Greetings from Sibley, Iowa
From the travels and adventures of the “World’s #1 Trackchaser”
Lifetime Track #1,866
9-1-19 What does that mean?……………more in “The Plan”. I had a perfect plan and then all of a sudden it wasn’t so perfect……………..more in “The Trip” I figure I have the most unusual experiences of anyone I know…………..details in “The Experience”. 9-1-19 No, that’s not my birthdate! I had just been gone on my last trip for nine days. I was home for one full day. Then I began this trip, which would have me traveling for the next 19 days. No my fellow trackchasing competitors don’t really have a chance. Nevertheless, I’d like you to keep an eye out on me. I think I might be losing it! You’ll have to be the judge. I put a lot of time into planning these trips. Nevertheless, virtually none of the trips I plan turn out the way I was expecting them too. After last week’s “12 tracks in 7 trackchasing days” success, this trip was classified as an “interim” trip. Following this trip I’ll try to “lay down some numbers” in my most productive time of the year. Yes, you may receive some of these reports a bit later than normal. It’s impossible to travel the way I do AND provide the detail that my readers deserve. Make sense? This trip was beginning on a Thursday. I had only returned home a day and a half ago (Tuesday) from my nine-day (7 trackchasing days) trip. Nevertheless I wanted to turn everything around in about 36 hours so I could be out the door on this trip. I’m going one way; Carol’s going another. While I head to the Midwest, Carol is leaving for New Mexico. Her elderly parents are not doing well and she is needed to join her siblings to figure out a plan for them that should have been figured out many years ago. I’ll tell you how this trip fell apart logistically within an hour after I left the house. Nothing is ever simple. However, when things do fall apart I most enjoy trying to put them together again in record time. Let’s move on to the “Trip” section. They were just picking up the cones. I woke up this morning in San Clemente, California. I went to bed in my favorite spot in the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport. This is what today looked like. My alarm came at 3:40 a.m. Carol had given me a list of do’s and don’ts before she left yesterday. I checked her list and decided I had met her requests. A quick shower and I grabbed my bags that were already packed. I backed out of the driveway at 3:58 a.m. I pulled into my fully sponsored LAX parking garage at 5:01 a.m. There’s not much traffic at 4 a.m. driving to LAX. However, all of the construction work in Los Angeles is done overnight. That prevents the construction from disrupting daytime traffic. Construction will normally begin with selected road closures between 10-11 p.m. Normally roads are back operating by 5 a.m. That means when I leave the house at 4 a.m. I am more than likely going to encounter a freeway closure. This morning they were “just picking up the cones” when I breezed by the construction site. My plan was to fly into St. Louis, Missouri. My plan was so solid I had even purchased a ticket on American Airlines (as a platinum member I get double air miles on every flight). By having purchased a ticket I was guaranteed a seat. That meant I could leave early in the morning, land at about noon and get up to Stronghurst, Illinois in time for the evening’s county fair oval races. It also meant I could check my golf clubs knowing they (and I) would make this flight. Oops. Alas, not everything went as planned. I was headed to the Henderson County Fairgrounds in Stronghurst, Illinois. These folks race on their figure 8 track on Thursday and Saturday during their fair. They race on an oval configuration on the day in between Friday. Somehow I got mixed up on which track was racing on which day! Back in 2011 Carol and I had seen racing, such as it was, on their figure 8 track. That meant I was going back to see racing on their oval track. My paid ticket had me arriving on Thursday but their oval track race was not until Friday! Bad! My bad! Driving up to LAX I got this really weird feeling. I started wondering had I already seen racing on the oval track or was it the figure 8 track? Were they racing on the oval track tonight or the figure 8 track? All of this was going on in my mind as I drove 75 M.P.H. at 5 a.m. in the morning up the San Diego freeway. Oh my. Before I could pull all of this conflicting info together I had already checked my golf clubs to St. Louis on American Airlines. Soon I realized I did not need to go to St. Louis TODAY. I HAD already seen racing on the Henderson County figure 8 track and that’s what they were racing on today. They weren’t racing on the oval track, the track I intended to see, until tomorrow, Friday. Maybe I could come back tomorrow but I needed something for TODAY. I needed a NEW plan. However it was now already 6 a.m. My golf bag was gone. Was there ANY other track I could visit tonight? Yes! I discovered a figure 8 race in the Northwest corner of Iowa, Sibley, Iowa to be precise. I needed a new airplane plan and I needed it quick. I found one. I could fly from Los Angeles to Minneapolis and then make a fast 193-mile one-way drive over to Sibley. Yes, I would be forfeiting my plane ticket to St. Louis. However, I guess I could figure my airfare on that flight was the cost of transporting my golf bag to the Midwest! Off I went to first Minneapolis and then over to the small town of Sibley, Iowa. It was blazing hot. Nevertheless, I would be able to see a race tonight. My golf clubs? Who knows? Maybe I could catch up to them some time later in this 19-day trip. After the races….. When everybody scattered into the night after the races were finished….. For me it was another 193-mile drive back to the airport from Sibley, Iowa. I arrived at MSP at about 1 a.m. With my flight leaving at 6:30 a.m. I immediately cleared security and found my all-time favorite place to sleep in an airport. This strategy gave me a good four hours of sleep so I could get on a flight to St. Louis and find those danged golf clubs. I figure I have the most unusual experiences of anyone I know. Folks, my trips are all about the experience. Some people could say it was haphazard planning that had me buying an airline ticket to take me to a racetrack where I had already been. That would likely be correct thinking. However, I choose to think of it another way. Who could show up at the airport, check their baggage to one place and then on 10-minutes notice change their entire trip and fly somewhere else? I did. It is exactly this type of “creative thinking” that I most enjoy about my hobby of trackchasing. The bottom-line objective to see a new track when I set out on one of these adventures. Like this morning there will be obstacles that will get in the way of that objective. My job is to “keep figurin” til I figure out a way to meet the objective. That process is not any different than what it takes to get through school or a corporate career. You just need to keep your eye on the prize! OSCEOLA COUNTY FAIRGROUNDS – SIBLEY, IOWA Sibley, Iowa is a small town of just 2,798 people located in the extreme northwest corner of Iowa. The town takes it name from Henry Hastings Sibley, a prominent general in the Dakota War of 1862 (what were THEY fighting about?). The high school nickname is what else, the “Generals”. Their fair is small but their figure 8 racing is big. Tonight they drew more than 50 figure 8 competitors. Admission was just seven bucks and the fairly large grandstand area was packed. County fairs are like fireworks displays. They don’t happen all that often and don’t cost much to see. That’s why they both draw big crowds. Iowa has some of the best “big car” aka V-8 figure 8 stock car racing of any place in the country. I would say the only state that can match it is Michigan. The announcing was informative and loud. The weather was warm. The high for the day was 95 degrees and it was still 83 when the races wrapped up at 9:30 p.m. The crowd had come to cheer on their favorites. There were 6-7 heat races. A consolation race and then the feature event followed. Each race started 8-10 competitors making for lots of action on the muddy Iowa black dirt figure 8 track. My only suggestion for improving the show would be to have the track located a little bit closer to the grandstand. I won’t tell you much more about the racing. They say a picture is worth more than 900 words right? That’s why I provide both YouTube videos and Picasa photo slide shows for you to view. STATE COMPARISONS Iowa The Hawkeye State This evening I saw my 89th lifetime track in the Hawkeye state, yes the Hawkeye state. That puts me within just five tracks of Ed Esser’s state-leading Iowa total of ninety-four. Folks, I realize that if Ed were still trackchasing he’d have seen a lot more tracks in places like Iowa and everywhere else. However, I know Ed would want everyone to continue to pursue his or her hobby with gusto. I’ll be back in Iowa as soon as I can. 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 Iowa sayings: Gateway to Illinois
TRAVEL DETAILS AIRPLANE Los Angeles, CA (LAX) – Minneapolis, MN (MSP) – 1,535 miles RENTAL CAR #1 Minneapolis- St. Paul International Airport – trip begins Sibley, IA TRACK ADMISSION PRICES: Osceola County Fairgrounds – $7 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 – 1,866 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
I had a plan, a perfect plan.
Do you ever just get a weird feeling?
This is why I got paid the big bucks.
Can’t we all just get along?
County fairs are like fireworks displays.
Lots of racing.