Otsego County Fairgrounds

 

 

 

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

 

 

THURSDAY

 

Breakfast in the hotel was being served until 9:30 a.m. However, after last night’s late night convenience store stop, where I both acquired and consumed two large jelly-filled donuts I was going to pass on breakfast. Yes, I will pay for all of this later. “Payment” will come in the form of the Atkins Diet, which isn’t so bad after all.

 

 

This morning there would be enough time for a 45-minute power walk. However, along my walk on a beautiful sunny Thursday morning, I noticed that people in this part of Michigan don’t always put their dogs on leashes. Lots of times dogs don’t seem to like me. I don’t care for dogs that aren’t on leashes.

 

 

Today was an interesting day. My hotel was only an hour from tonight’s race location. That meant I wouldn’t spend all that much time driving.

 

 

I was in upper Michigan in the summertime. I didn’t have a boat and I didn’t have a kayak. I didn’t have a motorcycle. I couldn’t enjoy a lot of the outdoor activities that people who had come better prepared than I could. What was I going to do with my day when sitting behind the steering wheel of my rental car wasn’t going to be my primary activity?

 

 

I decided I would make a stop at Wal-Mart. The rain forecast for tomorrow and Saturday was calling for heavy rain. I didn’t want to ruin the two pairs of good shoes I brought with me. Maybe I could find something at Wal-Mart that I could use to counteract the muddy torrential rain conditions I expected.

 

 

I would follow that up with a movie, my second of the trip. The plan was to see “Bad Moms “. There wasn’t much else going on. A couple of hours inside a cool movie theater in the middle of the afternoon would be just fine.

 

 

I had good success with both of my afternoon activities. A quick stop at Wal-Mart yielded a pair of canvas slip on shoes. They would be perfect if I encountered extremely muddy conditions with this weekend’s dirt off-road racing.

 

 

What was the price I paid for a pair of shoes at Wal-Mart? Just $8.97! When you think that they had to move the shoes from China or some offshore location how much could the materials and labor have been to still allow Wal-Mart to make a profit at such a low price. I’ll never know the answers to those questions but someone does.

 

 

I see lots of examples where the economy in Michigan doesn’t look very good. Of course that’s been the case since I started calling on K-Mart headquarters in suburban Detroit in 1980. The economy has been down in this area for a very long time.

 

 

I noticed this again today when I went to the movies. Gaylord, Michigan has a single movie theater toward the edge of town. The parking lot is huge. It could have parked nearly 1,000 cars! Today there couldn’t have had more than 10 cars in the lot when I entered the theater for my 2:15 p.m. showing of “Bad Moms “.

 

 

This was a hilarious comedy about mothers with children in the 8-15 years old age range. It talked about the overscheduling of activities and trying to meet other’s expectations. Although the movie was raunchy in places it had a lot of good lessons to be learned.

 

 

It was warm this afternoon in Gaylord with temperatures at about 90°. I drove over to a local park where I could get some shade and just worked on my trackchasing “paperwork” until it was nearly time to head out to the fairgrounds.

 

 

 

THE RACING

 

 

Otsego County Fairgrounds – Gaylord, Michigan

 

 

Today’s racing would take place at the Otsego County Fairgrounds in Gaylord, Michigan. When I pulled up to the entrance of the fair a lightbulb went off in my head. This was not the first time I had been to this fairgrounds.

 

 

Just last year I had driven an incredibly long distance in hopes of seeing a race at today’s fairgrounds. There was just one major problem. I had recorded the date in my Excel spreadsheet incorrectly. I was a day too early! Here’s an excerpt from that fateful day’s mistake.

 

 

 

From 2015….

 

 

“However things didn’t look right.

 

 

This was a bad sign….a real bad sign.

There didn’t seem to be much activity at the fairgrounds. Nevertheless the gate to the fairgrounds was open. I took that as a good sign. When I got closer to the grandstand I saw there was not a single soul in and around the entire fairgrounds. It was 7:03 p.m. This looked like a bad sign and it was.

 

 

 

I put the National Car Rental Racing Hyundai Azeras transmission in park. I studied things for a moment. Wait for it. It was coming to me. I had made a mistake a huge mistake.

 

 

Although my database correctly listed the race as being tomorrow night Saturday, May 23 somewhere along the line I had mistakenly planned for the event to be tonight Friday, May 22. I recall doing that once many years ago. On that occasion in Illinois I was off by a month not a day!

 

 

Was there anything I could do? I consulted my new track finding app, Tracktivity, to see if anybody else might be racing in the area. There was the Norway Speedway but they were four hours away. I could never make it there. The app listed a go kart track I had never heard of. They were racing tonight! I gave them a call. It was bad news. All they raced were flat karts.

 

 

If you’re not early you’re late…but if you’re too early you are screwed.

I was resigned to this fact. I had flown from California to Pittsburgh over night on the redeye flight. I had then driven exactly 500 miles to the Otsego County Fairgrounds only to be a day early. They say if you’re not early you’re late. However if you are too early you are screwed.

 

 

I remember one time in the eighth grade showing up at a girl’s house for a Saturday night party. There were about 25 kids invited. Somehow I got things messed up and knocked on the door an hour early. I was quickly escorted to the basement where the party would take place. She didn’t say a word about me being early. However, when nobody joined me in the basement for about an hour my mistake became apparent.

 

 

Please make a U-turn.

All I could do was turn my rental car around and head for West Virginia. West Virginia ain’t that close to Northern Michigan. This meant I was going to drive nearly 800 miles from 8 a.m. when I picked up my rental car until about midnight today.

 

 

Just plain weird.

This episode was weird on several levels. I could have easily gotten a Friday night track in New York. The first two tracks I plan to see tomorrow, Saturday, may or may not offer countable racing. I won’t get to the FIRST track that I hope counts until I will have driven about 1,100 miles!

 

 

On the drive back I came upon a rest area where I was able to get an Internet connection to contact Priceline.com. They provided me with a snazzy Hampton Inn at 44% off their best online price. At least I haven’t lost that skill.

 

 

What did my mistake really cost me?

I had started driving today, Friday, in Pittsburgh. I need to be in Masontown, West Virginia tomorrow, Saturday, by 4:30 p.m. By mistakenly driving to Northern Michigan what had my mistake really cost me?

 

 

Surprisingly not all that much. I had only driven three additional hours compared to if I had trackchased in upstate New York tonight. That wasn’t too bad.

 

 

However what was much more important to me was the idea that I had missed the opportunity to get a track in the eastern time zone. Those are difficult to get on a Friday night. Additionally the weather was fantastic. I probably can’t count on the next time I attempt a trackchasing weekend like this in the east.

 

 

Let’s be perfectly clear. I was bummed.

There’s no doubt about it I was bummed. However I play golf. In golf I am most accustomed to having a crushing disappointment that I have to shake off as if it never happened. I can’t let my attitude from the previous shot will affect the next one. That’s how I do it in trackchasing as well.

 

 

I would have to look back in my records to confirm this. I think I drove some 600–800 miles out of my way to get to that race that didn’t happen. It was quite shocking to pull into the fairgrounds and not see a single car in the parking lot. I’ve actually done that twice in all of the years that I’ve been trackchasing.”

 

 

 

Back to 2016………

 

 

 

However, tonight they WERE racing. I would be seeing a bump and run race promoted by the Unique Motorsports group. I’ve seen several Unique Motorsports shows over the years. I’ve seen several in 2016. They do a nice job with the bump and run genre of auto racing.

 

 

 

Before I went into the grandstands I needed to explore the fair just a little bit.  I always do that. It was fun going into the little red schoolhouse. It is not unusual for county fairs to have an old wooden one-room schoolhouse resurrected on the fairgrounds. Tonight’s was a good one. I talked to the two elderly people overseeing the schoolhouse for a few minutes.

 

 

There was just enough time to grab a bratwurst from one of the fair vendors. The prices at this Michigan fair were a lot lower than what we saw at the Orange County, California fair about two weeks ago. I judge these things by what an ear of corn is selling for at the fair. In California it was five dollars per ear. Tonight it was just $2.50 for an ear of corn.

 

 

Last night’s racing in West Branch, Michigan was promoted by the same people with pretty much the same types of cars. Last night the racing was slow. That was because the track was almost unraceable from the rains received all day.

 

 

Tonight’s track was a long and narrow paperclip track. It was nearly identical to the races I saw several days ago in Coldwater, Michigan. The straights had to be about a football field long. The distance from the backstretch wall to the front stretch wall couldn’t have been more than 30-40 yards.

 

 

They were running three classes of lower-level stock cars as they usually do. These included sort of a beginner four-cylinder class, a 4/6 cylinder stock-car class and a V-8 rear wheel drive group.

 

 

In all my years of watching Unique Motorsports racing I cannot ever recall seeing the cars hit the speeds they did tonight. They also raced in a clockwise direction. That’s unusual for this group. Tonight the racing were as fast as you might find on a regular weekly short track.

 

 

The cars seem to be getting a little more powerful as the years go by as well. The V-8 class had some honker motors. They rivaled the biggest and most powerful figure 8 cars I’ve seen around Iowa and Nebraska.

 

 

I was amazed at how fast the cars drove into the turns of this flat track. It can’t be that easy to drive a car full speed 400 yards and then make a 180° turn in the space of about 50 yards. I was seated down toward turns three and four of tonight’s dirt oval configuration.

 

 

After a while the cars were really tearing up the turns. This produced lots of loose dirt. The loose dirt created a berm just like in sprint car racing. This helped slow the cars as they entered the turns. They were probably about 10 or 12 heat races for the three classes. This was followed by a few last chance races before the three main events ran off. The entire show wrapped up by about 10:15 p.m.

 

 

Try not to miss the videos and photos from tonight’s action. The track lighting was some of the poorest I’ve seen all year. That will really affect my video production but I’ll do the best I can.

 

 

I often sit next to some unusually interesting people at the races. That was the case tonight. I sat down next to a fellow and we struck up a conversation almost immediately. That’s always a good sign that the person sitting next to me wants to talk.

 

 

This gentleman was a racing fan. He had been to several NASCAR tracks. His next bucket list item was intended to include Bristol, which was actually racing this weekend. He was impressed with my trackchasing resume.

 

 

However, the highlight of the evening for me was having him tell me about his job experience that covered 22 years. He was a “repo man” mainly in Florida. His job was to repossess cars, trucks, boats and airplanes etc. from folks who didn’t pay their bills on time.

 

 

He was extremely critical of the TV reality shows that portray repo people. He said it was all staged. He told me that due to credit laws repossession transactions cannot be filmed. It’s sort of like how people’s medical rectors records cannot be shared without them cooperating. That was an interesting take on the whole idea. Interesting guy!

 

 

 

AFTER THE RACES

 

 

When I left to the races tonight I was looking at a three hour and 15-minute drive down to the Detroit Metro Wayne County Airport. There had been no great need to leave the fairgrounds early tonight. Within reason the longer I was at the races the less time I would be in the driver’s seat of my Payless Car Rental automobile. As it was I expected to arrive at the airport tonight at about 2:30 a.m.

 

 

I’ve got to be honest with you. You want me to be right?  When I use some of the most ingenious methods to get up and down the long and dusty trackchasing trail I sometimes think of my fellow competitors.  There are no other trackchasers that trackchase the way I do. Why not? I can’t fully answer that. Less passionate? Less creative? Less of something!

 

 

Tomorrow I had a flight that was departing from Detroit and heading towards Omaha, Nebraska at 8:20 a.m. That meant I had to be starting to return my rental car by about 6:30 a.m. or so. I figured I could get down toward Detroit and grab a place for 3-4 hours of shut eye.

 

 

Just a couple of paragraphs above I told you that I don’t trackchase like my fellow competitors. I’m sure you can see numerous examples of that throughout my Trackchaser Reports. Here’s another example.

 

 

I would be returning my rental car in Detroit. Recall that before I arrived into Detroit I had left my FIRST rental car at the Omaha, Nebraska airport (Eppley Field). Now when I flew back into Omaha on Friday morning I would have to ride the shuttle out to the long term parking lot to pick up the National Car Rental Racing Chrysler 300C. From Omaha I would continue my trip before returning the car back to Indianapolis, Indiana on Monday morning. Have you ever in all of your entire adult life heard of another trackchaser having two rental cars under contract at the same time. I’ve only done that a few times myself.

 

 

 

Good evening from Gaylord, Michigan

 

 

 

 

 

Michigan

 

 

The Great Lakes state

This evening I saw my 121st lifetime track in the Great Lakes state, yes the Great Lakes state. I’ve seen 121 or more tracks in 2 separate 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: Choppers.

 

What it means everywhere else: Slang used by Radar O’Reilly in M.A.S.H. to refer to helicopters.

 

 

What it means in Michigan: The mittens above all mittens, choppers are a deerskin mitten with a wool mitten insert. Not surprisingly, Yoopers are quite fond of choppers.

 

 

 

 

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 550 tracks of my lifetime total. Don’t blame me.

 

 

1. Randy Lewis, San Clemente, California – 2,267

 

 

 

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.

 

 

Bump n run racing from way up north…..plus the “Wal-Mart” shoes