Hungary – lifetime trackchasing country #32
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Greetings from Mogyorod, Hungary
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From the travels and adventures of the
“World’s #1 Trackchaser”
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Hungaroring
Asphalt road course
Lifetime Track #1,426
OVERVIEW Taking my trackchasing hobby to foreign countries creates the very best experiences. Long ago I moved into the #1 trackchasing position when it came to see racing outside of the United States. Yes, this was just one of more than 2,000 trips that have taken me up, down and around the long and dusty trackchasing trail. However, it was my first opportunity to see racing in a place like Hungary. Every one of my foreign country visits is extra special. This trip was no different. 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! DAYS 1-4 – “DRIVING SIR DAZY” TRACKCHASING TOUR EDITOR’S NOTE #1 Some of you, primarily folks I have met on my international travels, may only be receiving my INTERNATIONAL Trackchaser Reports. Of course, I do go trackchasing a good deal domestically (for me that means the United States). If you would like to be added to my domestic Trackchaser Report distribution list, just drop me a line at ranlay@yahoo.com. GREETINGS FROM MOGYOROD, HUNGARY This trip began with Carol and me flying from San Diego to Barcelona, Spain. We stayed in Spain for a day before flying to Milan, Italy. From there we drove through Slovenia and stayed the night in Croatia. The next day we motored on to Hungary to see a race in my 32nd trackchasing country. Hungary would be Carol’s 15th country where she has seen racing. This is what transpired during days 1-4 of this international trackchasing trip. THE COUNTRY LIST #32!! RANLAY Racing Lifetime Trackchasing Countries # 1 – UNITED STATES OF AMERICA – Peoria Speedway (Mt. Hawley, oval) – Track #1, Peoria, Illinois – circa 1954 (age 5) # 2 – CANADA – Cayuga Speedway (oval) – Track #174, Nelles Corner, Ontario, Canada – July 31, 1988 (Dick Trickle winner) # 3 – AUSTRALIA – Parramatta City Raceway (oval) – Track #180, Granville, New South Wales, Australia – November 17, 1989 (accompanied by Carol) # 4 – UNITED KINGDOM – Northhampton International Raceway (oval) – Track #378, Northhampton – June 26, 1999 (accompanied by Carol, Kristy, Jim) # 5 – NETHERLANDS – Driesum Racetrack (oval) – Track #839, Driesum – May 5, 2005 (accompanied by Roland Vanden Eynde) # 6 – BELGIUM – Bellekouter oval (oval) – Track #841, Affligem – May 8, 2005 (accompanied by Roland Vanden Eynde) # 7 – FRANCE – Circuit de Croix en Ternois (road course) – Track #843, Saint-Pol sur-Ternoise – May 8, 2005 (accompanied by Roland Vanden Eynde – 2nd new country in one day!) # 8 – GERMANY – Nurburgring (road course) – Track #844, Nurburg – May 13, 2005 (accompanied by Carol, Roland Vanden Eynde) # 9 – NEW ZEALAND – Western Springs Speedway (oval) – Track #1,134, Western Springs – December 26, 2006 (accompanied by Carol) # 10 – MEXICO – Triovalo Bernardo Obregon (oval) – Track #1,281, Tiajamulco de Zuniga, Jalisco – October 14, 2007 (accompanied by Carol, J.J., Roger Ward) # 11 – BARBADOS – Bushy Park Racing Circuit (road course) – Track #1,296, Bushy Park – December 9, 2007 # 12 – THAILAND – Bira Circuit (road course) – Track #1,300, Pattaya – January 19, 2008 # 13 – SOUTH AFRICA – Durban Grand Prix (road course) – Track #1,315, Durban, KwaZulu-Natal – February 24, 2008 (accompanied by J.J. and Will Van Horne) # 14 – JAMAICA – Dover Raceway (road course) – Track #1,322, Brown’s Town St. Ann – March 24, 2008 # 15 – SWEDEN – Sturup Raceway (road course) – Track #1,335, Malmo – May 10, 2008 (accompanied by Carol) # 16 – DENMARK – Ring Djursland (road course) – Track #1,336, Tirstrup – May 11, 2008 (accompanied by Carol) # 17 – CZECH REPUBLIC – Automotodrome BRNO (road course) – Track #1,381, Brno – September 13, 2008 # 18 – AUSTRIA – Lambrechten Stock Car Track (road course) – Track #1,382, Lambrechten – September 14, 2008 # 19 – IRELAND – Tipperary International Raceway (oval) – Track #1,388, Rosegreen – October 26, 2008 (Carol and I visited this track earlier in the year) # 20 – GUYANA – South Dakota Circuit (road course) – Track #1,390, Timehri – November 2, 2008 (accompanied by Carol) # 21 – CHINA – The Guia Circuit (road course) – Track #1,392, Macau – November 16, 2008 (accompanied by Carol) # 22 – COSTA RICA – Autodromo La Guacima (road course) – Track #1,398, La Guacima – November 30, 2008 # 23 – ANDORRA – Grandvalira Circuit (road course) – Track #1,404, Port d’Envalira, Andorra – January 17, 2009 # 24 – ARGENTINA – Circuito Efren Chemolli (oval) – Track #1,406, Buenos Aires, Argentina – January 31, 2009 # 25 – QATAR – Losail International Circuit (road course) – Track #1,408, Doha, Qatar – February 13, 2009 # 26 – BAHRAIN – Bahrain International Circuit (road course) – Track #1,410, Sakhir, Bahrain – February 27, 2009 (accompanied by Carol) # 27 – UNITED ARAB EMIRATES – Dubai Autodrome (road course) – Track #1,411, Dubai, United Arab Emirates – February 28, 2009 (accompanied by Carol) # 28 – COLOMBIA – Autodromo de Tocancipa (road course) – Track #1,415, Tocancipa, Colombia – March 22, 2009 # 29 – SPAIN – Motorland Aragon (road course) – Track #1,416, Alcaniz, Spain – March 28, 2009 # 30 – PORTUGAL – Circuto de Murca (road course) – Track #1,417, Murca, Portugal – March 29, 2009 # 31 – ICELAND – Kapelluhraum (road course) – Track #1,420, Hafnafjorour, Iceland – April 25, 2009 # 32 – HUNGARY – Hungaroring (road course) – Track #1,426, Mogyorod, Hungary – May 8, 2009 (accompanied by Carol) HUNGARY – FAST FACTS Full country name: Republic of Hungary Capital City: Budapest Official language: Hungarian (it is one of 23 official languages of the European Union!) Population (2008): 10,031,000 Currency: Forint (HUF) Geography: Hungary is a landlocked country in the Carpathian basin of Central Europe, bordered by Austria, Slovakia, Ukraine, Romania, Serbia, Croatia and Slovenia. Sport: Only seven countries have won more summer Olympic gold medals than Hungary. Hungary has won more gold medals per capita than any other country. Politics: Following World War II, the kingdom was occupied by the Soviet Union, which imposed a Communist government from 1947 to 1989. During this era, Hungary gained widespread international recognition by mounting the Revolution of 1956 and the seminal move of opening its border to Austria in 1989, thus accelerating the collapse of the Eastern bloc. The present form of government is a parliamentary republic (since 1989). Climate: Hungary has hot summers with low overall humidity levels but frequent rain showers and frigid to cold snowy winters. Average temperature in the summer is 81-95 degrees Fahrenheit and in the winter 5-32 degrees. Demographics: Hungary does not have a very diverse ethnic population. Some 94.4% of the population is of Hungarian descent. Religion: Nearly 55% of the population are members of the Catholic Church, and 19.5% are members in one form or another of the Protestant religion. * Some of this info comes from my research at Wikipedia. PART 1of 1 – HUNGARY THINGS YOU MIGHT HAVE NOTICED HAD YOU BEEN PAYING MORE ATTENTION IN SCHOOL I will maintain my policy of affording anonymity to readers who send in interesting bits of information or who provide cutting edge analysis. From a reader in Michigan. I’ve been in contact for some time with Vern Naley, a long-time crewmember of my all-time favorite racing driver, Darrell Dake. Vern sent me a DVD of Darrell and others racing from 1983. I’ve uploaded that footage on to YouTube. You can see the output on the Darrell Dake tribute page of my site at www.randylewis.org. TODAY’S HEADLINES We bought lots of good travel stuff cheap on this trip……………….more in “The Trip”. What would be the overriding aspect of this trip? …………..details in “The Trip”. I tirelessly honed my linguistics skills (or not) in preparation for this trip. …………..details in “The Trip”. THE OBJECTIVE, THE TRIP AND THE PEOPLE…AND A WHOLE LOT MORE The Objective Really, the objective is very simple. Yes, the objective in trackchasing is to have fun. In so doing, I am trying to add as many new trackchasing countries to my trackchasing resume as I can. The real fun is simply getting the plan together. Often times the execution of the plan is anticlimactic. Carol and I would be attempting a European trackchasing trip never before embarked upon by Americans exclusively. Would we be successful? Would we fall short of the mark? You will find out soon. The Trip TUESDAY, MAY 5, 2009 No trackchasing trip originating from California is ever easy. We left at “zero dark thirty” on day 1 of this trip. We would be leaving from San Diego, and then connecting in New York on our way to Barcelona, Spain. We always try to spend our capital wisely. We want to buy “good stuff cheap”. We would be using American Airlines frequent flyer tickets for this trip. I still have these miles in my account after retiring nearly seven years ago. A skeptical individual might say, “Gee, it must be nice to have free tickets to Europe”. Yes, it is nice to have airline tickets to Europe. However, “free” might not be the correct word to use when describing the tickets. American Airlines offers frequent flyer tickets to Europe for 40,000 miles round-trip per person from October 15 to May 15 each year. After May 15 and for the balance of the heavy travel season, 80,000 miles are required to get a ticket to Europe. We are bargain hunters. I can go to Europe around May 10 as easily as I can around May 20. I am motivated to do that when the tickets “cost” just half as much. Earning 80,000 miles for two tickets to Europe (Carol and me) required some “seat time” on my part during my business career. An average flight on American for me was about 1,000 miles. That meant that in order to earn the miles for this trip to Europe, I had to fly EIGHTY (80!) one-way flights. Would you like to have a “free” ticket to Europe? Most folks would vigorously shake their head in the affirmative. Would you like to go through 80 one-way rides in order to “earn” that free ticket? I see less heads nodding in the affirmative now. We would be in Europe for 7 nights and 8 days. The first “night” of our European adventure would be in emergency exit row seats #21A and #21B. I guess you could consider this a “free” night of hotel lodging, if your mind was really warped. This left us in need of six nights of lodging during our actual stay in Europe. Nights #1 and #6 would be spent in Barcelona, Spain. The European portion of our trip would originate and conclude in Barcelona. This trip had long ago been planned for us to trackchase in Spain and Portugal. However, earlier in the year, I had the chance to knock off those two countries without Carol. Our frequent flyer tickets were locked into Barcelona despite the fact that we wouldn’t be trackchasing in Spain or Portugal. Nevertheless, I was able to use Priceline.com to get some outstanding hotel prices in Barcelona. We would be staying at the five-star hotel, the Hesperia Towers. The best rate the hotel website offered for our two separate nights was $261 U.S. each night. Priceline.com came through with an average cost of $120 per night. That’s a great savings on a high-quality hotel. WEDNESDAY, MAY 6, 2009 Time zones and airports? We landed after a seven-hour flight from New York to Barcelona (above) at around 9 a.m. Spain is nine hours ahead of the Pacific Time zone in California. This meant we were now beginning our day in Spain at 12 midnight California time. We have traveled to Europe more than 30 times. We have found that the secret to a happy life, time zone wise, is to stay up that first day upon landing in Europe until at least past dinnertime. This is much easier said than done. Your body simply does not want to keep going when the sunshine says 9 a.m. and your body clock is screaming midnight! We needed something to keep us busy for the next 8-10 hours. I had been to Barcelona back in January on my way to a new track visit in the country of Andorra. On that trip, I took the double-decker, open-air tour bus around the city. In January, Barcelona was cold. Today, the temperature was 75 degrees and sunny. We rode the hotel shuttle bus to our hotel. They gave us an early check-in. The hotel is one of the most modern I have ever stayed at. Don’t miss the pictures. The elevator security system would have foiled James Bond. I was too tired to worry about it. Carol would be in charge of operating the elevator on this trip! From the hotel we road their shuttle bus to downtown. It was lunchtime. I wanted Carol to try a place I had eaten lunch at in January. It was worth a return visit. They served “Shrimp Paella”, a Spanish delight where rice and seafood are cooked and served in a cast iron skillet. We love to do city tours. One of the best ways to see a new city for the first time or even on a return visit is to take a city tour. We did just that during the afternoon in Barcelona. It’s a beautiful city and we were touring it on a beautiful day. The overriding aspect of this trip for us would be my illness. Somehow, I managed to come down with the flu upon landing in Spain. It got worse and worse and never let up for the remaining seven days of our trip. This made riding the tour bus around the city less than enjoyable. It would make the entire trip for me very UNENJOYABLE. I must commend Carol for taking charge and making sure we achieved our trackchasing objectives. I did have to overcome here strong recommendation that I go to the hospital. However, I am a Marine. Our quest is “not to ask why, but to do or die”. There were times I thought I might be doing some of the latter. We made it through most of the day. With my health going downhill at a rapid pace, we made it back to the hotel by 6 p.m. We actually rode the Barcelona Metro (subway) system back to the hotel. We did it just to say we did it! That’s how we roll. From there we slept a solid 12 hours until six the next morning. THURSDAY, MAY 7, 2009 It was time to fly again. We needed to relocate to begin our trackchasing adventure. There are several discount airlines operating in Europe. I found Vueling Airlines during some of my advance research. We were already going to be doing a lot of driving on this trip. The round-trip airfare on Vueling was just $75 per person for about 1,000 miles of round-trip flying. Flying would allow us to replace 20 hours of driving with three hours of sky riding. I thought this was a great trade. Carol’s in good shape. She can keep up with the best of them on these trips. Vueling is one of those airlines that charges extra for EVERYTHING. Checked bags would be 30 Euros. Soft drinks cost extra on the plane. They even charged me eight Euros (about $12 U.S.) to pay for our tickets via credit card! They warned that carryon luggage that weighed more than 22 pounds would warrant an extra charge. This created a good deal of angst amongst Carol and me as we tried to pack light. However, we knew we could never meet this weight requirement. Luckily, they never checked the weight of our carry-on bags. Rental cars are expensive in Europe. It is not unusual to pay $50-75 U.S. PER DAY for a rental car in Europe. That is why I nearly fell out of my chair when www.sidestep.com told me I could rent a mini-car for $100 U.S. for FIVE DAYS in Milan, Italy. This was for a car with an automatic transmission no less. I quickly went to accept this deal only to find the words, “this offer is no longer available” on the Hertz website. I was patient. I checked back the next day and got that rate! I didn’t care if our rental car was a Moped. Getting a car in Europe for five days for $100 U.S. was an absolute steal. When we showed up at the Hertz counter in Milan, Italy, the agent told us she was “going to have to upgrade you”. Dang, I hate it when that happens (no I don’t). When we went to our rental car space we found a brand spanking new Mercedes-Benz C230 car waiting for us. The car had an automatic transmission, which would come in very handy on this trip. Here we were with a brand new Mercedes for $100 U.S. for five days. Outstanding! Yes, we spend money, but we spend it wisely. If you’ve been reading my Trackchaser Reports for long, you have probably come to the conclusion that I can drop some serious coin on this hobby. However, I try to get a good value for the dollar. Check out the above as examples of this point. Of course, having frequent flyer tickets helps out a lot. Getting five-star European city hotels for less than half price, along with discount airline tickets (inter-Europe) and a just about free Mercedes makes the trip work very well. This just goes to show that even if you have some money, you don’t need to waste it. I was prepared linguistically. We would end up traveling in eight different European countries on this trip. I believe that all eight spoke a different language. How could I prepare for that? It was simple. Our trip began in Spain. They speak Spanish in Spain. I brushed up on my Spanish until I could speak the words, “No hablo Espanol” flawlessly. Of course, this means, “I don’t speak Spanish”. This phrase was designed to “put the ball in their court” of the folks I would meet. These people had learned multiple languages as children. They had apparently spent their Saturday mornings in language labs. I spent my Saturday mornings playing basketball. I was willing to let them put their English speaking skills to work. I don’t have time to learn eight different languages for 1-2 visits to a country in my lifetime. That being the case, I might as well take advantage of the language skills of the people I meet on the street. They speak good enough English for me! I was fading fast. I was not feeling well. Before we could get out of the Milan airport and get our rental car, I had to lie down and rest. When we did get the car, Carol took over the driving chores with Tonto (GPS unit) by her side. I lapsed in and out of consciousness in the passenger’s seat. The first portion of our drive took us through Italy. We found the Italian drivers the worst of the eight countries we traversed. They were wild, rude and used their horns liberally. I had not done any pre-planning regarding what route we would take to our new track in Hungary. The only thing I had done for pre-planning our routes was to input the Google Earth track data into Tonto. Then when we got to Europe I was reminded that coordinates east of the Prime Meridian must be entered at positive numbers and not negative ones. We traveled with one large European paper map but never used it a single time for any of our directions. It was with this lack of planning in mind that we were surprised to enter first Slovenia and then Croatia on our way to Hungary. We would end up staying the night in Croatia. Tonto was stumped in Croatia. I have a nice sponsorship with my Garmin European maps from the Peters family back in America. This allows me to traipse all over the continent with little worry about how to get from here to there. However…….when we got off the highway in search of the Aurora Hotel in some small Croatian town after dark, Tonto had a hiccup. Apparently, in places like Croatia, the small town mapping is not complete with Garmin. The hotel was less than five miles off the highway but we had a difficult time finding it. This was a frightful reminder of how difficult it could be to do what I do without a friendly fellow like Tonto. We finally found our hotel in Croatia. I think the rate was 75 Euros. Multiply that by about 1.32 to get the rate in U.S. dollars. For each night of the trip, I was fast asleep in my hotel room within 5-10 minutes of opening the door. We were rapidly using up all of the medication we had with us in the form of Tylenol, Aspirin, Advil and Aleve. I was not feeling well. FRIDAY, MAY 8, 2009 Today was race day. Despite flying from Barcelona to Milan to save driving miles, we still ended up driving 715 miles from Milan, Italy to just outside of Budapest, Hungary, today’s race destination. Carol did almost all of the driving. She never bitched or complained. However, she did say that “Even bad California drivers are better than these Italian drivers”. I agreed. How many spouses could maintain that positive attitude AND drive most of the miles along 4-6 lanes of heavy truck traffic in a series of foreign countries? I can’t think of any other trackchasing spouse who could do it! Each of our European country hotels offered breakfast. Maybe it was because I wasn’t feeling well (don’t I LOOK sick?), but the breakfasts were not nearly as good as I was expecting. The orange juice was weak. I think they simply passed an orange over a pitcher of water and hoped that by remote osmosis the water would become juice. There was no hot food, just cold cuts and cheese. Granola type cereal was offered along with some bad tasting breads. It got us down the road but that was about it. We spent the afternoon at the Hungaroring racetrack. I’ll tell you more about that in the “Race Review”. After the race. We had been at the track for more than four hours. When the racing was finished it was time to head on down the road. We ended up staying the night at the Gustavo Weissl Hotel in Austria. We chose it because we thought we might be able to use trackchaser Paul Weisel’s name to get a discount! I’ll tell you more about that in my next report. The People FRIDAY, APRIL 24, 2009 It’s always good to have a contact on the ground. I always fear coming all this way and finding out I misread something on a foreign language website. This fear manifests itself in the race being the next week and not the week that I’m at the track. That is why I go out of my way to find a local contact. I am looking for someone who can communicate with me in English. I found that person in Monika. Monika works with one of the Hungarian racing teams. She communicated often with me in advance of our visit to the Hungaroring. She answered all of my questions and saved our tails when we arrived at the track today. Monika, thank you so much for your help. Carol and I very much appreciated it. RACE REVIEW HUNGARORING, MOGYOROD, HUNGARY We were lucky, they were racing on Friday at the Hungaroring. This weekend the Hungaroring racing circuit was hosting a three-day (Fri-Sun) event for mainly local cars and drivers. Normally the first day of such a weekend, meaning Friday, is reserved for check-in, practice and qualifying. There is usually no countable racing on the first day of three-day events like this one. I was more than pleasantly surprised to see the track was going to have two countable races on late Friday afternoon. This would give us extra time to drive to Hungary from Italy. The show would be finished soon enough so we could make it to our next destination for Saturday’s race. It was the perfect storm. Tonto took us through heavy Budapest traffic directly to the track. However, when we arrived we had some difficulty finding the entrance to the track. We ended up driving around the entire circuit before we found the entrance gate. Our “contact on the ground” saved us. When we did find the main entrance we encountered a bit of a problem. The guard asked us if we have a parking pass. No, we did not. For a short time this appeared to be a showstopper. However, I had a “contact on the ground”. I asked the guard, who spoke English, if he knew “Monika”. He did! A quick call was made on our behalf. Soon a young man named Nikko came speeding up on a motorcycle. In his hand he carried a V.I.P. parking sticker. He quickly affixed it to the windscreen of our Mercedes-Benz. Then he told us to follow him…..and away we went. Soon, our car was the only car in the entire V.I.P. parking lot. Yes, it pays to have a “contact on the ground”. The Hungaroring is a famous circuit in Eastern Europe. The Hungaroring is a Formula 1 racing circuit in Mogyorod, near Budapest, Hungary. In 1986 it became the location of the first Formula 1 Grand Prix behind the Iron Curtain. Construction started on the track on October 1, 1985. The track was built in just eight months. The track is 2.722 miles long and has 16 turns. I enjoy going to facilities like this one on less than the major racing weekend of the year. This allows me to explore to my heart’s content. That is what Carol and I did today. We first stopped at the track’s cantina. This event was catered with gourmet food. I was continuing to feel under the weather and could finish less than half of my spaghetti Bolognese. Carol had a five-star restaurant quality beef and tortilla entrée smothered in the sauces made famous in Hungary. It looked too pretty to eat. Next up was a stroll through the paddock area. There was no admission fee for us today. There also were no restrictions on where we could go, except for pit road. We hunted down Monika to thank her for the hospitality. She was most gracious and showed us around garages 1-5 where her team’s cars were sitting ready to race. From there we found our way into the massive main grandstands. I don’t know how many people this place seats. It is likely more than 100,000. Nevertheless, we were the only two people in this massive grandstand. That might seem odd to you. However, on “club” weekends, there are normally very few traditional spectators. It is definitely more of a participant event. Trackchasing country #32 (#15 for Carol) was about to be in the books! The countable race for us would be a 19-car, four-cylinder group that were most similar to the TC2000 racers I saw in Colombia. The race lasted 45 minutes. Lap times were about 2 minutes and 30 seconds. We could see the cars for about 35 seconds of each lap, mainly down the front straight. This is my bugaboo with major road course racing. The fan just can’t see very much of the racing. I know this is a major track and probably sells out its Formula 1 event. However, I would much rather see 15 beat up stock cars battle it out on a high-banked quarter mile dirt track than not be able to see much on a well-known road course. With the completion of this race, there was one more race for the afternoon. However, I was feeling poorly and we had a long drive ahead of us. There didn’t seem to be much point in simply sitting like robots in the grandstand when we could see so little of the racing action. It took us an hour to get out of downtown Budapest Friday night traffic. Without Tonto, we would probably still be in Budapest! Some think of Budapest as a beautiful city. Maybe we caught it on a bad day. Carol and I both thought it was old (not always a bad thing) and dirty (usually a bad thing) and overcrowded. We were glad to get out of there. COUNTRY COMPARISONS Hungary Carol and I became the seventh and eighth people to be listed trackchasers of Hungary. Four of the original six were admitted to the group under the “I couldn’t qualify like everyone else welfare/amnesty” trackchasing admittance program. RENTAL CAR UPDATE Milan, Italy – Thursday/Monday Carol and I would be driving the Hertz Rental Car Racing Mercedes C230. As mentioned above this was a terrific bargain. We did have a difficult time understanding how to operate some of the car’s controls including how to turn on the radio! Coming soon! How do fellow P&G retirees really think? Why I fear Ed Esser (coming very soon). Thanks for reading about my trackchasing, Randy Lewis Alberta’s #1 Trackchaser Too much is never enough. TRAVEL DETAILS AIRPLANE San Diego, CA – New York, NY – 2,442 miles New York, NY – Barcelona, Spain – 3,834 miles AIRPLANE Barcelona, Spain – Milan, Italy – 448 miles RENTAL CAR Milan International Airport – trip begins Mogyorod, Hungary – 715 miles TRACK ADMSSION PRICES: Hungaroring – No charge COMPARISONS LIFETIME TRACKCHASER COMPARISONS UPDATE: There are no trackchasers currently within 200 tracks of my lifetime total. Other notables These worldwide trackchasers are within 10 tracks (plus or minus or more) of Carol’s current trackchaser total. 2009 TRACKCHASER STANDINGS Lifetime track totals in ( ). LIFETIME NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC DIVERSITY STANDINGS Final 2008 National Geographic Diversity results have been posted. UPCOMING TRACKCHASING PLANS We’ve come all the way to Europe. We can’t just stop trackchasing after one little visit to Hungary, can we? 1,401. Death Valley Raceway (oval), Armargosa Valley, Nevada – January 3 1,402. Lake Weyauwega Ice Track (oval), Weyauwega, Wisconsin – January 11 1,403. Marion Pond Ice Track (oval), Marion, Wisconsin – January 11 1,404. Grandvalira Circuit (road course), Port d’Envalira, Andorra – January 17 1,405. Kuna International Raceway (oval), Kuna, Idaho – January 25 1,406. Circuito Efren Chemolli (oval), Buenos Aires, Argentina – January 31 Ozark Empire Fairgrounds (oval), Springfield, Missouri – February 6 (new track for Carol only) Lake Speed Ice Track (oval), Tilleda, Wisconsin – February 7 (new track for Carol only) 1,407. DeltaPlex (oval), Grand Rapids, Michigan – February 8 1,408. Losail International Circuit (road course), Doha, Qatar – February 13 1,409. Lake Washington Ice Track (road course), Mankato, Minnesota – February 15 1,410. Bahrain International Circuit (road course), Sakhir, Bahrain – February 27 1,411. Dubai Autodrome (road course), Dubai, United Arab Emirates – February 28 1,412. Dunkin Donuts Center (oval), Providence, Rhode Island – March 6 1,413. Fur Rondy Grand Prix (road course), Anchorage, Alaska – March 8 1,414. Perris Auto Speedway (road course), Perris, California – March 14 1,415. Autodromo de Tocancipa (road course), Tocancipa, Colombia – March 22 1,416. Motorland Aragon (road course), Alcaniz, Spain – March 28 1,417. Circuto de Murca (road course), Murca, Portugal – March 29 1,418. High Plains Speedway (oval), Clovis, New Mexico – April 19 1,419. Flomaton Speedway (oval), Flomaton, Alabama – April 22 1,420. Kapelluhraum (road course), Hafnafjorour, Iceland – April 25, 2009 1,421. Monadnock Speedway (oval), Winchester, New Hampshire – April 25, 2009 1,422. Berlin Lions Club Fairgrounds (oval), Berlin, Connecticut – April 26, 2009 1,423. Tri-State Speedway (oval), Amarillo, Texas – May 1, 2009 1,424. Uranium Capital Speedway (oval), Milan, New Mexico – May 2, 2009 1,425. Speedworld Stadium Off-Road Track (road course), Surprise, Arizona – May 3, 2009 1,426. Hungaroring (road course), Mogyorod, Hungary – May 8, 2009 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. Getting to Hungary was a fun challenge….followed by the actual race! 
RACETRACKS VISITED IN 2009
