Greetings from Oreville, Pennsylvania
From the travels and adventures of the
“World’s #1 Trackchaser”
Lifetime Track #1,896
Who sleeps overnight in their car in Detroit, Michigan? ……………more in “The Details”. What did the NASCAR channel have to do with my rental car?……………more in “The Details”. You had to love Uncle Bill and his wife Lucille. ………….more in “The Details”. It’s just different “back east”…………..more in “The Details”. I had never seen THIS before. …………more in “The Details”. First I stole something and then I stole some more. …………more in “The Details”. Paul and Bing. Bing and Paul………….more in “The Details”. What if a cop stopped you in a 40 M.P.H. zone and gave you a ticket for going 35 M.P.H. just because he thought the speed limit should really be 25 M.P.H.? ………….more in “The Details”. A pile of bullshit is not a rose garden. ………….more in “The Details”. I fell in love with Bing at just this moment (speaking figuratively of course)…….more in “The Details”. Joshua, I feel your pain……more in “Attractions”. It wasn’t what I was expecting but it still worked out…………..details in “Race Review”. Who sleeps overnight in their car in Detroit, Michigan? I woke up this morning in a Detroit, Michigan Wal-Mart parking lot. Yes, it happens. I went to bed in Allentown, Pennsylvania. Who sleeps in their car overnight in Detroit anyway?? This is what today looked like. My iPhone alarm came at 5:15 a.m. I was off to the Detroit Metropolitan Airport for a flight to New York’s LaGuardia airport. Detroit is one of my top five favorite airports at least in the Delta Airlines terminal. Still last on the list. I’ve had my airline sponsorship program for seven years and I was still LAST on the standby list of 15 passengers bound for New York this morning. Nevertheless, I made the flight. Some might not understand this but given ALL the factors I would much rather fly standby than on a fully paid ticket. I wouldn’t say that if it were not true. From one of the best airports to one of the worst. Sleeping overnight in my car is not really a preferred option. Maybe that is why I slept on the airplane all the way to LaGuardia. By the way the LaGuardia airport is one of the worst airports in the country for passenger amenities. Terrible. I did something I rarely do. I checked my rolling bag that was jammed full of 28 days worth of clothing and related materials. I never like to be more than arm’s length from my bag but on this occasion it worked out fine. What did the NASCAR channel have to do with my rental car? Next up I needed to get my rental car. By the way if you are a trackchaser you must be seeing an overall trackchasing program that is much much different than yours or any other trackchaser you know. Don’t worry. It’s O.K. for everyone to roll a bit differently. New York is probably the most expensive city in America for rental cars. LaGuardia was a good choice for today though. The airport was just 113 miles from the racetrack I was visiting in Oreville, Pennsylvania. With an afternoon start time, time was of the essence. I normally prefer renting Hyundai Sonatas because of their superior gas mileage and satellite radio. However, sometimes their satellite radio programming does not include the NASCAR channel. Usually I will get in the car and check the radio to see if “Channel 90” is part of the package or not. Today I could not find a Sonata with the NASCAR channel. You had to love Uncle Bill and his wife Lucille. My only other choice was a Ford Fusion. I grew up in a family of Ford people. Everyone one in our family drove a Ford except Uncle Bill and Lucille. At our Memorial Day family reunions there would be a huge line of Ford Galaxie 500s and then….then whatever transported Uncle Bill and Lucille. Bill, a prison guard from Terre Haute (who looked a lot like comedian Tom Arnold), and his wife Lucille both tipped the scale at about 300 pounds each. They usually showed up at the family reunion on their Harley Davidson motorcycle or in a Chevy II. Lucille made the best sweet rolls! However, since those family reunions in the late 50s and 60s Ford has taken it on the chin. Granted they did not take any bailout money but they do rank below the industry average in dependability in the 2013 J.D. Power rankings. Who is number one by a large margin? Lexus! Could this Ford Fusion get me to the track on time? Hopefully my Ford Fusion would get me to the track on time. I was taking a chance. The car I picked out was all dressed up with a black leather interior, sunroof and Sirius satellite radio WITH the NASCAR channel. With V-8 power I could get up and down the road pretty fast. However, I knew when it came time to fill-up the tank I would pay for my speed advantage. I was surprised at how small the side mirrors were. I love big mirrors. The driver’s seating area was much more cramped than I was expecting. With the console hemming me in I couldn’t relax my right leg at all. The car was quiet, however the ride was rough. This might not have been all the Fusion’s fault. The road conditions from LaGuardia into New Jersey were deplorable. No, I am not a fan of the infrastructure around much of the East coast. I will have to check with my dentist (who I am sure is reading these very words) upon my return. If I need a few new fillings I’m filling a claim against the Ford Motor Company and their affiliates. Then I will go after Ford’s power steering supplier. I felt as if I were doing some kind of isometric weight training exercise just changing lanes. The Sonata can be steered with one finger. Overall at his stage I’m voting for the Sonata hands-down. Why can’t domestic carmakers to a better job? I picked the least stable track from the two choices available today. Today’s plan called for me to see some kart racing in Oreville, Pennsylvania. My original plan had me visiting a track in Belmar, New Jersey. They also raced karts there. Based upon my flight arrival into LaGuardia I could make it to only one of these tracks. I chose Oreville because I considered it to be the least stable of the two tracks. Only time will tell on that one. The Major Deegan Expressway built in 1956. I would pass the new Yankee Stadium by paying $7.50 to cross the bridge on the Major Deegan Expressway. This expressway was completed in 1956. Does that mean these potholes have been here for nearly 60 years? At the airport I had an option to get a renal car toll pass for $2.70 per day plus the cost of tolls. That didn’t seem to be as good of an offer as they make in Chicago. There it’s seven dollars per day but includes unlimited tolls. Once I escaped the Bronx I was getting out into New Jersey. There the roads seemed to smooth out and the pleasant forest scenery was looking good. New Jersey is a much more rural than lots of folks might think. Who has the best Philly cheesesteak in the immediate area? Truth be told it was 11 a.m. on Sunday morning. I was in full search of a Philly cheesesteak sandwich. This area is known for their cheesesteaks. Check out the “Attractions” tab to see how that went down. It’s just different “back east”. Folks it’s just different back here. I don’t know how to say it and I certainly don’t mean it to sound critical. It’s just different. I’m recognized for telling it like it is, from my point of view anyway. “Back East” it just seems as if everyone has a healthy dose of skepticism. Is that the politically correct way to say it? It could be 107 degrees in the shade with no shade. I might say, “It sure is a hot one today”. I could just about hear the response, “Not really you should have been here last week”. Mind you I am NOT saying all Easterners behave this way…..just more than would be statically expected. Some of my very good friends, who live in the East, are the most open-minded gentle people I know. What are YOU looking at? Today at the cheesesteak restaurant the fellow ahead of me was wearing a gravy-stained gray t-shirt. He kept looking me up and down. Granted, even for me, I was wearing a “non-East coast” outfit highlighted with gray and red Nike running shoes and black socks. I wore a flowered dark pink aloha shirt (that’s a Hawaiian shirt for you tourists) topped with a bright red U.S. Open golf zippered windbreaker. At least he didn’t catch me wearing my bright “Petty Blue” framed reading glasses. It’s always better when people can talk to each other. I struck up a conversation with this fellow from a far different place that I come from. First we talked about cheesesteaks and then about sports. By the time we ended our conversation he was smiling and wishing me well for safe travels on my trip. I can only imagine what he told his wife when he returned home about that “strange looking fellow down at Joe’s”. Fight or flight or friend? This is probably what I find most constant about easterners that I meet in this part of the country. They look at you almost as if they are scared. They don’t know if you are friend or foe. They don’t seem to know whether to use fight or flight. However as soon as they see you are a friend you can become their best buddy. I find this “hot and cold” approach to people to be somewhat disconcerting. I’m from the Midwest. It’s not like that there. It certainly isn’t like that in the South. In the West people don’t give the next guy a second look. They just want to be left alone. I’ve traveled the country more than just about anyone I know. I am a people watcher. I feel pretty confident that I can analyze this situation correctly. I had never seen THIS before. I spent a few minutes driving around Phillipsburg, New Jersey. I ran across three geezers all wearing fluorescent green safety vests. It appeared these volunteers were directing traffic. They had two-way radios and from what I can see appeared to be screwing up traffic more than helping it. Finally someone in a long line of drivers stood on their horn. They couldn’t wait any longer. This seemed to take the volunteers by surprise. It wasn’t me that honked! After the races……. First I stole something and then I stole some more. I would be out of the races by 2:58 PM this afternoon. Then I was on my own to find a reasonably priced hotel in an area not known for such a thing. I would also begin planning my Trackchasing Tourist Attractions, which should finish up tomorrow night Monday, with a baseball game featuring the New York Mets and the Philadelphia Phillies in New York. If I got lucky there would be even MORE to report on from the TTA front in New York. Stay tuned. Following the races and after I returned to civilization I found a Holiday Inn express parking lot. From there I conveniently “borrowed” their Internet signal and began to plan my evening and the rest of the day. Sunday nights are the best night for getting an inexpensive hotel on Priceline. I secured/stole the Homewood suites by Hilton for just $46 with the cheapest rate for the evening being $139 to all of those folks without a smart phone. These are pearls; don’t be afraid to bend over and pick them up. That brings me to an important point. Some folks won’t get a smart phone because of cost. As you can see I just saved about $100 using my smart phone. That little thing pays for itself many time over. The desk clerk told me the cheapest rate the night before was $179. Yes, when I can buy good stuff for less than the price of a Motel 6 that is a very good thing. I highly recommend Homewood suites…at $46. I wouldn’t want to stay there for $139. My room was huge with a full kitchen. The room had to be 40 feet long. Everything was brand-new it was a beautiful place. The clerk was nice enough to position my room across the hallway from a very effective laundry room. There, for the second time on this trip, I completed my wash in about an hour at a cost of just $2.50. I won’t need to wash again before the end of this 27-day trip. This was going to be a bright idea. It was at this point that I got the bright idea to call my Pennsylvania based trackchasing buddy Paul Weisel. He lived nearby. However, I knew he was gone for the afternoon to a racing reunion with his good friend Bing Metz out on Long Island. Nevertheless I figured they should be heading back in this direction by now. Maybe we could catch up for dinner. That is exactly what we did. I haven’t had much time to spend with Bing Metz (printed out as ‘dingbats’ as I dictated the info into my phone!) having only met him briefly a time or too. I found Bing to be a delightfully positive and competitive individual. I’ll take a few moments to tell you about Bing Metz below. Why was this character so interesting? Following the races I had a most interesting dinner with two Pennsylvania trackchasers. I’m talking about Paul Weisel and Bing Metz. I know Paul very well. He and I have traveled together to both England and New Zealand. Paul is most interesting in his own right. However, I didn’t know Bing Metz nearly as well. I would find him a very interesting fellow as well. Three Days to Kill. Carol and I just saw a movie titled “Three Days to Kill”. It starred Kevin Costner as a “hit man”. In the movie Costner is asked how he knows whom to kill. How does he know who the bad guys are? He simply replies, “I’m in sales. I’m trained to make quick judgments about people. It’s what I do”. I spent the better part of thirty years doing this. My business background is sales as well. For the majority of my time working for the man I made hiring and firing decisions. I hated firing people. It truly hurt me more than it did them I believe. I interviewed more people than I could count. When I did college campus recruiting it was a real grind. Those interviews lasted 30 minutes each. Often I would have 14 interviews to complete in one day. It didn’t take long before I could tell you within 30 seconds of meeting someone whether or not they were fit for the job. I wasn’t perfect but nearly perfect. I only made one mistake. There was one person I would not have hired. However, I got some good advice from another manager. The person I hired, now living in Midwest, went on to have a very successful career with Procter & Gamble. I truly missed that one. Just a series of little things but important ones. Every day life is much like interviewing. It doesn’t take long to determine if someone is top notch or not. It’s really just a series of little things. No one item is a make or break characteristic. It’s a series of adding up lots of little things. Like I said it doesn’t take much more than 30 seconds to size someone up. These traits include such small things as how firm someone’s handshake is, do they make good eye contact, what is their personal appearance like, how about their grammar, do they provide examples of achievement or is someone else to blame for whatever problems they have. I can’t help it; I am a judger. I admit it I am a “judger”. I can’t help it. Carol is not a judger. She always “goes with the flow”. I don’t operate that way. I judge behavior. I did this type of work for so long and my success depended upon how successful I was at judging people. It was really the same thing as coaching a sports team. I’ve never heard a good coach say they could win if they didn’t have good players. It’s the same in business. Within the trackchasing hobby I’ve met just about everyone who participates. I will tell you this. Not everyone has a firm handshake, makes good eye contact, sports a decent looking appearance and has a series of successes that they are responsible for. Some constantly blame others for their own lack of success. Paul and Bing. Bing and Paul. That’s why I like Paul Weisel and Bing Metz. I know Paul much better than I do Bing Metz. However at dinner tonight I got to know Bing Metz just a little bit better. Bing is a straight shooter. I like that in a person. I’ll give you an example of what Bing talked about that won me over. In 2005 I established the all-time record for seeing tracks in a single season. During that year I went to 182 tracks. That mark has never been broken. Controversy was the watchword of the day back in the day. During this time there was a good deal of controversy regarding how long someone should stay at a track before leaving to see another. I sparked that controversy by coining the phrase “blended double”. I didn’t invent that kind of double. I just named it and talked about it. What the heck is a blended double? In a nutshell it’s the idea of spending 1-2 hours at one track before leaving and going to another track for 1-2 hours. There are times when a chaser is a long way from home. In some of those instances two tracks may be very close to each other and racing on the same night. Most racing begins at about 7 p.m. and ends at 11 p.m. or a bit later. It’s easy to go to one track, watch every car race and then leave that track at intermission (maybe about 8:30-9 p.m.) Then the second half of a blended double might involve a 30-45 minute drive to a somewhat nearby track. Again in a likely example the trackchaser might arrive at the next track at 9:15-9:30 p.m. or so and watch nearly two hours of mostly feature racing action. That is a classic blended double. What if a cop stopped you in a 40 M.P.H. zone and gave you a ticket for going 35 M.P.H. just because he thought the speed limit should really be 25 M.P.H.? Some trackchasers, mainly some of trackchasing’s founding fathers, maintained and/or maintain that in order for a track to count a feature event needs to be seen. They say that when they drew up the rules in the late 1990s “everyone understood” that seeing a feature was a trackchasing counting requirement even though the rules say nothing whatsoever about such things. I have noted that certain trackchasers want folks to behave in the world of trackchasing like THEY want people to behave without regard to the rules. That sounds like a character flaw to me. This could happen. Then what? The rules call for a trackchaser to see “competitive racing” in order to count the track. I have long maintained that if a trackchaser sees the first heat take the green flag, then the cars roar down into turn one where the pole sitter blows an engine bringing out a yellow flag and then a big black bear runs into the grandstand and eats three adults and four children causing a cancellation of the night’s remaining events…..then that track is countable! The chaser saw “competitive racing” albeit briefly. How was it done back in the day? In the olden days a trackchaser would see all or nearly all of one racing program and then hightail it over to a nearby track to see the last feature race of the night at track #2. They might see all of 10-15 minutes of racing, or even less, at track #2. I never in all of my life heard anyone dismiss the counting of track #2 in a situation like this. This has everything to do with Bing Metz. “But, Randy what in the world does all of the above have to do with Bing Metz?” the often entertained but certainly puzzled in this instance reader might be heard to query. The above have EVERYTHING to do with Bing Metz. I’ll tell you why. A pile of bullshit is not a rose garden. What bugs the #$%# out of me is when someone tries to tell me that a pile of bullshit is a rose garden. We have some trackchasers who will try to tell you just that. If you were to listen to Guy Smith tell it he is a “racing fan’s racing fan”. Guy will re-visit a track under the guise of being a race fan when all he is really doing is going back to a track so his wife can count it for the first time or a traveling companion can count it for the first time. If that wasn’t the case he wouldn’t be caught dead re-visiting that track. I would say that some 80% of the time or more when I read one of Guy’s reports he will tell you that he did one thing for reason A when in fact he did that for reason B which is unmentioned. To be clear Guy Smith does a lot of good for the hobby of trackchasing in general. That is to be highly commended. If he could just be a bit more honest when it comes to the REAL motivation on why he does things he would gain some respect in my eyes. Of course, he would have to do what he promises he will do as well. He had failed in that area more than once in my judgment. Randy, please get back to Bing Metz. “But, Randy you are painting an intriguing picture but I still don’t understand. Yes, I get the idea that you don’t care much for Guy Smith’s personal integrity. That’s fine. However, what does this all have to do with poor Bing Metz?” the reader might demand to know. O.K., let’s cut to the chase. In 2009 Bing Metz saw 174 tracks. He was truly on a pace to possibly break my 2005 record of 182 tracks. He was seeing track after track weekend after weekend. Then on November X he saw his last track of XXXX. He was just nine tracks short of breaking my record. Surely, despite November and December being two of the slowest months for trackchasing all year he could have scared up nine tracks. If nothing else Bing could have hopped a flight to Australia or New Zealand to get the tracks he needed. However he didn’t. Why? Bing told me his mother had some health problems and needed to be taken care of. Bing was the man for that job. That says something about Bing Metz. I admire his actions very much. However, that personal trait, in this story ranks only #2 as to why I think so much of Bing Metz. The ‘geographics’ didn’t make sense. You see all year Bing was adding tracks at a near record pace. However, there was something just a little suspect about Bing’s trackchasing. From the looks of Bing’s results it didn’t appear that the “geographics” made sense. To put it in layman’s term how could someone see a race in Dallas, then go over to Orlando and finish up in Boston all in the same night. O.K., I exaggerate the point because my non-racing readers wouldn’t recognize the names of Eldora, Knoxville and Williams Grove. How in the world did he do it? As I mentioned I didn’t know Bing Metz very well until I had time to break bread with Paul Weisel and him tonight. I just had to ask Bing how he made some of these “connections” all in one evening. An average start time for a weekly nighttime track might be 7 p.m. Most tracks would be wrapped up by 11 p.m. or so. Some tracks do begin before 7 p.m. Regrettably some finish after 11 p.m. However, about the best you could “count on” would be the 7-11 p.m. opening and closing times. Bing was routinely seeing three tracks in one evening during this four-hour window. Travel distances ranged from 90-125 miles or so. Of course, that’s if the tracks were located and seen in a straight line. Driving times would range from two hours to a little bit more. That meant that Bing was driving, often with his sidekick Paul, two hours or more during that four-hour window. That left an hour and a half approximately to see racing at three different tracks. Of course, that’s if most things went perfectly in terms of finding tracks, traffic and the like. The biggest ‘haul’ of the year? One of the greatest “hauls” (pun intended) happened on June 13, 2009. On this evening Bing saw racing at four different Saturday night tracks. These included: 141 Speedway, Maribel, WI Plymouth Dirt Track, Plymouth, WI State Park Speedway, Wausau, WI Shawano Speedway, Shawano, WI If each of these tracks were seen in a straight line the driving distance would be a minimum of 174 miles. The time to cover that distance in that part of the country would surely be three hours or more. Let’s think about this. If the tracks were racing from 7-11 p.m. and the driving time between tracks was three hours that leaves just 60 minutes to spread over four tracks. The next time I see Bing I’m going to ask him about this adventure! You only get one chance to do this. Bing’s last track of 2009 came on November 1. He visited the Indianapolis Speedrome. He was nine tracks short of the all-time single season record but family responsibilities kept him off the trail for the rest of the year. This type of “Banzai” run can only be done once. After you’ve knocked off all the tracks that are reasonably closes to each other in this manner these types of options will no longer exist on a broad scale basis. I did get a chance to ask Bing the big question. I asked Bing “Did you leave after a very short time at one track just to get to the next track and the next track all in one evening?” Bing looked me directly in the eye and said with a smile as his eyes twinkled, (I’m loosely quoting here). “You’re damned right I did. I wanted to break your record. I was going to do whatever it took to beat you even if that meant staying at a track for just five minutes to see one race and then leave for the next track”. I fell in love with Bing at just this moment (speaking figuratively of course). Bing won me over with that statement. I don’t for a second endorse staying at a track for five minutes or fifteen minutes or any “short” time just to move on to the next track. I don’t often trackchase with other trackchasers. The main reason is the logistics simply don’t match up properly. However, you can ask Roland Vanden Eynde or Paul Weisel about how I feel about leaving a track “early”. On trips with each of these guys they wanted to leave and go onto the next track. I told them I couldn’t leave as quickly as they might have preferred. That is no knock on either of these chasers at all. I have enjoyed trackchasing with both of them. However, that approach on that day was simply not how I trackchase. Don’t get me wrong. I DO NOT have to stay until the last race is run and the cleanup staff has picked up the last popcorn box from underneath the grandstands. I don’t feel that a chaser needs to see all six hours of a racing program that should have taken three hours. I also don’t think staying to see five minutes or two heats of a racing program and then heading off to another event is the right thing to do either. What was up with these guys? I found it quite amazing that two of the biggest detractors of my blended double style of trackchasing without seeing a feature event at both tracks were Alan Brown and Gordon Killian. In those circumstances I was sometimes seeing two tracks in one evening. However, I don’t think I ever heard as much as a peep out of either of them when Bing Metz or Mike Knappenberger was staying for 5-10 minutes at one track before heading out to another and seeing 3-4 tracks in one night. I find that quite amazing. This is not a popularity contest despite what Guy Smith might say. As you can see I don’t mind mentioning names when names need to be mentioned. That might not make me very popular with certain trackchasers. However, I am not criticizing them as much as I am criticizing their behaviors. There is a difference. Make sense? This is a key point. Let me make one other point about this subject. It is NOT against the rules for a chaser to show up for a track, see five minutes of racing action and then leave for the next track. They have met the trackchasing rules requirement of seeing “competitive racing”. I didn’t’ make the rules….the founding fathers did! I just don’t happen to think that being at a track for 5-10 minutes is the right way to go about the hobby. At the other extreme is the chaser who believes you should show up before the gates to the track open and stay to watch the promoter lock those same gates at the end of the evening. As they say opinions are like elbows most everyone has one. So what is my history on this subject. They say you’ve got to “Walk the walk and talk the talk”. How true. In the spirit of full disclosure…..as this is written I have seen 1,896 tracks. I first began keeping track of my trackchasing doubles in 2004. That takes me back all the way to track #683. My doubles summary covers more than 1,300 tracks and the time period of 2004 through 2013. Here’s how it looks. Day/night doubles – 127 Same location doubles – 72 Blended doubles without a feature on both ends – 45 Blends doubles with a feature on both ends – 29 Traditional doubles – 15 Day/night doubles. My most common trackchasing double is the day/night double. It’s exactly what the name implies. On those days I saw a race at one location during the day and at another location during the evening. The most common day/night double is probably a road course race during the day (road courses rarely race at night) and an oval track during the evening. Same location doubles. This is my favorite type of double. This covers those tracks where I can see a race on one form of track and then seen another race at the same location on a second form of track. The most common examples would be seeing racing on a small oval and a large oval or on an oval track and a figure 8 track at the same facility. In point of fact, in those locations where I have counted multiple tracks at one location, I have had to go back two and three times to see all of the tracks that one facility might offer. Blended double without a feature on both ends. This is by far the most controversial trackchasing double. It raises the blood pressure of some founding fathers to the breaking point. They just can’t understand how a trackchaser could leave one track without seeing a feature at both tracks. Again, in point of fact, there are many many examples where some of the biggest complainers have a long history of leaving tracks without seeing a feature event. I find that beyond amazing. In my nearly 1,900 tracks I can only think of one time when I left a track after about ten minutes to go to another track. I was with the aforementioned Guy Smith and former trackchasing commissioner Will White. I think it was back in 2001. We were in Quebec, Canada on an ice-racing trip. The temperature that day reached -38 degrees Fahrenheit. It was the coldest day that I have ever spent trackchasing. We decided that since we couldn’t get out of the car for as much as five minutes to see much of anything at the first track we might as well move onto the next ice track that wasn’t too far from the first. I use data to back up my facts and my opinions. As you can see I’ve kept close track of every kind of trackchasing double I have had for a very long time. I currently, through 2013, have 45 trackchasing doubles without a feature on both ends. That’s about 2.5% of all the tracks I have seen. Probably more than half of the blended doubles without a feature on both ends have involved leaving a senior champ race or some such thing after a heat race rather than a feature. Again, I have the data to back up every point I make. Blended double with a feature on both ends. The name on this type of double pretty much tells it all. This form of double means I went to one track, saw at least one feature event and then moved onto the next track and saw feature racing at that track. Traditional double. This is my least favorite type of trackchasing double. In it’s truest form a trackchaser would see all or nearly all of one program before heading out to the location of a different track. It sort of works like this. I show up for the first race of the evening at 7 p.m. I watch the complete program, which ends at 10 p.m. Then I drive thirty minutes or so to a nearby track. I get there just in time to see their last feature race of the night, which might be one of the lower divisions. It’s very conceivable that the time spent watching racing at track #2 could be very short maybe at little as 5-10 minutes. The reason I don’t like this type of trackchasing double is that by arriving late at night, in this example 10:30 p.m., I am pretty much guaranteed not to see much of track #2. There won’t be much racing left and it will definitely be well after dark unless I am trackchasing in Alaska! The summary…what does all this mean? Permit me to summarize. This was a story about Bing Metz’s honesty and directness. To be frank the people in trackchasing are very similar to those you might encounter in the corporate world a world that many trackchasers seem to despise. The similarities are striking. There isn’t all that much dishonesty but there is a heavy dose of lack of directness. Some folks criticize for the wrong reasons. Then there is the group of people who bury their head in a stack of papers until the controversial subject moves off into the sunset. That’s too bad. I like people who express an opinion that they’re not afraid to back up. You don’t have to be belligerent about it but I admire someone who goes against the flow when going against the flow is the right thing to do. All this cost me was a dinner check. Tonight all it cost me was one dinner check to hear Bing Metz tell me what I had been suspecting all along. Bing didn’t try to dodge the subject. He met it head on and gained a good deal of respect from me. Good on Bing! ONE CANNOT LIVE WELL OR SLEEP WELL IF ONE HAS NOT DINED WELL Joe’s Steak Shop – Philipsburg, New Jersey Yelp! I use Yelp! for just about every restaurant I visit when following the trackchasing hobby. Today Yelp! led me to Joe’s Steak Shop. I was looking for a “cheesesteak”. The place was highly rated, 4 stars from 24 reviewers. That was good enough for me. To get there I drove along “Larry Holmes Blvd”. Yes, THAT Larry Holmes. Feedback from people who have ‘been there’ is important. With comments like these I couldn’t go wrong, “Great, the bread is fresh and they are messy for sure, but good too”. “Their fries and onion rings are delicious”. “Delicious whether you get them ‘hot’ (with jalapeno peppers) or not”. Joshua, I feel your pain. Of course there were a couple of naysayers. There always are. That’s O.K. Everybody’s got an opinion. Adam H. said, “I’d rather pack a lunch. Then Joshua L. told me “the meat is chip steak, not sliced rib eye like in Philly, like it should be. I wish I could get a real cheesesteak joint to open anywhere NEAR ME, I’d be in heaven”. Joshua I feel your pain. However, there were enough five star ratings to assure me I was eating in a good place. It WAS a good, not great, place. Check out the photos. Oreville Kart Club – Oreville, Pennsylvania It wasn’t what I was expecting but it still worked out. I would have to say the racing wasn’t much today. However, the weather was perfect and the track landscaping was lush and pleasing to the eye. How’s that for trying to put lipstick on a pig? I had come here expecting to see micro stocks. Every week this year they had had a minimum of three of these cars a maximum of 6 to 7. Today they had zero! Nevertheless I was bailed out by the senior champ karts. That group brought five in the only trackchasing countable class here today. Road racing and oval racing. The Oreville track is located in a beautiful setting surrounded by trees and hills. They race on a road course and oval. The senior champs race on the oval. All of the remaining divisions were flat karts some of which raised on the road course and some on the oval. I believe they started a bit late as they were still practicing when I arrived. Missed opportunity. The only announcements made over the P.A. were words to alert drivers as to their race order. I find this disappointing. If you’ve got a P.A. why not take the time to tell the crowd the driver’s names, their hometowns etc.? I stayed for the flat kart racing and the five-kart senior champ kart heat race. They didn’t seem to be any need whatsoever to remain for the same five-car feature later in the day. I had nowhere to go it’s just that the racing wasn’t very entertaining. The weather was gorgeous and admission to the track was free. The track itself is a very large asphalt oval. At one point near turn three of the oval a loop juts off creating the road course. When the driver’s finish the loop they then re-enter the track near turn three again. Don’t miss the video. STATE COMPARISONS Pennsylvania The Keystone State This afternoon I saw my 82nd lifetime track in the Keystone state, yes the Keystone state. There’s a very good chance I’ll be back before the year finishes up. 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 Pennsylvania sayings: Cook with coal. Please wait for photos to load.
QUICK FACTS AIRPLANE Los Angeles, CA (LAX) – Chicago, IL (ORD) – 1,745 miles Chicago, IL (ORD) – Detroit, MI (DTW) – 234 miles RENTAL CAR #1 Detroit Metro Airport – trip begins Belleville, MI Butler, PA Urbana, OH Union, KY East Moline, IL Marshall, MI Armada, MI West Branch, MI Midland, MI Detroit Metro Airport – 2,378 miles RENTAL CAR #2 Detroit Metro Airport – trip begins Greenland, MI Escanaba, MI Escanaba, MI (again!) Hudsonville, MI Greensburg, PA Abingdon, IL Brooklyn, MI Onekama, MI Detroit Metro Airport – 3,429 miles RENTAL CAR #3 LaGuardia (New York) International Airport – trip begins Oreville, PA LaGuardia (New York) International Airport – trip ends – 314 miles TRACK ADMISSION PRICES: Wayne County Fairgrounds – $10 Butler Farm Show – $12 (not trackchasing expense) Champaign County Fairgrounds – $12 Florence Speedway – Complimentary admission Quad Cities Speedway – $8 ($2 senior discount – not trackchasing expense) Calhoun County Fairgrounds – $10 Armada County Fairgrounds – $8 Ogemaw County Fairgrounds – $8 Midland County Fairgrounds – $10 Adventure Mountain Raceway – $8 Upper Peninsula International Raceway – $8 Upper Peninsula State Fairgrounds – $5 Hudsonville County Fairgrounds – $9 Westmoreland County Fairgrounds – $8 Abingdon Fairgrounds – $10 Michigan International Speedway – $20 Manistee County Fairgrounds – 13 Oreville Kart Club – No charge 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 350 tracks of my lifetime total. Don’t blame me. 1. Randy Lewis, San Clemente, California – 1,896 Total Trackchasing Countries There are no trackchasers currently within 10 countries of my lifetime total. 1. Randy Lewis, San Clemente, California – 65 Current lifetime National Geographic Diversity results 1. Randy Lewis, San Clemente, California – 5.10 That’s all folks! Official end of the RLR – Randy Lewis Racing Trackchaser Report 
1 comment
You’re a crazy man, Randy! A trackchasing trip of 28 days?? However I know you’re having a great time. As always, I enjoy reading about your adventures.
Best,
Russ