Greetings from Rhome, Texas
From the travels and adventures of the “World’s #1 Trackchaser”
Kam Kartway – Dirt Oval – Track #1,964
It took me three days to get one day of trackchasing in the record books. The Energizer bunny? Minute Maid Park – Houston, Texas Wow! This really WAS my lucky night. Globe Life Park – Arlington, Texas Coupons at a ballpark? Each park and fan base has its own personality. #22 and counting. People vote with their feet. That’s fair enough if the opposition sets up a defense even I cannot penetrate. Why would our ‘Founding Fathers’ despise children? I am always embarrassed when I get in this conversation. I feel badly for trackchasers when their invisible geographical circle hems them in. Enter the villain. The political underbelly of trackchasing. Dirt ovals are going the way of the eight-track tape in my world. Editor’s note: Today’s trip included visits to two tracks in different locations. My afternoon visit took me to the Circuit of the Americas in Austin for some Global Rallycross racing. Click on the link below to read about that adventure. This Trackchaser Report will cover my visit to both COTA and tonight’s fun little kart track, the Kam Kartway. Circuit of the Americas – Global Rallycross racing It took me three days to get one day of trackchasing in the record books. On day one of this trip I woke up at home in San Clemente, California. I went to bed in Houston, Texas. Then on day 2 I woke up in Houston and went to bed in Dallas, Texas. Finally, on day 3 the trackchasing part of this trip began with me starting the day in Dallas and finding evening refuge in Dallas for the second night in a row. This is how the beginning of this trip turned out. The Energizer bunny? Just 36 hours after returning from a 20-day European trip I was boarding a flight to Houston from Los Angeles. Carol doesn’t know how I do it. Many of my friends don’t either. My fellow competitors are stunned. I will say this. If I saw someone else doing what I do it would seem quite odd. However, to me it seems like a perfectly normal lifestyle! ‘Combo’ trips are the best. This trip would end up being a “combo” trip. One of my goals for the year is to wrap up seeing a Major League Baseball game in every active MLB park. I started the year with ten parks remaining to be seen. The original plan for this trip called for knocking off one of those. Then the plan changed, like it almost always does, and I ended up seeing games in two parks leaving just eight to go. Don’t miss the Trackchasing Tourist Attractions section below for the details. TRACKCHASING TOURIST ATTRACTION I very much enjoy the racing when I go on trackchasing trips. However, I am not the type of person who would feel the trip was complete if I simply left home, went to the race and came back home. I do a good deal of traveling. I want to do my best to see the local area when I come for a visit. There are usually unusual attractions that one area is noted for more than any other locale. I want to see those places. I want to touch them and feel them. When I leave an area, I want to have memories of these special places that I call Trackchasing Tourist Attractions. I will remember those experiences long after the checkered flag has fallen on whatever race I have seen that day. Minute Maid Park – Houston, Texas Toured in the past but gamed today. A few years ago I took a stadium tour of Minute Maid Park on a day when there were no official game activities happening. I didn’t remember much about that tour other than the private clubs available to fans with the right amount of “juice”. I didn’t even remember the stadium was domed! However in Houston in the summer it is VERY hot and humid. A domed stadium is a must. If you’ve been reading these reports for very long you know that I don’t pay “retail” for much. Some folks think what I do is expensive. Some think attending a major league baseball game can be pricy. Normally, it is not for me. I was in luck. It just turned about that my favorite team, the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim aka LAA aka Angels would be playing the home team Houston Astros. That was a stroke of good fortune. The Astros have been one of the worst teams in MLB for the past few seasons. However, the Angels seem to have trouble with the Astros. I needed a ticket. I would need a ticket. I would need a ticket that would allow me to sit virtually anywhere. StubHub came through for me. I paid just $6 U.S. for my ducat. Once I was inside the stadium with an announced crowd of 24,000 plus I could literally sit anywhere I wanted. I don’t understand these crowd counts. Minute Maid Park seats 42,060 fans. As I look around I can see the stadium in obviously far less than half full. Then they announce a crowd of 24,000! Some people tell me the announced crowd equals the number of tickets sold not the number of butts in the stands. Maybe. I just can’t believe that many people don’t come to the game once the tickets are sold. Parking for Minute Maid Park is in private lots situated all around the stadium in the heart of downtown Houston. I shopped around and found a place to park for $5 U.S. less than three blocks from the park. Wow! This really WAS my lucky night. I was getting hungry. Advance research told me that concession at Minute Maid were expensive. I sauntered up to the food stand and saw something I could not believe. Most sandwiches were in the $7-9 range. However, in the middle of the menu was the “regular” hog dog. The price? One dollar!! This was not a smallish hot dog but a full-sized dog that sells for five dollars on any other night. However, tonight was “Thursday” night and on Thursday hot dogs sell for a buck. I bought two and smothered them in mustard, relish and onions just the way I like it. Stay with me on this. Let’s think about this. I had paid just $6 for my ticket. With parking next to the stadium selling for $20 I parked for $5 three blocks away. Then when regular hot dogs sell some six days of the week for $5 each I bought them for just one dollar a piece. The Astros are a perennial last place team. Maybe if they had more revenue they would have a better team. Maybe I could help them out. I bought a regular Bud Lite beer (I think it might have been 24 oz.) for $8.75. That was my contribution to the Astros! Hot and humid even indoors. The public address announcer told us the inside temperature of the stadium was 73 degrees. It still seemed hot and humid to me. Globe Life Park – Arlington, Texas On night #2 of this “trackchasing” trip I was at the ballpark again. I had a choice tonight. I could have flown up to the Midwest to see racing on a “kart” track. Alternatively, I could simply stay in Texas and see another Major League Baseball game. I have goals to see lots of tracks and a goal to have seen a game at every active MLB ballpark by the end of 2014. Either way I could win. It would be a lot more expensive to travel up to the Midwest for just one race. It would also likely be expensive to make a separate trip to see a game in Texas before the end of the baseball season in September. Sometimes it pays to wait. So off to Globe Like Park it was. Of course, I would need a ticket. Last night I paid just $6 U.S. to see the game in Houston. Prices were a little higher for the Texas Rangers-Cleveland Indians game in Arlington, Texas a suburb of Dallas. However, the longer you wait (usually) the lower the ticket prices are on StubHub. I waited and was rewarded with a ticket for just $9 U.S. Heck, you can’t go to minor league games for these prices! When I arrived into the ballpark area it was a real zoo. Nobody has better parking than the three Southern California parks. There you simply drive in, pay a fairly low price and you’re within a hundred yards of the stadium gate. There was little chance to beat the system here. I hate it when the powers to be develop systems to thwart people like me. At the Globe Life Park I would end up paying $15 and that came with a very long, although perfectly safe (not like Boston!) walk to the park. This was AFTER I entered a $20 to park lot (they don’t post the price to park until after you are in line and need to pay) and refused to pay such a sum. Last night in Houston I paid just $5 to park. I don’t think you should ever pay more to park than you do for your baseball ticket…but tonight I did. Sometimes you eat the bear and sometimes she eats you. I was most impressed with this baseball stadium. The park was built in 1994. It sits within walking distance of the AT&T football stadium, home to the Dallas Cowboys, AND Six Flags amusement park. Maybe that’s why parking is such a zoo. Coupons at a ballpark? When I entered the gates I was given some coupons. I didn’t check them out until later. However, when I did I found two offers for a FREE Whataburger if I purchased an order of medium fries and a medium soft drink. The next day I took them up on their offer. I saved $3.14 on my Whataburger hamburger. I am a huge fan of Texas’ hometown burger chain. Whataburger is the “In N Out Burgers” of Texas. It’s not In N Out…nothing is. But I love Whataburger. Additionally, I received a coupon for a free “Grand Slam” breakfast at Denny’s upon entering. However, I wouldn’t be able to use that tonight. I was on the lookout for “supper” now. What to eat at the old ballpark? The first sign I saw advertised the “One-pound burger”. That sounded good. However, the TWENTY-SIX DOLLAR (he said $26 U.S.) price tag sent me into temporary caloric and fiscal shock. Last night I had paid just ONE DOLLAR for a regular full-sized hot dog. I scouted around. They had a lot of choices. However, I didn’t want to eat 1,500 calories or spend too much. I settled on a regular sized hot dog ($5.00) and a large Diet Coke ($6.25). Later I would buy a bag of peanuts ($5.50) in the stands. If only fans could get the much lower prices found at a NASCAR race than what was offered at Globe Life Park tonight. Of course, NASCAR has free parking too. Nevertheless, the dog was good. I was relieved to learn that later in the week the Rangers would also be offering “Nolan Ryan beef hot dogs” for just one dollar as the Astros had done. My ticket offered a seat in a very bad location. That wasn’t a problem. The stadium seats 49,115. They had a great crowd, about 39,000 on hand, but there was still plenty of space for me to sit in my favorite area of the ballpark. That’s right behind home plate and fairly high up. Tonight that put me in the shade on an evening when the temperature was in the 90s. There a great view of the action from this spot. I had thought to bring my pocket radio and enjoyed the announcing of the Rangers’ broadcast staff. They weren’t “homers” like the broadcasters I grew up hating (O.K. ‘hate’ is a little strong). I “strongly disliked” Harry Carey. Harry Carey was the Cardinals broadcaster when I was growing up in Central Illinois. Carey would go on and on that if the ball hadn’t taken a bad bounce the big inning wouldn’t have happened and they wouldn’t have lost the game which kept them from winning the pennant and going onto the World Series. Harry was a “moaner” of the first order. A nice place, a real nice place. The Globe Life Park is modern and huge. From the looks of the parking lot I would have thought the crowd was going to be 200,000 people. Even with 39,000 there were lots of open seats in the top deck. I used the ramps to walk to the top of the stadium. On such a hot evening very few people were doing that. When I got to the top I looked down. I had climbed about ten separate ramps to get where I was. Everything is Texas is just a little bigger. Each park and fan base has its own personality. Last year I went to games in Tampa and Miami on consecutive days. The crowd at Miami was much more boisterous and supportive than the oldsters in Tampa. Tonight the Rangers were a lot more into it than the fans from Houston. I was very impressed with both the park and the fans at Globe Life Park. Angels stadium in Anaheim (home to my favorite team) plays host to a generally upscale fan that is always well-behaved. That’s a lot different than places like Boston and New York. I’m happy to report the fan base in Texas, that I was exposed too, was also upscale, well-behaved and into the game. It was a wonderful family atmosphere. I was able to combat the very warm weather by sitting in the shade. Also where I was located a nice breeze blew all evening. I could not have been more comfortable. I suspect the Globe Like Park is a lot like the Rose Bowl. It’s a 100% different experience if you’re sitting in the sun compared to sitting in the shade. No….make that 1,000% (Martha, “he said one thousand percent”). A bonus. Following the game, which the Rangers won 6-4, I was treated to a special Friday night fireworks show. Baseball parks do a nice job with fireworks. At Angels Stadium fireworks are done after every Friday night home game. Tonight’s show was excellent. A second unexpected bonus. However, there was one more special bonus following the game and before the fireworks. I’ve seen a lot of MLB games but I’ve never seen this before. The Rangers promotion staff had lined up a “softball home run derby”. The players were from a national group that runs around the country doing these exhibitions. Each batter would get 15 pitches (slow-pitch). Each home run from the first 14 pitches would count for one point. The final pitch, called the “money pitch” counted for two points if it cleared the fences. The announcer told the crowd, from a written script, that these guys could hit the ball 500 feet. That might be true. Tonight the wind was blowing in. The winner hit eight balls into the stands including the money pitch. Five batters took cuts. The crowd loved it and so did I. #22 and counting. Overall, my experience at what is now my twenty-second active major league ballpark was excellent. They’ve got a beautiful place here with a nice group of people going to their games. Eight to go. I have eight parks remaining to be seen. I’m planning to see them all before the end of the 2014 season. You can look for me in Atlanta, Baltimore, Chicago*, Colorado, Philadelphia, San Diego*, Seattle* and St. Louis*. In all of the cities marked with an *asterisk I’ve already seen a game played by the home team. However, in those locations I saw play in a stadium that has now been replaced. I’ll have to go back and see a game in their NEW stadium, which I am happy to do. RACING Kam Kartway – Rhome, Texas Why would our ‘Founding Fathers’ despise children? I’ve known about the Kam Kartway for much of their 10-year existence. However, I have always been concerned about the “countability” of the racing at KAM. The trackchasing forefathers appeared to despise children. Is that why no “children’s” racing can be counted under existing rules? Personally, I like kids. I like my own kids and their kids better than I like other people’s kids but I like kids. I noticed that a special group of micro stocks would be coming to the Kam Speedway on this day. Micro stocks usually allow adult drivers to race. However, I would come to learn that this micro stock racing group was running “restricted” micro stocks with drivers limited in age up to sixteen. Having a long talk with a track promoter is always a good idea. I learned all of this from Kam Kartway owner and promoter Mike Engstrom. He and I had a long talk. During the course of the conversation I told him why I was asking so many questions. I am always embarrassed when I get in this conversation. I told him that trackchasing does not allow the counting of tracks when flat karts are raced. I told him that trackchasing rules do not allow the counting of tracks where only children are allowed to race (under 18). Can you imagine visiting someone’s home, looking at all of the stuff they have in their home and them telling them that all of it sucks! That’s how I feel when I talk to a kart track owner/promoter. The Kam Kartway races flat karts and most if not almost all of the drivers are children. I was telling promoter Mike that trackchasing’s founding fathers had turned thumbs down on BOTH flat karts and children. Yes, I felt badly telling him that. However, I was quick to point out that I was not part of the group that made those decisions. I didn’t vote on those ideas and do not support them. I feel badly for trackchasers when their invisible geographical circle hems them in. I feel somewhat badly for trackchaser Mike Knappenberger. Mike is an avid trackchaser. Most do not know this but Mike is in the hobby of trackchasing because of me as several folks are. I strongly encouraged Mike to “submit his list” to the powers to be. At first Mike was reluctant. They “haven’t give me the time of day” in the past was his initial comment. Finally Mike took my advice and sent his trackchasing list in for approval. Then Mike got into the hobby full time. However, it wasn’t long before trackchasing’s “Geographical Driving Circle” hemmed him in. This is a concept I first described about ten years ago in the trackchasing forum. In a few words the “Geographical Driving Circle” is a mythical circle with a radius of about 500 miles around a trackchaser’s home. It is this circle that a chaser will be reluctant to leave because of costs and time associated with getting beyond this boundary. When all of the tracks (or most of the tracks) in this circle have been seen the trackchaser’s productivity falls off a cliff. For most driving trackchasers (and that’s pretty much everybody but me) the circle suffocates their enjoyment of the hobby. I’ve seen this happen with just about everybody. This was an idea worth considering. However, Mike K., a self-admitted very competitive person, had a solution to the “Geographical Driving Circle” dilemma that he now faced. If he couldn’t afford the time and money to go outside of the circle why not create MORE tracks WITHIN the circle. How could he do that? He proposed that flat karts be counted not only within his circle but everywhere. There are well over 1,000 kart tracks in the U.S. that are currently not countable by trackchasing rules. A second proposal. It should be noted that trackchaser Paul Weisel also proposed a rule to allow kart racing to “count”. However, Paul’s proposal recommended that kart racing count as part of a “separate” list away from the main trackchasing totals. That proposal never had a chance in hell if you will excuse my French. Trackchasers do the crazy things they do (like pay $59 to see five cars race for six laps) so they can COUNT the tracks they see. Seeing tracks that don’t really count in a chaser’s main list is like NOT seeing the tracks. Nobody is interested in that. Some background. Before I go any further let me give you some more background. About the time I described the “Geographical Driving Circle” concept I also told the trackchasing group this. When trackchasers run out of tracks to see they will propose adding flat kart racing to the mix. That is exactly what happened with Mike and Paul’s proposals. Enter the villain. However, enter one Guy Smith current trackchasing commissioner. Guy, as this is written, has seen the SECOND most number of tracks in the world. Guy would give his eye teeth to someday gain the title of “World’s #1 Trackchaser”. I was put on this earth to see that does not happen. I’m doing my job the best I can to make sure the rankings stay the way they are now. Guy would prefer that flat kart racing not count at all….at least for the next few years in hopes that as time passes my trackchasing efforts will slow down. If and when I do begin to slow then I predict you will see Guy taking a behind the scenes approach to get flat kart track on the countable lists. In the meantime, Guy analyzed the voting totals, while the polls were still open, and “helped” his wife “decide” that she didn’t like flat kart racing after all. When his wife voted against flat kart racing the vote was tied at 6-6. With a tie vote then nothing would change. Flat kart racing would still not count. The political underbelly of trackchasing. Guy went a couple of steps further. First, he changed the previous trackchasing commissioner’s stance on how trackchaser’s tracks were counted. Will White had always used my website to count my wife Carol’s tracks. When Guy Smith took over he wiped out Will’s way of handling things and forbade the counting of Carol’s track via my website. That was convenient. If Carol’s tracks didn’t count like they always had under Mr. White’s tutelage then Carol couldn’t vote. If Carol couldn’t vote then that eliminated the possibility of flat karts counting if that were Carol’s preference. Just to make sure things were perfectly clear to the “assembled masses” Guy then sent out a strong recommendation that the idea of counting flat karts be put aside for a good long time. He made it pretty clear that the group should not consider flat kart racing. The case was closed within the trackchasing group on the subject. I felt bad for these guys. I felt bad for Mike. I felt bad for Paul. Mike couldn’t go trackchasing as often as he would have liked without flat kart racing. Paul couldn’t enjoy seeing others adding to their “flat kart only” lists. Pam Smith had been put under the cloud of suspicion that Guy had worked some “dinnertime” backroom politics to convince her to vote against flat kart racing. For all I know Mrs. Smith was voting in her own self interests so that she would not have to endure long drives to see a bunch of flat karts race. Much of this was done “behind the scenes”. No one knows for sure what type of chicanery was used. We know one thing for sure. However, I know one thing and that is that flat kart racing does NOT count. Guy Smith had covered his own backside. As the votes drifted in Guy could see how the “winds were blowing” without making his vote, or his wife’s known. When he saw how everyone had voted he could conveniently vote FOR the addition of flat karts knowing his wife’s vote would cancel his out and make the vote a tie. With a tie there would be no change. With no change there would be no flat kart counting…at least for the time being. I’m going on record with this. However, and you can put me on the record for this. In time flat kart racing WILL count. Trackchasers, including Guy Smith, will rise up and demand it. It just can’t be demanded for a little bit more time. I’m not sure how much longer Mike K. can wait for Guy’s strategy to pan out. Mike is not getting any younger. He has pretty much run out of places to go. Back to the situation at hand. Back to the Kam Kartway situation. In talking to promoter Mike he told me that adults sometimes raced in his “250” caged kart division. They didn’t always come and they probably wouldn’t be here tonight but “adults” were welcome to race in this class when and if they wanted. That was all I needed to hear. In order to be “countable” a class must allow adults to race. That’s what the Kam Kartway was doing with the “250” class. With the current rules racing is countable at the Kam Kartway. Dirt ovals are going the way of the eight-track tape in my world. I don’t get the chance to see racing on American oval dirt tracks all that much anymore. As this is written I had seen 42 tracks in 2014. Only TWO of those have been full-sized American dirt ovals. However, that is the nature of my trackchasing. For the most part, I went to the tracks I liked best earlier in my trackchasing career. Now I’ve seen nearly all of those special places. However, that doesn’t mean I don’t like the tracks I see now. I was most impressed with the Kam Kartway setup. I was on the phone talking to my Chicago area college buddy Mike Skonicki with my GPS blurted out, “You have arrived at your destination!” Don’t break the law. I looked over to my left. It was true. There sat the Kam Kartway. I looked in my rearview mirror. There was a county sheriff’s car. I wasn’t sure what the laws were in Texas regarding cell phone usage while driving. I certainly didn’t want to draw any more attention to myself than necessary. However, I needed to make an IMMEDIATE left hand turn. I flipped on my turn signal and turned 90 degrees at about 35 M.P.H. If that wouldn’t draw the cop’s attention then nothing would. She drove on and I entered the very small parking area of the track. I guessed this was the main entrance to the track. There were just 8-10 cars and trucks in the lot. I soon found a couple of small wooden grandstands overlooking the middle of turns three and four. From what I could tell there would be no admission charge for spectators. Later I would learn pit passes went for $12 U.S. I rationalized my cost per track for the day was just $29.50. Yes, the mind can play special tricks. Perfect timing. When I arrived some karts were just entering the track for hot laps. This was perfect timing after a three-hour drive up from the state’s capital in Austin. I sat back for the next couple of hours and enjoyed caged kart racing. The dirt oval was slightly banked and maybe 1/7-mile in length. I always guess at these distances. Just think of it as being bigger than a bread box. Missing the boat? Like many kart tracks there was no announcer for the masses. A woman could be heard directing racers for their next race from the pit area but that was it. I think tracks really miss the boat when they don’t have a good announcer. There were 5-6 divisions of caged karts and one flat kart group with three adult racers. The largest division had seven racers and the smallest two. Everywhere I go car counts seem to top out at about ten or less. That’s not going to help racing in the long run. Uncharacteristically, there were two flips in the first three kart heats. It’s rare to see these types of racers get upside down on such a small track with relatively slow speeds. Nevertheless, the delays for crash repair were done quickly. It looked as if each class was going to run two heats and their main event. Again, without an announcer or program it was difficult to tell. I stayed for two rounds of heat racing. With such small car counts and an early morning wakeup call that seemed about right. I had not seeing much dirt oval racing this year. I was pleased to be sitting in that atmosphere even though I was seeing small cars races. The racing was hard and close. Don’t miss the video. I even caught one of the flips on camera. Sustenance. I did sample the concession stand. A hot dog and Diet Coke went for three dollars. I doused the dog in mustard and relish and was good to go. The track sits along side a fairly busy two-lane highway. Some fans stopped to watch the racing from there. I’m sure their elevated view of about 20-30 feet above track level gave them a good vantage point. A police officer did stop with flashing lights at their position. However, after a short chat drove away and the fans continued to watch from just off the highway. Good Texas advice. I would be remiss if I did not mention that I had been reminded to reconsider a visit to the Kam Kartway by one of my Texas-based readers. I got some good info from that fellow about Kam and another Texas area track. I wish the Kam Kartway good luck as they celebrate their 10th anniversary. They have a nice little facility here that is just as nice, on a smaller scale, as most dirt ovals I visit. Texas The Lone Star state Today I saw my 59th and 60th tracks in the state of Texas. It’s the Lone Star state, yes the Lone Star state. No one has seen more Texas tracks. Thanks for reading about my trackchasing, Randy Lewis World’s #1 Trackchaser Peoria Old Timers Racing Club (P.O.R.C.) Hall of Fame Member Texas sayings: How’s mama and them? QUICK FACTS AIRPLANE Los Angeles, CA (LAX) – Houston, TX (HOU) – 1,390 miles RENTAL CAR #1 Houston Hobby – trip begins Houston, TX George Bush (Houston) Intercontinental Airport – trip ends – 71 miles RENTAL CAR #2 George Bush (Houston) Intercontinental Airport – trip begins Arlington, TX Dallas-Ft. Worth Intercontinental Airport – trip ends – 258 miles RENTAL CAR #3 George Bush (Houston) Intercontinental Airport – trip begins Austin, TX Rhome, TX TRACK ADMISSION PRICES: Circuit of the Americas – $59 Kam Kartway – No charge 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 400 tracks of my lifetime total. Don’t blame me. Total Trackchasing Countries There are no trackchasers currently within 10 countries of my lifetime total. Current lifetime National Geographic Diversity results That’s all folks! Official end of the RLR – Randy Lewis Racing Trackchaser Report 
