Primghar Racetrack

 

 

Sunday!

 

 

I used to date a girl from Wyoming

 

 

Had a “loose meat” sandwich lately?

 

 

What has happened to the American driver?

 

 

No pork tenderloins? You’re kidding right?

 

 

It’s Iowa and Michigan for “big car” figure 8 racing

 

 

A one-class show? You won’t see that often

 

 

Let’s be clear on a couple of points

 

 

 

 

Editor’s note: Today I had the opportunity to see racing at two locations in Iowa. My report will cover both of those visits.

 

What a research team at RLR.

I woke up this morning at home in Williamsburg, Iowa. I went to bed in Clive, Iowa. Today was the seventh day of my 42-day mega trackchasing trip.

 

 

I am lucky to have such a good research team. The boys and girls who work at Randy Lewis Racing can be certain to find every trackchasing opportunity there is. They do a wonderful job.

 

 

Sunday!

Finding races on Sundays is difficult. I long ago saw all of the tracks that race weekly on Sundays. There weren’t many to begin with and now they’ve all been “knocked out”.

 

 

However, I did come up with a Sunday afternoon country fair figure 8 event. It was located in the small town of Harlan, Iowa. Harlan is a small town of just 5,106 people. Nevertheless, it is the county seat of Shelby County. That fact would normally make it home to the county fair. In point of fact Harlan IS the location of the Shelby County Fair.

 

 

A stroke of luck or something much deeper?

Yesterday I had considered going to the purpose built dirt figure 8 track in Primghar, Iowa. However, I knew there was rain in the area. This morning I checked Primghar’s website to see if they did get rained out on Saturday night.

 

 

They did. That wasn’t too surprising. However, their site also told me their rain date was tonight! What a stroke of good fortune. I was already planning to see a 3 p.m. start at the Shelby County Fair in Harlan, Iowa. Now if Primghar wasn’t too far from Harlan I could make this a day/night trackchasing double. How far apart? Just two hours and seven minutes. In my world that’s “just across town”. I would be able to make both shows easily.

 

 

There isn’t a whole lot going on in Harlan. However, this little burg has generated 12 class 3-A high school football championships since 1972. More than 98% of the population is white, the average family earns about $45,000 and some 7% of the residents fall below the poverty line.

 

 

I used to date a girl from Wyoming.

This was not my first stop in Harlan. Back in about 1970 I was returning from a trip to Wyoming. I was dating a girl who lived in Dayton, Wyoming. On the drive back from the Cowboy state to Illinois I stopped to see racing on the dirt oval of the Shelby County Speedway. That was more than 44 summers ago! Frankly I don’t remember much about that track visit.  By the way I kept dating that girl from Wyoming….until I married here. It’s 42 years later on that matrimonial plunge and things are still going well.

 

 

Why a Motel 6?

This morning I woke up in a very basic Motel 6 in Williamsburg, Iowa. Why a Motel 6? I couldn’t get Priceline to give me a hotel for half price. When that happens my default is the Motel 6.

 

 

Had a “loose meat” sandwich lately?

The best thing about this particular Motel 6 in Williamsburg, Iowa is that it’s across the street from a Maid-Rite. Maid-Rite serves “loose meat” burgers. Don’t laugh if you haven’t tried it. It’s along the lines but not exactly like sloppy Joe sandwiches. I texted all the people who would appreciate seeing a Maid-Rite “burger” photo. They seemed pleased.

 

 

This trip will involve a lot of driving. It was a 192-mile drive, almost three hours, westward to Harlan. Much of this was along interstate 80. I can’t believe how bad American drivers are compared to their European counterparts. If you haven’t driven much outside the U.S. you might not thing this possible.

 

 

What has happened to the American driver?

The American driver does not understand that the passing lane is for……(drum roll) passing! That’s right. You’re supposed to move out into the passing lane when you are passing another car. When that chore is finished you maneuver your car back into the NON-PASSING LANE. Could this concept be much simpler?

 

 

In Europe these folks know how to do this. As soon as they are finished passing they get out of the passing lane. This keeps the passing lane open for…..what else….people who are passing.

 

 

Are these people stupid or what?

On this trip I noticed another irritating item from my fellow American drivers. Much of I-80 is two lanes in each direction. I continually saw drivers in the slower of the two lanes rudely “barge themselves” into the fast lane. Imagine a situation where cars are traveling 65 M.P.H. with just 2-3 car lengths between each driver. I was seeing drivers simply make a semi-sharp turn left from the slow lane into the faster, dare I say passing lane. This forced people to slam on the breaks and created a chain-reaction with most of the cars and drivers behind the offending driver. Where are the state police when you need them? American drivers are getting worse and worse. Oh my.

 

 

 

Shelbyville County Speedway – Harlan, Iowa

 

 

Not very impressed.

I must tell you I was not very impressed with the promotion today at the Shelby County Speedway. Race time was set for 3 p.m. I arrived at just past 2 p.m. I parked under a shade tree and proceeded to listen to the closing laps of the NASCAR Spring Cup race. When the NASCAR race went a few minutes past three I was worried I would miss the ambience and opening ceremonies of the figure 8 racing at today’s county fair.

 

 

I worry too much. Short track operations rarely start on time. The NASCAR race ended at 3:10 p.m. I mosied over to the grandstand. I did stop to watch a kid’s “tractor pull” for a minute or so. They start ‘em young in the Hawkeye state.

 

 

No pork tenderloins? You’re kidding right.

Before I bought my race ticket I asked if anyone was selling pork tenderloins at the fair. The answer was “No”. My goodness.  The tenderloin was on the menu.  They just didn’t have any.  This was an Iowa county fair without any pork tenderloins? That’s like the Catholic church being out of wine for communion.

 

 

However, I was more than pleased with their five-dollar admission price. That sure beat those robbers up in Michigan who charge ten bucks to park and ten dollars to get in to watch the races. Of course parking was free today.

 

 

I grabbed a top row seat amongst young people who had too many tattoos for my taste. Their kids were allowed to run amuck as well. If a parent can’t keep their kid at their side during the National anthem I’m betting that kid will never become president of Procter & Gamble.

 

 

Why?

The announcer told us there would be a delay. The driver’s were still meeting. The racing actually started 45 minutes late. Who in their right mind holds the driver’s meeting at the advertised time the races are scheduled to begin? The answer: Lots of promoters.

 

 

The announcer told us there were “45 cars” in the pit area racing today. Actually they ran four heats (one heat per class – four classes) with about 6-7 cars in each race. That comes to about 25-30 cars using my math skills. A quick visual of the pit area would confirm 25-30 at most.

 

 

The classes were divided mainly by engine size. Only the last heat race before intermission was very entertaining. This was for the big V-8 cars.

 

 

Two cars did flip over during the heats. They ran into the big tractor tires that were used as markers for the F8 configuration. Most of the emergency vehicles and earth moving equipment from Shelby County arrived to check out the condition of the accident-prone drivers. Everybody was O.K. in each episode.

 

 

I did have a very stout hamburger at the track concession smothered in mustard. That was good. However, the racing was deliberate. The intermission lasted forever. I can’t very well recommend this place.

 

 

What to do when it’s time to leave?

When it was time to leave I left. I had been at the track for nearly three hours. That’s more than enough time for a poorly run county fair figure 8 show.

 

 

On the way out I spent some time looking inside the commercial building. That’s right “building”. One group was advertising the $10.10 per hour minimum wage. Their slogan was “American needs a raise!”. I suspect most people making or who made more than ten bucks an hour are against this idea. Most who make less than ten dollars per hours would love an increase. Despite what the minister says I don’t think basic human nature is oriented toward compassion. It’s a nice “buzz” word but in practice not so much.

 

 

 

Primghar Race Track – Primghar, Iowa

 

 

It’s Iowa and Michigan for “big car” figure 8 racing.

Iowa, along with Michigan has the best “big car” figure 8 racing. Iowa is the only state that has several purpose built for “figure 8 only” tracks. I can think of nearly ten of them. I have now seen them all!

 

 

I’ve been wanting to come to Primghar for years. It’s somewhat remote location in Northwest Iowa and unsettled weather have always kept me away.

 

 

As a matter of fact I considered coming up here last night. However, rain was in the area. They did get rained out. However, a somewhat random look at the website this morning (Sunday morning) turned up two facts. Yes, they were rained out last night. However their rain date was tonight…Sunday. That was perfect.

 

 

Admission was just five dollars. The racing is promoted by the local Jaycee (United States Junior Chamber) group. My first little league team, I played two years on that team was sponsored by the Jaycees. They sported green and white uniforms.

 

 

Good “fun” concession food.

Before I headed into the grandstands I had to have supper at the JC concession stand. A good-looking Coney dog, an order of nachos with meat and a Diet Coke came to seven dollars U.S. Toward the end of the program it was announced my food items were available for half price!

 

 

I grabbed a top row seat in the very full grandstands. They had a nice crowd on hand. I suspect that few fans came from more than 25 miles away. I’m sure “word of mouth” kept everyone informed about tonight’s rain date.

 

 

A one-class show? You won’t see that often.

There are very few regularly scheduled one class racing shows around anymore. They’ve gone the way of the drive-in movie theatre. I’ll bet there aren’t ten tracks in the country that run a weekly or bi-weekly one car race promotion. However, the Primghar Race Track has just one class of figure 8 racers. They are V-8 powered fast cars.

 

 

Most figure 8 racing I see can barely be called “racing”. They often run around in the mud at speeds topping out at about 30 M.P.H. However they really RACE here. It was a very entertaining program.

 

 

I love seeing this type of car race.

The highlight was watching a 1957 Chevy compete. I grew up watching ’57 Chevies race. I’ll see one or two of those a season nowadays. The driver of this car, Joe Hunt, was very competitive. He’s currently second in overall points out of 32 drivers listed in the track program. Further research told me that Joe Hunt won his first track championship all the way back in 1985!

 

 

The program was temporarily delayed when a woman driver was injured in the second heat race. It took them 15-20 minutes to clear up this situation. As far as I could tell she injured her leg but was generally O.K.

 

 

The track announcer sat in the middle of the grandstand “amongst the people”. I see that from time to time in these parts but nowhere else. He had a very strong, loud and staccato way of speaking.

 

 

He told us what type of racing we were seeing (heat, trophy dash, main event etc.) but not how the drivers qualified for those races. It appeared the drivers did not advance from the “B” feature to the “A” feature even if they did well in the “B”.

 

 

Don’t miss the video!

My best advice is to look at the video from tonight’s racing. I wish there were more purpose built dirt F8 tracks. However, if you want to see them you pretty much have to come to Iowa. That’s not really a bad idea. I love Iowans.

 

 

 

Iowa

 

 

The Hawkeye state

Today and tonight I saw my 90^th and 91^st lifetime tracks in the Hawkeye state, yes the Hawkeye state. I’m closing in on Ed Esser’s state leading total of 94 tracks.

 

 

 

Let’s be clear on a couple of points.

Let me be clear about two things. I likely wouldn’t be close to Ed’s total if he had not passed at a somewhat young age. Secondly, I’m pretty sure although I have no way of knowing that there’s an Iowa race fan out there somewhere who has seen racing at more than 94 tracks. There’s always some “local guy”, it would be rare for it to be a gal, who has seen a lot of racing in his home state. However, as someone once told me “You only know what you know”. As of right now I know that Ed Esser saw 94 tracks in Iowa. If and when I tie and and/or surpass him I will be proud of my Iowa trackchasing accomplishments.

 

 

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: May your life be as good as it appears on Facebook

 

 

QUICK FACTS

 

No, these trips aren’t as easy as I make them look.

 

AIRPLANE

Los Angeles, CA (LAX) – Chicago, IL (ORD) – 1,745 miles

 

RENTAL CAR #1

O’Hare International Airport – trip begins

Charlotte, MI

Cortland, OH

Davisburg, MI

Davisburg, MI

Mechanicsburg, IL

Harlan, IA

Primghar, IA

 

 

 

TRACK ADMISSION PRICES:

Eaton County Fairgrounds – $10

Trumbull County Fairgrounds – $4

Oakland County Fairgrounds – oval – $10 ($10 to park!)

Oakland County Fairgrounds – figure 8 – $10 ($10 to park….again!)

Ealyville Speedway – Complimentary pit pass

Shelby County Speedway – $5

Primghar Raceway – $5

 

 

 

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

 

1. Randy Lewis, San Clemente, California – 1,981

 

 

Total Trackchasing Countries

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

 

1. Randy Lewis, San Clemente, California – 68

 

 

 

Current lifetime National Geographic Diversity results

 

1. Randy Lewis, San Clemente, California – 4.96

 

 

 

That’s all folks! Official end of the RLR – Randy Lewis Racing Trackchaser Report

 

 

Figure 8 racing from the Primghar Racetrack, Primghar, Iowa

.

.

Figure 8 racing from the Shelby County Fairgrounds, Harlan, Iowa:

 

 

 

Click on the link below to see figure 8 racing at the Shelby County Fair:

A day at the Shelby County Fair – Harlan, Iowa – For figure 8 racing

.

.

Click on the link below to see figure 8 racing promoted by the Primghar Jaycees:

A fun night of figure 8 racing from Primghar, Iowa