Ogemaw County Fairgrounds – road course

 

 

 

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:

 

 

Randy’s Complete Track List

 

 

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!

 

Randy on Facebook

 

 

 

 

ON THE WAY TO THE RACES

 

 

WEDNESDAY

 

Today was planned to be my second off-day in this 11-day trackchasing trip. You should know that I don’t look forward to off days on these trips. The only reason that I wouldn’t be seeing a race in the middle of a trackchasing trip is because there were no new tracks to visit.

 

 

Nevertheless, I would be transitioning from South Dakota over to Michigan. Along the way I had a few trackchasing tourist attractions that I was considering. The Iowa State fair was in full song. That would be a good place to stop. Seeing a minor-league baseball game in Gary, Indiana was a choice as well.

 

 

However, it was a phone call that I got last night while eating dinner at the Turner County Fairgrounds in Parker, South Dakota that turned today’s and last night’s travel plans upside down. Back in 2013 I saw racing on a dirt oval at the Ogemaw County Fairgrounds in West Branch, Michigan.

 

 

This year another bump and run race was scheduled for West Branch. Somehow I got the idea that this year’s bump and run might be run on a road course of sorts and not an oval. If that were the case I could go back to the Ogemaw County Fairgrounds today and see a new track configuration.

 

 

The challenge was going to be getting an absolute confirmation from someone at the fair that yes they were going to race on a dirt road course. Recall the classic definition of a road course is when the drivers must turn both left and right in order to get their car around the track.

 

 

I knew it wasn’t going to be easy getting the confirmation I was looking for. However, unless I had that firm confirmation I was not going to drive 14 hours overnight from Parker, South Dakota to West Branch, Michigan.

 

 

I had three primary phone numbers that I would try. Of course this was after I had contacted the owner and promoter of Unique Motorsports. He had returned my call without a firm confirmation as to exactly what the configuration was going to be. He told me that he is sometimes surprised with what the fairgrounds produces for him (in the form of track configuration) by the time he shows up on the day of the race promotion itself.

 

 

The first phone number was to a woman who was running the truck drag racing event the night before the bump and run. I never got a call back from her. The second call went to the fairgrounds general office. I figured that was my least likely avenue of success.

 

 

County fair offices are most normally staffed by volunteers. I would say that most of the time these volunteers don’t know the difference between a bump and run and a cow milking competition. No disrespect. That’s just the way those folks roll.

 

 

It’s also a difficult challenge on my part to explain to someone that I’m willing to drive 14 hours overnight from a faraway place like South Dakota to come see their bump and run event. I tell them I won’t come if the track is an oval configuration but I would if it were in a road course layout. That entire concept is not something that anyone else has experienced and so it goes straight over their head. It feels just downright weird taking people through the entire concept!

 

 

At least the woman today that I talked to at the general office number was willing to get another contact involved. That woman called me back and seemed to be willing to get “on the case”. However, in point of fact she didn’t return my call after our initial contact either.

 

 

My third and final call was to last year’s county fair president. I didn’t even know if she was working with the fair again this year or not. She was cooperative and gave me the phone number of a fourth person to call. This would put me in contact with the fellow who was expected to be building the track.

 

 

I called him a couple of times during the day but all I could get was his voicemail answering machine. So last night off I went to the enduro at the fairgrounds in South Dakota. As that point I was not expecting to be making the drive overnight to Michigan. Then I got the call.

 

 

Yes, I was getting a call back from the fellow who was going to build the track today, Wednesday. I asked him whether or not he was building an oval or road course. Of course when the term road course was used no one was thinking Monaco or Le Mans. I told him that any track that has the cars turning both left AND right is considered a road course in my book.

 

 

 

Tom the builder told me that yes he was going to be building a small chicane in the backstretch. Jim the owner/promoter of Unique Motorsports had asked him to do that this year so the cars would be slowed a little bit. The cars that race these bump it runs are not built to the highest safety specifications. Speeds need to be kept down so the drivers don’t get hurt.

 

 

I want to be clear on one particular point. Never in the process of my seeking information did I ask anyone to do anything that they weren’t going to do in the first place. That’s a big difference between how I operate and some of my fellow competitors.

 

 

 

Tom explained that he was going to built a small right-hand turn into the backstretch (actual track pictured above). That meant drivers would have to reduce their speeds to make that turn. I told him that that would meet the requirement I was looking for and I was willing to make the 14-hour drive to come see their racing. All I asked of Tom was that he not change his mind after he told me what he was going to do. He told me he was firm on the plan.

 

 

This new news certainly changed my line of thinking for the rest of the evening as I watched the stock cars go around the dirt oval at the Turner County Fairgrounds in South Dakota. I figured I would get out of the track at about 9 p.m. I would lose an hour driving from the central to the eastern time zone.

 

 

If I left South Dakota at 9 p.m. central time last night and arrived in time for tonight’s 7 p.m. Eastern time start I would have 21 hours to drive 14 hours. That was tight but doable. I checked out the route on GPS. I was a little bit dismayed to see there was a good deal of two lane road driving to be done. I didn’t necessarily want to be cruising down our nation’s two lane highways at 4 a.m. on little sleep.

 

 

I had a couple of hours to think about how I was going to handle the situation. During that time I came up with the idea that I might be able to fly to shorten the long drive times that were expected. Here’s how that would work.

 

 

I could drive from Parker, South Dakota down to Omaha, Nebraska in just 2 1/2 hours. There I could sleep in my car overnight. I would then catch a 6:10 a.m. flight from Omaha to Detroit. Once in Detroit I would rent a car and drive 2 1/2 hours up to the racing in West Branch, Michigan.

 

 

If I could see a race tonight in West branch that would be very convenient to tie in with a race tomorrow night, Thursday, in Gaylord, Michigan. Gaylord was just an hour up the road. Then following Gaylord’s event I would drive back to Detroit. From Detroit I would fly back to Omaha. Then I would drive to a race around Des Moines on Friday.

 

 

This new plan, which included putting an airplane in the middle of everything, would decrease my driving time from South Dakota to Michigan and back to Iowa from 26 hours to about 11 hours. I would be saving myself 15 hours of sitting behind the wheel, most of it in the wee hours of the morning.

 

 

Who wouldn’t vote for an eleven-hour drive rather than a twenty-six hour drive? However in life few really pleasing options like this exist without a cost on the other side.

 

 

Just to add to the overall challenge of this plan…..I would be flying standby on flights that would take me from Omaha to Detroit and then back to Omaha. I would have to take early-morning flights in order to make sure I could get a seat on a standby basis. Then in Detroit I would have to rent a car. In the meantime my current rental car would be parked in Omaha at the airport. That’s right. I would have TWO rental cars under contract at the same time.

 

 

I couldn’t just return my rental car to Omaha. I had picked it up at Indianapolis and had it for nearly a week. If that rental car contract all of a sudden turned into a one-way rental the rental expense could increase by more than $1,000.

 

 

My hotel plan wouldn’t change much. I had already been planning to sleep in my car on Tuesday and Thursday of this week with a hotel in the middle. That would be the same plan even though I was flying part of the way with my newest plan.

 

 

On the drive back to Omaha from South Dakota I stopped in a highway rest area in Iowa. There I made my airline reservations at nearly midnight for the flight that would be leaving in six hours. Iowa might be the only state that offers free Wi-Fi in their highway rest areas. They’ve done that for 10-15 years or so.

 

 

So there you have it. This is how I ended up in Michigan today. There’s a reason that no one can travel on my schedule. No one else can turn on a dime like I can. That’s one of my travel specialties.

 

 

I made it without incident to the Detroit Metro Wayne County Airport in Detroit, Michigan. However for some reason there was an extreme shortage of rental cars in Detroit.

 

 

I would have liked to have used my long-term rental car sponsor, National. However, because I had an existing National rental agreement open, that came from the car now parked in Omaha, I couldn’t rent another car with National. It’s always something isn’t it?

 

 

I ended up getting an economy car from Payless Rental Car that would cost me $132 for two days. I can normally get a full-sized car from National for three or four days at that price.

 

 

As I looked at my debits and credits for this new travel plan I noticed that the debits were turning out to be a bigger number than I originally expected. I would have the extra expense of the airplane ride, the extra rental car and the parking in the long-term lot in Omaha.

 

 

My “savings” would come from driving 15 hours less than originally expected. That was a hard savings. My “soft” savings would come from only having to drive 11 hours in the next couple of days rather than 26. Even though I had slept overnight in my car last night in a different state I still had enough energy for these big plans for today.

 

 

My trackchasing hobby centers around three things in no particular order. I want to see racing at tracks I have never visited before. I want to take the time to stop and see and experience the local attractions that the areas I visit have to offer. Finally I want to eat in the very best locations that are highly recommended by users. I use my iPhone app Yelp for that.

 

 

I don’t get the chance to go back to a lot of the trackchasing tourist attractions that I have visited in the past. There are exceptions to that rule. I’m happy for that.

 

 

Today I would be revisiting, for about the fifth time, Bronner’s Christmas Wonderland. Bronner’s is located in Frankenmuth, Michigan. It’s the largest Christmas store in the world with a building that covers seven acres.

 

 

I don’t have to buy anything at Bronner’s when I go there although I have on several occasions. I just like to look at all the displays. I’ll go in and listen to the movies then explain the history of Bronner’s. Today I did just that. I had a wonderful time. If I ever win the lottery I’m going to go to Bronner’s and buy just one of just about everything. That’s unlikely though. I don’t play the lottery.

 

 

The town of Frankenmuth is a quaint little place. Some might call it a tourist trap. Nevertheless, I used my Yelp app to find an outstanding Mexican restaurant.

 

 

I showed up at Poblano’s in mid-afternoon. The restaurant doesn’t have a lot of indoor seating. It’s located in what used to be a residential house from what I can tell.

 

 

I dined on extra crunchy tortilla chips, mild salsa and then the spicy salsa I asked for as well beef tamales. I washed it all down with a Diet Coke and a very tasty margarita. It was all good at Poblano’s.

 

 

Tonight I was headed to Ogemaw County Fairgrounds in West Branch, Michigan to see their county fair bump and run racing. I had been to see the racing at the very same fairgrounds in 2013. On that evening they raced on a dirt oval configuration.

 

 

 

THE RACING

 

 

Ogemaw County Fairgrounds – West Branch, Michigan

 

 

I have conversed with both the Unique Motorsports race promoter and the fellow who was building the track at the fairgrounds tonight. They decided they wanted to slow the cars down just a little bit. Bump and run type cars are not safety sophisticated to withstand high-speed crashes.

 

 

With that in mind they were going to build a small chicane in the backstretch of what used to be the oval track. Tom Nelson, the builder of the track, assured me that the chicane would not be severe but might be enough to slow the drivers down just a wee bit. That’s all I needed to hear. I would be returning to West Branch to see racing on the “road course”.

 

 

The weather forecast was not looking good for West Branch, Michigan. If this had been a traditional dirt oval track they would have canceled either based upon the forecast or the actual rain the area did receive. However bump and run racing rarely if ever cancels. I really like that aspect about this type of competition.

 

 

Racing was scheduled to begin at 7:30 p.m. I arrived at 5:30 p.m. to find a fairgrounds that have been drenched with an afternoon rain. I also found a parking spot right across from where drivers were checking in. I was encouraged by this process. They were going to race despite the weather.

 

 

I would pay a three dollar fair admissions/parking fee. Later I would pay $10 to get into the grandstands to watch the bump and run racing.

 

 

About 30 minutes before race time it stopped raining. That gave me a chance to scope out the fair. This was a very rustic looking fairgrounds.  Fortunately most of the walkways throughout the grounds were paved. Otherwise it would have been a muddy mess.

 

 

The Unique Motorsports group is well organized. Whenever I come to their shows all of their race cars are parked in the order in which they will race several minutes before it’s time to race. That way when the show begins there is no confusion. Everyone just pulls onto the track race by race with no delay. Tracks everywhere could learn a lot from that behavior.

 

 

On the one hand tonight’s track was a muddy mess. On the other hand, given the rain they had received, they were lucky to have a track at all. Kudos to the people who worked hard to make this happen.

 

 

There were about 60 cars on hand tonight. By a few minutes after race time the very large aluminum grandstand was full of fans. That was impressive from both a racer and fan point of view given the weather conditions up until 7 p.m.

 

 

The race program had three, possibly four different classes. These ranged from novice type four-cylinder cars to more sophisticated four-cylinder or six cylinder cars. They even had a rear wheel drive class. It was easy to see, just like when you take your car out of the snow, that front wheel drive cars can get around a slick surface a lot easier than rear wheel drive cars can.

 

 

I must admit that the chicane on the backstretch of tonight’s track, to the novice, was barely perceptible. However to my trained eye, remember I am a professional, I could see the indentation of the chicane. I also had the back up from the race promoter and the race track creator that a chicane was exactly what they built. All of that made me quite comfortable in counting tonight’s track as a new configuration.

 

 

It’s mid-August and the county fair season is winding down rapidly. Most of the county fairs in the United States operate from the first of July through about the middle of August. That probably covers 90% of the fairs.

 

 

 

AFTER THE RACES

 

When the racing for me was finished it was time to head to my car and get to the hotel. A huge crowd had shown up for tonight’s racing despite the early rainy weather.  I’m suspecting most of those fans lived within 25 miles of the fairgrounds.  They would sleep in their own beds tonight.  Recall that last night I slept in my car. Whenever that happens my next hotel stay is a welcome one.

 

 

Nowadays I rarely make a hotel reservation directly with the hotel. I almost always use Priceline.com to generate a significant savings.

 

 

However Priceline is not as effective in rural areas where the number of hotels and especially hotel chains is not as prevalent. That makes getting good hotel properties at significant savings a lot more difficult.

 

 

Tonight I ended up at the American Inn and Suites in Houston Lake, Michigan. Houston Lake was a little bit less than an hour from tonight’s location in West Branch. West Branch is about an hour from tomorrow night’s race location in Gaylord, Michigan.

 

 

Sadly, the hotel wasn’t that great. It was musty, reeked with humidity and everything seemed sticky. It was the worst hotel I’ve stayed at in a while.

 

 

Nevertheless, I had had an excellent trackchasing day. Being able to go to Bronner’s again, check out a very good Mexican restaurant and see a race on a night when any other race promoter would have canceled made everything a great deal.

 

 

Good evening from West Branch, Michigan,

 

 

 

 

Michigan

 

 

The Wolverine state

This evening I saw my 120th lifetime track in the Wolverine state, yes the Wolverine state. I think there are about three trackchasers who has seen more tracks than me up here. I’ve seen 120 or more tracks in 2 states.

 

 

 

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

Michigan definitions: Troll.

 

 

What it means everywhere else: A plastic doll with brightly colored hair and a gem for a belly button.

 

 

What it means in Michigan: The term Yoopers use to refer to those living in the Lower Peninsula. Get it? It’s because they live ‘under’ the Mackinac Bridge.

 

 

 

 

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.

 

 

1. Randy Lewis, San Clemente, California – 2,266

 

 

Total Trackchasing Countries

There are no trackchasers currently within 10 countries of my lifetime total.

 

1. Randy Lewis, San Clemente, California – 72

 

 

 

Current lifetime National Geographic Diversity results

 

1. Randy Lewis, San Clemente, California – 4.47

 

 

 

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.

 

 

 

My return trip to the Ogemaw County Fairgrounds…..the photo album