Greetings from Kansas City, Kansas
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From the travels and adventures of the
“World’s #1 Trackchaser”
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Lakeside Speedway
Dirt oval
Lifetime Track #833
THE EVENT Today’s undertaking was just one of more than 2,000 trips that have taken me up, down and around the long and dusty trackchasing trail. If you would like to see where I’ve been and experience those adventures here’s the link: If you’ve got a question, comment or whatever please leave it at the bottom of this report. It’s very easy to do. Or you can visit me on Facebook. Thanks! ON THE WAY TO THE RACES FOREWORD If you haven’t noticed by now, and I’m sure you have if you’ve been following my hobby for a long, trackchasing is all about logistics for me. How could it not be? I live in Southern California. Who wants to see one sunset after another in the same old place? Some 90% of the tracks I’ve seen are more than 500 miles from where I live. Most have been well over 1,000 miles from my home. Nearly each week I have to figure out how to get from point A to B to C without spending Carol’s entire retirement savings. Actually logistics is just one of three main parts that make up my trackchasing avocation. The other two are seeing racing, of course, and seeing the sights and sounds of the local areas that I visit. In any given year I will touch base with 30 or more states plus or minus. I’ll also likely hit several foreign countries each season. I trackchase out of the sleepy little seaside village of San Clemente, California. San Clemente is located just 74 miles north of Tijuana, Mexico. Yes, you would be accurate if you said that San Clemente isn’t very close to most of the auto racing that takes place in the United States or the world. Yes, that is a very accurate statement. THURSDAY Today might give you an understanding of what it often takes for me to get from California to, in this case, St. Louis, Missouri. At about noon Carol and I hopped in the Carol Lewis owned and MFunds sponsored Lexus RX 350. We would be driving over to San Juan Capistrano, California. Yes this is the same San Juan Capistrano made famous because the the swallows return there every spring. SJC is less than 5 miles from San Clemente. It is also home to an Amtrak train station. Today I will be riding the train toward St. Louis. However, I wasn’t going to take the train ALL the way to Missouri. I would simply ride the train from San Juan Capistrano up to Union Station in the heart of Los Angeles, California. Once at Union Station I would hop on the “Flyaway” bus. The bus would take me to the Los Angeles International airport. After a couple of hours layover in the Alaska Airlines Board Room airport lounge I hopped on a flight from Los Angeles to St. Louis. Once I landed in St. Louis my plan was to grab a hotel shuttle bus. However that plan was dashed when I learned the shuttle bus stopped running at 11 p.m. I didn’t arrive into St. Louis until nearly 1 a.m. Here’s something to note about my trackchasing home location of San Clemente, California. We are in the Pacific (west coast) time zone. It is virtually impossible to leave California early in the morning and make it in time to see an evening race in the Midwest or East coast. I lose two hours going to the Central time zone and three to the eastern time zone. Normally, I have to leave the day BEFORE the race date to make things work. This is called the “California trackchasing penalty”. I won’t even bore you right now with the fact that the trackchasing rules have been made to slow my trackchasing progress. I tell you….it’s all rigged! However, when something doesn’t work out on one of these trips I think I’m just about the most adaptable person you could find. When the shuttle bus idea didn’t work out I simply rented my car about nine hours early from National Car Rental. I work smartly at controlling my trackchasing expenses. By picking up my rental car early I would now need to return it on Sunday night rather than Monday morning at the end of the trip. When I got over to the National Car Rental lot they had a fine selection of about 25 vehicles for executive elite members of their frequent renter program. Yes, I am an executive elite member. However every one of those vehicles was an SUV. I was going to be driving more than 1,000 miles during the next three days. I needed a car with decent gas mileage. I didn’t think in SUV would qualify in that regard. No problem. I’m not bashful. When I think things need to be changed I bring it to someone’s attention. I simply found a manager on the lot and explained my situation. The manager looked over his shoulder and said, “Why don’t you take that premium Volvo?”. He didn’t have to ask twice. Soon I was hopping into that Volvo S60. It would be a fine car for my travels this weekend. I had ridden a train, a bus, an airplane and finally a rental car to get here. Where did all of that get me? All I had achieved was getting to my hotel! That reminded me that it’s never a good idea to mistake activity with achievement. I was hoping to trackchase tomorrow in Indiana. I was considering a couple of different locations. I would only go to one of them but I did have two choices. However the rain forecast for the last several days for Indiana has been terrible. I am amazed that something of these more advanced weather forecasts can be so accurate. To be honest if I hadn’t set up a luncheon appointment on Friday with an old friend I would have left Southern California a day later. That’s right. The weather was so iffy I would have totally bypassed any opportunity to trackchase in Indiana. However, since I already had an appointment with my good buddy and longtime friend Ron Otto I figured I would give the Indiana trackchasing option a chance. I’ve known Ron for more than 40 years. We worked together for several of those years until I retired in 2002. Ron now owns his own sales brokerage in St. Louis. He is doing very well. Whenever I’m in St. Louis or he’s in Los Angeles we will get in touch for lunch and/or golf. FRIDAY I had been in touch with each of the Indiana track promoters earlier in the week. Today I called them both and soon found out that the predicted rains had materialized as expected. Both of those tracks had canceled their programs by noon on Friday. Nevertheless, I did have a very good racechasing, not trackchasing, back up plan for today. Before I could get to any of the race watching I drove over to Ron’s office. I’ve never been to his office before. It was nice to see his set up. It reminded me of one of my business office locations from years ago. I had a beautiful 2,000 square foot office space for just my secretary and me. Remember secretaries? No? Google it! Ron and I reminisced about all manner of subjects and had a nice lunch. When we were finished it was time for me to hit the road. Thanks for lunch Ron. Today’s back up plan had been established a few days ago when I had looked at the Indiana rain forecast. Tonight I would be returning to the Lakeside Speedway in Kansas City, Kansas. Carol and I have friends who live not too far outside of Kansas City. I am always very hesitant to tell folks I’m headed their way. I never want to disappoint them. I almost always fly standby. I never know for sure if I’m going to get on the airplane to even begin the trip. Then I don’t know what the weather will be like in advance or whether the track will cancel on short notice. Even on this trip I regretted the timing of my lunch plans because it looked like the races I was coming to the Midwest for would get rained out. I was last at the Lakeside Speedway on April 22, 2005. At the time the track was my 833rd lifetime track. That was the year, 2005, where I established the all-time record of most new tracks seen in a single year. I came to the finish line that year with 182 tracks to my credit. On the weekend in 2005 when I first came to Lakeside I also saw three other Kansas tracks. Those three tracks were the Salina Speedway, Jetmore Racing Complex and the Oberlin Speedway. Lakeside is easily within the top 50 or 100 short tracks in the United States. Tonight they were having a big modified show. There was a clear but cool weather forecast. This event would make for a more than suitable back up plan since I would not be trackchasing. Before I go much further you might be wondering why I rode a train, bus, airplane and rental car yesterday rather than simply driving my own car up to the airport and parking as I normally do. Here’s why that was such a good idea. Next Monday Carol and I will be meeting each other in Austin, Texas. We’ll be spending the week with our grandchildren while their parents take a much-needed vacation. Carol and I just returned from eight days in Hawaii a couple of days ago. That being the case she would sit out the trip to St. Louis and meet me in Texas. By the way, you might ask yourself why Carol doesn’t come on more trackchasing trips. The explanation is rather simple. She gets to pick the trips she takes. I have seen very few women, maybe only Pat Eckel, who might go to the races if they were not married to a racing fan. The leading women in trackchasing are often “encouraged” to make lots of trips that I’m sure would not be their #1 weekend priority. I don’t do that with Carol. If she would like to go on a trackchasing trip that’s great. However, some of these trips, where I’m sleeping in my car or an airport or driving thousands of miles aren’t that entertaining at points for the “non-primary” race fan. We have a simple solution to that issue. We take lots of non-racing trips. Did you know that only about 40% of my 150-200 overnights every year come on a day I trackchase? I’ll bet you DIDN’T know that. Yes, Carol bypassed the four-day trip to St. Louis but took the eight-day trip to Hawaii (kick back) that preceded it and the nine-day trip to Austin, Texas (grandkids) that followed it. Now you know the rest of the story. We only needed to be parking one car at the Los Angeles International airport. When she leaves for Texas on Monday she’ll park her car at LAX. Then when we return we’ll have just one car at the airport. Just about everything in the Lewis family revolves around successful logistics. Successful logistics saves time and money and makes life a lot easier. Today, on the four-hour drive over to Kansas City from St. Louis I stopped at a McDonald’s. I didn’t stop there primarily to eat or drink anything although I did that as well. I stopped there because McDonald’s has complementary Wi-Fi. I soon connected with Priceline.com. Priceline is my “go to” hotel reservation agent. I understand all of the strategies that make Priceline such a valuable tool for me. Soon I had a reservation at the Extended Stay America hotel in Kansas City, Missouri. I got an unbelievably low price of just $37 plus taxes and fees. Other guests who were paying the best available online rate for this hotel paid $69 plus plus. I operate on razor thin trackchasing budgets. Today’s hotel purchase would but put a smile on the face of my accountant. When I go on these trips I pack as lightly as I can. Typically that means no long pants. You will virtually never ever catch me with a pair of long pants when I’m in the sleepy little seaside village of San Clemente. However, for this trip I may have underestimated the on set of fall weather in the Midwest. Tonight it was going to be about 62° at 10 p.m. at the Lakeside Speedway. If there were any kind of a wind at all being in shorts and a T-shirt would not be the hot set up. It would be the COLD setup. I was considering an emergency pit stop at Wal-Mart for long pants. However, I knew if I did that I would be in line for an admonishment for Carol. I had left a pair of blue jeans with her to bring to Texas. I could have easily brought those blue jeans in my own travel luggage for this weekend. I did make that pit stop at Wal-Mart. That was a good idea. I was at the races tonight until 12:30 a.m. The temperature dropped to 57°. I’ve got to tell you this. I was surprised and impressed with the quality of Wal-Mart clothing. Last month, on an emergency basis (poor planning?), I bought a pair of rain shoes there for $8.97. They seemed to be of good quality. I couldn’t beat that price. I could have bought a pair of blue jeans today for less than 10 bucks. I ended up getting a pair for about twenty. I then saw a jacket I liked. That would set me back another thirty. I don’t think I can tell the difference in quality compared to if I have bought these items at a place that charges two or three times as much. THE RACING Lakeside Speedway – Kansas City, Kansas Now I was headed to the famous Lakeside Speedway in Kansas City, Kansas. The track first opened in 1955. However, in 1956 there were three fatalities at the speedway. They closed for about five years. During the period of 1988-1999 the track ran with an asphalt surface. I never did see a race there on asphalt. You may recall that sprint car star Doug Wolfgang suffered his critical fire injuries in an accident at Lakeside while racing on asphalt. Wolfgang sued the track for negligence. He won a large settlement. Several in the racing community dislike Doug Wolfgang for doing that. Racers and fans alike must sign a release when they enter the pit area at just about any track in the country. The pit release is supposed to limit or remove any liability a track may have if someone gets hurt in the pits. However, I believe if you can prove negligence on anyone’s part that causes you an injury you have a right to sue. It just seems to me that if someone does something that screws you up they should be on the hook for some penalty be it monetarily, jail time or whatever. Coming to Lakeside tonight I had no idea it was going to be such a well attended show. I figured I would grab a seat in the grandstands sit back and relax and watch some good old modified stock-car racing. That wasn’t exactly the case. Hot laps were scheduled for 7 p.m. with racing to follow at 7:30 p.m. I learned this from a bright and informative woman when I called the track earlier in the day. On that subject it would seem to me to be a good prudent businesslike choice for a track to have a phone number that is answered by a qualified individual. I would estimate that 70-80% of all tracks cannot meet this simple requirement. If that is the case how could you possibly expect them to start a show on time, run of the program efficiently and finish up in three hours or less? I have a “top 40” list of tracks that “get it”. How many tracks are in that top 40? I don’t know. I’m thinking it’s about 40 but it might be a little bit more. Lakeside Speedway is on that list. They get it. The parking lot was absolutely jam-packed. First, imagine in your mind a parking lot is jam-packed. Then jam-pack it some more and maybe some more. You still probably wouldn’t be thinking about what I saw tonight. Nevertheless, as you have come to find out I am a trained professional. I’ve been there, done that and bought the t-shirt. I know how to handle myself in parking lot situations like this. I created my own spot with my car facing the exit for a quick getaway. I had arrived at 7:30 p.m. I bought my $20 ticket. I was waiting to hand it to the ticket taker when the national anthem began to play. As is normally the case there was a track prayer preceding the national anthem. Most everyone stopped to acknowledge both the prayer and the anthem. However there is always “that guy” who feels they need to walk from point A to B during either the prayer and or the anthem. I know you’re not that guy because I’ve screamed everyone who reads these reports for superior intelligence. I’m 99.44% you have passed. Congratulations. Not only was “that guy” here tonight but also he wanted to exit while the prayer was being said. He passed the ticket taker while everyone was paused for the track prayer. He even took the liberty to hand stamp himself out as he left the track entry area. I’m going to guess that fellow doesn’t go to church on Sunday or think much about it. Nevertheless, I was soon sitting in the grandstands and ready to enjoy some very good racing I hoped. That was when I discovered that all of those cars in the parking lot meant a jam-packed interior at Lakeside Speedway. Someone made a lot of money tonight. Good on them. They took the risk. I looked all over for a seat. It wasn’t until I found the elevated wooden bleacher area that is located off turn four that I found one. I sat high up in the stands. Quickly my smile turned to a frown. In my opinion this track was way too big. There were about 100 cars in the pits just in the United States Modified Touring Division. The track size was going to eat those cars up. Each heat race started about a dozen competitors. On a track of this size, which was only a half-mile or so in length but looked bigger, the cars got spread out. There wasn’t much passing. I could only imagine what a six-car heat race looked like on this track. I was already imagining an early exit due to lack of entertainment. However I got to thinking. All of these fans had showed up tonight. They had parked their car in an overstuffed parking lot. They had paid $20 to see tonight’s racing. What was it that they were seeing that I was not? You know that’s not a bad way to look at things in life. If everybody is doing something and you don’t “get it” you might want to challenge yourself. What is it that everyone else thinks is so great about something? Maybe if the subject is analyzed properly then YOU will “get it”. If that happens your skill set has been enhanced. Remember, these are pearls. All you have to do is bend over and pick them up. After watching a couple of races from way high up and pretty far from the track overlooking turn four I decided to move around. That was an excellent choice. It would save the night for me. My situation reminded me of watching a movie. Sometimes in the first few minutes of a film I will almost instantly know I’m not going to like the show. Then I give it a little more time and end up changing my mind and enjoying the movie after all. That was the case tonight. I watched a couple of races from behind the front straight seating area. At 6’3″ tall I could stand behind the last row and see the racing pretty well. However it wasn’t until I reached the terrace seating area, where they charged a three-dollar premium over the regular ticket price, that I found my nirvana. The terrace seating is for people who drive their cars and trucks in and park them around turns one and two. These people had it “going on”. In some cases they had elevated rigs where they could watch the races from a height of 15-20 feet. Lots of folks were tailgating and cooking out. There were major spreads of food. If you had asked me before the race if I liked watching races standing off of turns one and two I would probably have told you no. However tonight that was a great vantage point. Watching the races from the terrace seating area put me about 20 yards from the actual racing action when the cars ran through the turns. I had a great view of the field roaring down the front straightaway. I could see the cars running the low, middle and high grooves. It was exciting to see them accelerate off down the backstretch after exiting turn two. Please don’t miss the video. You’ll see what I’m talking about. Tonight there was a local stock car class as well as the UMRA modifieds racing. These two divisions were the undercard to the very popular United States Modified Touring Series. The stock cars brought more than 20 entries. I’m guessing that UMRA had another 40 cars or so. As mentioned the USMTS boys and girls had about 100 racers. One of the drawbacks when I was sitting up in turn four was that I couldn’t hear the track announcer. That was a bummer. I didn’t know most of the cars and drivers. Having an announcer tell me who was driving and what the racing program was all about was important for my enjoyment of the show. When I moved down to the terrace seating area I could hear the announcer very well. Lakeside Speedway is doing a very good job in most every aspect of their promotion. However, they probably need to improve their public address system. There were about a dozen heat races tonight. Those heat races were followed by eight B main events. Then at nearly 11 p.m. they went to intermission. When they went to the intermission I went to the car to give Carol a call and have a bottle of DMD. I seriously considered leaving the track at that point. Lots of people were leaving. There was one thing I noticed about the groups that were leaving the track at intermission. Every one of those groups, many of them just couples, included a woman. Coincidence? I think not. Promoters, does this observation mean anything to you? I am frequently interviewed by track announcers. One of my funniest lines that gets a big crowd reaction goes like this. When I am asked what is the most difficult thing about trackchasing I tell them, “There are lots of challenges with the trackchasing hobby. However, the most difficult has to be asking my wife more than 2,000 times, “Honey, can I go to the races tonight”. Ba da bing! This line gets them EVERY time. If I had been staying a long way from the track I probably would have left at intermission. I had already been at the Lakeside Speedway for more than three hours. I like to set three hours as my maximum time at a racetrack under most circumstances but not all. My hotel, the Extended Stay America at the Kansas City airport, was only about a 20-minute drive from the racetrack. That helped me make my decision to stay on and enjoy the rest of the racing. Even after intermission they were still selling tickets and checking hand stamps for folks to get back into the stands. I began to watch the three feature races. The first was for the stock cars. Then the UMRA B modifieds were on the track. Finally the USMTS modifieds appeared for the finale. Throughout each of these races I saw set a steady stream of traffic leaving the parking lot. That stream was so heavy that their pace of leaving could not have been more than 3-5 mph. It was like an overinflated balloon with a slow leak. I was glad I had parked where I had parked because I knew I could get out quickly. They were a surprisingly small number of yellow flag delays tonight. I’m going to guess with a dozen heat races, eight B main events along with three A features there were not more than about 10 yellow flags all night. Some feature events have 10 yellow flags in the single race at other places! This is one of the reasons I tell you that the Lakeside Speedway “gets it”. Often times, make that most of the time, when a car spins out they sit on the track until the yellow flag is displayed. Then they start their engines and pull away. Often times I can’t blame a racer for that. They come to the track at 4 p.m. They don’t get out of the track until midnight. During the entire eight hours they are there their racecar gets on the track for 10-20 minutes. When they are racing they want a chance to compete not to allow the pack to leave them in the dust because they spun out or whatever. However, tonight it didn’t work that way. Most of the time when a racer spun out they got their vehicle going quickly. There was no yellow flag delay. By the way each yellow slows the overall program by another 2-5 minutes and sometimes more. Tonight the drivers either pulled back onto the track or headed into the track’s infield. That kept the show moving. Good on the drivers and the track for making that happen. During the first lap of the 22-lap stock car feature there was a major crash. Two competitors flipped. The delay to fix that took about 15 minutes. It was at this point that I questioned my decision to stay. They were going to be racing past midnight at this rate. However once they got the stock cars going again and shortened the distance from 22 to 18 laps the program started to move along. Then the UMRA modifieds ran their 22-lap feature race nonstop. It was a good one. They started nearly 30 cars in the USMTS feature. I’ve been at some tracks that would’ve had nearly 10 yellow flags in the first five laps of such a race. Of course these were USMTS drivers. They were the 30 best cars out of more than100 cars that showed up tonight. That was a lot better than watching the 30 best cars of the thirty cars that showed up at another track. I guess it might have been because of the lateness of the hour but tonight’s 52-lap feature USMTS feature race was shortened to forty-two circuits. Nevertheless the main event ran 42 laps with thirty cars and only had one yellow flag delay. That was impressive. AFTER THE RACES When the racing was all said and done everyone, including me, beat a hasty exit toward the parking lot. I was beginning to congratulate myself mightily for my parking agility. I was about 12th in line from getting back on the highway when a series of train track flashing lights appeared. During the night I had heard a few freight trains in the distance. Why did I hear that? Because the train tracks run adjacent to the Lakeside Speedway parking lot! Just when I was trying to exit along with several other thousand fans a train passed through. The train stopped everyone for about five minutes. However, no harm no foul. I was soon on the road and checking into my Extended Stay America hotel suite at about 1 a.m. I had resurrected this race day after fighting with the rain gods. The two tracks I had considered seeing in Indiana were rained out earlier in the day. I had had lunch with a good buddy in St. Louis. Now I had turned a rainy day into some very good racechasing at a track that ranks near the top of all tracks in the country. It had been a good day. It had been a very good day. Good evening from Kansas City Kansas. Kansas The Jayhawk state When I first saw the Lakeside Speedway in 2005 it was my 8th lifetime Kansas track. As this is written I have seen 39 tracks in the Jayhawk state. That gives me a #2 ranking here. Ed Esser holds onto the state lead by just a single track. 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 Kansas definitions: Storm What it means everywhere else: Clouds, rain, maybe some thunder and lightning. What it means in Kansas: Hell hath no fury like a Kansas rainstorm with high winds, hail the size of golf balls, thunder that shakes the ground, and at times, tornadoes. Editor’s note: I know of what I speak. My most harrowing driving experience ever occurred at 2 p.m. in the afternoon on a two-lane Kansas highway. A HUGE thunderstorm rolled through. I couldn’t see a thing! When I finally could see something I found a place to pull over….and stayed there for 30 minutes trying to compose myself. QUICK 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 575 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 to see the video production from the racing action today. Click on the link below for a photo album from today’s trackchasing day. You can view the album slide by slide or click on the “slide show” icon for a self-guided tour of today’s trackchasing adventure. Trains, buses and airplanes then really good racing 
