les Taylor (an avid reader of the Trackchaser Report) and improve my diet. Until then I will continue to shoot in the 80s. I would like to offer special congratulations to Guy Smith who has taken over third place in the worldwide trackchaser standings. RACE TRACK NEWS: EATON COUNTY FAIRGROUNDS (ROAD COURSE), CHARLOTTE, MICHIGAN –TRACK #898 This racetrack is my 22nd lifetime countable track to see in Michigan. I have just snuck past Eleanor Weidman and her 20 tracks for my 15th place ranking in the state. I now have my eye on Pappy Hough’s 14th place ranking with his 23 Michigan tracks. Allan Brown leads in Michigan with 126 tracks. I still have more than 90 tracks to be seen here. Most of them do not race on a weekly basis. I am beginning to feel the pressure of the “streak”. I am talking about the streak of consecutive trackchasing days I have without a rainout. The streak is now at 36 days. Once again, the streak was threatened today. From 4 p.m. until I left for the track at 6:30 p.m., there was continuous thunder. It was so bad that I feared a potential power surge and unplugged my computer from the wall outlet. There was no rain, but the thunder was ominous. Then, on the 45-mile drive back to the hotel, it started pouring rain. I have had so many narrow escapes this year, but luck has been on my side. I will be surprised if I complete the current trip without a rainout. Are you tired of high-speed auto racing? If so, the USA enduro race at the Eaton County Fairgrounds might be for you. This racing is for the low speed auto racing fans. I am not exaggerating when I estimate that no car exceeded 20 M.P.H. in any race tonight. In trackchasing, we have three types of tracks. These are ovals, road courses and figure 8 tracks. I am not exactly sure which group the track I saw tonight belongs too. Let me try to explain the configuration. Imagine a very short oval track. Tonight’s oval portion of the track was maybe one-tenth of a mile in length at most. There was a couple of dirt speed bumps placed on the track to keep the speeds down. This plan was successful. When the cars exited turn two, they drove down the backstretch, made a sharp right turn, did a circle around a large track tire, and then continued down the backstretch into turn number three. O.K., so what type of track did I see? It really was not an oval. It was really not a figure 8 track, so that only leaves a road course. I will not make the final call until the uppity ups in the second floor Quakertown trackchasing world headquarters review the data. I will go with their decision, as I always do. Tonight’s crowd was much bigger than the crowd for a similar event last night in Fowlerville. Maybe the $10 admission price compared to last night’s $15 admission price meant the difference in the size of the crowd. At the beginning of the races, which began at 7:30 p.m., the covered grandstand was nearly full. At around 9:20 p.m. when the feature event rolled onto the track, the grandstand was less than one-third full. Possibly, there were not that many low speed auto-racing fans. After each heat race (there were five), the announcer would interview the winning driver. One of his standard questions, both tonight and last night was, “How much did you pay for the car?” The most popular answer was, “Nothing, it was given to me”. The highest price paid by anyone interviewed was $75! This was both low speed and low cost auto racing. This type of “racing” is not far from a demo derby. One of the drivers was asked what he liked about this type of racing. He said, “It’s good because there’s some racin’ and some smashin’”. I agree with that assessment. During another driver interview, the driver told the crowd that his transmission had lost all of its fluid. He told the announcer that he had filled his transmission with both motor oil and brake fluid! He followed that with this comment, “You gotta do everything you can for the crowd, they come here for the smashes”. It took the track management nearly two hours to run five heat races. There were about 28-30 cars. They were divided up into three heats. The fourth and fifth heat races were made up of the “losers” according to the announcer. Of course, he was correct in his assessment. There less than aggressive approach to time management allowed me to tour the small fairgrounds. I ended up buying a pair of sunglasses along with my supper. I enjoy eating fair food. Tonight I went with the wet burrito served by people who should know how to make one. I also had a very good peanut butter milkshake that was under priced at $3. The feature event started nine cars for 25 laps. After about ten laps were completed, only three cars were still running. At one point all three of these cars were no longer moving forward due to a jam-up. This lasted for about two minutes. At about lap 15, there was only one car still “racing”. I was surprised that this driver was “racing for position”. It seems this one remaining car was about four laps down when the then leader conked out. The crowd waited with bad breath while this Plymouth car unlapped himself and took the lead on about lap 20. You just have to know this was racing at its finest and the “A” feature was a thriller. RENTAL CAR UPDATE: For the last portion of the program, I was able to position the Dollar Rental Car Racing Ford Taurus in a place where I could watch the action from the air-conditioned comfort of the Taurus cockpit. LIFETIME TRACKCHASER STANDINGS UPDATE: These trackchasers are within 100 tracks (plus or minus) of my current trackchaser total. 2005 TRACKCHASER STANDINGS 10.Will White, Quakertown, Pennsylvania – 15 CUMULATIVE DRIVING DISTANCES: Denver, Colorado Airport – trip begins Rawlins, Wyoming – 268 miles Sheridan, Wyoming – 766 miles Denver, Colorado Airport – first leg of trip ends – 1,264 miles Detroit, Michigan Airport – second leg of trip begins (cumulative from start of trip in Denver) Fowlerville, Michigan – 1,340 miles Charlotte, Michigan – 1,485 miles Air travel Orange County, CA – Denver, CO – 846 miles Denver, CO – Detroit, MI – 1,123 miles TRACK ADMSSION PRICES: Ripple Ridge Raceway – $8 Sheridan Speedway – Free Livingston County Fairgrounds – $10 Charlotte County Fairgrounds – $10 Thanks for reading about my trackchasing, Randy Lewis Trackchasing’s #1 trackchaser of the 21st century I’m not as good as I once was, but I’m as good once, as I ever was. July 14 – Laird International Speedway, Sault STE. Marie, Ontario, Canada July 15 – Orleans Racetrack, Belding, Michigan July 15 – I-96 Speedway (inner oval), Lake Odessa, Michigan July 15 – I-96 Speedway (outer oval), Lake Odessa, Michigan ** Great Yarmouth Stadium (oval), Yarmouth, England, March 27 Racing from my 2014 visit. Click on the link below for a view of the racing action from my 2014 visit. The complete day in Charlotte, Michigan! 
Planned new racetracks (on the last day of each racing trip I will post my tentative plans for my next trip)
Racetracks visited in 2005 (** not the first time to visit this track)