Greetings from Kahnawake, Quebec, Canada
From the travels and adventures of the
“World’s #1 Trackchaser”
Kahnawake Marina Ice Track – road course – Track #1,931
Kahnawake Marina Ice Track – oval – Track #1,932
There is one thing that makes some of these trips just a little bit different than how most civilians do it. ………….more in “The Details”. Who goes to Trenton, New Jersey for their vacation?…………more in “The Details”. Let’s meet Andrew Clark my new best friend………….more in “The Details”. A 100% perfect score………..more in “The Details”. A smile is just an upside down frown….. “Race Review”. I hope that my tombstone reads with one of these two captions. “I always preferred paying $100 for a $200 hotel more than paying $40 for a $60 motel”….or “I told you I was sick”.…..details in “Race Review”. There is one thing that makes some of these trips just a little bit different than how civilians do it. I woke up this morning in Albany, New York the state’s capital. I went to bed in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. This is how the day went. As you know each trackchasing trip I take is like a mini-vacation. Actually some of the trips are more than just a mini-vacation they are a BIG vacation by just about anyone’s standards. There is one thing that makes my trips just a little bit different. Often times I don’t know where I’m going or where I’m going to end up. If you planned a vacation what would you think about not knowing where you would be spending your time off even after you got where you thought you were going? Who goes to Trenton, New Jersey for their vacation? This trackchasing weekend would offer racing on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. I pretty much knew where I was going on Friday night. However, can you tell me this? Who goes to Trenton, New Jersey for their vacation? I was confident the Trenton race would come off. They had rented a big building and done a good deal of advertising. Unless there was a major snowstorm they would be racing. However, with this being February my ice racing plans were uncertain. I had purchased my airline tickets weeks ago. There are no guarantees with ice racing. If it gets too warm, snows or rains too much…heck even if it gets too cold they might cancel an ice race! However, the first couple of weeks in February are just about the best time to semi-guarantee an ice race. I wasn’t just daydreaming while I was in Houston. On Thursday of this trip, I hung around the Houston airport from about noon until I went to bed in the airport chapel at just before midnight. I had hours to come up with a plan. A few things, but not really much limited me. I had an airline ticket taking me into Baltimore on Friday afternoon. I had an airline ticket taking me from Boston to Los Angeles on Monday night. Aside from that I could go anywhere I could drive to and still make my flights. Any of these places would be just fine. This left ice-racing opportunities in New York, New Hampshire, Maine, Quebec and Ontario. There had certainly been a lot of cold weather in those places this winter. As the world’s leading ice racing trackchaser (when counting venues, countries, states and provinces –“VCSP”), I had about 10-12 locations that might fit the bill. The leading geographical candidate was New Hampshire. Why NH? It would be close to Boston so flying out on Monday would be easy. It would also be close to Saturday night’s basketball game featuring Yale at Harvard. I’ve been wanting to see a game at Harvard for a long time and who better than their arch rival Yale. I had some new information that might be worthwhile. However, English born and current Canadian resident Rich Young had mentioned some ice racing in Quebec on the trackchaser forum. That sounded interesting. I operate with several different trackchasing strategies. I have a trackchasing strategy that is different than most of my competitors. If I have a choice of seeing two different tracks I will try to pick the one that is furthest away from my current position. Why is that? If I see the track furthest from me the next time I’m in the area, which could be years from now, it will be all that much easier to see the one remaining track that is now closer to me. Make sense? I read a story from a trackchaser just the other day. He was happily stating he had a choice between two tracks and chose the closest one. I thought that was poor strategy. When he comes back, in his old age, he will be faced with a longer drive to get that second track. I’ve always been one to do the difficult task now and save the easy one for later. You’re not going to believe this. While I was doing my research for the Rick Young recommended Quebec track I discovered something that would GUARANTEE my going there. Before you read further, any ideas on what that might be? My reading told me that racing on both an oval and road course had taken place at Kahnawake in the past although never on the same day. To my knowledge no trackchaser had ever seen racing on both configurations. I had a difficult time finding a racing schedule for the Kahnawake Marina Ice Track. I checked their Facebook page but there was no schedule. However, there was contact information for a photographer who had posted pictures from his visit to the track. Let’s meet Andrew Clark my new best friend. I contacted the picture taker via email while hanging out in Houston. Soon one “Andrew Clark” was responding will all of the information I would need. Andrew had no idea I was a trackchaser or what my viewing requirements might be. He was even kind enough to send me GPS longitudinal and latitudinal coordinates to Kahnawake Marina, where they would be racing. How about that! Then, another contact that I had developed during the past hour told me they would be racing on the “Indian reservation”. Now I was confused. Were they racing at the marina or on an Indian reservation? Soon Andrew Clark got back to me to put my mind at ease. The Kahnawake Marina WAS on the Indian reservation. They were one and the same. With this information I would be able to sleep much more soundly in the chapel at the Houston airport. Oh my goodness! However, when I followed the link Mr. Clark had sent me regarding the track’s racing schedule I discovered a remarkable piece of information. This was the special event of the year for ice racing at Kahnawake. Who would have known? They would be racing on their ice road course in the afternoon. Then they would be racing on an ice oval in the evening! Can you imagine that? I was looking to see one track and I would likely end up seeing two. I’ve found if I scrounge around long enough piecing this bit of information and that bit of information together I can get very lucky. Donuts….sleep….donuts. How lucky was I? Sometimes I can drive hundreds of miles and spend hundreds of dollars just adding one more track. Today I could sit in my car eating a Tim Horton donut in the afternoon. I could take a short nap and eat the rest of the donuts in the early evening. When the last crumb had been consumed I would have two new tracks added to my lifetime totals. Not bad indeed. My planning for today’s ice racing was now put to bed. This day began like so many trackchasing days have before it. I was able to sleep in this morning until 8:30 a.m. That gave me about 5 ½ hours of slumber. I prefer eight hours but last night’s sleep was better than some nights on the trackchasing trail. It would be a 2-½ hour drive up from Albany to the Kahnawake Marina near Montreal. I didn’t know how long crossing the border might take so I gave myself plenty of time. A 100% perfect score. It’s always better to be early than late. Crossing the border took less than 30 seconds. The border agent pretty much stuck to the script of “Where are you going, where are you from, what do you do and are you bringing anything in the country for someone else?” I guess I scored 100% on that quiz and was allowed to pass. I was impressed with how many highway rest areas there were during the last 100 miles leading into Canada along Interstate 87. It seemed as if there was one every 10-15 miles. Sometimes it seems I can drive more than 100 miles and not see a rest area anywhere. Using the latest and greatest makes it that much easier. Once I crossed into Canada I would no longer be using my phone as a GPS mechanism. I would switch over to my Garmin GPS unit. For years I raved about the Garmin. It took several years for my fellow competitors to get accustomed to Garmin or Garmin like GPS systems. Just when they had gotten the cobwebs of their minds around that technology the smartphone GPS capability came into widespread usage. Now, except in rare circumstances like today, I would never use my old Garmin. It doesn’t do nearly as well with GPS responsibilities as my iPhone. No chili! You’re kidding right? After a brief stop at a Tim Horton’s for lunch, I never miss a “Timmy’s”, I was pulling into the track. By the way, I was surprised that this Tim Horton’s outlet did not have chili. I was looking forward to that. Earlier this year a server told me they didn’t serve chili at Tim Horton’s during the summer. This was winter! I went with the chicken noodle soup that was light on both the chicken and the noodles. Nevertheless, the wheat baguette was wonderful as well as my “Cruller”. I also used the Tim Horton’s free Wi-Fi for some last minute business. Why don’t you move behind the “Race Results” tab and I’ll tell you all about the ice racing from today. It was interesting to say the least. Kahnawake Marina Ice Track – Kahnawake, Quebec, Canada Quebec truly is part of a foreign country. Without GPS this would have been a difficult place to find. Additionally, I’m in Quebec. Quebec is French speaking. Quebec is more French speaking than France! However, for some odd reason, they spoke more English here than any place I’ve ever visited in Quebec. I wasn’t expecting that from Quebec. I pulled up to the ticket booth to find the admission price just $5 Canadian. I could handle that for the opportunity to add two tracks. However, I did get one piece of unsettling news. It was 2 p.m. My advance information told me the first heat was to begin at 3 p.m. I asked the ticket taker what time the first race was today? I always do things like that. You can never ask enough questions and “back check” whatever information you believe to be true. The young man came back with “Racing started at 12 noon today”. Oh, my. I hope I hadn’t missed anything. The only action on the track when I arrived came from the snowplow trucks. They were grooming the track. I walked around getting my bearings. Then I headed into the restaurant where it looked as if it would be warm. The guy with the clipboard. Once inside I asked the “guy with the clipboard” what the schedule would be. He spoke English well and assured me there would be racing on the road course this afternoon and then “Car racing on the oval at six”. That was good enough for me. I would need to pace myself. Folks, it was about 18 degrees Fahrenheit with a wind of some 10-20 M.P.H. to add insult to injury. Today’s trackchasing would have to be “managed” in order to insure survival. At most ice races I can watch from my car. Or, at a minimum, I can stay in the car until the racing begins so I don’t turn into a Popsicle. I did stay in the car to watch some of the racing. The road course. The road course itself might have been a mile long or maybe just shy of that. It was a flat road course. Why? Because “water seeks it’s own level”. The lake area had a good deal of snow on it from previous storms. The snow banks, which would be used as safety barriers to keep the cars on the course, were some 3-5 feet high. Spectators could park just beyond the “retaining walls” for a good view of the racing action. In the afternoon 7-8 smaller sports cars raced two heats on the road course. Some very fast ATVs with sharply studded tires competed in two classes. Finally toward the end of the afternoon some V-8 powered stock cars (similar to dirt track pure stocks) raced two short races on the road course. It was getting dark now. I had seen several portable light standards at the ready for tonight’s nighttime oval racing. I guess everyone was somewhat lucky it had been so “warm” today. Can you imagine if they had caught a 15-20 degree below winter evening for their once a year night race? Oh, my. A smile is just an upside down frown. It was time to move from the spot where I had parked to watch the road course racing. Did you know it is very easy to get a passenger car stuck with just 6-8 inches of snow sitting on top of a slick as snot frozen lake? I watched and smiled as a guy driving a big Chrysler 300 got stuck. He just spun and spun his rear tires. My smile was turned upside down into a frown when I did the same thing! Fortunately some good Samaritans came along and hand pushed both of us out of harm’s way. The oval. I was looking for a good place to watch the oval racing in what was now pure darkness. The light standards (6) were being strategically placed around the track. Snowplows were getting the oval track ready. I found a spot that looked like it would be just perfect. The problem. However, when I sat in the car and continued to assess things I noted a small problem. I was sitting on what, in just a few minutes, would be the racing groove adjacent to the start/finish line of the bigger than I thought oval track. Yes, I was parked in the middle of the front straight! That wasn’t going to work so I would need to move. All the while I was most comfortable in the heated cockpit of my Kia Optima hybrid. Other than arriving at 2 p.m. and having to be at an ice race until nearly 8 p.m. everything had gone very well today. I did a quick GPS check on the location of tonight’s hotel relative to the ice track. The hotel was just 16 miles away. That would be perfect. By the way, once I had confirmed I was coming to Quebec, I bought a hotel using Priceline.com. What do you want your tombstone to say about you? I hope that my tombstone reads features one of these captions. “I always preferred paying $100 for a $200 hotel more than paying $40 for a $60 motel”….or “I told you I was sick”. Trackchasing doubles….tracks add up twice as fast. I usually do a pretty good job of seeing “Trackchasing Doubles” in any given trackchasing season. In 2013 I went trackchasing on 88 different days while recording 109 tracks. That means I had 21 trackchasing doubles. For as long as I’ve been doing this I think that’s pretty good. There are five types of trackchasing doubles. In 2013 I had these quantities of doubles: Same location doubles – 10 Day/night doubles – 7 Blended doubles with no features -4 Blended doubles with features – 0 Traditional doubles – 0 Today’s racing could be either a “same location” double or a “day/night” double. It could only be used in one of these categories. I decided it fit the “same location” criteria the best. That made my first trackchasing double of 2014 a “same location” double! If I can get ten doubles this year with the amount of trackchasing days I expect to get I will be more than happy. Again, don’t miss the pictures! After the races…… Nothing beats a good pasta dinner and a full night’s rest. I had been at the ice track from 2 p.m. until nearly 8 p.m. That’s a long time to be on a frozen lake even if much of the time was spent in the relative comfort of my car. Tonight’s hotel was only 30 minutes away. That was an awfully good thing. Tonight I would get a full eight hours of shut-eye. Before I could sleep I would have to eat. I found a very good eatery, Nickels Bar & Grill near the hotel. After a hearty plate of spaghetti and “smoked meat” I was ready to relax for the evening. Getting to see two different ice tracks in a single day at one location doesn’t happen very often. I was well satisfied. PROVINCE COMPARISONS Quebec The La Belle Province This afternoon and evening I saw my 21st and 22nd lifetime tracks in the La Belle province, yes the La Belle province. It’s not that easy getting trackchasing information out of Quebec because of the language barrier. Nevertheless, I enjoy it up here. 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 Quebec sayings: My name is Tom. – Je m’appelle Tom. What’s your name? – Comment vous appellez-vous?
QUICK FACTS AIRPLANE Los Angeles, CA (LAX) – Houston, TX (IAH) – 1,382 miles Houston, TX (IAH) – Chicago, IL (ORD) – 942 miles Chicago, IL (ORD) – Baltimore, MD (BWI) – 600 miles RENTAL CAR #1 Baltimore-Washington International Airport – trip begins Trenton, New Jersey Kahnawake, Quebec TRACK ADMISSION PRICES: Sun National Bank Center – $34 (plus $10 parking) Kahnawake Marina – $5 Canadian 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 375 tracks of my lifetime total. Don’t blame me. 1. Randy Lewis, San Clemente, California – 1,932 Total Trackchasing Countries There are no trackchasers currently within 10 countries of my lifetime total. 1. Randy Lewis, San Clemente, California – 68 Current lifetime National Geographic Diversity results 1. Randy Lewis, San Clemente, California – 4.96 That’s all folks! Official end of the RLR – Randy Lewis Racing Trackchaser Report 
