Like always….trackchasing a long way from home!
Greetings from first Chattanooga, Tennessee
Then North Haven, Connecticut
And finally Thompson, Connecticut
From the travels and adventures of the
“World’s #1 Trackchaser”
Pace Grand Prix Asphalt road course Lifetime Track #2,753 North Haven County Fairgrounds Dirt figure 8 Lifetime Track #2,754 Little T Speedway Asphalt oval Lifetime Track #2,755 THE EVENT Editor’s note: Trackchasing on consecutive days has never been done by any trackchaser first in Tennessee and then in Connecticut. Why? I guess those states are a long way from each other in so many ways! Don’t worry for just a moment. I travel this way so you don’t have to. How does that work? I tell you how I travel and then you get to decide if that’s a good idea for you. Fair enough? Now get out there and go somewhere. I AM A TRACKCHASER. My name is Randy Lewis (above with Trackchasing’s First Mother aka wife Carol on a trackchasing trip to Morocco). I live in San Clemente, California. I am a “trackchaser”. I trackchase. Have you ever in your life heard of “trackchasing”? I didn’t think so. Trackchasing for me is all about three things. First, I enjoy auto racing. Secondly, my hobby requires a good deal of overnight travel. When I venture out to see a race at a track I’ve never seen before I do not want my trip limited to racing only. The very last thing I want when I’m done trackchasing is to have memories of only racing. I want to take some time to see the local attractions of wherever I might be visiting. Those visits in many cases will provide more long-lasting memories than whatever I saw on the track. Finally, I want to create a logistical plan that allows me to accomplish the two points mentioned above without depleting my retirement account. That’s trackchasing for me. I’ve been able to see the world doing this. If you’re interested in exactly what I’ve been able to experience all around the U.S. and the world I recommend you click on this link. Trackchasing Tourist Attractions After each and every event that I attend I post a YouTube video, a SmugMug photo album and a very detailed Trackchaser Report about the experience on my website at www.randylewis.org. My trackchasing contributions generate a good deal of interest in what I am doing. My YouTube channel (ranlay) has more than 1.3 million views. My website gets more than 20,000 views every month. Because I have seen racing in 85 countries at this point I am considered the World’s #1 Trackchaser. That’s good enough for me. Now I encourage you to drop down a few spaces and read about today’s trackchasing adventure. As you discover what went on at this track just think about the idea that I’ve done this more than 2,700 times. I don’t mind admitting I am addicted to the hobby of trackchasing. It’s just fun! If you’re interested in looking back and seeing where I’ve been the following link is for you. 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! FOREWORD Friday/Monday, October 15-18, 2021. Do you enjoy taking a short weekend trip from time to time? You know the kind of trip I’m talking about. You’ve worked all week. You leave on Friday evening and come back home on Monday afternoon. It’s a short, relaxing time away from home. I like to travel. However, for some reason I just don’t think that my kind of travel is what most people enjoy doing. Try this little relaxing weekend on for size. Just like you I would leave on Friday afternoon to begin the official part of this trip. I would return home by lunchtime on Monday. That’s right. Gone for just 72 hours and maybe a little bit less. Most of my trips are pretty much on steroids. What do I mean by that? I would leave from Southern California and be in Nevada, Georgia, Tennessee, New Jersey, New York and Connecticut before making my way back to California on Monday. I would be doing all of that in 72 hours or so. That’s my idea of a relaxing trip. Let me tell you about it. FRIDAY On Friday morning I went down to the beach and power walked for 5 miles. That’s a mile longer than I normally go. Why would I go 5 miles this morning? I knew that if I did 5 miles at the beach, I could easily get three more miles in coming and going to the airport today. By walking at least 8 miles I would get two “credits” against my aerobic exercise goal. I’m nothing if not about credits. Following my time at the beach Carol served me a delicious Indian lunch. It was actually the leftovers from last night’s Indian dinner at the Sattva Indian highly rated Indian restaurant in Aliso Viejo. We had been shopping yesterday. Shopping? Yes, shopping for cemetery plots! I’ll tell you more about that some other time. Tonight, I had a 6:30 p.m. flight from Los Angeles to Las Vegas. I would layover in Vegas for about four hours before catching an overnight flight to Atlanta, Georgia. It has become a habit for me to stop and catch a quick movie on the way to LAX. I guess I wasn’t busy enough on getaway day before! I try to pick a movie location that’s at least halfway toward the airport just in case traffic becomes a problem and I don’t have time for the movie. Today I stopped at the Regal Theater in Garden Grove, California. Garden Grove is about midway between my home in San Clemente and the Los Angeles International Airport (LAX). I used my Regal Classic membership to enter the theater at no charge. I watched the movie “The Rescue”. It’s about those kids from Thailand who got trapped in a cave when the water came in unexpectedly. I hadn’t realized what they had to do to get those kids out safely. I won’t spoil it for you just in case you’re interested in seeing the film. I did notice there is a Yogurtland within a few yards of the theater. I made a mental note. I would have to return to the Regal Theater in Garden Grove. I’m a platinum member of the frequent user program at Yogurtland! From there it was on the Las Vegas (LAS) and then to my overnight flight to Atlanta. I grabbed a very remote spot in terminal one at LAS and caught up on all of the organizational chores that are part of my life for a couple of hours. I didn’t sleep much on Spirit Airlines on the overnight flight. Their seats don’t recline. I did have a window seat. I spent a little bit of time watching Netflix movies. I might have gotten an hour and a half of sleep. SATURDAY Despite the fact that I plan these trips very thoroughly things always seem to go wrong. Primarily logistical things seem to go wrong. Taking two flights from Southern California to the east doubles the chance of something logistically going wrong. Nevertheless, I landed in Atlanta at 5 a.m. via Las Vegas without incident. Some fans from SoCal were coming to Atlanta to see the Dodgers play the Braves. I was soon grabbing a Toyota Camry from the National Rental Car fleet. Today’s first destination was Chattanooga, Tennessee. They were having the second Chattanooga Motor Festival there this weekend. Wheel to wheel racing would take place on the Pace Grand Prix Track. Along with the NASCAR dirt race in Bristol (above) earlier in the year this was one of the top race locations I had wanted to visit for this year’s trackchasing season. This just sounded like a cool event to take in. Along the drive from Atlanta to Chattanooga I grabbed a quick one and a half hour nap. This gave me three hours of total sleep for the night. That was going to have to do. I had places to go…and things to do before I slept again tonight. I am a member of the Waffle House “Regular’s Club”. Yes, I try to me a member of anybody’s club if they give away free stuff! From time to time WH sends me free coupons, most of the time for waffles. I had one of those coupons today. Often times I print out multiple copies of the coupon. I know that WH corporate is not looking for me to do that. However, my intentions are 100% altruistic. Today I had a simple order of a waffle, bacon, egg and cheese sandwich and a Diet Coke with cheery syrup in a to go cup. With the free waffle my bill was seven bucks. I try to take the value of my free waffle, assuming my service is good and it almost always is, and add that money to my tip. Today’s bill at $7.00 was accompanied by a six dollar tip. I’m robbing the rich to pay the poor. I did make a quick stop at Buc-ee’s in Calhoun, Georgia. Buc-ee’s is kind of what a truck stop would be like if the truck stop was in Disneyland. Buc-ee’s doesn’t have many locations but the ones I have been in are absolutely jam packed. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a store as crowded as today’s Buc-ee’s was. Someday, when I’m not in a rush I’m going to have to give Buc-ee’s a complete examination. PACE GRAND PRIX – CHATTANOOGA, TENNESEE – LIFETIME TRACK#2,753. The racing this afternoon was going to be on a street course of sorts and pretty much in downtown Chattanooga. Trackchasing is all about different track configurations and surfaces and such. I will tell you that the street course race configuration is my least favorite of all. Why? Normally with a street course you can’t see very much of the racing. As a matter fact often times you can see almost nothing on a street course. I’ve seen my share of racing on these “downtown” tracks. Not to be a name dropper but maybe the most infamous street course I ever saw was the A1 Grand Prix race in downtown Durban, South Africa (above). I paid $75 U.S. for a seat. This allowed me to see the cars pass by my vantage point for a total of about five seconds. I strongly abhor street course racing from a spectator point of view. When I got to downtown Chattanooga the place as you might imagine was jampacked. First, I needed to find a place to park. I saw a sign where they were charging $40 to park your automobile. I would not be parking there. I can never lose sight that I am a senior citizen living on a small fixed income…or something like that. I drove around until I found where I could park for free on the street. Was I still pretty close to downtown Chattanooga? It was hard to tell. I was pretty sure I was still in Tennessee though. This parking spot had a benefit that came with it. The location was going to allow me to get my steps in. I would finish the day having walked a bit more than 8 miles. That’s more than 16 miles in two days. Nevertheless, I can never associate weight loss with steps taken.! There was a lot going on today at this Chattanooga extravaganza. The famous Mecum auto auction was happening in the downtown convention center (above). I planned to catch that after seeing the racing. They also had some live music playing in the downtown area. People were just walking around enjoying a beautiful fall weather day with a high temperature of about 70° and rain-free skies. All of this was fine and good but I came to Chattanooga, Tennessee with the idea of making the Pace Grand Prix my 2,753rd lifetime track. I asked around to see where the race course was located exactly. It wasn’t obvious. I soon found out the track’s location was “down by the river”. I had an option to ride a shuttle to the track’s location. That seemed like a reasonable choice. I got in line but when the line wasn’t moving very fast and there weren’t any shuttles coming to pick up folks I inquired about walking to the track. I was told it was a 16-minute walk. Not a 15-minute walk but 16 minutes. Off I went. In point of fact, it truly was every bit more of a 16-minute walk. I paid $39 for a wristband to attend all of the events in town today. That was a little pricey but then all of these types of events are a little pricey for what they are. I had already walked more than 3 miles by the time I reached the track. It was time for lunch. I found a Cajun food truck on the grounds. My choices were between a shrimp, beef or smoked sausage Po’boys. Which would I choose? I simply asked my server “which sandwich has the most meat?” I ended up with a smoked sausage Po’boy. The sandwich was good but a little bit messy to eat while I sat on a Haybale. I’m pretty good at striking up conversations with folks. That was kind of my business when I was working in sales from 1972-2002. I chatted up a fellow from Asheville, North Carolina. During our conversation he told me about the famous short track that was in Asheville for so many years. I heard and saw the story of that Asheville track just recently on the Dale Jr. executive produced Lost Speedways TV program. I like that show. I’m going to guess that today’s track length was a little bit more than 2 miles. There were very few good vantage points. That was expected with the street course layout. Everywhere I tried to watch the racing allowed just a short view of 5-7 seconds of race action. People don’t come to place like this to watch the racing. They come to watch the people and experience the event. I will invite you to watch my video from the Page Grand Prix. Although there isn’t a lot of video action of the actual racing the video does share pictures of today’s visit that created a fun upbeat touring experience. If you watch the video you’ll feel as if you were in Chattanooga for the day. I believe there were eight classes of cars racing today. The first class was from the 1920s era. This is when they had riding mechanics. Seeing those guys decked out in their driving uniforms with leather caps was chill. They actually had the Chattanooga Motor Classic for the first time in 2019. At that first event they didn’t have any wheel the wheel racing. The cars simply circled the track one at a time. The event was canceled in 2020 because of Covid. When I had seen all of the street course racing than anyone should see I wanted to go back downtown. I declined the opportunity to ride the shuttle back so I could keep adding to my step total. I made the walk and when I was finished I had well over 5 miles of steps in the bank. I was headed to the Mecum car auction in the Chattanooga Convention Center. I often watch the Mecum auctions on television while I am using my elliptical trainer in the Ranlay Events Center. It’s kind of mindless TV viewing. I watch these auctions on a recorded basis so I don’t have to be tied up with commercials. The Mecum folks run each auction car in and out in probably a minute or so. Things move right along. There was no charge to watch the auction. I couldn’t sit in the folding chairs closest to the auctioneer. Those were reserved for registered bidders. It was actually better to sit in the small aluminum grandstands. They offered an elevated view of all of the activity. Mecum and their sellers certainly had some nice cars that were sold at very expensive prices. Don’t miss my photo album or my video from the auction today. The normal person might consider what I had done today to be a very complete day. I wasn’t done yet. Yes, I had flown overnight landing in Atlanta in the dark at about 5 a.m. I had breakfast at the Waffle House. I toured a Buc-ee’s. I had seen the racing at the Pace Grand Prix and walked all over the Chattanooga Convention Center in downtown Chattanooga. I had walked more than seven miles to this point. Most people would be looking for the hotel at this point. Nope. I don’t travel that way. Soon it was time to drive back to the Atlanta airport. When I arrived, I had driven the National Car Rental Racing Toyota Camry 259 miles. I needed to catch a flight to Newark, New Jersey so I would be well positioned for tomorrow afternoon’s trackchasing activity. Just to put a little extra pressure on myself I decided to standby for the 7:30 p.m. flight to Newark rather than the 9:30 p.m. flight. I was going to have to hustle down to Atlanta. Atlanta is famous for their traffic. As long as the traffic cooperated on this late Saturday afternoon, I would probably make my flight. Ultimately, I did. Sometimes when I fly standby, I get good seats and sometimes I don’t. Today I got an exit row seat with an open middle. That’s a good seat. However, when we landed in Newark, we landed in the midst of a rain storm. At 9 o’clock at night on a Saturday night they didn’t have enough people working to get us a gate right away. We had to wait on the airplane for an hour. Once I got inside the terminal, I saw a very modern building with all kinds of restaurants and flatscreen TVs. Our UCLA Bruins were playing the Washington Huskies up in Seattle. The game was on one of the TVs. It was late in the third quarter. The contest was tied at 17. I thought about just grabbing an adult beverage and watching the game but I was time constraint limited. It was our nearly 11:30 p.m. My hotel was only 20 minutes away but the rental car people closed at midnight. There wasn’t time to watch the game with the rental car situation. I can tell you that picking up or dropping off a rental car at the Newark airport is not for the faint hearted. There’s a lot of walking. You have to be an excellent sign reader. Tonight, I needed to catch the “A-Train”. Late at night on a Saturday night the A-Train doesn’t run that often. When I finally got to the National car area, they didn’t have any Toyota Camry automobiles. I settled for a relatively speaking gas guzzler, Nissan Maxima. That being the case I listened to the fourth quarter on Sirius XM radio. I’m happy to report the Bruins drove the length of the field to score a touchdown and win 24-17. Their record right now is five wins and two losses. I’ll take it after five straight losing seasons. I will be staying at a Hyatt Place hotel for the next two nights in Secaucus, New Jersey. As you might imagine hotel prices in the greater New York/Newark area are expensive. At the last minute in my planning process, I discovered I had 16,000 Hyatt frequent stay points. For this trip those points saved me about $400 in expense. Plus…they gave me a suite! Thank you, Hyatt. SUNDAY I woke up this morning in Secaucus, New Jersey. Secaucus is just a mile or two outside of New York City. Today’s plan was to do some trackchasing in the state of Connecticut. I know most of you think of me as being from California. It is true that we have lived in California for more than 40 years. I spent the first 22 years of my life in my boyhood state of Illinois. During my business career we did move around quite a bit and spent 15 months in Ridgefield, Connecticut. It was interesting to note that when we lived in Connecticut, our house was located on 2 acres of heavily forested land. During the summertime when the leaves were out, we couldn’t see a single neighbor. During the winter time it got dark at 5 o’clock at night. I never saw my house during the daylight except for the weekends. I would leave for work in the dark and return home after dark. As a generalization I don’t think of the people in the eastern part of the country as being all that friendly. I do have several good friends who live in the eastern time zone and they are as nice as pie. Despite living in somewhat of a rural suburban Connecticut environment our neighbors were more than friendly. When we were transferred out of Connecticut, our local friends held a party for us wishing us all the best. You would likely never see that in California! NORTH HAVEN COUNTY FAIRGROUNDS – NORTH HAVEN, CONNECTICUT – LIFETIME TRACK#2,754. Today I was headed to the North Haven County Fairgrounds in North Haven, Connecticut. They were having a fall figure 8 race. This was not part of their fair. This was a freestanding figure 8 event at the fairgrounds. There are about eight or ten well-known figure 8 and demolition derby promoters in the United States. Three of those exist in Michigan. Today’s promoter, JM Productions has been in the business since 1962. I have seen several of their events. This North Haven race was only originated two weeks ago. How did I learn about it? A little birdie told me. I’ve got a lot a little birdies that tell me a lot of things during the course of a trackchasing season. I couldn’t do this at the level I do it without those little birdies. Today’s racing would take place on a 60° mostly clear fall day. The festivities were scheduled to begin at 1 p.m. I showed up right on time. Today I was the beneficiary of a very special pit pass. I can’t give you too many more details about that. People are listening, right? The announcer mentioned that because the event originated a couple weeks ago lots of details had to be pulled together quickly. The car count would be smaller than normal. There were 20 figure 8 cars in the pit area. That’s somewhat of a small car count for JM Productions. When I think about the more than 350 figure 8 locations that I have visited twenty cars is probably higher than average. Today’s event would begin with a kid’s power wheels demolition derby. There were only four or five of these little rug rats. The event was age limited. Only kiddos aged 3-9 were allowed to compete. I suppose a two-year old with some power wheels demo derby experience might be granted a waiver. The announcer told us that not that long ago they had 52 of these competitors show up. I’ve never seen more than 6-8 most of the time. I can only imagine what it took to stay in control of fifty-two 3-9 year old’s riding their electric vehicles out the mud. That must’ve been like herding cats. Today’s program would be a little bit different than usual. Because of the smallish car count they would have three races to begin with. Every competitor in the pits would race in one of those heats. The winner of these heat races would advance to the feature. Then they would have three more heats with all of the drivers who had not qualified for the feature. The winner of those heats would transfer to the feature. Today’s feature race would be made up of everyone who had won a heat race or a consolation race. I had an excellent view of the action. The sun was at my back. I felt badly for all the people in the grandstand. They were facing into the sun. Today’s figure 8 racing in North Haven was not the only new track I was hoping to see you today. The back half of my blended trackchasing double was a hoped for a visit to the Little T Speedway an hour and a half to the north in Thompson, Connecticut. When the first three heats of the day at the North Haven Fairgrounds were completed, I had a decision to make. The racing was supposed to begin at 1 p.m. They started a little late. Then they messed around with the power wheels folks until about 1:30 p.m. Next, they ran off three figure 8 he races in just 30 minutes, which was good. It was 2 p.m. Of the twenty cars that started in the first three heats some four or five had to be “forklifted” out of the arena. They were likely done for the day. That would leave only about a dozen cars eligible to race in what would be heats four, five and six. That probably meant one of the three consolation events would not happen. The Thompson, Connecticut location, the second half of my blended double, was an hour and a half north of the North Haven fairgrounds. If I left now at 2 o’clock I can get out there by 3:30 p.m. I didn’t exactly know when they would be running the handlers race up in Thompson other than I knew it would be the last event of the day. If I waited much longer after 2 p.m. I might make the three-hour roundtrip drive all the way up to Thompson and not get there in time to watch this one and only event that happens all year. I made the executive decision to leave North Haven at 2 p.m. This turned out to be a very good idea. Above I mentioned the “blended double”. I am the father of the blended double (BD). What exactly is the blended double? I’m glad you asked. There are going to be times when a racing program might not warrant staying for the entire show. Take the 24 Hours of Lemans. Do you really want to stay at the track for 24 straight hours? Maybe not. Don’t worry the 24 Hours of Lemans is an extreme example. There may be other racetracks where seeing a portion of the show is just as entertaining, and maybe more so, that staying for the entire program. I felt that today’s racing at the North Haven Fairgrounds and at the Little T Speedway fit perfectly into what the blended double was designed for. Geography sometimes dictates the implementation of the BD. Let’s say you’re in some faraway place like Connecticut and you’re from California. Traveling nearly 3,000 miles to see a full show of just 20 figure 8 cars that are part of a program where they have to run twice just in heat races might not be worth a full day of trackchasing. The program at the Little T Speedway is an even stronger example of the need, when appropriate, for a blended double. The ONLY countable race at most quarter midget tracks is the “handler’s race”. The hander’s race is when generally moms and dads race their kid’s racers in an exhibition race. QM tracks have just one handler’s race a year. My contact at Little T asked me several days ago, “You’re coming all the way from California for a 20-lap race?” I told if that’s what it took that yes indeed, I would come all the way from the Golden State to see a 20-lap race! These are the general guidelines for a blended double. The BD is NOT about coming to a race track, seeing one heat race in leaving. It’s about staying at the first track for at least an hour or seeing every countable car race at least one time. Trackchasers from the beginning of time have gone to a kart track, saw the one and only countable class race, and headed on down the road to the next track. My standard BD, I’ve done about five of them in the past five years is to stay until intermission at the first track and then leave for the next track when I’m a long way from home and neither track is worthy of being there from the very first green flag until the last checkered flag. For me blended doubles do not apply to “big” races. I’m talking about NASCAR, the World of Outlaws and big invitational races. I’m not going to go to the World 100 at Eldora and leave at intermission so I can get to a junk car figure 8 race somewhere. Today I was 3,000 miles from home. At the North Haven Fairgrounds, I had seen every car in the field race. Then I left for a visit to a quarter midget track where I was expecting to see ONE countable race. That was expected to be the only race that met trackchasing rules. I didn’t feel that either of these tracks was being slighted with a blended double. LITTLE T SPEEDWAY – THOMPSON, CONNECTICUT – LIFETIME TRACK#2,755. Little T races quarter midgets all during the racing season with drivers aged 5-16. Just one time each year do they hold any races with cars AND drivers that meet trackchasing’s rules. This one event is called the handler’s race. A handler in a quarter midget racing environment is sort of the chief mechanic/crew chief/gofer. The handler is the person who pushes off a quarter midget so the driver can get up to speed on the race track. I had messaged ahead trying to get some information about when and where and how the handler’s event would take place at the Little T Speedway. I also mentioned a woman named Tanya. She was most helpful and I very much appreciated that. Connecticut is a very rural, wooded, leafy state. The leaves are turning in Connecticut. But it almost seems like the height of the fall colors might be next week. I won’t see that. I’ll be back in California watching UCLA football then. Much of the drive up to the Little T Speedway was on winding 35 mph speed limit roads surrounded by heavy woods. I wanted to make good time but I didn’t want to get a speeding ticket. By the way I haven’t gotten a speeding ticket since 2003. I’m pretty proud of that since I’ve driven 30-40,000 miles a year in a rental car every year since then. I’ve been to the Thompson Motorsports Park three times in the past. Back in 2002 I went to see racing on their half-mile asphalt oval. That’s their most famous track. Then quite a bit later in 2015 I saw racing on their paved road course. A couple of years later in 2017 I was back to see a rallycross race on their mixed surface road course. During all of those visits I never thought to check out the Little T Speedway. There is a time and place for everything. Today was the day I would come back and catch some racing on their small 1/10 of a mile paved oval where they race quarter midgets. I pulled into the track’s parking lot at 3:30 p.m. Nothing was happening on the track. I wasn’t concerned they were finished for the day because most of the trailers were still open. I figured they were just taking a break. I saw a couple of adults standing near the track fence. I asked them if they had run the handler’s race yet. They told me that the drivers were just suiting up for that race at this very moment. I looked beyond turns three at four of the track. That was exactly the case. My timing was explicit. Today there would be a male, presumably dads mainly, and a female, again presumably moms, handler’s race. When I first saw the dads getting buckled in, I didn’t know there would be a mom race to follow. I didn’t see any of the kid’s quarter midget racing today. They were finished by the time I arrived. The dad’s handler race started nine cars. They had their shares of spins and even a flip. It’s pretty unusual to see a flip in quarter midget racing. Today’s feature race for the day was going to be for 30 laps. They didn’t have a permanent scoreboard at the track. They did have someone up in the scoring tower on the second floor using a card system to keep track of laps. Each time a lap was completed they changed the handheld card in the picture window of the tower. Basic but effective. The Little T Speedway is a tidy little outfit. They’ve got permanent concessions buildings and permanent restroom buildings. As a matter of fact, there’s a golf driving range adjacent to the track. Just beyond the driving range is a cemetery. I guess you can call this a multipurpose complex! I’m going to recommend my video so that you can get a chance to see what handler’s racing looked like when performed in quarter midget cars. The mom’s race also ran for 30 laps. They had even more spins and crashes than the dad’s racing. There were a couple of very hard hits in turn number two. At the end of the day, I looked out over turns number three and four. There was a beautiful rainbow in the sky. I took this as a sign from the trackchasing gods that I had done a good job of Connecticut trackchasing today. I had pulled in just in time to see the racing at Little T. I had seen every car in the field race at the North Haven Fairgrounds. I don’t get out to Connecticut that often to trackchase. Today had been a pristine day on many levels. When it was time to leave the Little T Speedway, I looked for some assistance from my Waze GPS system. Waze told me it would take four hours to get back to my hotel in Secaucus, New Jersey. I knew that Sunday night traffic getting into the New York City area would be intense on less than perfect roads. It was. Folks, this ain’t California when it comes to roads. For some reason I had a hankering for Indian food for dinner. A good deal of the time when I’m wrapping up these trips, I’m going to be visiting a fast food drive-through. That’s quick, easy and tasty. Then I’m quickly back on the road again. I thought I had the time and I thought I had the money (maybe I didn’t) so I used Yelp to get a recommendation. I found the Utsav Indian restaurant in Vernon, Connecticut just off of the interstate 84 freeway. I found these folks easily but there were a couple of “issues”. I was looking forward to being able to sit down in the interior of a fancy and highly decorated Indian restaurant to enjoy my trackchasing victory meal. That wasn’t going to happen today. Although the restaurant was open and serving food diners were not allowed to eat inside the restaurant! I walked in to place my order. I asked why customers couldn’t eat inside the restaurant. The owner told me that he was having a hard time getting help thus the no eating inside policy. I think folks are still taking Covid much more seriously back here than we are in California. The incidence of mask wearing appears to be much greater than what I see in Orange County. I don’t think these areas are getting any better Covid results than what we have in California and maybe not as good. Maybe that’s why more people are wearing masks! I ordered my Indian restaurant “usual”. That’s shrimp tikka masala, garlic/cheese naan and a Diet Coke. The only Diet Coke they had was about 2 inches left at the bottom of a store bought plastic liter bottle. The guy offered me those last two inches of Diet Coke, presumably unfizzed, for five bucks. I declined. I should have taken a tip from that offer! With no Diet Coke available I ordered an Indian beer. There was just one problem with that. I would need to drink the beer in my car. I’m pretty sure if a state policeman pulled up and saw me sitting in my car, even though I wasn’t driving, he would not appreciate the idea that I was drinking a beer. I would have to take my chances. Carol and I ate Indian food in California the other night. I would say the quality of the Indian food that we eat in California was on a par, maybe a little bit better than what I had tonight. When I went to pay the bill, the fella told me that it was going to be $51. $51!? I told him I thought that price was outrageous. I also told him that in California we would pay half of that amount if not a little bit less. I think he was a little taken aback by my forwardness. He told me that “prices for everything are going up”. I didn’t care. Fifty one dollars for one person to eat Indian food from a restaurant located in a strip shopping mall? Ridiculous. My approach definitely put the guy on the defensive. He offered me a second bottle of beer at no charge to try to compensate. I told him I didn’t think it would be a very good idea for me to drink two beers and then try to drive into New York City. I don’t think he understood but I passed on his free beer offer. He recommended I go out into the parking lot and sit in my car and wait for me food. When my order was ready, he would bring it out to me. I took the beer in a plastic cup and waited for probably a half hour. When he did show up with my Indian food the portions could probably have fed a family of five. He also included a serving of Indian rice pudding that I had not ordered. All of this made me feel just a little bit better about the $51 charge but not all that much. Managing this type of meal in the dark of my rental car wasn’t easy. The food was decent. I ate as much as I wanted tonight. Then the plan was to finish it off tomorrow morning in my Hyatt Place hotel before I flew back to Los Angeles. I was pretty pleased that I was able to add three new track visits to my lifetime trackchasing résumé this weekend. I was even more pleased that two of those three race tracks had never been seen by any other trackchaser before me. I’ve now seen racing at 84 tracks for the first time in 2021. I think if I had focused on it, I could’ve seen more than 100 new tracks this year. Why no 100 tracks in 2021? I took five weeks off for Covid while I waited for a vaccination in January and February. I also took a week off when I actually got a breakthrough case of Covid in August. I had a string of seven tracks that were canceled for one reason or another on a consecutive basis during August and September. Then I committed to stay home and watch UCLA football on six different weekends when I could have been out trackchasing. I’ve seen racing at more than 100 tracks in 13 different years. I have averaged to seeing racing at more than 100 tracks for each of 24 years. I guess that’s why I didn’t focus on seeing 100 tracks in 2021! Been there; done that. Driving back into the New York City area on a Sunday night comes with its share of traffic. It’s not that different than driving back into Southern California on a Sunday night when people are coming back from the mountains or the desert or Mexico or San Francisco. It’s similar to driving back into Chicago or Minneapolis when locals are returning from their vacation homes to the north. It was what it was. I listened to podcasts including one I particularly enjoyed with Alec Baldwin interviewing Dr. Anthony Fauci. MONDAY Making the ten-mile drive from my hotel in Secaucus, New Jersey to the Newark Liberty International Airport (EWR) was interesting. What do I mean by interesting? The east, in general, is just so old. The roads are terrible. The scenery in the cities is frightening. The pot holes rival the Grand Canyon. Drivers are rude. The infrastructure for lack of a better word just plain sucks. On the other side of that coin is this. New England is beautiful. Most might think that the heavily populated states of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts are all big cities. Not the case. Actually, most of those states are dominated by beautiful rural landscapes. I’m just not a big fan of traveling in and around the cities in those states in a car. It was $16 to cross the George Washington Bridge. When I finally did make back to EWR I was able to grab a non-stop flight back to LAX. That was a five hour and eleven minute flight today. I had an aisle seat with an open middle. That’s pretty much my favorite seat in coach. I passed the time watching Netflix mini-series programs, mainly “Flint Town”. That’s another story about a decent sized city with all kinds of infrastructure problems. This trip was like so many others. It had a little bit of everything (above). I guess that’s why I continue to do this. Although I have my expectations of each trip there are always enough new experiences to keep it interesting! Randy Lewis – 85 countries – 2,755 tracks. Tennessee The Volunteer State This afternoon I saw racing at my 42nd lifetime track in the Volunteer, yes, the Volunteer State. I hold the #2 trackchasing ranking in Tennessee. Tennesse ranks #21, amongst all the states, in tracks seen for me in the U.S. Here’s a link to my all-time Tennessee state trackchasing list. I have made 33 separate trips to Tennessee seeing these tracks. Connecticut The Constitution State This afternoon I saw racing at my 17th and 18th lifetime tracks in the Constitution, yes, the Constitution State. I hold the #3 trackchasing ranking in Connecticut. Connecticut ranks #34, amongst all the states, in tracks seen for me in the U.S. Here’s a link to my all-time Connecticut state trackchasing list. I have made 15 separate trips to Connecticut seeing these tracks. 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 Tennessee sayings: Sexier than socks on a rooster “New Englander?” “Nah, I’m a Nutmegger!” JUST THE 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 855 tracks of my lifetime total. That’s a fact, Jack. Total Trackchasing Countries My nearest trackchasing competitor, a native of Belgium, has seen racing in more than 30 fewer countries compared to my lifetime total. Current lifetime National Geographic Diversity results 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. Vintage racing from Chattanooga PLUS a visit to the Mecum auto auction. Fall figure 8 racing…from way up in Connecticut Wild and crazy flips and crashes….from the Little T Speedway quarter midget track See it in pictures! 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. Each trip includes a lot of photos of the “trip” and not just the racing. From one U.S. senator, “I think if I wanted to see what this adventure was like and didn’t have all that much time, I would just look at the photo album.” Vintage racing plus some very cool photos of the cars at the Mecum auto auction in Chattanooga. Down home fall weather figure 8 racing in the northeast. Quarter midget racing, fall colors and Indian food 
Connecticut sayings: Nutmegger = Someone from Connecticut
