Greetings from Houston, Texas and then
Corpus Christi, Texas
From the travels and adventures of the
“World’s #1 Trackchaser”
MGAnderson Cancer Center Speedway at NRG Park – asphalt parking lot – Lifetime Track #1,972
CC Speedway – dirt oval – Track #1,973
Editor’s note: The tracks listed above were seen on the same day. This post will detail the entire day spent chasing these two tracks. Who does this? What would YOU do in this situation? Mugged in Houston. Why do I dislike street course racing so much? Carol can be an expensive date….but she’s worth her weight in gold. It doesn’t cost anymore to ask. I needed to get home so I could get back on the road again. 25 bucks down the toilet. Opportunists are trained to take advantage of confusion. This is not your grandfather’s IndyCar series. IndyCar…the minor leagues. Old, fast and for sale. So the promoter had his version of the Dreaded East Coast Trackchasers too. Wait! That’s not dirt. If there are a million ways to do things then short tracks will do them a million ways. Who does this? This is the last night of my 10-day trackchasing trip. I woke up this morning in the front seat of my Hyundai Sonata rental care near the SeaTac International Airport in Seattle, Washington. I went to bed in Houston, Texas. Who does that? This is how the day turned out. I think if I knew anybody that does what I do I would think they were crazy. However, when I do it I don’t think much of it. I know you don’t know anybody who does things the way I do. That’s O.K. Maybe that’s what makes some of this such interesting reading. What would YOU do in this situation? Last night following the final checkered flag at the Yakima Speedway I drove three hours across the mountain back to Seattle. I arrived about 2 a.m. With a 5:20 a.m. flight there wasn’t any time to get a hotel. What would YOU do in that situation? My answer was simple. I would simply find a quiet parking lot (most parking lots are pretty quiet at 2 a.m.) where I didn’t think I would be disturbed. Once I did that I simply leaned back the front seat of the National Rental Car Racing Hyundai Sonata and went to sleep. If you had to do this I’m sure you could. Do we really need a 5 a.m. flight from Seattle to Houston on a Saturday morning? Then I mosied over to the airport about 4 a.m. and returned the sixth rental car of this trip. I was surprised at how many people wanted to fly from Seattle to Houston at 5 a.m. on a Saturday morning. I was one of them. Mugged in Houston. It was raining in Seattle when I left. It would be raining a good deal in Houston as well. As a matter of fact it was hot, humid and raining all day in Houston. This city has to be the muggiest place I have visited in the U.S. I’ve been here many times so I say that with some experience. You might be saying to yourself, “If I had to sleep in my car overnight and take a 5 a.m. flight to a place some 1,000 miles away it had better be for something good”. Well, it wasn’t. No one should be forced to do this. I love trackchasing. However, I don’t think any trackchaser should be forced to see racing on a street circuit. Of all the types of cars and tracks I see watching Indy cars on a street circuit (parking lot in this case….just as bad) is the one I like the least. I don’t just like it the least I really detest it. O.K., I know what you’re saying. “Randy, are you really ‘forced’ to do this”? In point of fact yes. Why? It’s those Dreaded East Coast Trackchasers. I’m forced to keep their trackchasing totals far behind mine. So why did I take so much effort to get here? The answer was simple. The MGAnderson Cancer Center Speedway at NRG Park (formerly the much easier to say Reliant Park Complex) was here. If I didn’t see it the track would remain in my database of “tracks to see” for another year. I was getting tired of looking at the listing. It would be an easy track to knock off. I don’t like tracks remaining on that list for very long. Why do I dislike street course racing so much? In “The Races” section I’ll tell you why I dislike street course racing so much. However, every dark cloud (and there were a lot of dark clouds today) has a silver lining or at least people say they do. Later in the day I would be seeing an old asphalt bullring unlike much of what I see in today’s trackchasing world. That would be fun even if I had to drive my butt off to do it. After the races…….. Carol can be an expensive date….but she’s worth her weight in gold. This has been an odd trip. It was supposed to be just four days out. However my goal of seeing a game at every major league baseball park extended the trip to ten overnights. Carol was with me for several nights on this trip. Her accommodations are always a little better than when I am by myself. Don’t believe me? Check this out. Her first night was in a lovely boutique hotel in a toney suburb of Washington, D.C. From there she (me too) moved to a Marriott hotel that was charging more than $300 per night on the last night we stayed there. She does pretty well huh? How did I do on this trip when I was overnighting by myself? On the first night of the trip I flew a “red-eye” from Los Angeles to Cleveland. I didn’t even HAVE a hotel. The next two nights I stayed at a place that was rumored to have bed bugs! Then for four nights I stayed in the lap of luxury with Carol. As soon as she left I stayed at a Motel 6 just outside of D.C. that was in such a rough neighborhood that no quests were allowed at the hotel after 8 p.m. Then when I got to Seattle I stayed at two more Motel 6 properties that had the “normal” Motel 6 clientele. Finally, last night I slept in my car!!! Yes, Carol does pretty well. Could you help a fellow traveler? I figured on my every final night of the trip I ought to treat myself a little better. I went to my long-time trackchasing sponsor, Priceline and asked if they could help. They could. They set me up in a beautiful Marriott hotel in Houston. Whenever I get a Priceline hotel I can’t resist checking out what the “regular” people pay. That rate was $169 per night. With taxes they would be looking at about $200 U.S. per night. I don’t have the trackchasing budgets of those Dreaded East Coast Trackchasers. Maybe they can afford $200 per night. I can’t. I’m a retired pensioner living on a small fixed income….or something like that. Yes! How much could I afford to pay for a $200 per night hotel in Houston? Forty-four bucks. Yep. If they would take $44 U.S. I would stay at their place. You know what they said to that offer? Yes! I was more than pleased. It doesn’t cost anymore to ask. After I landed in Houston and before I went to this afternoon’s race I had just enough time to check in. Would they treat me any less well because I was a Priceline customer paying less than 25% of the going rate? Nope. They would treat me BETTER. During the check-in conversation the clerk noticed I have a very strong “link” to Hawaii. I can’t tell you much more about that. It turned out the clerk was going to Hawaii next summer. She wanted to know all about it. I was happy to share what I knew. During the conversation I always drop the fact that I am a Platinum member of the Marriott frequent stay program. That’s a bit like saying I used to be a U.S. senator. At places like this telling someone about my “status” would be an advantage. Let’s run the numbers. Recall I had paid just 44 dollars to stay here. Soon the clerk was giving me a free buffet breakfast including 15% tip. That goes for $14.95 plus tip. Then she was giving me the hotel’s high-speed internet for no charge. That goes for $14.95 per day to the “regular” people. Finally, she added 500 Marriott frequent stay points as my “welcome” gift. I didn’t have the heart to ask her for a junior suite. This knocked my real cost down to about $15 for the stay. That meant I was paying about 7% of the normal rate. Nope, I couldn’t do what I do without my sponsors. And now the fine print. There was just one minor “hitch” with all of this. By the time I got back from Corpus Christi tonight (actually early Sunday morning – 2:30 a.m.) I would be able to sleep for just four hours. My wake-up call came at 6:30 a.m. (4:30 a.m. San Clemente time). I had to get up early to have my complimentary buffet breakfast and get to the airport to standby for a 9 a.m. flight. Folks, I don’t recommend getting four hours of hotel sleep the night after getting three hours of rental car sleep. However it were what it were. I needed to get home so I could get back on the road again. I had to get home to sunny Southern California to meet up with Trackchasing’s First Mother. We would be driving less than 50 miles to see the final track of this trip. I’ll tell you about that soon. ONE CANNOT LIVE WELL OR SLEEP WELL IF ONE HAS NOT DINED WELL One of the greatest pleasures I get from the trackchasing hobby is being able to eat at so many unique gourmet restaurants along the way. Most of the time I don’t know where the best places to dine are located in advance. However, with Yelp! I can quickly find places that are highly rated by the customers that used these eateries. I have not found a better way to search out these most delicious opportunities that lie just out of reach of most folks. Whataburger – All over Texas If you’re in Texas and you’re looking for a burger and fries then the only real choice is Whataburger. Their fries are a cross between In N Out Burgers and Steak N Shake. That means they’re lightly fried, salted well and just real good. The burgers are big and have sort of a charcoaled flavor. The Diet Cokes come in a Styrofoam tub. For about seven bucks for the “#2” you’re going to be feeling real good about your stop at Whataburger. I did. MGAnderson Cancer Center Speedway at NRG Park – Houston, Texas Some things just have to be done. Oh my I really didn’t want to do this. Just about every aspect of today’s visit to a race in Houston was less than ideal. However, just like going to the dentist there are some things that are good for you that you might not like…but they have to be done. Parking fees at racetracks? I don’t like ‘em. First of all I would have to pay to park at today’s racetrack. I’m used to going to NASCAR events where at the track parking is always free. A few weeks ago I was fooled by a sign that said “Cash parking” when I attended a home game of the Texas Rangers. “Cash parking” tells you two things. First it says, “We are not taking credit cards”. That’s O.K. Secondly it says “We are not going to tell you in advance how much we are charging for parking”. I don’t care for that much. Sorry….I don’t follow the NFL. Today at “NRG” Stadium (I had ZERO idea what NRG stood for) they were charging 15 bucks to park. I parked across the street in a business parking lot for ten dollars. The savings nearly paid for my Whataburger lunch. This was a 100% safe place to park and walk to the stadium. 25 bucks down the toilet. The cheapest “general admission” ticket was 25 dollars. Heck, I would pay five times that if IndyCar would stop having street circuit races. I would pay five times today’s admission price if I could simply make a cash contribution to the Trackchasing Old Age Nursing Home, where many of the Dreaded East Coast Trackchasers will end up drooling all over themselves, if I could get credit for this track without having to go there. It was gonna storm. I paid for my ticket with my credit card. It was hot, humid and about ready to “storm” as we used to say back on the block. A few days ago I attempted to “ride it out” in an open grandstand when a gully washer came about in Indiana. That proved to be a bad decision when everything I was wearing needed to be “rung out” before racing would begin. Today I was a little bit wiser. Just as it started to rain I found a food tent. I hustled in there and watched it pour for a few minutes. When it stopped raining it was just more hot and humid. Opportunists are trained to take advantage of confusion. I didn’t think my general admission ticket was good for the two grandstands that were erected for this event. They were creatively named “Grandstand 1” and “Grandstand 2”. However, with the confusion the rain brought I simply walked into Grandstand 1 and sat down. This is my “Goldilocks” theory. I figured if they didn’t want me there they would say something. This is not your grandfather’s IndyCar series. IndyCar racing has fallen on hard times over the past twenty years. Today’s crowd was small. It would be difficult to guess how many fans there were because everything was so spread out. I might guess 5,000 but I don’t really now for sure. The race was being broadcast live on the NBC Sports Channel. IndyCar gets about 5% of the viewers that NASCAR Sprint Cup does. Who in their right mind….. The P.A. system was good. I liked the videotron too. I timed one-lap on the wet track at one minute and seventeen seconds. I could see the cars from my grandstand viewing position for about 8-10 seconds. That meant I could actually “see” about 10% of the racing. Who in their right mind would go to a major sporting event to see just 10% of the action? Apparently not many folks judging by the size of today’s crowd. This weekend was one of the three times this season where IndyCar will race “doubleheaders”. That means they have a race at the same location on both Saturday and Sunday. No, I would not be back for tomorrow’s second half of this doubleheader. I have never heard of many of the drivers on the IndyCar circuit. That’s pretty bad when I’m a major racing fan and I’ve never heard of half their drivers. IndyCar…the minor leagues. Over the past several years IndyCar drivers have attempted to make it in the much more popular and lucrative NASCAR circuit. Drivers like Montoya, Franchitti, Hornish and Patrick all winners in IndyCar can’t even run in the top half of the field with NASCAR. After watching much of the race from the grandstands I viewed the last half “on the move”. I took a systematic walk along the interior of the circuit. This race was essentially in the parking lot of the Houston Texans football stadium. At these impromptu viewing locations I could see the racing for about 3-4 seconds per stop. Nope as a racing fan this ain’t for me. However, as a trackchaser it fits the bill. Most of these types of races are during the day. That means they can become the “day” part of a “day/night” doubleheader. That’s a good thing. When I got back to my car I was pretty well soaked. It was hot and humid. My shoes and socks were wet. I was looking at a three hour plus drive with lots of wet stuff. I used the car’s air-conditioner vents to try to dry things. It worked a little but not a lot. CC Speedway – Corpus Christi, Texas Old, fast and for sale. They’ve been racing at the CC Speedway for more than 60 years. That’s what the sign says anyway. One more sign read “The fastest ¼ mile track in Texas”. However, another sign on the track property is less supportive. That sign indicated the track looks to be for sale. So the promoter had his version of the Dreaded East Coast Trackchasers too. The website had some interesting information to share with their fans. The promoter wrote this: “We feel the need to clear up any rumors. The Fact Is I OWN CC Speedway. There is no clause in the deed demanding it stay a speedway (It was mine and Donnie Yocum’s desire to keep it a speedway), but nothing in writing. To sum things up I have lost the love I once had for the sport. This year we will open 4 nights to support the TALMS,TPS and DWARFS and just go” RACING with my son and family” on our off nights and try to regain the passion I once had for the sport. C.C. has some of the most loyal and awesome drivers and crews in the sport. BUT there are those that ruin it for me and everyone else! Other classes can be added if car count is there. We hope everyone supports CC and also C.T.S. and Houston as I will and try to keep asphalt racing alive in Texas. Sincerely, Dan and Kandy Monroe The 2014 racing schedule calls for just four racing evens at the CC Speedway. That doesn’t sound good. I figured I better get down there before there wouldn’t by ANY racing ever again. I was seeing their third event of the year. A much better value than this afternoon. I paid just eight dollars to see the racing action. I benefited from a 20% price reduction for folks of an elderly age. I don’t think there should be senior discounts but as long as they offer them I will benefit from their generosity. Windy! One of the most notable experiences from tonight was the wind. It blew at my back (from my fourth turn seating position) at a constant 30 knots per hour. I normally use my iPhone to entertain myself during breaks in the racing action. The wind was so strong I had to hold onto my phone with two hands! Despite the temperature being in the mid to high 80s it didn’t seem that warm with the wind. I consciously picked a seat high up in the fourth turn grandstands. The track’s dirt looked blacker than usual. Iowa has the blackest racing dirt and this surface rivaled that. With the wind at my back I wouldn’t be bothered by dust. Wait! That’s not dirt. Then I looked a bit closer. That wasn’t black DIRT it was black ASPHALT. At least it used to be asphalt. Imagine a parking lot at one of those shopping centers that isn’t doing well. You know what I’m talking about. The shopping center that lost its anchor tenant and maybe a few other stores. THAT lot has pot holes and lots of gravel and such stuff. Now you know what the CC Speedway racing surface was like. This might have been the roughest looking short track asphalt surface I had ever seen. It wasn’t quite ready to be called a “mixed surface” track but it was close. There was a good deal of spectator seating that ran from the fourth turn to the first turn. The pits were located beyond turns three and four. I would guess there were 400-500 people in the grandstands. For short track racing that’s a pretty good crowd. The P.A. was good and the announcer kept everyone informed. Earlier in the week one of the racers had been tragically killed in a traffic accident. The promoter brought all of the cars out onto the track for a couple of slow laps in honor of their fallen hero. That was a nice gesture. The program was hard to understand. I didn’t really understand the racing program. They ran three classes of heat races. Those included the dwarfs, bombers and modifieds. Normally a track will run all of the heat races for one class and then move onto the next class. Tonight they ran a dwarf car heat, then a bomber heat, then a modified heat and then went back and repeated that process with the dwarfs, bombers and modifieds. Unusual but not unheard of. Then it was time for intermission. I decided to move into the turn one grandstand to get a different view of the racing action. That move took me past the concession stand. If there are a million ways to do things then short tracks will do them a million ways. There were THREE different lines for THREE different products. That’s a fine idea if you are in a group of two or more people. If that were the case then different folks from your group can stand in different lines. That was not the case for me. The concession signage was limited. I soon found myself standing in the soft drink/sno cone line. I wasn’t planning on ordering either of those. I soon moved to the food line where I was served a delicious chili dog for $2.50. Then I moved over to the beer line for a Coors Light also for $2.50 with a free “koozie”. I had spent five bucks for my supper. A couple of nights ago at the Skagit Speedway a single plain hot dog was $4.75. You’ve got to keep an eye out for folks who offer a good deal and folks who don’t. The numbers just weren’t working. I needed to be back in Houston by 1 a.m. I was thinking it was about a 2 ½ hour drive back from Corpus Christi to Houston. That meant I could stay at the track until 10:30 p.m. However, when I checked my phone I saw it was THREE and one-half hours back to “Space City”. I stayed til 10:30 a.m. anyway. This allowed me to see only two feature events. It also put me back to the hotel at past 2 a.m. That would give me about four hours of hotel sleep. The night before I had THREE hours of CAR sleep. Oh my. It’s feature time. The first feature event was for the Texas Sedan class. They had more than a dozen cars. That class had not ever raced during the heat race activity! That was unusual. They put on a good show over 35 laps on what looked to be a very rough track. Next up was the dwarf car feature. They ran 20-25 laps and again about a dozen cars but on a good race. Next up was the bombers. I wanted to see that race. However, with my hotel being 231 miles “up the road” I needed to get going. To give you an idea of how tired I was I needed a “12 minute powernap” on the way back. That’s pretty tired in my world. Texas The Lone Star State This afternoon and this evening I saw my 61st and 62nd lifetime tracks in the Lone Star state, yes the Lone Star. That’s good enough for the #1 ranking in Texas. 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 (I love this saying – Thanks Russ) QUICK FACTS AIRPLANE Los Angeles, CA (LAX) – Cleveland, OH (LCE) – 2,050 miles RENTAL CAR #1 Hopkins (Cleveland) International Airport – trip begins Croswell, MI Hopkins (Cleveland) International Airport – trip ends – 151 miles RENTAL CAR #2 Detroit Metropolitan International Airport – trip begins Hoagland, IN Detroit Metropolitan International Airport – trip ends – 571 miles AIRPLANE Detroit, MI (DTW) – Washington, D.C. (DCA) – 409 miles RENTAL CAR #3 Ronald Reagan National Airport – trip begins Summit Point, WV Middleburg, PA Washington, D.C. Ronald Reagan National Airport – trip ends – 770 miles AIRPLANE Washington, D.C. (DCA) – Los Angeles, CA – 2,294 miles Santa Ana, CA (SNA) – Seattle, WA (SEA) – 980 miles RENTAL CAR #4 Seattle-Tacoma International Airport – trip begins Seattle, WA (Trackchasing Tourist Attraction) Seattle-Tacoma International Airport – trip ends – 57 miles RENTAL CAR #5 Seattle-Tacoma International Airport – trip begins Seattle, WA (racechasing not trackchasing) Seattle-Tacoma International Airport – trip ends – 189 miles RENTAL CAR #6 Seattle-Tacoma International Airport – trip begins Yakima, WA Seattle-Tacoma International Airport – trip ends – 383 miles AIRPLANE Seattle, WA (SEA) – Houston, TX (IAH) – 1,874 miles RENTAL CAR #7 George Bush (Houston) Intercontinental Airport – trip begins Houston, TX Corpus Christi, TX George Bush (Houston) Intercontinental Airport – trip ends – 482 miles AIRPLANE Houston, TX (IAH) – Santa Ana, CA (SNA) – 1,346 miles Total air miles – 8,953 (6 flights) Total rental car miles – 2,613 (3 cars) Total miles traveled on this trip – 11,607 miles TRACK ADMISSION PRICES: Croswell County Fairgrounds – $8 ($2 fair admission) Hoagland Figure 8 Track – $8 Summit Point Raceway – $15 Penns Creek Raceway – $3 RFK Stadium – $25 Yakima Speedway – $20 MGAnderson Cancer Center Speedway at NRG Park – $25 CC Speedway – $8 ($2 senior discount) Total racetrack admissions – $112 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 QUICK FACTS AIRPLANE Los Angeles, CA (LAX) – Cleveland, OH (LCE) – 2,050 miles RENTAL CAR #1 Hopkins (Cleveland) International Airport – trip begins Croswell, MI Detroit Metropolitan Airport – trip ends – 151 miles RENTAL CAR #2 Detroit Metropolitan International Airport – trip begins Hoagland, IN Detroit Metropolitan International Airport – trip ends – 571 miles AIRPLANE Detroit, MI (DTW) – Washington, D.C. (DCA) – 409 miles RENTAL CAR #3 Ronald Reagan National Airport – trip begins Summit Point, WV Middleburg, PA Washington, D.C. Ronald Reagan National Airport – trip ends – 770 miles AIRPLANE Washington, D.C. (DCA) – Los Angeles, CA (LAX) – 2,294 miles PERONAL CAR Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) – trip begins John Wayne Airport (SNA) – trip ends – 41 miles AIRPLANE John Wayne Airport (SNA) – Seattle, WA (SEA) – 980 miles RENTAL CAR #4 SeaTac International Airport – trip begins Seattle, WA SeaTac International Airport – trip ends – 57 miles RENTAL CAR #5 SeaTac International Airport – trip begins Alger, WA SeaTac International Airport – trip ends – 189 miles RENTAL CAR #6 SeaTac International Airport – trip begins Yakima, WA SeaTac International Airport – trip ends – 393 miles AIRPLANE Seattle, WA (SEA) – Houston, TX (IAH) – 1,874 miles RENTAL CAR #7 George Bush (Houston) Intercontinental Airport – trip begins Houston, TX Corpus Christi, TX George Bush (Houston) Intercontinental Airport – trip ends – 482 miles AIRPLANE Houston, TX (IAH) – John Wayne Airport (SNA) – 1,346 miles Total air miles – 8,953 (6 flights) Total rental car miles – 2,613 (7 cars) Total personal car miles – 41 Total miles traveled on this trip – 11,607 miles TRACK ADMISSION PRICES: Croswell County Fairgrounds – $8 ($2 fair admission) Hoagland Figure 8 Track – $8 Summit Point Raceway – $15 Penns Creek Raceway – $3 RFK Stadium – $25 Yakima Speedway – $20 Reliant Park Complex – $25 CC Speedway – $8 ($2 senior discount) Total racetrack admissions – $112 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 MGAnderson Cancer Center Speedway at NRG Park – Indy Car Racing
Asphalt stock car racing – CC Speedway
Click on the link below to see today’s IndyCar race event: Some very wet IndyCar racing in Houston! Click on the link below to see today’s short track racing event: High-banked asphalt bullring racing from Corpus Christi, Texas 
1 comment
I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it, Randy, but my son works at MD Anderson Cancer Center. He has never mentioned a word about this race, but that’s not surprising since he’s not a fan of racing.
Like you, I have no clue what NRG stands for. Not Racing Good???
Sorry your trip to Texas wasn’t better this time. Between the weather, the crummy tracks, and other factors it sounded less than ideal. Hopefully next time will be better!
Russ