Greetings from first Oklee, Minnesota
and then Pine River, Minnesota
and almost to Lake Odessa, Michigan
From the travels and adventures of the
“World’s #1 Trackchaser”
Red Lake County Fair Speedway Dirt road course Lifetime Track #2,715 Cass County Fairgrounds Dirt oval Lifetime Track #2,716 Lake Odessa County Fairgrounds Dirt oval Canceled by a tornado! THE EVENT Editor’s note: Another great trackchasing weekend was in the books. As usual, there was nearly as much uncertainty as certainty. I didn’t like seeing the results of a tornado or bad parenting. Then I was reminded I can’t control much beyond my own stuff. 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. Covid is in the rearview mirror and getting smaller every day. I AM A TRACKCHASER. My name is Randy Lewis (above with a couple of buddies at the World Formula 1 in South Korea). 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 Saturday/Sunday, June 26/27, 2021. In an effort to save you the time it takes to read 3-4 different Trackchaser Reports and to save me the time it takes to present them that way I’m going to combine all of my trackchasing from a single weekend into just one message. Let me know if you like that or not. I can’t tell you how many people I meet at a race track or the number of folks who email me simply to say, “I wish I could do what you do”. I think what they might be saying is, “I wish I was retired and free as a bird to do what I wanted to do without any restraints from anything or anybody”. That’s fair enough. Most people only see me at the race track for a three-hour time frame. Or they read one of my Trackchaser Reports and learn about all of the crazy experiences that I get to be a part of and see firsthand. That part of my hobby of trackchasing is a tremendous amount of fun. Folks who say “I wish I could do what you do” might not be seeing the full picture. It’s easy to make all kinds of judgments about all kinds of things when the full picture can’t be seen. Getting from point A, which is our modest seaside cottage in San Clemente, to point B which could be in any one of our 50 states or in any one of the 193 countries in the world is challenging. What I do can be a little bit expensive. It can be a heck of a lot of fun to see if I can make it happen. With that being said I’ll tell you about this morning’s experience and then you can decide if you, “really want to do what I do”. THURSDAY Last night we had a special dinner at an Indian restaurant with Carol, Kristy, James, and our grandkids Astrid and Mitch. We were really celebrating two things. First, this was a belated Father’s Day dinner for me. We don’t always do holidays and birthdays and anniversaries on the exact date due to my travel schedule. We also celebrated Astrid’s last night that I’ll be able to see her before she heads off for a five-week musical camp in central California. She can’t have any visitors at camp during the entire stay because of Covid. She’s really looking forward to that adventure. At her age of 13 I think this will be an absolute blast. FRIDAY This morning I left our house at 5:45 a.m. My policy is to leave three hours before my flight time from the Los Angeles International Airport. LAX is 65 miles northwest of our hometown of San Clemente. Normally at that hour of the day I can drive the 65 miles at about a mile a minute. That happened today as well. If I don’t encounter any traffic driving up to the airport, I’ll have time to stop at the supercharger in Redondo Beach, California. There I can get in 20-30 minutes of charging time while I power walk at least a mile or more. I love multitasking! I can’t recall seeing the LAX airport any more crowded and busier than it was today. All of the people who have lived in their basements for the last 12 months have now emerged like the 17-year cicada. I personally think anyone who didn’t travel during Covid should be penalized. They should only be allowed to enter the airport following the people who have been out and about during the Covid pandemic but then that’s just me. I was standing by for a flight from Los Angeles to Minneapolis. When I fly standby, I am only able to board the plane if the airline hasn’t sold all the seats and I have priority over my fellow standby passengers. Last night when I checked there were 16 open seats and I was eighth and last on the standby list. This morning there were seven open seats and I was 19th. Sometimes things change that way and not for the good in this case. The races I am attempting to see you tomorrow and on Saturday are both in Minnesota. I really wanted to fly into Minneapolis. However, the rest of the flights today going to MSP looked worse for standby flying than the one I just missed! I had to change my plan and I had to change it quickly. I looked at several airports that I might be able to fly into and drive to Minnesota. Those airports included Omaha, Kansas City, Denver and Chicago. None of those arrangements looked good. I think I might have a smartphone app for every possible life situation I could ever encounter. One of my best apps is called, “Flight View”. It shows me the airline schedules for just about every flight combination in the entire world. Today I took a wild guess to see if there was going to be a nonstop flight from Los Angeles to Milwaukee. To my pleasant surprise, there was. Spirit Airlines had just started air service from Los Angeles to Milwaukee. They had a flight leaving one hour and 15 minutes after the flight I had just missed that was headed to Minneapolis. I needed to act fast. First, I checked one of my other smartphone apps called “Staff Traveler”. I soon found out that the Spirit Airlines flight had 41 open seats. Fantastic! I quickly popped open my laptop and purchased a standby ticket for this itinerary. Next, I had to leave terminal two at LAX and walk across the airport to terminal five. I would once again need to clear TSA airport security. LAX has eight terminals and if you wanted to go to each one of them you would have to clear security four or five times. There was also another significant logistical issue I needed to manage after I was pretty well confirmed that I would get on the flight to Milwaukee. I would need a rental car. I have a pretty good deal with my rental car sponsor, National Car Rental. If I call them up more than 24 hours in advance, they guarantee me a full-sized car at a very reasonable price. That’s an excellent deal. However, if I contact them with less than 24 hours’ notice, there’s a very good chance they will not have a car available to me. Additionally, I wanted to get a one-way rental from Milwaukee to Minneapolis. This would make the rest of the trip go much smoother for Sunday’s outing in Michigan. I used my National Car Rental smartphone app. I was shocked when I went to make a reservation picking up the car in Milwaukee and dropping it in Minneapolis and they accepted my request. I can’t remember the last time something like that happened when I was trying to make a one-way rental with less than 24 hours’ notice. Now I was golden. I was flying to Milwaukee, and driving up to northern Minnesota. I would have to hustle but I could do it. The clientele on Spirit Airlines is a bit unusual. These are mainly younger people and they look to be budget travelers. Nothing wrong with that. Everyone has to start somewhere. The guy in front of me started off quickly with a couple of cocktails. Then he got warned a time or two for not wearing his mask over his nose and mouth. That is never a good way to ingratiate yourself with the flight attendants. Soon he was asking for more cocktails. The flight attendant had a little heartburn over his request. She told the young passenger that she would serve him one more drink and then “see how he was doing” after that. It was a little bit comical to hear this interaction. When I landed in Milwaukee it was time to get my rental car. I only come to Milwaukee about every two or three years. Their airport is older and not the showplace that many American cities now have with new airline terminals. I would come to find out the National Car Rental location at the Milwaukee airport is not a corporate location. What does that mean? You just can’t pick any one of their cars and drive it to another location and drop it off. Today my selection would be from a very small group of vehicles that were “one-way cars”. That’s never good. Nevertheless, I requested a Toyota Camry. It just turned out they had a brand new one sitting in the one-way rental pool with only 1,400 miles on this odometer. That was going to be excellent. I expected to drive my rental car about 1,000 miles in the next two days. The Toyota Camry is my full-sized rental car of choice. This was a good way to start. Did you know that trackchasers have been reporting track visits since 1928? That’s 93 years ago! Did you know there are hundreds of trackchasers who have submitted a trackchasing list? Yes, there are. Wouldn’t you think that if trackchasers had been trackchasing for 93 years and there were hundreds of them that every racing location in the United States would have been seen by now? I think I would think that. The normal person might think that. However, it is not true. Tomorrow I’m planning to go to the Red Lake County Fairgrounds in Oklee, Minnesota and then that evening I’ll drive over to the Cass County Fairgrounds in Pine River, Minnesota. Not a single trackchaser, not even those trackchasers who started their hobby in 1928, has ever been to either of these fairgrounds to see auto racing. The Randy Lewis Racing research department had come up with an outstanding trackchasing double. When I walked through the gate and sat in the grandstand, I would become the first trackchaser ever to see auto racing at these two locations. Honestly, I find that pretty amazing. In point of fact, if everything comes off as planned tomorrow, I will have seen 45 tracks for the first time in my 2021 trackchasing season. How many of those tracks have never had a trackchaser darken their door until I came there this year? The answer to that question is 26! Only one trackchaser can be the first to count a track. Actually, multiple people, who all visited on the same day, could be the first trackchaser to count a track. With all of this in mind, I hopped in the National Car Rental Racing Toyota Camry and began the 621-mile drive from the Milwaukee airport over to Oklee, Minnesota. I would make some of the drive tonight and the rest of the drive early tomorrow morning. If all went well, I would pull onto the fairgrounds a few minutes before starting time at 1 p.m. Sometime during the drive, I made a Priceline online hotel reservation at the Travel Lodge in Brooklyn Center, Minnesota. I don’t know what I would do without my smartphone and Priceline and all of the other tech tools that I have at my disposal. At a little past 11 p.m. I pulled into the Travel Lodge. Things looked a little sketchy. There were people hanging around outside the hotel smoking and chattering and looking just a little bit undesirable. I walked past them and went to check-in. This is when I found out that my reservation was for a smoking room. I don’t do smoking. Maybe you didn’t hear me. I don’t do smoking! This was going to necessitate me making a phone call to Priceline and then Priceline making a phone call to the hotel to confirm that they would cancel my reservation without any penalty. Of course, on a Friday night and at nearly midnight Priceline was busy. They promised to call me back as soon as they could. They did. Soon my reservation was canceled but it was late. I didn’t have a hotel. I still had a nearly five-hour drive up to tomorrow’s racetrack in Oklee, Minnesota. I vowed that I would continue to drive and if I found a hotel I would stay there. If I didn’t, I would simply sleep in my car. I checked Motel 6 and Super 8 national reservations. They had nothing. As I passed through one small town after another I googled that hotel and called them. Everybody was sold out. Finally, when I had just about given up on the entire idea and was now planning to sleep in the car I saw a hotel, America’s Best Value Inn, in Staples, Minnesota. It was 1:15 a.m. I called them. They had a room for 100 bucks with tax that anywhere else should’ve cost $50. I decided to stay there and was greeted by a rather gruff ethnic guy. I tried to bond with him the best I could. It wasn’t easy. Soon I was in bed at 1:30 a.m. I could sleep until 9 a.m. and still make it to the races tomorrow so that wasn’t all that bad. SATURDAY I spent the entire morning working talking on the phone with a fellow from Quicken Loans, now Rocket Mortgage, who is helping me with our mortgage refinance. Considering cell phone coverage where I was was spotty it was a major challenge to send back and forth the documents that were being requested. However, I was very much motivated. We are going to save a lot of money with this mortgage refinance. I pulled into Oklee, Minnesota at a little past 12 noon. Their latest population count was a whopping 435 people. The city’s total land area is just .60 square miles. But I guess on a positive note, the city is growing. The 2000 census showed that Oklee had only 396 residents! The town was smaller than I expected. I drove around for several minutes trying to find the fairgrounds but no luck. I was on my speakerphone with the mortgage guy when I came across two local residents walking their dogs down the street. I stopped and got some directions to the racetrack. The mortgage guy waited patiently on speaker until I got the track’s location under control. He seemed a little amused at my hobby! Today’s racing was not going to be at the Red Lake County Fairgrounds. As a matter of fact, I never ever found the fairgrounds. But I did find the race track was located about 3 miles outside of town near a gravel pit. I paid my $10 admission with single dollar bills from my dollar bill file. When I walked in, I had an eerie feeling. This layout looked way too similar to the track I had visited in Twin Valley; Minnesota called the Twin Valley Junkyard. It took me more than five minutes and some longitude and latitude searching to confirm that I had not come back to the Twin Valley track that I saw back in July 2019. I breathe a collective sigh of relief. Today’s announcer told us over a decent PA system that more than 100 cars were in the pit area. I didn’t have a pit pass. I wasn’t really sure I even needed one to go into the pits today. At most race tracks in the United Kingdom, the price of general admission includes admittance to the pit area as well. Once in the pits, I was able to get up close and personal with all of the racing machines. They had a little bit of everything from four cylinders to six-cylinder cars to pick-up trucks and 4 x 4’s. You definitely will not want to miss the photos of the more than 100 cars that graced the pit area of the Red Lake County Fair Speedway. Today’s track was mainly an oval but they had a couple of small dog legs that made it a road course. Drivers definitely had to turn both left and right to get around the course and that made it a road course no matter what someone else might say. The track was rough. It was not unusual to see cars getting airborne in the turns. These were all junk car racers so they didn’t have much suspension to speak of. Drivers looked like they were riding bucking broncos. I think it would have been very easy for someone to break their wrists with the wild gyrations the steering wheels were taking. Today’s facility was both rough and rugged. It was a blue sky day with puffy white clouds. The temperature was only in the low 70s which was very cool for this time of year in Minnesota. It easily could’ve been in the 90s. The track was most efficient at running one race after another. It didn’t take them much more than one hour to run all 100 cars in their heat races. The heats went for six laps. Some fans sat in a rather small bleacher grandstand. Others brought lawn chairs and still, others stood. With more than 100 cars in the pits, there were probably 300 people or more stationed around the course. I watched the racing from all angles. With this afternoon’s racing at Oklee beginning at 1 p.m., it would be an easy day/night double to get down to Pine River, Minnesota for their 7 p.m. start. That was my plan. I’m not able to get as many trackchasing doubles as I used to get back in the day. Nevertheless, I still get a few now and then. I made the two-hour drive down to Pine River arriving about an hour and a half before their 7 p.m. scheduled start time. I noticed that the Cass County Fairgrounds was a small one. They had a tiny carnival and a few animal barns with not much in the way of life stock populating them. This was the last night of the fair so maybe all of that activity happened earlier at this county fair. I’ve seen racing at more than 500 county fairs and state fairgrounds. That probably seems a lot to you. It does to me as well. I found a spot to park and hung out in my car for a while. It just so happened that I parked next to a guy in a pick-up truck. This guy was drunk on his feet as he wandered around outside. At different points in time, he had two small children in the back of his truck. With them, he used the “F word” in about every other sentence. I felt very badly for these kids. They won’t be going to Harvard. They’ll be lucky to graduate from high school. I commonly say that when you see screwed-up kids the first place to look is their parents. What a dim future these two small children have. The Cass County Fairgrounds was a little bit unusual. I didn’t really see any food vendors. I was told that one of the local charitable organizations was serving brisket for a donation. That was most unusual. I didn’t see them. I paid $10 to get into the Baja races tonight as I had done this afternoon. As soon as I bought my ticket I walked through a building and bought a beer. Then I looked around to get some food. The only food being sold was before folks bought their tickets and got their beers. I couldn’t take my beer outside to where the food stands were…assuming there were some food stands. I don’t who planned the logistics on the one but I didn’t care much for it. Tonight, there were three small aluminum grandstands set up. They might have accommodated 300 people or so. Quite a few fans watched the races at the fence or simply wanted around getting the best few they could. The female announcer was a talkative soul. She told the crowd that the Hard Water Ice Racing Association was promoting Baja racing at three different fairgrounds this summer. I had already been to the other two she mentioned but tonight’s visit to the Cass County Fairgrounds in Pine River was brand new for me. As a matter of fact, no other trackchasers had ever come up to Pine River. I was the first. This afternoon’s Baja racing in Oklee attracted more than 100 competitors. Tonight, the announcer told us that just 35 racers were in the pit area. They would be racing on a track configuration that was very unusual. I had never seen a track shape like this one. I think someone had gone crazy wild with a dirt excavator and made a track that was somewhat elevated with huge dirt mounds. Unfortunately, the elevated announcing stand blocked my view completely of one of the big turns. For the first round of heat racing, I was pretty much stuck in the top row of one of the aluminum grandstands. When the first round of heats was finished, I made way down to ground level and watched from there. For the second round of heats. they reversed the direction that the cars had been racing. For those of you who might be asking what happens if a race track runs in one direction and then changes direction later on…that does not count as two tracks. Nope. It does not. I was the first trackchaser to attend any racing at today’s race up in Oklee and tonight’s racing in Pine River. This gives me 26 tracks where I was the first trackchaser ever to visit. I continue to find it amazing that the first track visit was recorded in 1928. Now there are hundreds of trackchasers and I keep finding racing locations that none any of those folks has ever been to. Following the racing in Pine River I need to make the three-hour drive down to Minneapolis, Minnesota. In just two days of having my Toyota Camry rental car, I had driven 933 miles. While I was driving that long distance, I refinanced my mortgage, listened to several podcasts and added two more tracks to my trackchasing résumé. It was all good but I wasn’t finished. Tomorrow morning, I was flying over to Detroit, Michigan to see one more track before I headed home. SUNDAY Today’s trackchasing mission was simple. I would fly from Minneapolis over to Detroit, Michigan and see a race at the fairgrounds early this evening in Lake Odessa, Michigan. I would be returning to Lake Odessa trackchase. That is common in my hobby. Back in 2005, I saw racing at the I-96 racetrack in Lake Odessa. That’s a permanent track that races weekly. Today Lake Odessa track is located at the county fairgrounds and runs just one time a year. When I landed in Detroit, I picked up a Toyota Camry at National Car Rental. I was shocked by the size and frequency of potholes along Interstate 75. I knew from my experience near St. Louis recently that hitting one of those potholes at 70 miles an hour could easily cause a flat tire. I didn’t need that today. I had driven my rental car over the past two days in Minnesota about 933 miles. This trip in Michigan, covering only one day of rental car usage, would have me driving nearly 300 miles. After seeing as many tracks as I’ve seen in the past the remaining tracks all seem to be located pretty far from one another! I’ve been amazed, driving all over the Midwest this weekend, at the amount of animal roadkill I’ve seen along our nation’s highways. Some of these deer that tried to cross the road and didn’t make it were huge. Knock on wood that despite having some close calls I’ve never had a “big one” in terms of hitting a deer. I hope I never do. At 3 p.m. I began my drive from Detroit out to Lake Odessa, Michigan. I was expecting to arrive by 5 o’clock with racing to begin at 6 p.m. This was the perfect plan. What could go wrong? I had already passed through the obstacles that could have created a problem with today’s plan. What were those? My flight could have been delayed. I could have not been allowed to board the plane because there weren’t enough standby seats. I had gotten my rental car on time. The weather was good during my drive over to Lake Odessa. What could possibly go wrong? We may know where I’m going with this. Something DID go wrong and you’re about to read all about it. When I got within one mile of the Lake Odessa County Fairgrounds, I saw what looked like storm damage. Trees were blown down. One house had that infamous bright blue plastic tarp over its roof. It looked like the damage had happened in the last day or so. I continued on to the fairgrounds. While I was still out on the main highway, I could see the county fair grandstands. It was just 45 minutes before race time and there wasn’t a single fan in the stands. From a distance, it looked like there wasn’t really anyone at the fair either. I pulled into the fairgrounds like I have done hundreds of times before but this time was minorly different. There was almost no activity at the fair. There was a food trailer here and there but that was about it. I’ve had a similar situation like this in the past. A couple of times I have shown up at a racetrack or fairgrounds to see absolutely no one there on the night when I thought they would be racing. On those occasions, I had shown up on the wrong date! Had I done that again tonight? No, that wasn’t the problem. The problem was that a tornado had blown through Lake Odessa late last night. Along with strong winds the storm dumped about six inches of rain. One woman told me the fairgrounds had had rain all week and had canceled every one of their grandstand events including today’s Unique Motorsports bump and run racing. I think rain in one form or another has hampered virtually every weekend that I have trackchased this year. It’s now the end of June. Ten miles outside of Lake Odessa today I never would have predicted that tonight’s racing would have been canceled. I checked the Unique Motorsports website. They were still showing that the race was on the schedule for this evening. I checked the Lake Odessa fairgrounds website. That site did indicate that all events were canceled. I was disappointed. I do know that the unexpected happens seemingly more than expected with these trips. I guess that’s what makes my hobby so interesting and challenging. With this race cancellation, I had ended up taking an airplane ride from Minneapolis to Detroit. That was the wrong direction for getting me home. I had rented a car. I will have driven that rental car more than 250 miles today. I had reserved a hotel. Now this race was canceled. Had I known it was canceled last night I could have saved a good deal of time and expense. However, you can only act on what you know. That’s what I had done. I simply looked around, talked to the popcorn lady at her trailer and adopted her smiling attitude that whatever will be will be. I made the long drive back to Detroit and checked into my hotel. This is my last trip in the first half of 2021. I’ll head back to San Clemente to celebrate the Fourth of July with my family and friends as I do virtually every year. I’ve got a fairly robust trackchasing plan for the second half of the year so we’ll see how that goes. MONDAY I returned from Detroit to Los Angeles in an uneventful manner. During the first six months of 2021, I had seen racing at 45 tracks for the first time. My lifetime trackchasing total stands at 2,716 tracks in 85 countries. That would have to be good enough for now. Randy Lewis – 85 countries – 2,716 tracks. Minnesota The North Star State This afternoon and evening I saw racing at my 106th and 107th lifetime tracks in the North Star, yes, the North Star State. I hold the #1 trackchasing ranking in Minnesota. Minnesota ranks #8, amongst all the states, in tracks seen for me in the U.S. Here’s a link to my all-time Minnesota state trackchasing list. I have made 77 separate trips to Minnesota 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 Minnesota sayings: Someone budged me in line today. 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 845 tracks of my lifetime total. Sad but true. 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. Rough and tumble “Baja” racing from way up in Minnesota More Baja racing from a tiny fair in Pine, River, MN…at the Cass County Fairgrounds 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. Really rural Minnesota Baja racing Baja racing from Minnesota and tornado scenes from Michigan 
