Greetings from first Niota, Tennessee
and then Dandridge, Tennessee
and finally, Brinkleyville, North Carolina
.
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From the travels and adventures of the
“World’s #1 Trackchaser”
I-75 Raceway Dirt oval Lifetime track #2,695 Godspeed Raceway Dirt oval Lifetime track #2,696 Halifax County Motor Speedway Dirt oval Brinkleyville, North Carolina THE EVENT Editor’s note: This weekend featured a good deal of auto racing, a good deal of touring and a good deal of driving. When that happens, I figure I’ve gotten a good deal. I AM A TRACKCHASER. My name is Randy Lewis (almost every trip begins at LAX…masks will be gone soon!). I live in 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 enjoy auto racing. Secondly, my hobby requires a good deal of overnight travel. When I venture out to see a race at a track I’ve never seen before I do not want my trip limited to racing only. The very last thing I want when I’m done trackchasing is to have memories of only racing. I want to take some time to see the local attractions of wherever I might be visiting. Those visits in many cases will provide more long-lasting memories than whatever I saw on the track. 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. Hundreds of trackchasers have stopped for a moment to create their own personal trackchasing list. I think that is great. However, I will tell you that no one has ever taken trackchasing more seriously than I have. Do I have any data to back up that assertion? I do. To date, I have seen auto racing in 85 countries at more than 2,690 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 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. My trackchasing contributions generate a good deal of interest in what I am doing. My YouTube channel (ranlay) has more than 1.3 million views. 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 nearly 2,700 times. I don’t mind admitting I am addicted to the hobby of trackchasing. It’s just fun! 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 April 29 – May 3, 2021. Yep. I’m semi-retired from trackchasing. I opened my 2021 trackchasing season by telling you that I was semi-retiring from the hobby. Why was I semi-retiring? It was simple. I was running out of tracks to see. So, what does “running out of tracks to see” really mean? As a kid, I grew up watching stock cars race on a high-banked quarter-mile dirt oval. To this day my favorite form of racing is seeing stock cars racing on a high-banked quarter-mile dirt oval. My boyhood hometown track was the Peoria Speedway in Peoria, Illinois. They raced every Saturday night from spring until early fall. When I was a kid, I didn’t even know there were other kinds of tracks. I thought every track was a quarter-mile dirt oval and raced every Saturday night. When I got into my last couple of years of high school I could and would make my way up to the Rockford Speedway in Loves Park, Illinois. They didn’t have a quarter-mile high-banked dirt oval. They had a quarter-mile high-banked asphalt oval. With my Rockford Speedway experience, I was now beginning to branch out in my racechasing hobby! When I was in college, I joined a fraternity. Our fraternity decided it would be fun to spend a summer weekend camping, drinking and simply relaxing. We probably didn’t use the word “relaxing” at the time but that’s the word I’m using today. We didn’t choose a campground or a state park for this event. We chose a place called Road America up in Elkhart Lake, Wisconsin. It was here that I saw my very first race on a permanent recourse. Of course, on a road course, the drivers had to turn both right and left to get around the track. The Trans-Am series was big at Road America during my first of two weekend visits in 1969-70. Trackchasing’s First Mother wins the feature race! I do remember our entire group going to a go-kart track around Elkhart Lake. We rented every kart they had. Then we had a 20-kart feature race! Who do you think won that race? If you guessed “Trackchasing’s First Mother” aka wife Carol you would be correct. As I remember it, she started on the front row and the little hundred-pounder never let off the gas! It’s all about ovals baby. The most popular racing track configuration in the United States is the oval track. Of the nearly 2,700 racetracks where I have seen racing, I’m going to guess that nearly 2,000 of those have been oval tracks. Here’s the big issue in 2021. I’ve already seen racing at nearly 2,000 oval tracks in the United States. A lot of those tracks have closed over the years. You also know that the trackchasing hobby is all about seeing racing at a location for the very first time. I have a question for you. How many oval tracks are there in the U.S. that race on a weekly basis or every other week basis that I have not seen up to this point? Guesses? Did you say 22? That’s the right answer. I have just 22 permanent oval tracks (dirt or asphalt) that I haven’t seen race yet …so far. The scarcity of oval tracks has driven me into semi-retirement. My “normal” trackchasing weekend has me seeing racing on a Friday, Saturday and Sunday night. I call this type of weekend a “classic” trackchasing trip. You might also know that I go trackchasing about 40 weekends a year with lots of mid-week race events thrown in just for fun. How long will 22 oval tracks last me? I know that some of you are really good with math. If I saw three tracks every weekend and I had 22 oval tracks remaining to be seen in the entire United States how long would it take me to see those 22 tracks? I’m sure some of you can handle this equation in your head. Still, others might like to use a calculator or even ask Siri. I’ll save you the time and trouble. The answer is 7 to 8 weeks. So here I am a fellow who had seen racing at 581 racetracks when he retired. Then I went trackchasing about 40 weekends a year for 20 years. That’s how I ended up seeing racing at nearly 2,700 tracks. The obvious question is this. What exactly am I going to do with myself in eight weeks? I would describe the situation as dire but maybe not as dire as one might think. Oval tracks that race regularly are not the only types of race tracks that I see. Ice tracks! In January and February, I see racing on ice tracks which are outdoors of course. During this time of year indoor tracks seem to pop up as well. Most of these race promotions race once a year and you never hear from them again. It does seem as if people are racing on different lakes all the time so despite having seen ice racing at more locations than anybody else, by a wide margin, I expect I’ll be able to see more of those in the future. Indoor race locations will always be around as well. Nope. Road courses are not part of my future. Permanent road courses like Road America are similar in scarcity to my situation with oval tracks. I think I have seen a race at virtually every permanent road course racetrack in the U.S. with the possible exception of one or two private clubs that have opened in the recent past. I don’t have very many permanent regularly scheduled oval tracks or permanent road courses to see. Exactly where am I going to see racing from March through December of each year? Good question! The two leading sources of new track viewing opportunities would be figure 8 tracks (above from Idaho) and go-kart tracks. You should know that when I was a young racechaser, I never ever went to see racing on a freestanding figure 8 track or at a go-kart track that featured any of the classes of karts that are acceptable by trackchasing rules. Today I’ve seen racing at 339 figure 8 tracks. Figure 8 tracks are most popular during the summer at county fairs. County fairs certainly took it on the chin in 2020 because of the Covid pandemic. Even the 2021 county fair schedules are very tentative. As the pandemic winds down and it will wind down will it be fast enough to allow the county fairs to resurface this year? Go-kart tracks? I would bet there are more than 1,000 go-kart tracks (above with my buddy Dan Strickler in Arizona) that have raced during the past 3-5 years. Almost all of them race what is called “flat karts” and sometimes only flat karts. The geniuses who acted as trackchasing’s founding fathers didn’t allow for the counting of flat kart racing. Please don’t ask me why. Lots of people ask me why. I didn’t make the rules. I only play by the rules. I’m going to guess that I’ve seen racing at roughly 300 go-kart tracks. I went to these tracks when they ended up running one or more classes that met and exceeded trackchasing rules. Normally this came in the form of a caged kart with adult drivers. The remaining tracks that I might be able to see would fall into a category that I label as “miscellaneous”. Another term that might describe these tracks are “popup” tracks. As an example, NASCAR just started “roval” racing in the past couple of years. Often short tracks imitate what NASCAR does. Rovals are popping up here or there at permanent track locations. Maybe there’s a future with demolition derby? Demolition derby (above from a recent trip to Florida) is still very popular in the United States. Demo derbies are more popular in the U.S. and maybe Canada by a large margin than anywhere else. Often times demolition derby will throw in an exhibition race of sorts that might include a figure 8 or enduro race. I know a few guys who simply opened up a race track in their own backyard. That’s pretty convenient. It makes the commute very short and you’re pretty much your own boss! I really like these backyard tracks. Am I happy I discovered UTVs? Years ago, I was the first trackchaser to discover UTV racing. UTVs (above from an earlier this year trip to California) are sometimes called “cars” but that seems to be a little bit of a stretch to me. They do have four wheels and a steering wheel and engine. That pretty much sounds like a car doesn’t it? I’ve told you many times over the years that trackchasing is a very competitive hobby. The trackchasers who say it isn’t are the most competitive! Actual car racing is a very competitive hobby as well. What happens when the fastest car and driver goes out and wins the feature with two raccoon tails attached to the trunk lid? Next week virtually every driver in the pit area will have two raccoon tails attached to their trunk lid! That’s what happened with UTV racing in the hobby of trackchasing. I started going out and seeing UTV races at all kinds of dirt road courses. Many times, these races were mostly in the woods. It didn’t take long for my fellow competitors to imitate what I was doing. Now it is very common for trackchasers to see racing with UTVs. This weekend I plan to see one of those 22 permanent oval tracks that race on a regular basis…that I haven’t seen yet. I’ll be supplementing the weekend’s adventure with tracks like I have described above including figure eights, go-karts tracks and pop-up tracks. Figure 8 and pop-up tracks make the scheduling of these races a little more difficult. Most of the figure 8 and pop-up tracks race only once a year. It truly is a challenge to schedule a Kansas figure 8 track on August 23 and a Georgia UTV race on August 24 and a Michigan county fair enduro in upstate Michigan on August 25. That makes trackchasing as much of a driving and flying hobby as it does a racing hobby. I hope this background was helpful. I hope the above gives you some understanding of why I announced I was going into semi-retirement and what semi-retirement is looking like today and going forward. I’ll still be out there. I just won’t be seeing racing at the kinds of tracks that I grew up watching enjoying so much. THURSDAY It was time to get this party started. I left our modest seaside cottage on Thursday morning with a plan to see racing at two tracks in Tennessee. I mentioned that my classic trip is out Friday and back Monday. This weekend’s trip was moved up by one day. I’ll be out Thursday and back Sunday seeing two tracks rather than three tracks which is my normal classic trip. My trip begins today, Thursday. I’ll plan on seeing some racing tomorrow night at the I-75 Raceway in Niota, Tennessee. Niota is a 2-3-hour drive from major airports. I’m talking about Atlanta, Charlotte and Nashville. I looked at the flights that would get me there from LAX. They were all pretty tight for standby flying. I checked well over 25 combinations to get into these three airports. Nothing looks great. My trips take some planning. I looked a little longer and I looked a little harder. Then I discovered that I could use my primary airline sponsor and fly from Los Angeles into the Ronald Reagan National Airport (DCA) in Washington, D.C. This is the reason I had not considered flying into DCA in the first place. DCA (above, one of my favorite airport interiors in the world) would be nearly an eight-hour drive over to the I-75 Raceway. Why would I be interested in making an eight-hour drive to the racetrack rather than driving only two or three hours if I had flown into Atlanta, Charlotte or Nashville? There were actually a few reasons. No matter what I did I would probably have to leave Southern California on Thursday or Thursday night to get into rural Tennessee by Friday. I don’t have the big trackchasing budgets of my fellow trackchasing competitors. My primary airline sponsor has a better pricing structure than my associate airline sponsors. That was a good thing. I could also fly nonstop into Washington D.C. on a plane that had plenty of seats. That way I wouldn’t have to worry about making the flight on a standby basis. That was really the clincher. I would fly with my primary airline sponsor. I’m hoping to stay in Marriott and Sheraton properties exclusively on this trip. I consider them to be a valuable hotel trackchasing sponsor. I buy my hotels on Priceline.com at steeply discounted prices. Then when I check-in, I’ll use my elevated frequent stay status as a platinum elite member to get the staff to give me as many three things as I possibly can. Free has always been good. What does the hotel give me for “free”? They often upgrade me to a suite, which is certainly better than a standard hotel room. When breakfast is not complimentary, they will often comp me for a free breakfast. They’ve got another special promotion which allows me to get $10 of what they call “market items”. These are cool drinks, candy, chips and some microwavable items. Of course, in almost every circumstance the Marriott is not going to charge me for parking, Internet or really anything else. Often times considering what I pay for a Marriott via Priceline all the free stuff they give me nearly negates whatever I actually paid to rent a room at an upscale property. I’ll be getting my rental car from the National Car Rental company another long-time sponsor. I was just talking to some family members recently. They told me they couldn’t even rent a car at some locations with advance notice and prices could be as much as $175 per day. Covid has done a number on the travel and rental car business. My deal with National Car Rental bypasses both of these negative outcomes. I am never denied a rental car reservation as long as I give National 24 hours’ notice. My average car rental price after rebates is going to be somewhere around 40 bucks a day for a full-sized low-mileage car. These are excellent terms. When I landed at DCA at about 9 p.m. I chose my normal “go-to” rental car, the Toyota Camry. The car will give me a comfortable ride and 40 miles per gallon. Almost from day one, I determined that driving my own car to these tracks was a losing proposition. What’s the word of the day? Depreciation! Most people don’t realize the biggest single expense with their car is depreciation. The more miles you have on your car’s odometer the faster the car depreciates. The more miles you drive the more maintenance you’re going to need in the form of oil changes and tires and the like. Yes, you can drive a “beater” to hold off depreciation. But then…you’re driving a beater. I’ll drive my rental car this weekend more than 1,000 miles. I drove my rental car last weekend more than 1,000 miles. In any given trackchasing year I’ll drive my rental cars 30-40,000 miles just for trackchasing. If I were to drive my own car, which is not really possible given my Southern California location, I would be adding 90-120,000 miles every three years. Not good. FRIDAY I had a long drive to get where I needed to be. Most of my day was spent driving from Fairfax, Virginia to Niota, Tennessee. That’s a driving distance of 517 miles. I was impressed with the highway rest areas in Virginia. Don’t miss the pictures! It’s springtime in the Cavalier state. Everything is green. The trees and flowers are in full bloom. I can’t ever recall seeing such beautiful and scenic rest areas. At each rest area, I made sure I walked at least a half of a mile. By the end of the day those rest area walks and the rest of the walking I did helped me meet my daily goal of walking four miles. I missed this track once…that was enough. Tonight, I pulled into the I-75 Raceway in Niota, Tennessee at about 7 p.m. In a previous life, this track was named Murphy Speedway. Track construction began in 2002. It opened in 2004. The track closed in about 2006! Then in 2014, the racetrack was purchased by Doug Sophan and Monte Morrow. They replaced the original 5/8-mile track and inner oval with a single 1/3-mile oval. The track was renamed and currently calls itself I-75 Raceway. I remember the Murphy Speedway. Despite having the potential for trackchasing double production I never made it until the Murphy Speedway closed around 2006. Tracks close. Much of the time they eventually re-open. It’s quite common in short track racing for a track to close somewhat abruptly. Often times a brand-new track is built at great expense. Then the track operator cannot operate the facility profitably because he or she spent so much money to build the track originally. Then sometimes soon and sometimes much later (like with this track) the place will change hands and likely change names. Maybe the next promoter can make a go of it if they end up paying less for the track in its dire circumstances. I welcome Tennessee to a questionable group. The I-75 Raceway is significant to my trackchasing in an important category. This track is the last permanent track that races on a regular basis that I have left to see in Tennessee. Tennessee now joins several states where I no longer have any permanent oval racetracks left to see. Welcome to my new world. I had three seating options tonight. I could pay $35 for a pit pass. Or I could pay $20 and sit in the front stretch grandstand or I could pay 20 bucks and watch the races from the backstretch with tier parking for my car. If I had to guess without checking it out too much, I would say that Tennessee has more tiered parking tracks than any other state. That’s just a guess but I think it’s true. The hillside on the backside of the track is terrific. I’m going to guess there are eight or nine tiers that run the length of the track and beyond. They might have a capacity for 300 cars or more. There were a couple of drawbacks to the tiered parking which I had not anticipated. First of all, just like last weekend’s racing at the West Virginia Motor Speedway, there was no formal speaker system on the backstretch. Tonight, they did have an FM radio connection at 87.9 but the announcer didn’t say much and the radio reception wasn’t very good. I guess SiriusXM satellite radio has spoiled me. C’mon man! I had originally parked right in the center of the backstretch straight away. I had a great view. Then a guy backed in next to me with a honking big truck (that’s me in between the two trucks) and blocked my view of turns three and four. Luckily for me, he was smart enough to recognize he had done that and nice enough to pull his truck back a few feet so that my view would not be obstructed. Nice guy and thank you. It was time to relocate. In most cases, I enjoy being able to watch the races from my car. This doesn’t happen very often. On a cold night, it’s nice to be able to sit inside the car just like you were at a drive-in movie. Tonight, I did some computer work with a good Internet connection. When I discovered it wasn’t going to get that cold, I decided to relocate my car from the backstretch to the front stretch. This was seamlessly done just like the lady who had given me my wristband when I checked into the backstretch parking area told me it would be. On the way in I grabbed a couple of corn dogs and my first ever Diet Dr. Pepper Zero. All good and just four bucks for me. The I-75 Raceway has a huge grandstand on the front stretch. It must have 40 rows or more. Everything is in good condition. The track is well lit. The racing surface is excellent on the 1/3-mile high-banked red clay Tennessee oval. Everybody sees the world differently. I could still see where the original 5/8-mile oval used to be. Today’s smaller track sits fully inside that larger track. I think they made the right call by going with a smaller track. That being said, last Sunday’s track, the West Virginia Motor Speedway did exactly the opposite. They closed their smaller 3/8-mile oval and went back to their 5/8-mile track. Interesting. I’m happy to report they did start the program on time at 8 p.m. with the national anthem. Of course, with my being on the backstretch with no speaker system I couldn’t understand or hear the national anthem. I could see the fans on the front stretch standing and knew it was time for me to get out of the car and stand as well. The track was soon countable just a couple of minutes later. Four 600cc mini sprints ran off a quick dash. Then six of the USCS sprint cars ran their dash. From there the track went to a mishmash of time trials, heats and features. At that point, I decided to relocate to the front stretch. The premier class tonight was going to be the USCS sprint cars. They brought 16 entries. Fifteen started the feature. That’s not a lot of sprint cars for a track this size but it was enough. I like Danny Smith. The only driver I recognized was one of my Facebook friends, Danny Smith. He was driving his familiar white #4. Danny is from Danville, Indiana. I’m not sure of his age but he’s got to be somewhere in his 60s. Quite a few of the old-line sprint car drivers, that were definitely the stars of the 70s and 80s, are still racing such as Sammy Swindell, Jeff Swindell and tonight Danny Smith. I find that pretty amazing. Winged sprint cars? Not for me. I am not a big fan of winged sprint cars. They don’t pass. Tony Stewart says the sport is about racing and not passing. I couldn’t disagree more. For me, racing isn’t much good without passing. Danny Smith started sixth. He finished sixth. He was a half a lap down to the winner at the finish. The leader led flag to flag. Surprise! Not! This is winged sprint car racing. Mr. Stewart, you are wrong to say racing is not about passing. The day’s trip wrapped up with a drive over to Morristown, Tennessee. Morristown is sort of a suburb to Knoxville. I would be staying at a Fairfield Inn and Suites hotel. Tonight, I had seen four of the seven features. They still had the front-wheel drive division, the thunder cars and one of the stock car groups to go when I left. I had driven about 550 miles to get to the track and flown more than 2,000 miles. I figured three hours at the track was a good value for the $20 I spent to visit the I-75 Raceway. Tennessee today; Tennessee tomorrow. Tomorrow I will be trackchasing in Tennessee again. The following day, Sunday, I had reserved for a nonstop flight from Washington, D.C. back to Los Angeles. However, when I was checking race schedules tonight, I found something that was very unusual. The Halifax County Motor Speedway in Brinkleyville, North Carolina is one of the now 21 remaining permanent oval tracks in the U.S. that I have never visited. They are a regular scheduled Saturday night track. For some unusual reason that I can’t explain but that I can accept they have a special race set for this weekend on Sunday. I was shocked to discover this information. With this news, I would soon be explaining to Carol why I have to come back on Monday, not Sunday! SATURDAY There was time for touring. I woke up this morning in Morristown, Tennessee. Today’s trackchasing agenda called for a trip to the Godspeed Raceway in Dandridge, Tennessee. The track was only 20 miles from my hotel. There was no need to get over to the Godspeed track all that soon. Go-kart racing almost always has a lot of drawn-out activity for practice and qualifying. They can sometimes practice and qualify for hours before each class gets to their one and only race. I don’t understand that but then I’ve never been a go-kart racer. Trackchasing is all about the “TTA”. Trackchasing Tourist Attractions are the lifeblood of my hobby. Without them trackchasing for me would be much less enjoyable. The Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame. I guess you could say I’m into Halls of Fame. Today I would be visiting the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame in Knoxville, Tennessee. Did you know that Ms. Senda Berenson was the “mother of women’s basketball”? I didn’t even know this HoF existed until I was able to do some searching for the best things to do in Knoxville. We were there! Some of you may remember that the World’s Fair was held in Knoxville, Tennessee all the way back in 1982. Carol and I went to that fair. It ran from May through October and drew 11 million visitors. I know that I saw Darrell Waltrip win a NASCAR Cup race at the Nashville International Raceway in Nashville, Tennessee in early May 1982. For the life of me, I can’t remember if I had tied that race in with the World’s Fair or not. It’s likely I did. I can’t even remember if the kids came with us to the fair. They would’ve been only ages four, six and eight. Probably not. I really enjoyed my visit to the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame (above – transportation for the famous All-American Red Heads basketball team). It’s modern and up-to-date and details the history of women in basketball. The rules have changed a good deal over the years. Now the game is very similar as regards the rules with men. I like to shoot hoops. Just like the basketball hall of fame in Springfield, Massachusetts they have some baskets where visitors can shoot hoops. I spent 10-15 minutes shooting by myself. You won’t want to miss my photos and video from the museum and hall of fame. You’re gonna love it. This is on my phantom bucket list. A lot of people have things on their bucket lists. I’ve never really had a bucket list but sometimes something special will pique my interest and it sort of goes on my “phantom” bucket list. I really want to see a home game with the University of Connecticut women’s basketball team. I hear they sell out their 18,000-seat arena! Maybe I’ll get to do that this winter. It’s one of the very few things that I can think of right now that I really want to do. The women’s bball hall of fame is only about a mile from the University of Tennessee campus. Whenever I visit a campus, I want to see three things. Those three stops are the basketball arena, the football stadium and the student center. Today I did a driving tour through the UT campus. Both the football stadium and the basketball arena were locked up tight. Who knows? Maybe next time. The world’s largest! It was now time to head over to the Godspeed Raceway. However, I was distracted by a billboard sign advertising the “World’s Largest Knife” store. Our son Jim had an early part-time job selling the famous Cutco Cutlery knives. How could I pass up the world’s largest knife store with that as background? Masks optional. I haven’t been in that many knife stores, to be honest with you. If these folks told me their store was the world’s largest, I had to believe them. They did have an interesting sign on the door when I walked in. It told folks entering that masks were optional. So, for every 100 customers, I saw how many do you think were wearing a mask? How does about five sound? I stopped to talk to a couple of guys who were working one of the sales counters. They were my age or even a little older. I asked them what they thought of the idea that virtually no customers in the store were wearing a mask even though the employees were. They pretty much said “whatever”. Then we talked about the Covid vaccine. One of the gentlemen had gotten his vaccine. The other was waiting because he “hadn’t been able to get one in his county yet”. Really? That seemed a little strange. I thought everyone, especially older people could get the vaccine. Whatever. The fellow who had not gotten his vaccine told me it wasn’t because he was a “fraidy-cat”. I hadn’t even been thinking that. I had never met this person before. All I could do was take him at his word. From there I was off to Godspeed. How many trackchasers have been here? Did you know that trackchasers have been recording track visits since the 1930s? That’s approaching 100 years ago. Do you know how many trackchasers have ever visited the Godspeed Raceway in Dandridge, Tennessee? The answer would be ZERO. I find it nearly impossible to believe that with hundreds of recorded trackchasers having done this for nearly 100 years that I am able to visit, for the first time, a track that other trackchasers have never seen. How is this humanly possible? I can’t figure it out. Is the Randy Lewis Racing research department all that much better than everyone else’s research department? I don’t want you to answer that. We both know the answer. You’d better have a pretty good GPS system to find the Godspeed Raceway track. The signage is limited. The track is out in the country. I did mistakenly drive down a road that would make the scenery in the movie Deliverance look like New York City. I got out of there without any gunshots. This is the first racing season for Godspeed Raceway. My first view of the track impressed me. They’ve got a nice little layout here on what I’m going to call a 1/5-mile pretty well-banked dirt oval. The track has lights, a concession stand and bathrooms. They have aluminum bleachers or you can watch from your car. They even have a track announcer and broadcast his words on FM channel 89.5. Today the broadcast didn’t come in clearly on the radio network in my car. I had two choices for how I wanted to watch the racing. I could enter the pit area and if I did that there would be a $20 fee. Or I could sit in the aluminum grandstands or some of the wooden rocker style Tennessee-friendly chairs that were available or inside the National Car Rental Racing Toyota Camry air-conditioned vehicle. If I chose any of those options there would be no charge whatsoever. The value of a dollar. As a high school teenager, I worked for three summers for the East Peoria Sanitary District. My job was to cut weeds in the hot and sultry bug-ridden Midwest along the levees that ran through our town. We cut the weeds with a scythe. There were four guys on a hillside. We marched up and down the miles of those levees for eight hours a day or more all summer. I made $1.80 an hour. When I worked 40 hours a week which is what I did every week my check was $72. That’s why even in today’s world when I hear that there’s a $20 admission fee that can be saved by sitting in my air-conditioned car I often choose to sit in the car. I would have had to cut weeds back in the day for more than 11 hours to clear 20 bucks. Yes, I’ll sit in the car today. Frankly, taking one walk through a go-kart pit area, when I could already see much of the pit area, didn’t seem worth spending twenty dollars. Were they on time today? The track’s Facebook page said that practice was going to begin at 1 p.m. I did talk to one of the track contacts on the phone a few days ago. He was a little all over the board with the schedule. He did tell me that he expected somewhere in the range of six to nine senior champ karts to be racing. The senior champs (above) were the only trackchasing countable class at the track today. I ran into another track official today. He told me there were four or five senior champs in the pits. I just needed at least two. I thought I was going to get at least two. I arrived at about 1:30 p.m. They were still practicing. It wasn’t until about 2:45 p.m. that practice ended. Then they did about five minutes of track grooming and went to qualifying. The weather was perfect blue skies and 72°. It was a delightful day during the springtime in Tennessee. Just plain sadistic. Before I go any further, I would like the sadistic, deranged, simpleminded individual who spearheaded the idea that flat karts would not count in the trackchasing hobby to identify himself. I asked him to step forward. I have just one question. What the fxck were you thinking? That’s it. Stand down. Why so many classes? Points or money? I’m not sure how many go-kart racing competitors were in the pit area today. I do know that there seemed like there were about 20 classes maybe more. Several of the classes were racing separate races for first points and then money. I didn’t totally understand that. Couldn’t they have just one race that paid points AND paid money? I never understood why go-karts have to practice so much and qualify so much and race so little. I’ve never understood it and I probably never will. I’ve never understood why go-kart organizers for whatever reason created so many classes. As noted, I’m going to guess there were twenty or more classes racing today. Quite a few of those individual classes had only two or three cars. If I were a go-kart driver, I think I would rather compete against six or eight other drivers than just one. Wouldn’t you? This hobby is all about counting. Nobody can really deny that. I told you I arrived at the Godspeed Raceway at 1:30 p.m. They were in the latter stages of practice. Out of all of the classes at the track today only one, the senior champs could be counted in my trackchasing hobby. I would need to wait for the senior champs to have their first event of the day in order to “get credit” for seeing this track. I did sit down with one fellow in the wooden rocker-like chairs for a good long time. He told me he was a senior champ kart driver. He wasn’t racing today because he recently had foot surgery. This fellow tried to convince me that the “beginner champ” class was open to adults. He told me this class was for novice drivers of any age. Today the beginner champs had just two competitors. Each one looked to be about five years old. I wasn’t exactly buying his explanation as to the age limit on this class. 65…0. My new friend was an interesting guy to talk to. I really enjoy engaging with locals. I must have asked this guy 65 questions. How many questions did he ask of me? Zero. I would highly recommend that you don’t want to be “that guy”. They say the most person interesting conversationalist in any conversation is the person who speaks the least. That’s probably true. I will tell you this. I have met a lot of people in business and in trackchasing at the racetracks. I would say the vast majority of those people want to tell you more about themselves than they want to learn about you. I think that’s the wrong approach. Personally, I want to learn much more about the other person than I want to tell them about myself. Again, that’s just me. I’m just saying there needs to be a balance. Nice guy. Today’s track announcer spent most of his time asking the various classes to bring their cars to the starting grid. He didn’t do much to describe the races or identify the drivers or tell us about much of anything other than a listing of the track’s sponsors. I would’ve preferred a little bit more information about the racers and the racing classes. Nevertheless, the announcer seemed like a nice fellow to me. He stopped by my car which I had expertly parked just outside of turn four to tell me that I could listen to his broadcast on FM channel 89.5. All along I thought he was going to tell me I couldn’t park where I had parked! I had heard him mention the FM radio option earlier in the program. I tried to listen in but the static was so great I really couldn’t hear what he was saying. I told him that and he was bummed. As noted, I did park the National Car Rental Racing Toyota Camry right at the fence of turn four. When I wasn’t sitting in the wooden chairs, I was sitting in the air-conditioning comfort of my car with sunny temperatures in the mid-70s and pretty warm. Sadly, when it was time to leave the track my car was shrouded in dust. Since I was admonished last week in Pittsburgh for returning a mud-laden rental car I’m probably going to have to get a car wash somewhere along the line. They kept the program moving…thank goodness. Surprisingly, I thought the track personnel did a reasonable job of keeping their program moving. Following practice and qualifying, they did take a few minutes to water the track and let it soak in. I didn’t really understand why they watered track from the top to the bottom when all of the racing was done on the inside groove. By the way, they did have about the funkiest water truck I’ve ever seen. It looked as if it have sprung a thousand leaks! I didn’t really understand why they had separate qualifying periods for each class and then had a point race and a money race. Couldn’t they just qualify one time and use that time for both events? Couldn’t they just combine the points race and the money race? Maybe I should not ask these questions. I am simply a fan and I must take what they give me. The next female NASCAR driver? The fella I spent some time talking with had some interesting stories. First of all, his daughter who I was guessing was 13 years old or so, was racing today. As a matter of fact, she qualified for the pole position in her race. This was a money race. Today that race was paying $300 to win and she was excited about it. Dad was telling her just to have fun and saying he had as much fun racing when he finished last as when he finished first. His daughter wasn’t buying any of that. She told him that yes, she wanted to have fun but she wanted to win $300 maybe more. I understood where she was coming from. I was a little surprised to hear my friend say that when he had been racing at a couple of different tracks someone had stolen four brand new tires from him and put a rock in his clutch. I didn’t think they did things like that in the go-kart world but according to him, they did. Today I learned about bulletproof vests. This guy was an expert on bulletproof vests. He worked security and various tourist attractions all around Pigeon Forge. It sounded to me like Pigeon Forge was just a little bit like Branson, Missouri as a tourist area. He told me that one of his responsibilities was inspecting purses. He said you wouldn’t believe what you find when you do something like that! Overall, other than potentially getting a sunburn, I generally enjoyed talking to this fellow. He had a lot of different stories and a lot of different points of view on many topics. Like I said he wasn’t much interested in hearing any other points of view from anyone else in the conversation but he enjoyed talking about what he was familiar with. I enjoyed listening. Finally…I had waited long enough. At 6:45 p.m. the senior champ points race came onto the track. This was the one and only class that I could use to count the Godspeed Raceway today. The champs would also have a money race later but I didn’t need to stay and see that. I had been at the track for more than five hours. I arrived after they started practicing. It was a long day for me and it was a long day for the racers. Seven senior champs were scheduled to start this feature event. One of the karts had trouble before he could take the green flag. I felt bad for him. He had been at the track probably since 9 a.m. It was now 6:45 p.m. and his car wouldn’t run when it was time for his class to race. That’s not good. Godspeed Raceway will be forever known as my 41st-lifetime track where I’ve seen racing in the Volunteer State. It was also my 2,696th track where I’ve seen racing. I’ve done that in 85 countries. Is that enough? I want more! OK, I don’t really want or need more but another illustrious fellow is always saying “we want more” so I thought I would piggyback on that tagline. Yes, bad idea. Goodbye Tennessee; Hello North Carolina. When I left today’s raceway I was headed over to Greensboro, North Carolina where I would spend the night. It was going to be a four-hour drive, which with stops for gas and food would get me to my hotel at nearly midnight. Not going home. Staying to see one more track. I have a race scheduled for the late afternoon tomorrow in Brinkleyville, North Carolina at the Halifax County Motor Speedway. I only learned of this track after I arrived in Virginia to begin this trip. Otherwise, I would’ve been going home tomorrow but now I’ll return to sunny Southern California on Monday rather than Sunday. SUNDAY Sleeping in is something I don’t get to do often on these trips. This morning I could sleep in. I didn’t have to leave my Fairfield Inn and Suites Hotel in Greensboro until 11 a.m. That’s nice. I can’t tell you how many hotels I’ve stayed in where I needed to get out and on the road by 6 a.m. or even sooner. Cook Out! My review. Recently a trackchasing buddy of mine, John Simpson, mentioned that he really loved the Cook Out fast-food chain restaurant that dominates the state of North Carolina. I had tried Cook Out in the past but I hadn’t been in one in probably a decade. I hadn’t found them remarkable previously but that was old news. I needed to check things out again. I asked Siri to take me to a Cook Out but the one that was recommended was a one-hour and 13-minute drive away. I didn’t want to do that. So, I googled Cook Out and found one of their restaurants just seven minutes from the hotel. When I arrived, it looked as if others felt the same way about Cook Out as John Simpson did. The drive-through lane had about 15 cars in it. I didn’t want to wait. That’s when I saw the curbside ordering option. Curbside was for me. The Cook Out menu had a wide range of options beyond just your standard hamburger and fries choices. They had barbecue and corn dogs and onion rings and nearly 40 selections of milkshakes. Their milkshake menu was impressive! Leading fast-food locations around the country. I might mention at this point that I recently saw a news article identifying the top 10 regional fast-food restaurants. Of course, In and Out Burger and somewhat surprisingly, The Habit which isn’t well-known but is outstanding were mentioned for California. Sheetz, yes, the convenience store/gas station was mentioned for the Pennsylvania area. Oh my. And then Cook Out made the list from the North Carolina area. I was in North Carolina. In order to make a somewhat fair comparison, I ordered the double cheeseburger (mustard and onion only) and fries. I sort of wanted to try the BBQ. But if I wanted a proper comparison, with what I order at other fast-food locations, I would go with the burger and fries. I’ve had the burgers and fries from literally every decent-sized fast-food chain in America. Marriott had given me a bottle of Diet Dr. Pepper. I was set on that front but did order a chocolate chip cherry malt. I was looking forward to checking that out. The prices were reasonable. I paid just a little bit more than seven bucks for what I ordered. Service was fast too. I’ll bet you that I got my food sooner than ten of the fifteen cars that were in the drive-through lane when I arrived. My view off Cook Out. So, how was the food? The burger and fries were served in a Styrofoam container. That was a bit unusual. After I heard the lady behind me order her fries with “seasoning” I asked the order taker to add seasoning to my fries as well. I’m not sure that message got translated because the fries didn’t seem very well seasoned at all. I can only give the fries an OK rating and that’s a stretch. My fries were large but not very crispy. I would call them sort of mushy potatoey if you know what I mean. I’ve never eaten any better fast-food fries than from McDonald’s. I will tell you that Whataburger fries are right there with McDonald’s if you get them fresh. How was the double cheeseburger with mustard and onion only? My burger was just like you would get at a cookout. That means they have aptly named the restaurant chain. I was most impressed with the honking two slices of onions they provided. Those onions were pretty strong as well. The bread didn’t overwhelm the sandwich which I see as a positive. I really love the taste of Whataburger cheeseburgers but I think they serve too much bread with them. I wouldn’t call the Cook Out cheeseburger all that flavorful. For flavor I give In and Out and The Habit an A+ rating. By the way, there’s a chain up in the northwest called Burgerville. Very good! But Randy…what about the malt? So now you’re probably asking yourselves, “Randy, how was that chocolate chip cherry malt?” Well, I can’t tell you right now. The shake was so thick that despite all the suction pressure I could provide through a straw I couldn’t taste a drop. They did provide a plastic spoon. I don’t really like to eat my milkshakes with a spoon. I will use a long spoon on a DQ Blizzard. I’ll tell you about the malt later. My overall rating of Cook Out. My overall rating would look like this. I give the price and service a very satisfactory ranking. The double cheeseburger gets an A-/B+. The fries are going to have to come in with a C+. I only ate about half of them so that will tell you that I believed in my grade. I’ll have to get back to you on my milkshake rating. I’m glad I had the Diet Dr. Pepper with me to wash things down. What was the overall highlight? I’m gonna have to vote for those slices of onion. Maybe I should have gotten the onion rings. The girl who recommended the season fries wasn’t bad either…but then I couldn’t count on her showing up at every Cook Out I visit! I had a couple of hours before today’s racing would begin in Brinkleyville, North Carolina. I would take that time to experience a Trackchasing Tourist Attraction. Trackchasing Tourist Attractions are my way of seeing and experiencing the local sights and sounds wherever I might be visiting. What was there to do in Greensboro. Today I did a quick Google search for the top things to do in Greensboro, North Carolina. At the top of the list was the International Civil Rights Center & Museum. I really wanted to visit there. This museum and tour were about the sit-in at F.W. Woolworth’s in downtown Greensboro back in the 1950s. Unfortunately, for me, this attraction is closed on Sundays. In so many ways I don’t think race relations have improved all that much since the 1950s. That was 70 friggin’ years ago! I scrolled down the list to see what else might be interesting. I stopped at #7, the Greensboro Arboretum. I’ve grown to like visits to arboretums for two main reasons. First of all, I appreciate the natural beauty. Secondly, these places give me a chance to get some of my daily four miles of walking in that I like to do. Today I walked for an hour, stopped to take pictures and chatted with an elderly couple (I hope they were older than me!) that I passed several times today. The Greensboro Arboretum is located inside a large 17-acre public park. There is no charge for admission. The park had all kinds of people simply relaxing on a beautiful North Carolina spring day with temperatures in the high 70s. At the end of my visit, I had seen some beautiful flora and fauna and knocked out 2.9 miles on my 4-mile daily goal. Oh yeah…the malt from Cook Out. Along the way, I also finished up my Cook Out chocolate chip cherry malt. My evaluation of this malt was mixed. I am not a big fan of shakes that you can’t drink because they are so frozen. This shake was smaller than most and for me, that was a good thing. The reason I avoid shakes most of the time is because of the calories. Getting a taste of a shake served in a smaller version is just fine with me. I prefer malts to shakes. Today’s mall had some clumps of malt powder throughout the shake. Some would say the shake wasn’t mixed well. I say no problem. Every time I got one of those clumps, I felt like I was eating a malt ball. Overall, my total impression of Cook Out was mixed. The burger with the two huge slices of raw onions was good. The fries weren’t so good. The chocolate chip cherry malt didn’t have much flavor but sounded interesting as I looked on the menu board. Of course, this is just my opinion. That’s why there are so many fast-food chains out there. Some people like one some like another. A malt and some Bible study. Oh, one more thing. I noticed there was a Bible verse printed on my shake cup from Cook Out. I know that other fast-food chains have done something similar including In N Out Burger, Whataburger and Chick-fil-A. I’ve got no problem with that at all. If that’s what you like, then good. If you don’t care for that type of thing simply ignore it. Wait! This is a TRACKCHASING report. Now it was full speed ahead to the Halifax County Motor Speedway located two hours from Greensboro over in Brinkleyville. This track used to be called Clary’s Speedway. Clary’s had been another track that I had known about for years, never made the visit and then they went out of business! Now the track has re-surfaced (no pun intended). Most, but not all tracks that go out of business come back to life in one form or another. You might be surprised to hear that Sunday afternoon is my most favorite time of the week to watch racing. I’m talking about stock cars on a short track. I don’t know why that’s the case. I can tell you that there isn’t that much racing done on a Sunday afternoon in the short-track racing world. Today’s racing schedule called for qualifications aka time trials to begin at 4 p.m. Racing for six stock divisions would begin an hour later. I really hoped they would stick to the schedule although secretly I didn’t think they would. Following today’s racing, I needed to make a 3 hour plus drive up to Fairfax, Virginia where I’ll be staying the night. I pulled into the Halifax County Motor Speedway at 4:30 p.m. I could hear the announcer sharing the results of the time trials with the crowd. That was a good sign. It meant they were somewhat on schedule. This track was what I would call a “country” track. That just means it’s a little bit laid-back. Some of the facilities might be a little more rustic but for whatever reason, I typically enjoy country tracks. How do I pay for things? Today’s general admission tickets sold for $15. I paid for my ticket with 15 one-dollar bills. I told the ticket seller that I had saved up all year to attend this race! I find that as I travel, I try to spend as little cash as humanly possible. I’ll charge every expense that I can. Nevertheless, I still end up with a few “singles”. In order to give my money clip a break I put those one-dollar bills in a plastic folder. From time to time I use those one-dollar bills like I did today. I figured I was going to be sitting in the grandstand for three or four hours so I better get something to eat and drink. I didn’t want to be running up and down the grandstands and potentially losing my seat location. I grabbed a Diet Mountain Dew (small bottle) and a cheeseburger. The gentlemen taking my order told me that they make their cheeseburgers with “real hamburger”. I asked him one simple question. “What’s the alternative?” He told me that some people make their cheeseburgers out of beans. Interesting. I didn’t know that. I will tell you this. If this cheeseburger was made out of hamburger it was one of the blandest tasting burgers I’ve had in a long time. Who should I sit next too? From there I visually analyzed the entire grandstand and the crowd. First, I wanted to sit up as high as possible. I also wanted to sit next to someone who I thought might be interesting to talk to. I was going to be sitting on a hardboard made a little bit less hard with my Walmart gardener’s foam rubber kneepad. Soon I was climbing every row in the grandstands and was now sitting in the top row next to a fellow who was wearing a broad-brimmed hat. I had my Tilley hat broad-brimmed hat with me today as well. I always enjoy meeting new friends. I would soon learn quite a bit about my new friend. I’m the kind of guy that asks a lot of questions. Like many folks that I talk to he didn’t learn a single thing about me. I don’t think he asked a question of me the entire time we were sitting together. That was just fine. I can’t learn anything about him if I’m talking about me. I was intrigued by this guy’s background. The fellow lived just nine miles down the road. He told me there’s another track some forty miles from his house. However, that was just a bit too far for him to drive. He had arrived at the track today at 12 noon so that he could watch all the racers and race car haulers come driving into the speedway. And I thought I was going to have a full day of racing by arriving at 4:30 p.m.! This gentleman had gotten here 4 1/2 hours before I did. Sunday? I’m going to call my friend “Gus” because we never did exchange names. Gus told me he had never been to the track for a Sunday event. I asked him why they weren’t racing on Saturday as they normally do. He told me that one of the guys who ran the track had a son who had a “recital” last night of some sort. Because of the recital, they were racing today on Sunday. I guess I’m just lucky because until that boy had his recital, I didn’t have a new track to visit on Sunday! Gus looked a little bit older than me. Later I would find out he was five years younger than me! I asked him if he was retired. He told me that he had been on disability since 1993. What caused his disability? I’m not big on motorcycles. Nearly 30 years ago he was riding home about midnight after work on his motorcycle. A “young boy in the service” apparently fell asleep and knocked Gus off his motorcycle. He was in the hospital for three weeks and then in bed at home for three months before he ever walked again. Nevertheless, he told me that today he rides his motorcycle 100-150 miles EVERY day. I found that to be beyond amazing. Gus said his 20-year-old Suzuki 800 motorcycle has 150,000 miles on the odometer. Cash baby…but a hard way to get it. Oh, one more thing. Gus said he got a $50,000 settlement and paid off his house. At that point, I felt no need to explain the financial strategy that paying off your home is not really the best idea for most folks. I can tell you this. I’m able to meet a lot more local people and unusual people when I’m by myself at a racetrack. If I were at the track with Carol or if I was with a friend, I would be much less likely to strike up a conversation with a stranger. I would be spending all of my time with the person I came with. Today I very much enjoyed getting a good deal of local knowledge and local experience from someone I had never met before and in all likelihood will never meet again. Want to hear my secret? I’ll let you in on a secret. I’ve got a special list of people that I’ve met and Gus is now on that list. I think I could find him again if I needed to. Why the list? If I ever win millions in the lottery the folks on that list are going to get their fair share. Features only…the way it should be almost everywhere. Today’s racing was a “features only” format. This type of format is more popular with smaller asphalt tracks and more popular in the south than anyplace else. Maybe they get that idea from NASCAR. Essentially NASCAR is a “features only” race program. The Halifax County Motor Speedway is a quarter-mile in length. The track configuration is an oval in shape and has a red clay, famous in North Carolina, dirt surface. The weather was in the lower 80s with lots of sunshine. Today’s race program was scheduled to begin at 5 p.m. Yes, this was a day race. Dirt tracks do not hold up well under sun and wind during the day. Today’s track did not hold up real well. Red light green light. Really? When the time trials were finished the announcer hosted a game called “Red light Green Light” for the kids. I never really played this game as a child. Today the winner of this impromptu child’s game walked away with a brand-new bicycle. The track had another special promotion today for kids. About twenty of today’s racing machines and their drivers pulled out onto the track. There they had two or three or four kids sit somewhat inside the car but with most of their bodies hanging outside the car’s window area for a few laps around the track at slow speeds. The kids loved this. This was an excellent idea by the promoter. Dusty. Real dusty! During this break in the action, they watered the track. It needed the moisture. The water truck’s efforts were minorly helpful but really it was essentially useless. It didn’t take long before the track was a true dustbowl again. It got rough as well. I have left some races like this looking like a raccoon where the only clean part of my face was where I was wearing my sunglasses that had protected my eyes. Today wasn’t as bad as it could have been but it was very dusty. Don’t miss the pictures and videos that I shared. There were six classes racing today ranging from late models to modifieds to four cylinders and bombers with a couple of lower-level stock car divisions thrown in. Car counts were tiny. For the six classes, the counts ranged from 11-8-7-7-8-3. That’s just 44 cars in total. O.K. you had to add things up, didn’t you! I stayed for all of the races except for the three-car bomber main event. Each main event ran 20-25 laps. Maybe a Tesla next time? Yes, the car counts were small. I don’t know that southern fans or southern drivers are used to racing on smaller tracks on a Sunday in the south. Nevertheless, on a high-banked, dusty and rutty racing surface car counts of 8-10 can actually put on a very entertaining show. There were some wild spins and crashes. One of the four-cylinder cars was leading the race and lost his gas tank! He should have been driving a Tesla. He would not have needed a gas tank. I have now seen racing at 26 new tracks in my 2021 trackchasing season. That’s pretty good for a semi-retired trackchaser. Today’s racing was one of my favorites because it was essentially stock cars on a quarter-mile dirt track on a Sunday afternoon. Those are all my favorites. Time to head back toward our modest seaside cottage. Following the races, I made the three-hour-plus drive back toward Washington, D.C. Traffic along I-95 is always intense and fast. I would be staying at the same hotel I stayed at on the first night of my four-night trip, the Courtyard by Marriott in Fairfax, Virginia. I had been in my car for the last few hours obviously not wearing a mask during the Covid pandemic. When I arrived in the hotel parking lot, I gathered all of my stuff and marched into the hotel not wearing a mask. Honestly, I didn’t even realize I wasn’t wearing a mask. This gal was scared out of her wits. The young woman at the desk looked at me and took three steps back. She seemed frightened. Her reaction was almost as if I had walked into the hotel lobby, where it was just her and me, and was stark naked. “Sir, do you have a mask?” she asked. Oops. I worried she thought I was one of those anti-mask zealots. This concerned me. Soon I would be trying to talk her into a room upgrade and some free stuff from the gift shop. I didn’t want to get off on the wrong foot with the desk clerk! Chicken research. On the way up to the hotel, I continued my constant research on the best fast food crispy chicken sandwich. I stopped again at Popeye’s. In my two stops at Popeye’s, I noted they definitely have the slowest drive-through service. Their sandwich is large but I just don’t find it as flavorful as KFC and Zaxby’s. I ordered the spicy version and didn’t taste any “spicy” at all. I arrived at the hotel at 11:30 p.m. I needed to be out the front door tomorrow morning by 6:45 p.m. I had a 9:05 a.m. flight from the Ronald Reagan National Airport to get me back to LAX. If and when all of that came to pass, I would’ve been gone for five days and stayed overnight for four. I will have seen racing at three new tracks on Friday, Saturday and Sunday afternoon. The trip takes a little longer when I trackchase in the eastern time zone. I love those Trackchasing Tourist Attractions. I got in some excellent Trackchasing Tourist Attractions with the Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame, my University of Tennessee campus driving tour and today’s Greensboro Arboretum. Of course, I can’t forget to mention the world’s largest knife shop! I had seen a little of everything and also eaten my share of fast food…but did not stop at the Waffle House. Carol often says there are no vegetables on the trackchasing tour. Of course, as always, she is correct. MONDAY Finally, a bit of rain. I hadn’t seen a drop of rain since I arrived on Thursday. My car had gotten really dusted down at the Godspeed Raceway in Tennessee on Saturday. Considering that National Car Rental wanted to charge me 20 bucks after last weekend’s mud fest in Indiana I thought about taking my car to a car wash yesterday. I’m glad I didn’t! There was a brief rain shower overnight. The rain was just enough to knock the dust off my car. From there it was time to return the National Car Rental Racing Toyota Camry. For this trip, I drove the car 1,359 miles. I also flew more than 4,600 miles round-trip from LAX to Washington’s Ronald Reagan National Airport. That’s nearly 6,000 miles of travel to see racing at…three new tracks. Don’t worry. It’s what I do. Good afternoon and evening from first Dandridge, Tennessee and then Brinkleyville, North Carolina. Randy Lewis – 85 countries – 2,697 tracks. Tennessee The Volunteer State This weekend I saw racing at my 40th and 41st-lifetime tracks in the Volunteer, yes, the Volunteer State. I hold the #3 trackchasing ranking in Tennessee…just one track out of second place. Tennessee ranks #21, amongst all the states, in tracks seen for me in the U.S. Here’s a link to my all-time Tennessee state trackchasing list. I have made 33 separate trips to Tennessee to see these tracks. North Carolina The Tar Heel State This weekend I saw racing at my 61st-lifetime tracks in the Tar Heel, yes, the Tar Heel State. I hold the #3 trackchasing ranking in North Carolina. North Carolina ranks #14, amongst all the states, in tracks seen for me in the U.S. Here’s a link to my all-time North Carolina state trackchasing list. I have made 42 separate trips to Tennessee to see these tracks. North Carolina 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 Not the most appetizing word, but I’ll never pass up a large biscuit. And a sweet tea, like only Bojangles can do. 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 800 tracks of my lifetime total. That’s a fact, Jack. 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. Sprint car racing and more from Tennessee The first trackchaser ever to visit the Godspeed Raceway A race Sunday afternoon of racing at this track in North Carolina See it in pictures! 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. From Washington, D.C. to Tennessee with lots of interesting sights in between The National Women’s Basketball Hall of Fame and a great looking brand new kart track The final day of the trip, a beautiful arboretum and then a VERY dusty day at the racetrack 
Tennessee sayings: “Cathead” = A large biscuit
North Carolina sayings: Cajun Filet Biscuit:
