Greetings from Guthrie Center, Iowa
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From the travels and adventures of the
“World’s #1 Trackchaser”
Guthrie Center Fairgrounds Dirt figure 8 Lifetime Track #2,647 THE EVENT Editor’s note: After having seen racing at more than 2,600 racetracks it is challenging to find more tracks to visit. It is doubly difficult to find new tracks to visit….that no other trackchaser has ever been too. However, we did it! Carol and I were the first trackchasers ever to darken the door of the Guthrie Center Fairgrounds to see figure 8 racing or any racing for that matter. I AM A TRACKCHASER. No trip to the Kentucky Motor Speedway is complete without a Momma Sue’s footlong hot dog personally recommended by Steve. My name is Randy Lewis (above – doing an interview down at the Kentucky Motor Speedway). I live in a modest seaside cottage in the sleepy little village by the sea, San Clemente, California. I am a “trackchaser”. I trackchase. Have you ever in your life heard of “trackchasing”? I didn’t think so. Trackchasing for me is all about three things. First, I’m interested in seeing an auto race. Secondly, I want to take some time to see the local attractions of wherever I might be visiting. Finally, I want to create a logistical plan that allows me to accomplish the two points mentioned above without depleting my retirement account. That’s trackchasing for me. Am I truly serious about trackchasing? I think so. I’ve seen an auto race in 85 countries at more than 2,660 different tracks. Does that sound serious to you? I’ve been able to see the world doing this. If you’re interested in exactly what I’ve been able to experience all around the U.S. and the world I recommend you click on this link. Trackchasing Tourist Attractions Trackchasing can be an expensive hobby. One of my fellow competitors was said, “When Randy stops trackchasing we know he will have run out of money”. Folks, I have been retired for nearly 20 years and have not earned a single dime working. I’m still trackchasing! After each and every event that I attend I post a YouTube video, a SmugMug photo album and a very detailed Trackchaser Report about the experience on my website at www.randylewis.org. I guess people find what I share interesting. My website gets more than 20,000 views every month. Because I have seen racing in 85 countries at this point I am considered the World’s #1 Trackchaser. That’s good enough for me. Now I encourage you to drop down a few spaces and read about today’s trackchasing adventure. As you discover what went on at this track just think about the idea that I’ve done this more than 2,600 times. I don’t mind admitting I am addicted to the hobby of trackchasing. If you’re interested in looking back and seeing where I’ve been the following link is for you. 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! FOREWORD Saturday, September 5, 2020. Carol’s and my special 2020 Labor Day weekend trackchasing extravaganza continues. We woke up this morning in Rochester, Minnesota at a Fairfield Inn and Suites property. We expect to be staying every night on this trip in a Marriott or Sheraton hotel. When Carol comes along I get upgraded! Our main Trackchasing Tourist Attraction today was going to be a tour of the Iowa State University campus in Ames, Iowa. Our nephew Kyle is a sophomore at Iowa State. Kyle and I went trackchasing together just a few weeks ago in Kansas. Now today he was going to take us on a tour of his campus. We were very much looking forward to that. During our drive down from Rochester, Minnesota to Ames, Iowa, I thought about a very special Trackchasing Tourist Attraction I had experienced a few years ago. I’m talking about visiting the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake, Iowa. You might remember the Surf Ballroom as being the last venue where Buddy Holly performed before hopping on an airplane in February 1959. The plane crashed and he died on his way to Fargo, North Dakota. To this day the Surf Ballroom is still an active musical venue. Literally hundreds of top-level performers such as Willie Nelson and the Beach Boys and tons of other musical groups have performed at the Surf. I would classify my previous tour of the Surf Ballroom as being one of my top 10 Trackchasing Tourist Attractions of all time. As luck would have it the route down to Ames, Iowa from Rochester took us along Interstate 35. Clear Lake is located just a couple of miles off of the interstate. We had about 30 extra minutes to play with. That would be just the amount of time for me to take Carol into the Surf Ballroom and have a look around. Carol loved the experience. We both agreed we would really like to see a musical show at the Surf Ballroom. I don’t know if that will ever happen. Maybe we could do it during the winter around an ice race visit. Right now the Surf is shuttered for shows because of COVID-19. From Clear Lake, we made it over to the campus of Iowa State University. Our great nephew Kyle is a “CA” which stands for community advisor. That’s identical to what a lot of other campuses would call a resident advisor or an “RA”. It is true that Carol and I first met in resident assistant training when we were sophomores in college. Now Kyle gets to have that experience which is a great economic value because it normally comes with room and board and sometimes a small salary. Additionally, it’s an excellent way to get some outstanding leadership training as well. Well done Kyle! I love touring college campuses. For me to have a successful college campus touring experience I would like to see three things at a minimum. I always like to check out the basketball arena and the football stadium (above Jack Trice Stadium) as well as the bookstore. When I visit the bookstore I will be looking to buy a t-shirt from the local college or university. I did that today at Iowa State. I’ve got a lot of school t-shirts! It’s always fun to get inside the football stadium and the basketball arena. I have a special reason I like to do that. Once I’ve been in one of the stadia of any college campus just hearing a sports score from that school allows me to imagine what the game atmosphere was like after having been inside the arena. Today we had a 50% success rate with Iowa State sports arenas. We were able to go around a few non-secure fences to get ourselves within a few yards of the football field itself. Jack Trice Stadium seats 61,500 people. Kyle suggested we “overlook” one more security gate and get ourselves onto the football field itself. At that point, I attempted to be the adult in the room (stadium). Although if I had been by myself walking out to the 50-yard line might have been a perfectly normal thing to do…in my world of normalcy. Today I didn’t want to be a party to any school discipline taken against Kyle. I never would have heard the end of it from Carol! Unfortunately, we were not able to get into the Hilton Coliseum to see what the basketball situation looks like. Maybe I’ll get there some winter to catch one of those games. It was fun meeting up with our great-nephew. He’s a squared away kid and knows what he wants and what it’s going to take to get there. He’s majoring in engineering and has some internships giving him experience in this field. It’s really too bad that just about every kid can’t work hard like Kyle, have nothing given to him, and be on the road to success. However, the world doesn’t work that way. On a warm early September day, we bid Kyle goodbye and thanked him for taking the time to give us a tour. He’s planning a trip out to California, his first, later this year. That’ll be fun to show him around as he showed us around today. For the campus of Iowa State University, we headed down to Guthrie Center, Iowa. Tonight they were having a special figure 8 race at the fairgrounds in Guthrie Center. After tonight I will have seen figure 8 racing at 336 figure 8 tracks. Folks, that’s a lot of figure 8 racing! Iowa is one of the very best states in the country to watch racing on a F8 configuration. We found the fairgrounds easily and paid our $10 per person general election. $10 right now is pretty much the standard for these types of shows. I guess what I found most impressive about the Guthrie County Fairgrounds was their large covered grandstand. Most grandstands have simply a straight left to the right seating area where any one seat is not any closer to the action than the other. That’s not the case with the Guthrie County grandstand. Their grandstand approaches the design of an amphitheater or possibly a semi-circle. The ends of the grandstand sort of bend so that fans at the end will have a better direct view of the stage or the center of the racing action. I don’t know that I can recall seeing anything like that at a county fair in the past. It’s very unusual and effective. I would probably say I was a little disappointed with the figure 8 racing tonight. The announcer told us they had 49 cars in the pits which sounded about right. However, there were four or five classes racing. Some of the heat races only started three or four cars. Please check out my YouTube video and photo album to get a lay of the land from the figure 8 racing tonight at the Guthrie County Fairgrounds. Tonight‘s most powerful class really put on a good show of driving and speed. In reality, a good figure 8 race is a lot like a dirt oval race in the sense that the cars handle well and they’re being driven fast. We didn’t see much interaction at the “X” with the racing tonight at all. That’s always a little bit surprising but is more common than you might expect. With that, we headed out of the fairgrounds over to Moline, Illinois where we were staying the night. We pulled into Moline with about 1,100 miles on our trip odometer. We did that amount of driving during the first three days of the trip. That means that on the last three days of the trip our driving will be just a little bit lighter. I expect to do about 900 miles in the last half of the trip….maybe a little more. We will be trackchasing tomorrow up in Madison, Wisconsin. We have another big day planned. We do have some potential rain problems so we’ll see if we get sidelined by that. Good evening from Guthrie Center, Iowa. Randy Lewis – 85 countries – 2,617 tracks. Iowa The Hawkeye State This evening I saw racing at my 121st-lifetime track in the Hawkeye State, yes, the Hawkeye State. I hold the #1 trackchasing ranking in Iowa. Iowa ranks #4, amongst all the states, in tracks seen for me in the U.S. Here’s a link to my all-time Iowa state trackchasing list. I have made 82 separate trips to Kentucky seeing these tracks. 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 Iowa sayings: 1. Been walking beans? To most people, this looks like a serene farmland scene. To a kid who grew up in Iowa, this might make them cringe! If you grew up in rural Iowa, chances are you spent hours walking the beans – that is, walking rows of a soybean field and killing any plant that didn’t belong. The hours were long, the pay was mediocre, and you probably almost lost your fingers more than once. JUST THE FACTS 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 780 tracks of my lifetime total. Don’t blame me. Total Trackchasing Countries My nearest trackchasing competitor, a native of Belgium, has seen racing in more than 30 fewer countries compared to 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 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. Tours of the Surf Ballroom and Iowa State University PLUS an old standby Iowa figure 8 racing 
