Greetings from Kingsport, Tennessee
From the travels and adventures of the
“World’s #1 Trackchaser”
Kingsport Speedway – Asphalt Oval
Lifetime Track #2,075
THE EVENT ON THE WAY TO THE RACES What did Las Vegas and Baltimore have to do with getting to the Smoky Mountains in Tennessee? I woke up this morning at home in the “little city by the sea” San Clemente, California. I drove to Las Vegas. Then I flew overnight to Baltimore. I went to sleep in Norton, Virginia. Tonight I would trackchase in Kingsport, Tennessee. Ya! That’s a lot of states in 24 hours isn’t it? This is how the day turned out. I’m going to Las Vegas! No I’m going to Baltimore. In actuality I was leaving California to trackchase in Tennessee. But first I would drive to Las Vegas and then fly to Baltimore. Why was this trip unfolding in this manner? Stay tuned for the full exclamation. Would you say we are “active seniors”? Carol and I had just returned from 10 days in Hawaii some 60 hours ago. Just five days from today I would be attending my annual golf outing with my college fraternity brothers in Las Vegas. As you can see there was a “window of opportunity” between the conclusion of our trip to Hawaii and the beginning of my trip to Las Vegas. What do you do when a window of opportunity exists? You climb through the window! What are ‘brothers’ for? Here’s some background. In order to reduce the travel expenses for my fraternity brothers I always drive my car to Las Vegas when we play golf there. This eliminates a rental car expense for our group. During the golf trip I will chauffer everyone around from one course to the next. Logistics. Logistics. Logistics. My logistical mind told me I could drive from San Clemente to Las Vegas today. I would park my car near the Las Vegas airport. Then I would hop on an overnight Spirit Airlines flight from Las Vegas to Baltimore. Once in Baltimore I would drive just seven hours, after flying overnight, to the greater Bristol, Tennessee area. Why Baltimore? When you don’t know the answer to a question….follow the money. Once in that area I hoped to trackchaser on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights. Then I would catch the NASCAR Sprint cup race at the “Last great coliseum” in Bristol on Sunday afternoon. Following all of THAT I would drive those same seven hours back to Baltimore and catch a late Monday flight to Las Vegas. I would land in Las Vegas at just about the same time my fraternity brothers were coming in from Chicago. Living in SoCal forces me to be patient. This was a grand plan. There was just one minor problem…the weather in Tennessee. I have to be patient with the weather patterns of any place outside of San Clemente California. Why? San Clemente has the best weather in the United States and possibly the best weather in the world. What does that mean? It means that whenever I travel outside of San Clemente I am likely to be disappointed. Why doesn’t everyone just move to San Clemente and be done with it? I don’t know. Maybe they will come to their senses someday. The money part of it. I had purchased my airline tickets round-trip from Las Vegas to Baltimore. I don’t like to do it that way but the rates were so low I couldn’t pass them up. If I got rained out I was just going to have to live with it this weekend. Lots of people think I spend lots of money on my trackchasing hobby. In point of fact I do not have the trackchasing budgets of those Dreaded East Coast Trackchasers. I never have had. I don’t require that another Trackchaser join me on a trip so that I can afford to go on the trip. I have never liked the idea of creating “friends” simply because they can pay half my bill. Unemployed….for a very long time now. Don’t believe the above? You have all seen the travel schedule I maintain. Just as a reminder I have been unemployed for the last 13 years. I do not get a company pension. Carol and I must live off the meager savings we accumulated during the time I was working. Can you imagine doing all of the travel that I’ve done if you hadn’t been receiving a paycheck for the past thirteen years? So how DO I do it? That’s right. So how do I do it? I handle the financial part of the trackchasing equation by managing expenses carefully and seeking sponsorship whenever and wherever I can get it. Here’s an example. My “hometown” airport is LAX or Los Angeles international Airport. The parking alone at LAX can run to nearly $20 per day. For more than 10 years I have averaged 160 days annually of overnight travel. During virtually all of those days my car is parked at LAX. If I had to pay the going rate of $20 per day my airline parking expense alone would be more than $3,000 a year. Can you imagine spending more than $3,000 each and every year just to park your car at the airport? I know right? For many years now I have had the sponsorship support of Los Angeles World Parking. Those guys and gals have recognized the importance of supporting an independent trackchaser. Over the years they have covered much of my airport parking expense. Thank you Los Angeles World Parking. No sponsorship; just a creative mind. On this particular trip I would need to park my car in Las Vegas. I had never initiated a trackchasing trip from Las Vegas before. As such I have no formal sponsorship support in Sin City. Was I going to pay $50-$100 to park my car in Las Vegas for five days? You probably guessed the answer to that question. The staff at Randy Lewis Racing did some quick research. What did they come up with? A really good deal! Information is power. Technology provides information. Information provides power. Do my fellow competitors have this capability? Not really. However because I give such a detailed explanation of my trackchasing strategies in my Trackchaser Reports all they have to do is try to copy what I do. As they say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery right? You’ve heard me, many times, tell you that I use the iPhone app “Yelp!” I have mainly used Yelp! for roadside restaurant choices. Yelp! is a service that provides user feedback to evaluate customer experiences at restaurants. Did you know that Yelp! is NOT just limited to restaurant reviews? That’s right you can get consumer reviews on any number of topics. The Randy Lewis Racing research staff goes to work. When my staff investigated airport parking situations near the McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas Yelp! came to the rescue. Users talked about the South Strip Transfer Terminal near the airport. What kind of “deal” was being offered here? I could park my car at the bus station for as long as seven days for free! Then for just two dollars each way I could ride the bus from the bus station to the airport. That meant my entire “Parking” expense for five days in Las Vegas would be the princely sum of just four dollars U.S. Yes technology provides the information and information provides the power. The Randy Lewis Racing research staff had come through for me again. My mind cannot be cluttered with stuff I don’t need to know. I know some stuff but I don’t know a lot of stuff that most people know. I try not to clutter my mind with things I really don’t need to know. What do I mean by that? As an example I don’t know how to fill our water softener with salt. I don’t know how to run our washer and dryer. I don’t know how to shut off the water at our house in case of an emergency. Heck, I don’t even know what day our trash is picked up. Why don’t I know these things? Because I don’t need too. It’s not my department. Carol handles these topics. Do you know your car’s license plate number? I used to have a personalized license plate for my car. Then California jacked up the fees for doing that to about $80 per year. That didn’t seem like a good use of $80 for a fella that has been unemployed for 13 years. Now I have a “regular” license plate number just like everyone else. Can I tell you what my license plate number is on the car I’ve driven for three years? No I cannot. Why? There’s never really been a need to know it. However tonight there was a need to know my license plate number! It almost cost me a chance of getting on my airplane in a timely fashion. When I parked at the bus station I had the information I needed to find the right bus going to the airport. However a fellow traveler told me there was some “paperwork” that needed to be filled out so that my car would be not towed away while I was gone. Of course that paperwork required that I know my license plate number. I didn’t. This necessitated a walk/run from the bus station office out to the parking spot where my car was situated and then back to the office. All the while my new found traveling “friend” was watching my stuff. That “stuff” included my laptop, passport and lots of other valuable things. I completed the task just as bus #109 to the airport was pulling up. Life is really all about managing systems. When I encounter problems I try to improve my systems. I have now recorded my license plate number in my phone’s database. If I ever need it again and I’m not near my car I’ll be able to retrieve the number. I had been able to successfully overcome a minor logistical bump in the road. However I was soon going to encounter a much bigger and more expensive problem at the airport. What in the world could that be? Sometimes life throws you are a curve no matter how squared away you are. I would be traveling with three different “bags” from Las Vegas to Baltimore. My biggest bag was my golf bag. I also have a specially purchased Spirit Airlines only rolling bag. This rolling travel bag meets Spirit’s requirements of 16″ x 14″ x 12″. If your bag does not fit those dimensions Spirit will charge you $100 at the gate if you want to carry it on the plane. Additionally I had my army field jacket with its sleeves stuffed to the max with extra trackchasing gear. My plan was to check my golf bag and carry my jacket and special rolling bag on the plane. I hoisted my rather heavy golf bag up onto the scales. Perfect! Wait. Not perfect. Airlines allow your checked baggage to be a maximum weight of 50 pounds. A wry smile came across my heart when I looked the scale with my golf bag on it. “Fitty” pounds. 50.0 to be exact. I was pretty happy with that result. I soon became “less happy”. The Spirit Airlines agent informed me that THEIR limit was only 40 pounds. Unless I could lose 10 pounds very quickly I would have to pay another $25. I graduated from college with zero debt. I paid for 100% of my college education from earnings during six summers of work from age 16 to 22. I also worked part-time at a number of jobs during the school year. During my first three summers I earned a $1.80 per hour cutting weeds in the humid summers of Illinois with a scythe. You haven’t done manual labor until you’ve cut weeds on the side of a riverbank all summer (three summers). I knew how much effort it took to earn a $1.80. I didn’t fancy spending nearly 2 days of 1965 pay because my bag was 10 pounds overweight. I was working for my money now. I asked the agent if I could step off to the side and work out a new plan with my bags. She told me to go for it. I had a golf bag that weighed 10 pounds too much. I had an army field jacket that was already stuffed to the gills with shoes, shirts and shorts. I had a rolling carry-on bag that was also stuffed with electronic gear, clothing and the like. What was I to do? This was going to be challenging. However I was motivated. If I could figure out a solution I could save $25. Being a simple unemployed fellow $25 is important to me. I opened my golf travel bag and removed my golf bag and golf clubs. This is no easy task as it is a tight fit. I haven’t been playing all that much golf during the past couple of years. I’ve had a bad back that forced me to resign from my country club. However, because of my Egoscue training my back is pretty good now. My golf bag has about a dozen pockets. Some are small and some are large. I haven’t really checked what’s in all of those pockets lately. Why? I didn’t really need to know. I make it a practice of not wasting my time “knowing stuff” when I don’t need to know it. This personal strategy meant there were several pockets holding things that I have not seen in years! The one and only thing I could eliminate was a 20-ounce bottle of water. However, upon further review, I discovered that my golf bag was holding some 43 golf balls. Do you know how many golf balls there are in a pound? There are 10 golf balls in one pound. That’s right. I had more than four pounds of golf balls in my bag. I moved the golf balls into my rolling carry-on bag. To make room for them I moved lighter clothing articles from the rolling bag in a golf bag. That seemed like a good trade. I buttoned everything up in the golf bag and went back to the scales. It’s never good to encounter stern looking people. This time I was serviced by a more stern looking less cooperative woman. My bag now weighed 45 pounds down from 50. However she wasn’t going to let me get away with even 45 pounds. I went back to my reconsolidation area and pulled out the golf clubs once again. I was now thinking it wasn’t a very good idea to even bring my golf clubs on this trip. I discovered one bag of golf balls that I had missed in my first search through my golf bag. That little bag of balls weighed 2 1/2 pounds. All of those balls went in my rolling carry-on bag. I did a little more mixing and matching before returning to the scales. This time I got the friendly agent. My bag now weighed 41.5 pounds. She told me she could work with that. That was good news. I even felt confident enough to ask her if I could throw in another pair of shoes into my golf bag? She nodded with the wink and off my golf bag went. Now my tiny little carry-on bag had nearly 50 golf balls weighing five pounds in it. The bag was straining at the seams. I estimate this little bag now weighed close to 40 pounds. Dead man walking. My army field jacket look like “A dead man walking”. It could easily stand up on its own with its sleeves now packed with golf shoes and the heaviest clothing I had brought. Spirit Airlines is not part of the TSA pre-check program. That meant I would have to do all of the things “normal” people do when they clear airport security. I never like doing things like the normal person does. Did this experience make me any less likely to try to exploit the system in the future? I was now passing through security with a 40-pound micro rolling carry-on bag, a fully stuffed field jacket my umbrella and my Bose headset case. Things had been a little rough because I was trying to exploit the system. Will I try to exploit the system in the future? Of course I will! I will always try to exploit the system. It’s part of my DNA. Spirit Airlines…understand the program…you’ll be happier. Spirit Airlines is an A la cart pricing company. They like to say that if you don’t use it they don’t charge you for it. However they seem to take all of this to the extreme. Nevertheless, their base airfares are extremely cheap. Can you believe I only paid $59 for a base airline ticket from Los Angeles all the way across the country to Baltimore? Because my airfare was so cheap I splurged for an exit row seat with extra legroom. That cost me $25. Then I splurged to check my golf bag so that I might play a time or two when I got to my destination. That cost me an additional $21. Nevertheless I was all in for just $114. I thought I got a good value. I now had five days to plan for how I was going to handle my checked baggage and it’s weight on the way home. Spirit Airlines caters to a unique consumer demographic. If you go down to your local Greyhound bus stop or maybe your neighborhood trailer park you will see many of the Spirit airline passenger profiles. South Strip Transfer Terminal. Speaking of bus stops let me clarify what the South Strip Transfer Terminal looks like. It wasn’t like any bus stop I had ever seen. Its location might best be described as being in a modern light industrial park. One of the best things about the West is that things are so much newer than “back east. I have often complained about the decaying infrastructure that I encounter when I do travel east. I think this rotting infrastructure has a direct impact on the attitudes of the people who live “back east”. Again this doesn’t apply to everyone it just applies to more people that you might expect. The flight from Las Vegas to Baltimore took four hours and two minutes. Additionally I would lose three more hours in time zone changes from the Pacific Time zone to the Eastern Time zone. That meant that my 11:30 p.m. flight would arrive at about 6:30 a.m. on Thursday morning Eastern Time. After landing I retrieved all of my baggage and hopped on the rental car bus. The Baltimore-Washington International Airport is one of those places that has a central rental car center that is accessed by a bus. That’s not nearly as convenient as simply walking out of the terminal and across the street to waiting rental cars. I would have to plan for the extra time this would take upon my return. However I wasn’t leaving until 7:20 p.m. on Monday night so I should have plenty of time for that task. As I almost always do I picked out a National Car Rental Racing Hyundai Sonata. It would give me good gas mileage and satellite radio. Then I was off for the seven-hour drive to Kingsport, Tennessee. Let’s go trackchasing in the Volunteer state. Race time was set for 7:30 p.m. My Waze GPS system told me I would arrive at 2 p.m. That would give me 5 1/2 hours for stops including all important strategic naps. Kingsport is a small city of about 48,000 residents. The racial makeup of the town in 93% white. The Kingsport Mets of the Appalachian League, a rookie-level baseball league, play in the city. An affiliate of the New York Mets, the team has competed in the city since 1969, with the exception of 1983. THE RACING . Kingsport Speedway – Kingsport, Tennessee More than 10 years in the making. The Kingsport Speedway has been on my radar screen for well over 10 years. However uncertain weather (like tonight) in Tennessee as well as the track being closed for a few of those years prevented me from getting here until today. The weather forecast for this part of the country was questionable during the entire weekend. I was locked into coming because I had purchased an airline ticket a few weeks ago. If all went well I would trackchase first in Tennessee then Virginia and finally North Carolina before wrapping up with the big NASCAR race in Bristol. Frankly I didn’t expect the weather to hold for all four events. Now this was special! There was a special highlight for me at tonight’s racing. Former NASCAR champion Bobby Allison was at the track. He was doing an hour’s worth of autograph signing prior to the start of the races. I’ve never been a big autograph seeker. However I was looking forward to the chance to meet Bobby and simply say hello. Bobby Allison. Bobby Allison was a big name in NASCAR. He won the 1983 Winston Cup championship. He also has won the Daytona 500 and 85 NASCAR cup feature events. That puts him in the top five in total wins. Bobby Allison was also involved in the famous 1979 Daytona 500 brawl broadcast over ABC Sports. This fight is credited with putting NASCAR on the national scene and creating its massive popularity that it maintains through today. In that confrontation Bobby was helping his brother Donnie fight Cale Yarborough after Cale and Donnie had crashed while going for the lead in the last few laps of the Daytona 500. Sadly Bobby and his family have suffered the worst tragedies that can befall anyone in the sport. Both of Bobby sons Davey and Clifford were killed in racing related activities. Clifford was killed while driving a stock car and Davie was killed in a helicopter crash while trying to land at the Talladega Superspeedway. Late in Bobby’s career he was nearly killed in a massive crash at Pocono, which robbed him of much of his racing memories. Yes the Allison clan has known the top of the sport and the worst parts of racing. There weren’t too many people around so I quickly introduced myself to Bobby. I reminded him that I used to watch him race at Hawkeye Downs in Cedar Rapids Iowa. He would fly in and race a local car in the Falstaff 100s and later the Miller 100s special mid-week events. This was some of the absolute best racing I’ve ever seen. I also remember watching Bobby Allison race as a guest NASCAR driver at the Rockford Speedway in Illinois. I was standing near him as he was chatting with people and giving autographs. One fan came up to shake his hand. Bobby seemed to think the fan was trying to twist his hand by the thumb. Bobby’s hair-quick temper shot out toward the fan as he accused him of trying to injure him. Of course a NASCAR driver with a broken hand wouldn’t be very effective. Bobby signed one of his “hero cards” for me as he had done for all of the fans earlier in the evening. Then I handed him my card and quickly told him that I was a trackchaser. I gave him my trackchasing totals. His response was a big smile and a “How about that!” His wife Judy was standing beside him and organizing the line of fans that had come to see Bobby. When Bobby heard about my trackchasing he reached below the table and gave me a special card. The card had his personal email address on it. I’m going to take the opportunity to send Bobby a message about my trackchasing hobby. Sisters? All throughout the night I heard how the Kingsport Speedway is the “sister track” to the Lonesome Pine Raceway in Coburn, Virginia. Up until this weekend I had never been to either of these tracks. With the famous NASCAR Bristol race happening on Sunday Kingsport was racing on Thursday of this week and Lonesome Pine would race tomorrow night, Friday. Tonight’s general admission price was just $10. However a combination ticket could be purchased giving a fan at admission to the races tonight in Kingsport and tomorrow in Lonesome Pine. The combination ticket was only $15. Seeing two stock car programs at these tracks for such a small price was a real bargain. I don’t do this as often as I used too. I used to send a message up to the press box at most events I attended. I did this for two reasons. First when the announcer chose to make a mention of my presence over the PA system other trackchasers would know I was at the track. I’ve met others in this manner several times. Actually it was a track PA announcement that allowed me to meet Pennsylvania trackchaser Paul Weisel at a track in Australia no less! I also take this extra PR step so I can inform and educate the crowd about my hobby of trackchasing. With my website, Trackchasers Reports, at the track interviews as well as media stories appearing in newspapers, radio and TV I have spread the message to literally millions of fans about my trackchasing hobby. Tonight I gave my business card to one of the women working in the ticket booth at the Kingsport Speedway. She was more than happy to pass my note up the announcer who was soon making a communiqué over the track’s PA regarding the World’s #1 Trackchaser being in attendance. I actually don’t provide my trackchasing business card to racetracks nearly as much as I used to. Why not? My trackchasing total has gotten so high that to the casual observer it seems unbelievable. Whoever heard of a single person going to more than 2,000 tracks? I’ve often said that if I told someone I had been to 465 tracks that would sound about 10 times more believable than telling them that after tonight I had seen racing at 2,075 tracks. At about the same time that the announcer was giving me a plug over the PA system my cellphone began to ring. The call was from Tennessee. I don’t take calls from numbers I don’t recognize. If the caller doesn’t leave a message I block the number thinking it was a sales call of some sort. If someone does leave a message I’ll listen and then decide if I want to ever get a call from that number again. Tonight that Tennessee call was from a woman name Phyllis. This was the woman I had given my business card too. It turned out she and her husband are the owners of Kingsport Speedway as well as Volunteer Speedway in Bulls Gap, Tennessee. Phyllis was leaving a message inviting me to come to their track in Bulls Gap on Saturday night. That was a nice gesture. There are actually very few tracks that I have not been to that race on a weekly basis in the U.S. Of course I had been to the Volunteer Speedway (Track #943). My visit was back in August 2005. Although I didn’t think I could make a re-visit to Volunteer Speedway this Saturday night I needed to thank Phyllis for the invitation. I walked back to the ticket booth to formally introduce myself to her. We talked for a little while. I told her my plans were to go to North Carolina on Saturday night. However I assured her if that race in North Carolina did not come off for whatever reason I would certainly consider heading over to Bulls gap. This put a big smile on Phyllis’ face. She told me my name would be on the “list”. If I came I would have full run of the place. It was nice to meet such a friendly and supportive track owner. Spreading the word about trackchasing. As you can see I go out of my way to spread the word about trackchasing. When I do good things happen. I don’t get Bobby Allison’s personal email address unless I talk to him about trackchasing. I don’t make a contact with the owner of two major Tennessee tracks unless I talk about trackchasing. I’m really the only trackchaser that actively pursues the PR aspect of the hobby. If others did as much as I have to promote the hobby trackchasing would be so much more popular. Over the years I have talked about trackchasing with many of the biggest names in trackchasing. Those include Bill Elliott, Jimmie Johnson, Kenny Schrader, Brett Bodine and now Bobbie Allison. I had a long talk about my hobby with Ed Clarke president of the Atlanta Motor Speedway. Kingsport Speedway….the history. Tonight’s racetrack the Kingsport Speedway has a long and glorious history. Today it is known as the “concrete jungle”. Why is that? The entire racing surface of the high-banked oval is concrete. Most hard surface tracks like this one are paved with asphalt. There are a few concrete tracks but not very many. Kingsport Speedway has hosted some major NASCAR racing events. Did you know that names like Richard Petty, Buck Baker, Geoff Bodine and Tiny Lund have won races here? Tonight’s entertainment. The racing started on time at 7 p.m. The first event was for small children. They were racing their battery powered big wheel vehicles. Later in the evening there was be a stunt show by a 14-year-old driver. He could drive a small pick up truck around the entire oval on two wheels. That was impressive. I wonder how he learned to do that at any age let alone the age of 14. I brought my race scanner on this trip for the NASCAR race on Sunday. However I could use it tonight as well. I did. This is a great way to get insights into what’s happening with the program, what the hold ups are, etc. Features only; I like it. There are a few southern hard surface tracks that race a “features only: program. A typical weekly racing program has heat races that qualify drivers for feature events. I don’t much care for hot laps, time trials or heat races. I’m all about seeing feature events. There were six classes of stock cars racing tonight. Two of the classes had between 15 and 20 competitors. The rest of the classes had about 10 and one class had only four racers. The length of the feature races ranged from 20-60 laps. Overall I got to see about 150 laps of racing. I did not stay for the final rookie four-cylinder race that followed the main event. Tonight’s main event was for the late models. Don’t miss the photos and videos from tonight’s racing action. I think you’ll enjoy seeing racing at a famous track like the Kingsport Speedway. AFTER THE RACES Following the races it was a one-hour drive up to my Super 8 motel in Norton, Virginia. If it doesn’t rain out any of my planned races my hotel will be very well located. If it does then not so much. Tennessee The Volunteer state This evening I saw my 28th lifetime track in the Volunteer state, yes the Volunteer state. 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 Tennessee sayings: If you love southern women raise your glass; if not raise your standards. QUICK FACTS PERSONAL CAR San Clemente, CA McCarran (Las Vegas) International Airport – 282 miles AIRPLANE McCarran (Las Vegas) International Airport, Las Vegas, NV (LAS) – Baltimore-Washington International Airport, Baltimore, MD (BWI) – 2,100 miles RENTAL CAR #1 Baltimore-Washington International Airport, Baltimore, MD – trip begins Kingsport, TN TRACK ADMISSION PRICES: Kingsport Speedway – $7.50 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 450 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 Click on the link below for a photo album of today’s trackchasing day: From Vegas to Baltimore to the Smoky Mountains 
