Greetings from Orangeville, Pennsylvania
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From the travels and adventures of the
“World’s #1 Trackchaser”
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Greenwood Valley Action Tracks
Dirt oval
Lifetime Track #2,212
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. Or you can visit me on Facebook. Thanks! I often see two or more tracks in a single day or in a single weekend. Sometimes when that happens I will combine my observations from multiple tracks into a single Trackchaser Report. That is the case today. Pocono….then Green Valley. These weekend’s trackchasing trip took me to the Pocono International Raceway property in the afternoon. There I saw racing on the southeast road course. Then in the evening I jetted over to the Greenwood Valley Action Tracks. Don’t miss the photo albums and videos from both of these tracks. The racing was very different at each location. However, that’s O.K. with me. That’s what trackchasing is all about. ON THE WAY TO THE RACES SATURDAY Yep. It was a late night or an early morning depending upon your point of view. At a little past 4 a.m. I pulled into the Cumberland County Highway rest area off of interstate 81. I had just covered nearly six hours of my eight-hour drive up towards the Pocono International Raceway from last night’s track in southern Virginia. I had just a bit more than two hours to go. The first race at Pocono was planned for 2:30 p.m. I leaned back the driver’s seat of the National Car Rental Racing Hyundai Sonata. I set my iPhone timer for five hours. That would give me all of the rest I needed to continue this journey. The overnight temperature got down to a low of about forty. I did have to turn on the car’s heater a couple of times. Why? I was wearing cargo shorts, which is what everyone should be wearing most of the time for most of their life. Rise and shine. I finally woke up at about 9:30 a.m. This had been one of my best interstate rest area overnight sleeps ever. I freshened up, and checked out of the rest area with an overnight accommodations bill amounting to zero. Pocono here I come. I was now headed to Pocono. I’ve been to the Pocono International Raceway on two previous occasions. In 1993 Carol and I showed up for the NASCAR Winston Cup race contested over the 2.5-mile tri-oval. Dale Earnhardt Sr. won that race. Then in 2004 I returned on a Tuesday afternoon in August to see the EMRA road-racing group compete. Story details from each of those trackchasing visits can be read behind other tabs on this page. How road courses can be counted in the trackchasing hobby. A few years ago Belgium trackchaser Roland Vanden Eynde proposed a rule that was accepted by the trackchasing hierarchy. The rule essentially said that a “second” overlapping road course configuration could be counted if the second track was at least minorly different from the first road course configuration. In order to count a second road course configuration the two tracks must have at least one straightaway and three turns NOT in common. I don’t know that I’ve ever been able to be fully supportive of this proposal. However if oval tracks can be counted in multiple configurations, such as an outer oval and an inner oval, I guess something similar is acceptable for road courses. I’ll be using this addendum to the rules for Pocono and possibly even tomorrow in California! More details on that later. Just can’t avoid the “house”. Following another stop at the Waffle House this morning I begin to eagerly anticipate another day/night trackchasing double. Pocono would be the “day” part of that double. I had a few Saturday night options. However heavy rain was coming into the area. I wanted to go with the most obscure of those choices but the rain was going to get to that track first. I might have to settle for my least preferred choice, because it races every Saturday night. This track was also the least likely to be rained out. Can these guys take a joke? Towards the end of my drive I hopped on the Pennsylvania Turnpike. When I was about 10 miles from Pocono it was time to take the exit from the turnpike. There was nothing too unusual about that. However this was one of those exits where there are no people to take your money. There was simply an overhead automated machine of sorts. Signs told me I needed an “easy pass” electronic toll transponder. Of course I did not have one. I suspect I’ll be hearing from those pesky toll road folks sometime in the future. That notice will probably come with a penalty fee of some sort. Aggressive drivers? Once I was within five miles of the track I was again reminded I was on the East Coast. Why do I say that? A huge sign read, “Aggressive driver – High crash area”. Yes, folks on the East Coast are known for being aggressive in a pushy kind of way. Nevertheless, once you get to know them they really are pussycats at heart. They just like to act tough as a kind of a defensive mechanism I guess. I’m down with that. Having come from southern Virginia it was interesting to note that spring had sprung in that area. The leaves on the trees had popped out a few weeks ago. The foliage was coming along nicely. However in Pocono there were no such situation. Despite this being the last day of April it looked like it was still winter in this area. I passed through several ski resort locations as well. The entire scene made me think it might be January more so that nearly May. Do you remember “May Day”? Yes, tomorrow is “May Day”. I spent many a May Day, which is May 1, with my grandmother making and distributing “May baskets”. Don’t know what a May basket is? Google it. O.K., I Googled it for you. This is what Wikipedia had to say about “May baskets”. “In some parts of the United States, May baskets are made. These are small baskets usually filled with flowers or treats and left at someone’s doorstep. The giver rings the bell and runs away.” My grandmother and I did that for years. THE RACING Pocono International Raceway – Long Pond, Pennsylvania Can I give you my candid unvarnished thoughts? Now let’s talk about the racing at the Pocono International Raceway on the southeast course configuration. May I be direct with you for a moment? Thanks. Granted it was all the way back in 2004 when I saw a racing on the “eastern” configuration at Pocono. However, I believe if I had seen racing on the eastern configuration last summer and then watched the racing on today’s southeastern configuration I wouldn’t have the foggiest notion that one was different from the other. At least when I see racing on an outer oval and then an inner oval it’s pretty easy to tell the difference. Fortunately I didn’t have to pay anything to watch today’s racing. It was also good news that the Pocono road course was on almost a direct route to the Greenwood Valley track I planned to see this evening. Eastern Motor Racing Association. This afternoon I was seeing racing sanctioned by the EMRA race group aka the Eastern Motor Racing Association. From what I could tell after talking to one of today’s drivers EMRA is primarily a time trial group as opposed to a racing group. That was his opinion anyway. Time trial activity, from what I can tell, is for drivers who don’t want to screw up their car in a race. Based on the money some drivers have invested in their racing machines I can understand that. There were only a couple of races on the entire agenda today. Most of the activity was practice or driver education. Blue man group? I was here to see the “blue group” race on the southeast configuration. The race was scheduled to begin at 2:30 p.m. Road racers are almost always on time. That was the case today. Where did their oval brothers go wrong? Who brought the green flag? There was just a little bit of confusion with the start of today’s race. I was standing at the head of the grid near the race officials. One of those officials was holding up the start of the race. Why? He was asking on his race control two-way radio if anyone had a green flag to get the race started at the start/finish line! Originally seven drivers were scheduled to start the wheel to wheel portion of the race. Another one or two racers supplemented this field just as the cars left the starting grid. By moving around the track in my car I was able to get a little video of the race from several different angles. One of the coolest parts of the track was when the drivers competed on small parts of the Pocono tri-oval. That had to be fun for the racers. A hidden benefit. There are some pluses to seeing road racing especially at the big NASCAR tracks. This type of road racing doesn’t really attract many spectators. It’s a “participant” sport. With very few people on the grounds I was able to walk through the garage area and see all of the other infield buildings and the like. With the huge crowds that come on NASCAR weekends there would be no way I would have such access then. Getting ready for the night. It was a rather dull cloud laden 54° Saturday afternoon. It was cold enough that I switched from my cargo shorts to blue jeans. I did that mainly in preparation for this evening’s racing. I knew that shorts wouldn’t cut it then. Following the completion of the “blue group” race it wasn’t long before I was headed west on interstate 80. I must say there wasn’t all that much “racing” with today’s Pocono road course event. As I drove over Interstate 80 I reminded myself that this road goes all the way out to California. I’ve probably driven almost every mile of this interstate. THE RACING Greenwood Valley Action Tracks – Orangeville, Pennsylvania I had just a one hour drive over to the Greenwood Valley Action Tracks located in Orangeville, Pennsylvania. Racing there would be the second half of my day/night trackchasing doubleheader. I got there earlier than I had expected. I would take a short nap. I didn’t get all the sleep I needed after sleeping in an interstate rest last evening. Internet? Chili? Maybe both? On the way over to Orangeville I stopped in Drums, Pennsylvania. I was looking for a McDonalds where I could use their internet. I was also looking for a Wendy’s because I love their chili. A Wendy’s showed up first! I would have some chili and ask if Wendy’s offered their customers free internet. They did. This is what America is built on. Great ideas. Great capitalistic ideas. A Wendy’s with both chili and Internet. That’s top notch. Now I know their password too. If I told you what it was I would be jeopardizing my existing sponsorship with the chain. I don’t think any other trackchasers do it this way. Sitting quietly in the National Car Rental Racing Hyundai Sonata I made a second airline reservation from Baltimore to Los Angeles for tomorrow morning. I didn’t know if I would make my first flight with that itinerary. If not, I would have a second chance just one hour later. If I didn’t make either I would be sitting in Baltimore without much of a plan and no airplane. More on that tomorrow. I give up. I had all but given up on going to Maine for a Sunday afternoon race. I had been using the Weather Underground weather app on my iPhone. Those guys forecast weather by the hour. They are extremely accurate. The Maine race was scheduled to begin at 2 p.m. on Sunday afternoon. Rain was predicted to come in at just about race time. If I decided to go to Maine I would likely get home on Tuesday. If I bypassed that drive north I would probably get home on Sunday morning…. I might even have a chance to see a new California track that afternoon! It was an easy choice. I was headed to the Golden state! Editor’s note: The rain did reach the racing in Maine. Part of the program ended up being canceled. However, had I gone there I would have seen enough to count the track. Nevertheless, I would have had to drive 18 hours, yes 18 hours, to have success in the Pine Tree state. I suspect I’ll be in the area in the future when there won’t be that much incremental driving. Next stop: Just down the road. My next stop would be at the Greenwood Valley Action Tracks. Greenwood is a racy little 1/5-mile dirt oval. They race micro-sprint cars there. You can rest assured that any dirt oval that I have not seen, anywhere in the country, has been on my radar for years. Today I was finally going to be pulling into the Greenwood Valley Action Tracks. Greenwood was going to be my 95th lifetime track to see in Pennsylvania. If you have checked out my 2016 trackchasing goals you know that I am trying to see 100 tracks or more in at least one new state during 2016. Up to know I’ve seen 100 or more tracks in California, Illinois, Iowa and Michigan. No one else has done that! I have always had the habit of arriving at the tracks I visit early. I guess that comes from never wanting to be late. This was a bit unusual. The Greenwood track runs a somewhat unusual race program. They run “go-karts” featuring mainly kids starting at about 4 p.m. Many of these racers are flat karts with roll cages. I cannot answer this one. What’s the difference between a flat kart with a cage and a senior champ kart with a cage. Not a heck of a lot. However, trackchasing’s founding fathers dumped all over flat karts many years ago. Flat karts, caged or not, do not count in trackchasing. Any questions about that? I arrived when these karts were running their heat races. I paid my eight dollar general admission fee. Since I was so early I could park my car right behind the main grandstand. I couldn’t really see the track from there. However, it was convenient to hop in and out of my car as I checked out the pit area, the concession stand and the kid’s races. This guy was a hoot. A highlight of the night was the track announcer. He was really funny. He did a good job of entertaining the crowd. Tonight’s program was kind of a “quasi” kart program. Probably more kart racing venues don’t have any kind of an announcer let alone a good one. Best pizza ever! Best pizza ever? I did have one bone to pick with the announcer however. He really promoted the track’s concessions. He told everyone that the track pizza was the best pizza….anywhere. He spoke about how truly outstanding it was. Sorry. I am a pizza expert. I am even a former employee (maybe I was a private contractor) of a pizza establishment. I’m talking about Pizza Villa in DeKalb, Illinois. If you ever get to DeKalb check ‘em out. They are definitely in my worldwide top five and maybe in the top two. Tonight’s track pizza was not only not “best” it probably ranked in my bottom 25% of all-time pizzas. It was way to cheesy, had no meat and the crust was mushy with too much sauce. When I asked the server what kind of pizza they were serving she almost took offense. She said, “Well, it’s just pizza”. Oh my. I supplemented my food order with some perogies. I had to wait for them since they were a “custom” order. What did that mean? It meant they were being taken out of the freezer and put in a microwave. Typically the east coast tracks offer the very best food choices in the short track racing industry. To think I passed on the track’s cheesesteak. I’ll give the track announcer a pass on his food recommendations. You can’t (very easily) be a comical and entertaining track announcer AND know a good pizza when you eat one. Micro-sprints; Mini-sprints. The main attraction with tonight’s racing program was going to be the micro-sprints. I don’t really know how these differ from mini-sprints. Does it really matter? There were four classes: rookies, 125s, 270s and 600s. Each class had 10-20 competitors. I was seeing something very unusual. This was something that most people would not notice. While I waited in the car for the main program to begin one race car team after another pulled into the track. Despite this being a micro-sprint program, with only 50 people in the grandstands, every team (that I saw) arrived with a fully enclosed professional racecar trailer. I got to thinking. I travel a lot. In any given year I will visit 35 states or so. I’ve been doing that for the better part of 20 years and more. In all of that time I have come to find out that certain areas offer a unique persona. In Wisconsin you have beer drinkers. Nobody drinks more beer than the Badgers. In California you are more likely to have dance competitions during intermission than anywhere else. In New York it’s fried dough. The same thing applies to racing bodies. At a USAC sprint car program the crowd will be dominated by older, sometimes much older white males. At the Lucas Oil off-road series where trucks and buggies are flying through the air over huge man-made jumps the crowd will be primarily “skaters”. These folks will likely be wearing black shoes, black socks, black shorts, black shirt and a “skater” black hat. At the county fair figure 8 races you find a blue collar family type atmosphere. What does all this mean? What do all of the above demographic generalities have to do with the professionalism of tonight’s Pennsylvania micro-sprint race teams. These folks take racing SERIOUSLY. Again, as a generality I have never observed a group of racers and fans who seem to take racing more seriously than residents of the Keystone state. Pennsylvania is a very rural and picturesque state. I’m going to guess there isn’t all that much to do in here. It’s a little bit like the demographic that attends a drive-in movie theatre. There are less than 200 of them left in the country. However, you won’t find a drive-in movie theatre in the middle of downtown Los Angeles or Chicago. Drive-in movie theatres are almost all in rural small town locations. They are in places where they are the “big” thing in the area. Pennsylvania has one of the oldest and most rural populations in the country. They might also have more decent dirt oval racetracks than just about any other state. Birds of a feather. The short track racing industry has some things in common with the drive-in movie theatre industry. They are both a dying breed. Yes, there are about 50 tracks in the U.S. that are thriving. Most are not. Without much other quality entertainment and a long and rich history of auto racing here the fans come from long generational histories of race followers. I’ll bet nearly all of tonight’s race team were second and third racing generations. Please do not take my comments as being critical of Pennsylvania race teams and race fans. My comments are observational. I believe it to be a 100% true statement that Wisconsin race fans consume more beer than race fans from anywhere else. I also believe that Pennsylvania racing residents, those folks who live between Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, are bigger race fans than virtually anywhere else I visit. Yes, racing is big in Iowa and North Carolina and a few other states. However, the generational fan in Pennsylvania tops the list in my opinion. It would have been more comfortable in a movie theater. It was cold sitting in the top row of the grandstand tonight. I’m going to bet the Greenwood people bought their grandstand seats from a track that closed somewhere along the line. Each seat was a plastic folding chair. They were quite nice. They started the micro-sprint heat racing at about 6:30 p.m. I appreciated their promptness especially with rain on the way. I was a little disappointed with the one-lane racing around the bottom. There was some passing but not much. Nevertheless, I enjoyed the program. Don’t miss the video. These folks do a great job. I must commend the people who run my Weather Underground app. They are extremely accurate with the rain forecasts. For the past two days they have been predicting when the rain would hit the tracks I was planning to attend tonight. The forecast didn’t change much over time. I stayed until there was only one feature event remaining. I would liked to have stayed longer but it was a damp and cold night. It was a little surprising with this many professional micro-sprint teams in attendance that the crowd was so small. I’m guessing 50 people in the stands. I must report that several of the step-boards in the stands were in horrendous condition. So what county were we in? The announcer sometimes announced from outside the announcing booth. When he did this he was sitting just a few feet from me. I wanted to lean over and ask, “What county is this track in?” Of course, when he told me I would reply, “Thanks, I wanted to know where I would be filing my lawsuit after falling through the grandstands!” However, I wasn’t sure he would appreciate the humor. I also considered telling him the track pizza was essentially terrible….but some things are better left unsaid. It was with all of the above in mind that I headed out of the track. Less than 30 minutes after I left it started raining lightly. I had beaten the weather again. AFTER THE RACES If the weather had been good I would have done this. I had decided to pass on driving up toward Maine. Who in their right mind would drive 18 hours round-trip for a 10-minute race when it was more than likely the show would be rained out? The Hyundai Sonata Motor Inn…two nights in a row. I was driving to Baltimore tonight. I would be sleeping in an interstate rest area for a few hours for the second straight night. However, there was a good chance I could get on an early morning flight back to Los Angeles. If THAT happened there was a very good chance I could see racing at a new track in Southern California. If THAT happened I would be just one track short of Gary Jacob’s lifetime California trackchasing totals. I didn’t want to count my chickens just yet. But wait just a minute. I’m getting ahead of myself. I still had to find a place to sleep tonight, catch an overbooked flight tomorrow morning and then check out a track that I wasn’t even sure was going to count. More on that in my next report. Good evening. Pennsylvania The Keystone state This afternoon and evening I saw my 94th and 95th lifetime tracks in the Keystone state, yes the Keystone state. I’ve seen 95 or more tracks in five states. No trackchaser comes close to matching that total. 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 Pennsylvania sayings: Dippy eggs. Referred to as eggs over easy most other places, dippy eggs hold a special place in Pennsylvanians’ hearts. QUICK FACTS TRACK ADMISSION PRICES: Rolling Thunder Speedway – $10 Pocono International Raceway – No charge Greenwood Valley Action Tracks – $8 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 525 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 Click on the link below to see the video production from the racing action on the Southeast road course configuration. Road Course racing from Pocono . . . Micro sprint racing on the dirt from Pennsylvania 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. . . Micro sprint racing from Greenwood Valley Action Tracks 
