Greetings from Memphis, Tennessee
From the travels and adventures of the
“World’s #1 Trackchaser”
Memphis Motorsports Park
Asphalt oval
Lifetime Track #405
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Memphis Motorsports Park
Asphalt road course
Lifetime Track #712
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Memphis International Raceway
Mixed surface road course
Lifetime Track #2,315
I first went trackchasing at the Memphis Motorsports Park all the way back in 1999. On October 31, 1999 I saw a NASCAR “Grand National” race at MMP. This track was my 405th lifetime track. As you may know I did not begin writing my famous Trackchaser Reports until about track #430. However, I can tell you a little about our visit. First of all, I was seeing the race on Halloween night. Over the years I was rarely away from home on Halloween. Of course our kids ranged in age from 21-25 at this point so missing Halloween was not a big deal. My one and only note about the race commented on the bad traffic in and out of the race AND the fact that everyone stands at one of these NASCAR races. I have no idea why folks need to stand when they have a perfectly good view of the NASCAR race SITTING. I will never understand that. It’s surprising that this was the last race of my 1999 season. In today’s, let’s do this 12 months a year, trackchasing mode I can’t possibly imagine stopping my season with TWO months left in the trackchasing year. By the way Carol and I watched Jeff Green in the #32 win the main event on our visit to the MMP oval. Racing has been on again off again at the Memphis Motorsports Park. I have no idea why that would be. Don’t miss my Trackchaser Report from 2004 at the road course at MMP. I love posting these old “retro” reports. By reading reports from years ago it reminds me of the good times we’ve had over the years. I hope you enjoy the stories too. Simply click on the road course tab and you’ll be directed to a summary of our visit from 2004. Trackchaser Report reprinted with permission from May 30, 2004 visit to the Memphis Motorsports Park road course race. On Memorial Day, Sunday Morning, we awoke in our Magee, Mississippi Super 8 Motel room. The scent of used baby diapers has subsided somewhat. We’ve got a pretty easy trackchasing day today. It’s almost 9 a.m. and we only have four hours of driving to get over to Haughton, Louisiana. Since the races don’t start until 7 p.m. that gives us six hours of free time. Carol’s just coming out of the shower and I’m updating my Excel race programs. WAIT! WAIT! WAIT! What is this? I’m checking my race dates program and there is an afternoon race in Memphis, Tennessee today. How did I overlook that? My race dates program lists any racing activity at any track that I have never been too. In December of each year I start reading every racetrack website, racing newspaper and any other source of information to get these dates. The far right hand column of my database lists the source of the race date info and the date I entered the information into the program. Back on February 27, I found the Sports Car of Club of America (SCCA) date at Memphis Motorsports Park’s (MMP) 1.7 mile road course. This race information was three months old. Race dates do change from time to time, although the SCCA schedule is usually pretty firm. I tried all of the MMP phone numbers to confirm things but got no where. I resorted to using the internet from the hotel. At a 21.6 BPS internet speed rating it took forever to navigate the SCCA web site until I was able to confirm the race. Memphis was a mere 258 miles “up the road” from our location in Magee. Following the Memphis race we could catch the late model special at Pine Ridge Speedway in Baldwyn, Mississippi. Boy, this looks like a good plan. Unfortunately, I’ve been singing the praises of my original race plan to Carol and the limited amount of driving the great original plan would require. Like many husbands with a good plan, make that a good NEW plan, the next question is how you share the good plan with your wife so as to get the positive response needed to make the plan a reality. Editor’s note: This is why my title of being the “#1 trackchaser while being married” title is so well earned and significant. Unmarried trackchasers can just alter their plan on a second’s notice and go on down the road. Back to the people/travel news: Carol was just drying her hair from the shower when I put on my best smile and “just came out with it”. “How about catching an afternoon race that just increases our driving distance by about 100 miles?” I think the best approach by far between husbands and wives is the direct one. Just say what’s on your mind. I anxiously waited for a response. I was taught a long time ago in sales that when you ask a question, have the sense to keep your mouth shut until you get an answer. I kept my mouth shut and Carol responded with a, “Yes”. Great, we’re off to Memphis! Along the way we stopped at the Krystal hamburger chain for breakfast. Krystal is the south’s equivalent to White Castle, one of my all-time favorites. We each had the Sunrise combo while we watched the customer next to us be rejected for trying to use his wife’s credit card. No dice said the cashier, and the customer walked away without his breakfast. New Orleans, Louisiana Airport – trip begins Hattiesburg, Mississippi – 124 miles Mendenhall, Mississippi – 299 miles Memphis, Tennessee – 601 miles TRACK ADMISSION PRICES (U.S. Dollars): Southern Speedway – $10 Simpson County Motorsports Park – $10 Memphis Motorsports Park – Road Course – Free RACING NEWS: Carol and I had been to the Memphis Motorsports Park asphalt oval back in 1999. It was during that trip that we visited Graceland. If you come out this way, go to Graceland. Today’s racing was supposed to start around noon. We got minorly lost trying to find the track once we got into Memphis. As it was about 2:30 p.m. I was beginning to think we might miss the whole thing. When we did get to the track a race was already in progress. I didn’t know it at the time but this was the third race of the four that would run today. We could see about 80% of the track from our position outside of the facility. No one could drive their car into the pit area until the race that was underway was finished. Since I didn’t know for sure if there was a race following the one we were watching I explained to Carol the, “Will White outside the fence spectating rule”. Loosely stated it says you don’t actually have to be on track property or have purchased a ticket to count a track. If you can see the race that’s what makes it count. We actually were on track property (the entrance lane to the infield) and we could see them racing. I still don’t have a ruling on whether flying over a track while the cars are racing counts as “seeing competitive racing”. Anyway, this was typical SCCA racing on a 1.7-mile road course. Once inside you could just about see the entire track. There were lots of Mazda Miatas, Porches, VWs and a Corvette to name of few of the cars in competition. We could not hear an announcer from any part of the track. We did walk all over the grounds. I got a great picture of Carol with the #89 car. This car won the third race of the day. The unique thing about the #89 car is that it had a big “John Kerry for President” sign on it. Carol is a huge George Bush supporter. She says I tricked her into the photo. I simply told her I wanted to take her picture next to the race winner’s car. You are the judge on whether or not this was yellow journalism or not. RACE TRACK FOOD: I didn’t see if they were selling any food here or not. We were inside the track area for an hour or so and didn’t eat any track food. RENTAL CAR UPDATE: The Avis Racing Taurus Rental Car was parked neatly inside the 1.7-mile road course. It looked like it might rain at any minute. If it had rained, we could have watched the racing action from the car. ED ESSER UPDATE: All Ed Esser updates will appear in my last track report of each trip. You can keep track of Ed at, www.2arace.com . Randy Lewis #1 Trackchaser living west of the Mississippi That’s all the news that’s fit to print from San Clemente where the women are strong, the men are good-looking, and all of the children are above average. **Charleston Speedway, Charleston, Illinois, May 22 **Sunshine Speedway (oval), Pinellas Park, Florida, April 3 **Central Arizona Raceway, Casa Grande, Arizona, January 20 THE EVENT Once in a while I get the chance to see racing at two different tracks or more in one day. That was the case today. When that happens I will sometimes combine both track visits in one Trackchaser Report. I will do that today. I have had the opportunity to follow my trackchasing hobby all over the world. As this is written I have seen racing in 74 countries. My lifetime track total exceeds 2,300. Each and every year I will trackchase in 25-30 states. At track #1,040 I moved into the “World’s #1 Trackchasing” spot. My hobby is not only about racing. Trackchasing for me centers around three things. The racing part is pretty obvious. However of equal importance is the logistics of trackchasing and the opportunity to see the world. I live in Southern California. The vast majority of tracks are located in the Midwest and East. It takes a good deal of logistical planning to get from where I live to where the tracks are. For the past 15 years I have traveled about 175 nights each and every year. Surprisingly to some, more than half of those overnights were not part of trackchasing. Then there’s the travel just for the fun of seeing new things. You won’t want to miss my “Trackchasing Tourist Attractions” page or my “Sports Spectating Resume” page on my website at www.randylewis.org. That will give you some understanding on how important seeing the world is with my hobby. Today’s adventure was one more of the 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 I woke up this morning in an Extended Stay America hotel in Tampa, Florida. My friends over at Priceline.com were kind enough to get me a room at 50% off the very best price the hotel was offering. Who in their right mind pays $100 or more for one of these ESA rooms? It was Saturday morning. My last shower had been at mid-day on Thursday. That shower felt good. I had to make this morning’s shower a good one as well. I won’t have a chance for another until likely Monday morning. I had two McDonald’s sandwiches waiting for me in the fridge. One was given to me by mistake last night as I cruised through the drive-through. It was nice to have a microwave in the hotel to heat things up. My alarm had come at 5:50 a.m. I was staying just 2.7 miles from the airport. In less than one hour I had showered, shaved, had breakfast, driven over the airport, returned my rental car, cleared security and was quietly sitting at gate C40 for my flight this morning from Tampa to Memphis. I’ve done what I do for a long time now. At every turn I try to create efficiencies and cost-effective measures so I don’t squander Carol’s retirement nest egg. So far so good. Once my plane landed in Memphis I would have three full hours to get over to the Memphis international Raceway. Racing was scheduled to begin at 12:10 p.m. Despite how well the things I could control today were going the airplane situation wasn’t quite as good. We boarded our plane on time at 8:05 a.m. Off we went into the friendly blue skies headed toward Memphis, Tennessee. However, after just about 20 minutes in the air, the pilot told us there was something amiss. We couldn’t gain altitude. We would have to return to the Tampa airport. Now my three-hour buffer time was being jeopardized. Fortunately the airline came up with a replacement plane in quick order. Off we went for a second time toward Memphis. I used to come to Memphis quite often on business. Carol and I have seen Elvis’ home, Graceland, multiple times! The airport is definitely showing it’s dated construction of the 1970s. You don’t see a lot of exposed brick in airports anymore. Over the years there has been a large amount of airline consolidation. When that happens the hub airports of the airline being acquired sometimes hits rough times. That is the case with Memphis. They were a hub for Northwest Airlines. When Northwest was acquired by Delta, Memphis ended up being phased out as a connecting hub. The same type of thing has happened to Cincinnati’s airport. They are both a shadow of their former selves. I’m not a big fan of Ford Fusion automobiles for my rental cars. However, today there were only one or two sedans available. Everything else available was an SUV. SUVs don’t get very good mileage compared to sedans. I say that even though I own an SUV myself. Today I was able to get a Ford Fusion hybrid car. I was happy with that. That car would give me great mileage. I wouldn’t save a lot. I would only be driving the car a little bit more than 250 miles. THE RACING Memphis International Raceway – Memphis, Tennessee Off I headed to the Memphis International Raceway. The facility opened in 1987 with a road course and drag strip. In 1988 they put their oval track in operation. The track went through some ownership changes and closed in 2009. In 2010 the track was sold at auction for $1.9 million. The track re-opened in April, 2011. The track seems to be on a minor upswing now with a NASCAR Xfinity race and today’s Red Bull GRC series event. On May 30, 2004 Carol and I returned to what was then the “Memphis Motorsports Park”. We saw racing on their paved road course. That track was lifetime #712. In the fiver years since we had last come to Memphis I had only added about 300 new tracks. Did I ever expect to return to this facility? Yes, I did. For a while they were going to built a dirt oval for big races here. However, that plan fell through. Nevertheless, today I was returning to the “Memphis International Raceway” to see racing on a “mixed surface” road course. There were now more than 1,600 tracks between today and my last appearance here just 13 years ago. I also have a history with the Red Bull Global Rally Cross group. They were the attraction today. I must be honest. Overall, I am not a big fan of this sanctioning body. Let me tell you why and see if you agree. I have seen about 10 GRC events in my time. They are good for one thing when it comes to trackchasing. They always race on a mixed surface of asphalt and dirt. Trackchasing rules allow chasers to count track configurations, i.e. road courses in this case when run on dirt, paved or mixed surfaces. The Red Bull GRC website told me that today’s track would be 1.18 miles in length. It was 82% paved and just 18% dirt (above). Folks, that is a “mixed” surface. Now let me tell you the two major aspects of coming to a Red Bull GRC event that I don’t like at all. First and foremost I would have to say they are absolutely out of their minds with regard to their admission prices. Can I be any clearer? Here’s a group that is trying to be a major United States sanctioning body. Nevertheless, they draw about 1,000 or maybe 2000 fans, if I’m being optimistic, to their events. That was the case today. There just weren’t many people here. I thought I had read on the website that admission for today’s racing was $40 U.S. However, later in the day I would inquire at the ticket office. I was told that a ticket for today’s racing would be $60 U.S. I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore. There I’ve said it. I can’t take it back. What in the world are these guys thinking? However the trackchasing gods must have been reading my mind. I paid $10 to park. That got me riled up. I’m thinking that when the NASCAR Xfinity Series comes to the Memphis International Raceway in a few weeks they won’t be charging for parking at all. NASCAR doesn’t charge for parking on the property of their tracks. I asked the parking attendant if there would be a parking charge for the Memphis NASCAR race. Her response was, “I don’t know. I don’t work here. I’m just collecting the parking money to help our football team”. After I parked I was getting myself organized and standing beside my car. The fellow who had just parked next to me walked past. He looked over in my direction and asked if I needed a ticket. I told him that I did. He gave me one for free. On top of that he asked if there was anybody else with me. There wasn’t. Thank you Jesus. I’m going to say there were 1,000 or maybe a little more fans at the track property today. The track’s one main grandstand was absolutely 100% totally vacant. The smaller stand at any one time was about one third full. Why in the world are they charging $60 a ticket? I saw several people that had sponsorship gear, nametags and stickers affixed to their shirts. I’m betting, especially after seeing so many children with their dad’s, that lots of people got free sponsor tickets. That was probably the case with the man who gave me my ticket. I wondered how many people had actually paid $60 for today’s racing show? The Red Bull GRC group has a two-class show. The two classes are called super cars and lites. The super cars brought a grand total of nine cars to the races today. I’m not really sure how many the lites but I’m guessing it less than nine. I call the Red Bull GRC group the “five cars for five laps” sanctioning body. Why? It because most of the races have 4-5 cars running for 4-5 laps! Let’s just think about this for a moment. NASCAR is racing at Richmond this weekend. What if NASCAR pulled in nine cars for their top class? What if their races had five cars racing for five laps? What if they charged you 60 bucks to see that? Substitute the words “Eldora or Knoxville” for NASCAR above. All of these groups would be laughed out of town. I’m going to have to seriously think whether or not I want to attend any more Red Bull GRC events. I certainly can’t count on someone giving me a free ticket the next time I show up. Racing at these admission rates is outrageous. Few cars racing for few laps at a hefty ticket price is a pretty bad combination. Today’s mixed surface road course included a good deal of the permanent paved oval track at the Memphis International Raceway. There was only one jump. It was partially obscured by the infield parking garage from the main grandstand. Once the cars left the starting line there was virtually no passing except when the drivers chose there one and only joker lap. Today the joker lap saved the drivers about 1.5 seconds. A nice plus for these events is being able to have full access to the paddock area. The cars themselves are great looking. Being able to see them up close is an added benefit to GRC shows. This crew must be getting a ton of TV money. However, I know that IndyCar TV ratings are just about zero. Red Bull GRC must be less than IndyCar. The race teams have these huge car haulers. There appears to be 5-10, or more, crew and support people per race team. This looks to be a very expensive sport for the competitors. Where does the money come from and why? I am a retired businessman. Businesses exist to make a profit for their owners. I understand that the racing teams are getting dollars from advertisers. The advertisers must attract a TV audience and/or a fan base at the track. There are essentially no fans at the track. The races are shown on a recorded basis. If I had to guess I would say their TV ratings are very low. Why would sponsors put money into this type of activity with so little support? You may have heard it here first. I don’t think this group will be here in the future. Their racing program lasts 4-5 hours. During that time they continue to run 5-car, 5-lap races one after another. The races are called heats, semi finals and finals. One race pretty much looks like the next. I think of this type of racing as a buffet. When you pass by the buffet table you don’t necessarily eat everything that is presented. I took two separate walks to the paddock area observing everything up close. I watched all of the racing until I was just full of watching one very similar race after another. It was at that point that I left the Memphis International Raceway. AFTER THE RACES Now I needed to choose a racing location for tonight, Saturday night. I considered a couple of karting tracks in Kentucky and Arkansas. However I really couldn’t confirm that they would be racing cars that met trackchasing’s sometimes stringent rules. I elected to take the safe bet. I would head over to the Thunderhill Raceway in Summertown, Tennessee. It’s a traditional dirt oval track. I’ve seen more than 90% of all of the dirt oval permanent racing facilities in the United States and Canada. That’s a pretty strong and true statement. The good thing about going to Thunderhill was that it was in the direction of Nashville, Tennessee. Although I had flown into Memphis this morning, tomorrow morning I would be flying out of Nashville. That would allow this trip to continue on its merry logistical way. THE RACING Thunderhill Raceway – Summertown, Tennessee The Thunderhill website told me that “racing/qualification” would begin at 6:30 p.m. That was somewhat of a nebulous phrase. As things would turn out the first race at the track took the green flag at 8:10 p.m. You’ve got a love the short track auto racing industry. Nevertheless, I thought the racing at Thunderhill was very very good. They were 92 cars in attendance spread over seven or eight racing classes. I wondered how Thunderhill had benefited from the last-minute cancellation at the Tennessee National Speedway. That track is only about 30 miles from Thunderhill. Research told me that a broken water main sunk the Tennessee National boat tonight. The announcer told the crowd that the Thunderhill high-banked red dirt oval was a three-eights mile track. I doubted that. The crate late model division was turning laps in the 12.5-second range. I didn’t think that class could get around a three-eights mile track in less than 13 seconds. I had a good-looking cheeseburger and a plastic bottle of Diet Pepsi for just $6.50. That seemed reasonable after paying three dollars for a bottle of water at the Memphis International Raceway. Thunderhill did a good job of running one race after another. They actually stuck to their promise of having only a 15-minute intermission. Nevertheless, heat racing did not finish until 9:50 p.m. It brings to mind the idea of putting nine pounds of taters in a five-pound sack. I think that any track that advertises that “racing/qualification” will begin at 6:30 p.m. should be sending their patrons home at 9:50 p.m. and not to the concession stand for intermission. At intermission I switched my seating location from down toward turn one to over near her the exit of turn four. There I sat next to a nice young fellow by the name of Dylan. He just relocated down to Tennessee from northwestern Pennsylvania. Dylan got a good job at a factory producing auto parts for General Motors. He works a 40-hour week plus another four hours on Friday on second shift. Back in my college days I used to work second shift. You can really save a lot of money working 4-12. Dylan admitted the folks are a lot nicer in Tennessee than up in Pennsylvania. He even provided a couple of examples since he’s been living in the Volunteer state for six months. Dylan is a mini Stock racer. He has two cars still up in Pennsylvania. He plans to relocate down to Tennessee and begin racing down here. I hope he does well and stays safe. Dylan was a nice guy. I thought tonight’s flagman was a little quick with the yellow flag. Whenever one driver got a little rough with another he would immediately throw the yellow delaying the race. Then he would put the offending driver to the back of the pack. I can’t ever recall seeing it done that way. The “hot shot” class brought 24 cars to the track tonight. At other tracks they might be called mini-stocks. They were a wild and crazy group that raced faster than seemed good for the car’s capability. There was a major in end over end flip in the feature. Luckily the driver escaped serious injury. The high-banked track seemed to be good for a couple of things. First there were more blown engines tonight that I’ve seen probably in the past year. There were more flat tires that I’ve seen probably in the last year. Nevertheless, the track was really good for two-groove and sometimes three abreast racing. I saw several close finishes and lots of really good battles. I pay just $10 for my general admission ticket. That was a two-dollar savings because of my aged status. Members of the military as well as police and fire that could show the proper ID were admitted at no charge. That was a nice touch by the Thunderhill Raceway. The grandstand seating area was small. Their grandstands were only seven or eight rows tall. They did have at least 10 very nice suites for the VIP guests. You won’t see that set-up at very many dirt short tracks. The PA system was generally good and the announcer was entertaining and informative. That part of the program went very well. I left the speedway at ten minutes after midnight. I can’t recall being at a track that late for a good long time. That might tell you that I enjoyed the racing very much and the company of my new friend Dylan. When I left they still had at least two features to run. Apparently they have no curfew at this track! AFTER THE RACES From Thunderhill I drove about an hour and 15 minutes over to the Nashville airport. I was surprised at how little fuel my Alamo Rental Car Racing Ford Hybrid Fusion had used. I drove the car some 269 miles. I could only put 5.4 gallons in the tank when I filled it up. That’s more than 49 miles per gallon! I arrived at the Nashville airport at 2:30 a.m. It was too late or too early, depending upon your point of view, to clear airport security. Therefore, I grabbed a very soft leather couch. It was part of a bar’s seating area. I slept there. For some ungodly reason a lot of activity started at the bar at 4:30 a.m. With two hours sleep I packed up my shit and cleared airport security. I spent about an hour in the American Airlines Admirals Club. It was Sunday morning and I had an afternoon race today. There was business to take care of. Good afternoon from first Memphis, Tennessee and then good evening from Summertown, Tennessee. Tennessee The Volunteer state This afternoon and evening I saw my 33rd and 34th lifetime tracks in the Volunteer state, yes the Volunteer state. I’ve seen 34 or more tracks in 20 separate states. No trackchaser can match those numbers. 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 definitions: Moon pie What it means everywhere else: A pie made with stuff from the moon. 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 20 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. Red Bull Global Rallycross racing from the Memphis International Raceway 
GREETINGS FROM MEMPHIS, TENNESSEE,
PEOPLE/TRAVEL NEWS
CUMULATIVE DRIVING DISTANCES:
Racetracks visited in 2004 (** not the first time to visit this track)
I have a history with this track with this track as well. I first went there in 1999. Carol and I went there to see Jeff Green win in what is now the NASCAR Xfinity Series. We saw that race on October 31, 1999. That track, lifetime track #405, was the last new track I visited that year. How things have changed. It didn’t use to be unusual to end a trackchasing season in October. Now I routinely see several new tracks into December.
What it means in Tennessee: A snacking favorite in Tennessee, known for perfectly combining chocolate, marshmallow, and graham cracker.
