Honor Speedway

Honor Speedway

Dirt oval

 Lifetime Track #2,650

 

THE EVENT

Editor’s note: I hadn’t been trackchasing in quite a while in Colorado. This trip had some hiccups. With the Covid pandemic going at full strength rental car inventory is limited. I got a terrible rental car. Then the ticket taker couldn’t count to fifteen. Finally, on a very cold and windy night, the show took forever to run. Sometimes things go that way.

 

I AM A TRACKCHASER.

My name is Randy Lewis (above – tonight wasn’t an ice race but it felt like it). 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.

Randy’s Complete Track List

  

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!

  

Randy on Facebook

 

 

FOREWORD

 

Friday, September 11, 2020.

Going on the road continues to amaze me. I must be easily amazed because I’ve certainly been on the road a lot during my life. I guess I still like to be entertained by the unusual things that I encounter.

This morning I left our modest seaside cottage in the little Spanish village by the sea at a reasonable 7 a.m. Normally the drive from our house to the airport at that hour would be in morning rush-hour traffic. However, we are in a pandemic. The traffic in SoCal remains light. By the way, the tall building in the photo above, is where I used to work. I had an office on a top floor overlooking this freeway!

 

Today I will be flying from Los Angeles to Denver, Colorado. Once I get into Denver I’ll rent a car and drive a little bit more than two hours down to Pueblo, Colorado. My Pueblo plan calls for me to see some racing this evening at the Honor Speedway.

 

 

I have developed a somewhat new routine. I have an electric car. It’s a Tesla Model X. Of course I need to keep the batteries charged in my car well enough to get me from point A to B. Additionally my form of aerobic exercise is power walking. I try to power walk at least 4 miles or more each day for a minimum of five days each week.

 

All of the electrical charging for my Tesla is done at superchargers. Most people charge their electric cars at home. That way when they wake up each morning the car has a full charge. However, part of my Tesla purchase agreement was that I would get free lifetime supercharging. I have never charged my Tesla at home. I use superchargers exclusively.

 

When I first got the car I would simply sit inside the car’s interior and play with my phone or computer while the car charged. A normal charging time to get a couple of hundred miles of driving range would be 30-45 minutes. However, I truly do love to multitask.

I have discovered a Tesla supercharger in Redondo Beach, California (above). It’s located a little less than 10 minutes from the Los Angeles International Airport. The location is an easy drive both on and off the freeway. What I like to do now is pull into the supercharger before one of my early morning flights and top off. While the batteries are charging, which might take 30 minutes plus or minus, I get in a mile or two of power walking. Then when I get to the airport parking garage I get in another mile from the garage to the airport terminal. This lets me start off my day with somewhere between two and three miles in my power walking “bank”. Reaching my 4-mile goal after that early effort is easy for the rest of the day. This is exactly what I did today.

 

This morning I chose a 10 a.m. flight. That’s a little bit later than I normally leave on one of these trips. Usually, when I am standing by for a flight it’s better to take the first flight of the day. Today with the flight being wide open I could leave later and still get a seat. Today I was the only standby passenger flying on the plane. There were about 50 open seats. I ended up getting my own row which during Covid times is more normal than not.

A few weeks ago I bought a Bose noise-canceling wireless headset. I love Bose for their noise-canceling benefits. This is the first time I’ve had a wireless version but I think its noise-canceling capabilities are even better than my four or five-year-old wired version of Bose. Today, while flying I used my Bose headset with my iPad to watch an Apple iTunes movie.

 

When I landed it was time to get my rental car. I was in Denver just about 10 days ago with Carol. Then when I went to get my rental car there must have been 50 cars to choose from. Today was different. They had a grand total of zero cars available.

I was about fourth in line waiting to get a car, any car. There were another 10 prospective renters behind me. We had waited nearly 10 minutes when I cornered the National employee in charge of this line of customers.

 

I reminded him that I was an “executive elite” frequent user at National Car Rental. This normally carries a lot of weight and it did today as well. The guy pulled me out of line and whispered that just beyond a nearby building was an SUV I could have. That sounded great. I thanked him for the special privileges he offered me.

However, when I rounded the building I found what looked like a Sherman tank. It was a huge Infiniti luxury SUV. I almost never rent SUVs on these trips. They typically get terrible gas mileage. I would much rather reserve a full-sized sedan such as the Toyota Camry or Chrysler 300. However, beggars cannot be choosers. I took what I could get today.

 

Then as I was beginning to leave the lot with the car I noticed the gas tank wasn’t quite full. I mentioned this to the gate agent. He was nice enough and offered to correct the oversight. He gave me a quarter tank credit. I would need to return the car with the tank at 3/4 full even though it was probably 90-95% full by looking at the gas gauge when I left.

I would learn, during the drive, this Infinity SUV truly was a gas guzzler. The fuel economy gauge told me I was getting 16.9 miles per gallon. That was terrible. Even if I got a quarter tank of free gasoline this monster was going to be expensive. The weird thing about this car was that I could barely fit my 6‘3” frame in the car‘s interior each time I got in or exited the vehicle. I don’t want to offend any Infiniti SUV holders but I wouldn’t buy this car at virtually any price.

 

I have recently switched over from my low-carb eating plan to a low-calorie eating plan. I’m hoping I’ll have the success I’m looking for with this change in strategy. I probably won’t but I’m hoping.

I had just hopped onto Interstate 25 freeway when I noticed a sign for a Waffle House. I really needed to stop there for two reasons. Number one I bought a Waffle House gift card at a 20% savings for Father’s Day. The second reason was that I had a printed coupon good for a free waffle that expired in just three days. I enjoyed my visit.

 

The drive down interstate 25 from Denver toward Pueblo was slow. I had been warned it might be. There was a lot of construction and I was dealing with Friday night rush hour traffic. Additionally, I noticed there was not a single rest area open over the entire route. Later in the night that would prove problematic.

 

On the way down to Pueblo, I stopped in at a Love’s truck stop. I think these places are great. They have super restroom facilities and all kinds of impulse shopping items that a traveler might be needing.

Today I bought something that I’ve been wanting to buy but just couldn’t pull the financial trigger on up until today. I’ve been using a three-foot USB-A to lightning cable to charge my iPhone in my rental cars. Of course, my iPhone is also my camera. I can’t tell you how many times I have bemoaned the fact that my three-foot cord wouldn’t allow me to move my camera around to take a picture while traveling down the interstates.

 

Today for around 17 bucks I bought a six-foot cable. Do you ever have things in your life that you know that you should’ve purchased a long time ago and you kept putting it off for one reason or another? Honestly, I never thought it was worth paying nearly 20 bucks for a longer cable from a value point of view. However, I’ll bet you that I have regretted having only a three-foot-long cable more than 100 times. I will have no more regrets because of the length of my cable.

 

I completed the 125-mile drive down to the Honor Speedway arriving at the track at 6:30 p.m. The website told me they were going to begin racing at 7 p.m. I was early. I did a little computer work and updated the database for the folks who receive my newsletter. More people are being added all the time.

I carry my cash in a money clip. Normally I won’t have a denomination any greater than a $20 bill on me. I try to minimize the number of ones that I have simply because they don’t fit into the money clip all that well. When I do have a few extra ones I throw them into a folder. It seems like right now I might have $80-$100 in one-dollar bills in that folder. I’ve decided to start using all of those ones for my race track admission tickets.

Tonight I was parked near the track’s ticket booth. I could see they had a continual line of about 25 people. That was most unusual. I haven’t seen a line that long at any one of the more than 50 tracks I have visited in 2020. I was about ready to understand why that ticket line was so long.

 

Tonight’s admission price was a somewhat hefty $15. The normal price for a show like this is only $10-12. Nevertheless, I pulled 15 one-dollar bills out of my folder and counted it twice. I had the correct amount.

 

I waited in the ticket line for more than 10 minutes. Then I discovered what was holding up things. As I got near the head of the line they were asking folks in my line to purchase their ticket and then go stand in a separate line to get a wristband. I have never heard of such a thing.

 

When I got to the ticket window I handed my neatly folded 15 one-dollar bills to the woman collecting the cash. She took the money and counted it. Then she counted the money a second time. While she counted she tried to arrange all of the dollar bills so that they were all facing right side up from her vantage point. What was this? Was she a bank teller? It seemed as if the process of organizing the bills kept screwing up her count.

 

Then she sighed and counted my money for the third time. I think she forgot she was counting to fifteen. As God is my witness she laid the bills down, talked to somebody next to her about some random subject and then counted my money for the fourth time. Then, as bank tellers often do, she put the money in front of her and in front of me and counted it twice more. This lady counted my freaking 15 one-dollar bills SIX times. I told her I had already counted it twice myself and was pretty certain I had the right amount.

It took all of my restraint not to lose my cool with this woman who seemed to be about my age. If I didn’t already have a good understanding of what the penalty was for strangling a woman like this I might have gone that route.

 

Now I was getting ready to move into the second line so I could get a wristband placed upon my wrist. At that point, the lady who had been counting my money for the last 10 minutes told me that she could affix my wristband herself like every other freaking track in all of America. I was not getting off to a great start with the Honor Speedway.

The Honor Speedway is in a very rural desert type location. Later in the night, the track announcer would tell the crowd that the track had been closed for a period of 16 years before opening as the Honor Speedway a couple of years ago. I’m going to have to check out what the track’s original name was prior to its closing in about 2000.

The facilities were rustic. The bathrooms from what I could see were supplied by two porta-potties. The entire concession stand was a small food trailer. The line to buy concessions was long and seemed to move slowly. By feature time the entire food trailer was closed for the night.

 

Racing was scheduled to begin, according to the track website, at 7 p.m. When did the first race take its green flag? At about 7:45 p.m. I hate it when tracks start late. They are wasting my time. As I would go through the night this race promotion did just about everything they possibly could… wrong.

Tonight I think there were seven classes racing. There were 12 late models and about 25 dwarf cars. They also had 12-14 mini sprints. Then three lower-level stock car divisions brought car counts of six, three and two. They also had four go-kart racers on the big track tonight.

The Honor Speedway track configuration is that of a dirt oval. I’m going to say it was about 3/8 of a mile in length with some slight banking. Essentially it was your traditional dirt short track. However, in my judgment, this track was too large for virtually all of the cars with the exception of the 12 late model stock cars.

 

There were quite a few spins. The track cleanup crew took forever to get the cars off of the track and back into the pit area. The flagman was pretty quick with a yellow flag. He also practiced the, “one more lap” syndrome. Tracks that do that can easily add 30-60 minutes to the length of their show. Customers sitting on hard boards don’t like that.

 

The temperature at race time was nearly 70°. That might seem warm in some locales. But at an elevation like Pueblo’s at 4,700 feet accompanied by a 10 mile an hour wind it was chilly and it was going to get colder. The forecast was for a temperature in the mid-50s by 10 p.m.

I think short tracks are plagued by a number of anti-consumer outcomes. One of those outcomes is starting late. Another is having too many yellow flags and a poor ability to get back to racing quickly. Tonight the announcer didn’t have all that much to say. The PA wasn’t very strong. Just a little bit of everything slowed the show tonight.

 

At 10 p.m. the track had finished their heat races and went to intermission. Folks let’s review the numbers. The official starting time for the racing was 7 p.m. Now three hours later, on a very cold and windy night, they had only finished up their heat races and one “B”  feature for the dwarf cars. In a nutshell, that’s simply terrible.

I strongly thought about leaving at intermission. I had no idea how long the intermission was going to be. Luckily it was short, maybe 10 minutes. I stayed for the 12-car 20-car late model stock car feature. I very much enjoyed the late models parade lap featuring American flags in memory of the “9/11” event.

Believe it or not on the slow pace lap before the feature race began TWO late models lost their left rear tire (see above photo) in separate incidents. I’ve been doing this a long time and I’ve never seen such a thing. Then a third car pulled into the pits with engine woes.

 

Now the 12-car feature was only nine cars. Rather than start the race with nine cars they waited around for another 15 minutes until all three of the disabled racecars had been able to get repairs and return to the track. I’m all for letting everybody who came to the track race. It’s just that when one delay after another delay of all kinds continues to happen I personally have only so much patience.

 

I did enjoy talking to three separate gentlemen in the stands. We were all in the top row down by turn four spectating location. One of the guys was a father to one of the late-model drivers who ended up finishing fifth in the feature. The other two guys were just race fans. They were pretty patient with the poor performance of the Honor Speedway tonight. I pointed out some of the track’s shortcomings. All they could do was nod their head in agreement.

 

When the late model stock car feature took the checkered flag at a little past 10:30 p.m. I threw in the towel. There was no way this program was going to finish before midnight. They only had about 60 cars in the pits over seven classes. There was absolutely no need for this to be a five-hour plus show.

Tonight I had seen racing at my 22nd track in Colorado. For me, that’s not very many tracks to see in an individual state. As a matter of fact, Colorado ranks 30^th in overall tracks that I’ve seen by state across the United States. A fellow by the name of Gordon Killian has seen the second-highest number of tracks here at 16. I hadn’t been trackchasing in Colorado since 2017 and my last stop before that was 2011.

 

I wasn’t going to get back in the area of the Denver airport tonight until past 1 a.m. I had to be returning my rental car in the morning at about 6:30 a.m. in preparation for an 8 a.m. flight from Denver to St. Louis. What did all of that mean? There would be no time to get a hotel. I was going to have to sleep in my car with overnight temperatures in the 40s. That wasn’t the end of the world. I slept in temperatures overnight like that with no heat whatsoever for three months while in boot camp for the United States Marine Corps.

I certainly don’t want to be overly critical about some of the circumstances I encountered tonight. It’s just that I expect people who are charging me money to buy their goods and services to deliver on those goods and services.

When I showed up at the National Car Rental location at the Denver airport they didn’t have any rental cars. Were they delivering on their part of the value equation? Then they ended up giving me a huge piece of shit Infiniti SUV that I could barely crawl into and out of without being a contortionist.

When the ticket line never decreased in size and the lady selling the tickets counted my fifteen one-dollar bills six times I knew I was in trouble. Then the race program started 45 minutes late and had all kinds of delays and still hadn’t run a main event for any of their seven classes by 10 p.m. I knew that this was a track I would never visit again. And I can guarantee you this. I will never ever ever come back to the Honor Speedway to see a race on their dirt oval again. I just won’t. Would I come back for a figure 8 race? What do you think?

 

The drive back to the airport after the racing was finished seemed like a long two hours. I make long drives all the time but this was a long two hours. I wasn’t looking forward to sleeping in the car even though I had come prepared with a couple of pillows and a small blanket. It was what it was. I don’t sleep in the car to save money. I only sleep in the car when there’s no time to enjoy a hotel. Hopefully, I can get a hotel earlier in the day tomorrow in St. Louis and catch up on some of my missed sleep.

 

Good evening and good riddance to the Honor Speedway in Pueblo, Colorado.

 

Randy Lewis – 85 countries – 2,650 tracks.

Colorado

 

The Centennial State

This evening I saw racing at my 22nd-lifetime track in the Centennial State, yes, the Centennial State.  I hold the #1 trackchasing ranking in Colorado. Colorado ranks #30, amongst all the states, in tracks seen for me in the U.S.

 

Here’s a link to my all-time Colorado state trackchasing list. I have made 15 separate trips to Colorado seeing these tracks.

Colorado state track list

 

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

Colorado sayings: “Oh, I didn’t do much this weekend… just climbed a 14er.”

 

Now I know what you non-Coloradans are thinking… WTF is a 14er? A 14er is a mountain that boasts an elevation of at least 14,000 feet, of course (and MAD kudos to those of you who have conquered one)!

 

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.

 

1. Randy Lewis, San Clemente, California – 2,650

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. 

1. Randy Lewis, San Clemente, California – 85

 

Current lifetime National Geographic Diversity results

 

1. Randy Lewis, San Clemente, California – 3.96

 

That’s all folks!  Official end of the RLR – Randy Lewis Racing Trackchaser Report