Greetings from Salem, Indiana
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From the travels and adventures of the
“World’s #1 Trackchaser”
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Salem Super Speedway
Asphalt outer oval
Lifetime Track #12
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Salem Speedway
Asphalt inner oval
Lifetime Track #1,654
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Salem Speedway
Asphalt figure 8
Lifetime Track #1,655
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Salem Speedway
Asphalt road course (ROVAL)
Lifetime Track #2,282
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: 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! ON THE WAY TO THE RACES SUNDAY I arrived into my hotel after last night’s racing in Missouri at about 1 a.m. I would have to get up at 6 a.m. in order to begin driving towards Salem, Indiana this morning. That was all required in order to make today’s 1:30 p.m. starting time. In hindsight it might have been a better idea not to even get a hotel for Saturday evening. I was only going to be spending five hours in the hotel itself. The only reason I got a hotel in the first place for Saturday night is that I would be staying in the very same hotel on Sunday night. Yes, I know that doesn’t make much sense. No it was probably not a prudent financial decision. THE RACING Salem Speedway – Salem, Indiana This afternoon I would be trackchasing in Salem, Indiana at the Salem Speedway. This would not be my first visit to the track, far from it. Back in about 1970 my stepfather and I along with one of our mutual friends drove down to the Salem Super Speedway to see an ARCA stock car race. It was a 500-lapper. The driving time from East Peoria, Illinois to Louisville, Kentucky was about six hours. This was the longest racing trip we had ever taken by far. Up to that point we might have driven an hour and a half or maybe two hours to see a race. You would have thought we were traveling to India not Salem, Indiana. Today’s Salem Speedway has changed a good deal from what was then called the Salem Super Speedway. Back in 1970 I do remember Bobby Allison showing up in an AMC matador. Peoria Speedway’s own Jim Strube raced that day as well. This was also my very first introduction to Kentucky Fried Chicken! It was quite the trip. On another occasion I recall taking Carol down to the Salem Super Speedway where Darrell Waltrip was going to be making a guest racing appearance. He started the race and pulled in after one lap! I always wondered if that was planned or if he really did have an engine failure? Then in 2011 I returned to see racing at the Salem Speedway figure 8 track as well as their smaller inner oval. My one sentence comment regarding the figure 8 racing at Salem was “best figure 8 racing ever? Today, I don’t remember that figure 8 race very well at all! The weather forecast called for 10-20% chance of rain. The radar looked good although there were small patches of “green” in and around the Salem, Indiana area. When I stopped for gas pretty near Salem it poured down rain for about five minutes. Just a few blocks from the gas station there was no rain at all. Today I was going to see the “ROVAL” racing at the Salem Speedway. The ROVAL track uses a combination of the figure 8 track, the inner oval and the outer oval to create a road course. I’m not sure of the track’s length but the racing times were right at 30 seconds per lap. I really wasn’t expecting much from this racing at all. I mistakenly thought it was going to be a “novelty” race event. They were running their four-cylinder stock-car class, which in some locations might almost be considered mini-stocks. I didn’t think they would put on much of a show. I was wrong. The Salem Speedway has been here for a long time. It opened all the way back in 1947. The track has 33 degrees of banking in the corners. ARCA first came there in 1955. Sadly, the Salem Speedway is where open wheel star Rich Vogler was killed in 1990. He had been planning to start his very first NASCAR Winston Cup race the next day. The track has done a nice job of keeping up with the times. Their PA system is excellent. The track announcer was one of the very best I have heard in a long time. Their large aluminum grandstand is modern and seats a lot of people. I paid $12 for my general admission ticket today. Not that many people joined me. A weather day where the temperature was in the high 60s with a fairly stiff wind watched over about 150 people in the stands. The track announcer told us they first started racing on the ROVAL in 2013. This was their seventh ROVAL race in the track’s history. It was nice to get a little historical tidbit like that. The racing program started on time. I appreciated that. I had a four-hour drive back to the St. Louis area after today’s race. The program called for two 10-lap qualification races. The announcer made a point of mentioning that these were not heat races. They were actually qualification races to determine the feature lineup for the 100-lap main event. Some 26 cars took the green flag for the Redneck 100 enduro on the Salem Speedway ROVAL track. I hope you take the time to watch the video. I think you’ll be impressed with what today’s racing looked like. There were only a couple of yellow flags during the entire 100 laps. The announcer told us this was the first time in the history of the Salem Speedway, and they’ve been doing this for a long time, that a father and daughter had raced in the same event. Today’s father/daughter combo finished second and fourth with the dad beating his youngster. I had grabbed a top row seat in the grandstands. There was an intermission between the qualification races and the main event. A track employee came through the stands handing out free lotto tickets. That’s right lotto tickets! It turns out the Salem Speedway is sponsored by the Indiana Hoosier Lottery. I wonder how that relationship came about? I also wonder what kind of support they are getting. One of the track advertisements did say that a certain amount of money had been “transferred” from the lottery to the school systems. That was a positive choice of words. I ended up absentmindedly leaving my unused lottery ticket at my seat when I left for the day. Although I have seen racing at nearly 400 road courses I am not a fan of road course racing. There’s really one reason why I don’t care for this genre. At most road courses the spectator can’t see all of the racing action. I would never go to a basketball game with an obstructed view. However, I may have liked today’s road course racing better than if I had seen the cars competing on an oval track. Don’t get me wrong. The Salem Speedway half-mile (0.55 miles) oval is one of the most entertaining venues in the country. I guess going to the races today was a little bit like going to the movies. Sometimes when I go to the movies and I’m not expecting too much of a show it over delivers. At other times when I’m really expecting to be entertained it doesn’t work out that way. I was most impressed with the ROVAL racing at the Salem Speedway. If I lived locally and wasn’t trackchasing I would come back and see this show time and again. AFTER THE RACES I had lost an hour this morning in time zone changes driving from St. Louis over to Salem. Now I would get the benefit of gaining an hour back coming back from the racetrack to St. Louis where my hotel is located. When I’m in the Midwest I can tell I’m in the Midwest. How you ask? I stopped in Illinois rest area and checked out their vending machines. A 20-ounce bottled soft drink was $1.50. A 12-ounce can of soda was just a buck. Where I come from those prices would’ve been twice as much or more. Then I stopped at McDonald’s about an hour outside of St. Louis. There I picked up a couple of double cheeseburgers for three dollars in total. When I had pulled up to the drive through ordering speaker the voice over the intercom asked me if I was interested in “supper or breakfast”. Folks, it was 6 p.m. Yes, McDonald’s serve breakfast at 6 p.m. nowadays. Nevertheless, I was going to have “supper”. Of course at home in California we would call it “dinner”. To a boy who grew up in Illinois like me it will always be “supper”. One of the reasons I like traveling is that it’s fun to meet people and see things that are just a little bit different from where I come from. It’s getting harder and harder to do as our country becomes more homogenized but it’s still fun. I did have some logistical issues that needed to be covered before I could put my head on the pillow tonight. First I would have to return my National Car Racing Volvo S60 rental car full with 87 octane petrol. After all calculations this car gave me a little bit more than 31 miles per gallon in fuel economy. I finalized my contract at National. The I needed to ride the shuttle bus over from the rental car lot to the airport. Once there I would wait again to catch the hotel shuttle from the airport over to the hotel. During my time at the airport I checked with the airlines to see how my flights looked for tomorrow on a standby basis. The news was not good. I couldn’t chance it. I would have to go out of my way and fly from St. Louis to Seattle and then on to Austin, Texas in order to be confident with an on-time arrival. That meant leaving on a 7 a.m. departure rather than a 1 p.m. departure. That also meant that I was going to be sleeping a lot less than I had expected. Nevertheless, it had been a good day and a good racechasing/trackchasing weekend. Although I had not expected to visit the Lakeside Speedway on Friday night I’m glad that I did. The modified racing was excellent. It’s always good to see a J and B Promotions figure 8 race down in Missouri. They do a real good job. They get a lot of cars and the racing action is exciting especially their “A” main events. Today’s racing on the road course in Salem was also very good. This gives me my 106th lifetime track in Indiana and my 2,282nd overall track visit. I have now seen 96 tracks during the 2016 season. There’s a better than even chance that I will exceed 100 tracks for the year. If I do it will be for the 11th year of seeing 100 tracks for more. Ed Esser saw 100 tracks or more in five different seasons. A handful of other trackchasers have seen 100 races or more in 1-3 years. Followers of the trackchasing hobby might be surprised to know that most of the top 20 trackchasers have never seen 100 tracks in a single season or really even come that close. Good afternoon from Salem, Indiana. MONDAY I boarded a train last Thursday to begin this trackchasing adventure. Now it was Monday. All of the racing have been finished for this weekend. One might have expected that I would be heading back to San Clemente today. However, that was not the case. Carol and I have a nine-day grandbaby visiting trip scheduled for Austin Texas…..beginning today. She will leave from Los Angeles this morning. I will leave from St. Louis. We will land within six minutes of each other in Austin. I had originally planned to fly non-stop flight from St. Louis to Austin. That would have been the easy way of doing things. However that flight was simply too tight to attempt to stand by for. That being the case I would have to depart five hours earlier than expected. That meant five hours less sleep. That’s never a good thing. Today’s airline travel adventure would have me flying from St. Louis up to Seattle. Once in Seattle I would hang out in the Alaska Airlines Board Room and then catch a flight down to Austin. Often times when you don’t know why someone does something you should follow the money. I am often disappointed watching how people approach the job that they are being paid to do. This morning I had scheduled a 5:30 a.m. airport shuttle to the Lambert International Airport. The ride would be short. I was only a couple of miles from the airport. The night before I had been warned by the hotel desk clerk to show up a few minutes early so as not to miss the boat so to speak. I arrived even earlier than that and at 5:30 a.m. there was no shuttle bus driver in sight. I asked the night manager, the same woman who had screwed up my hotel keys the evening before, what was up with the shuttle bus driver. She looked at me with an almost blank stare. Then she replied in a monotone, “Sometimes people are early for work and sometimes they’ll arrive on time and sometimes they are late.” End of her story. I wanted to tell her that my motto in life is that if you’re not early you’re late but I wasn’t sure that would move things along in the direction I needed. I know that some of the jobs offered in America and across the world are both mundane and low-paying. However I can’t ever recall doing any of the jobs I had half-assed when other people were depending on me. Granted I did take advantage of working smart and not always hard but I always thought that was a plus. I ended up making it to Austin, Texas. Indiana The Indiana state This afternoon I saw my 106th lifetime track in the state, yes the Hoosier state. I’ve seen 106 or more tracks in 3 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 Indiana definitions: Hoosiers Are Never Ever “Indianans” Hoo-the-heck knows what Hoosier means? It doesn’t matter. It’s what you call people from Indiana, always. And they will totally correct you if you get it wrong. 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. Total Trackchasing Countries There are no trackchasers currently within 10 countries of my lifetime total. Current lifetime National Geographic Diversity results That’s all folks! Official end of the RLR – Randy Lewis Racing Trackchaser Report DAY 3 – “PRE-MEMORIAL DAY” TRACKCHASING TOUR Perfect….so far …………..details in “The Objective & The Strategy”. What was special about my first ever trip to Salem, Indiana?………………more in “The Trip”. Was this my best ever figure 8 race? …………..details in “Race Review”. THINGS YOU MIGHT HAVE NOTICED HAD YOU BEEN PAYING MORE ATTENTION IN SCHOOL THE BEST READERS IN RACING TAKE TIME TO CONTRIBUTE From South Korea: “Mexicali looked like so much fun. Glad to see Korea is not the only country with communication problems. Food looks great. What amazed me though is the lack of safety barriers with street lamps and high tension structures unprotected from collisions. You are indeed a very lucky guy.” From Northern Florida: “I get that your trackchasing isn’t really about the racing, but I’d probably have to shoot myself if I traveled across the country and/or world to see a bunch of go carts or a handful of figure 8 cars.” GREETINGS FROM SALEM, INDIANA THE OBJECTIVE, THE TRIP, THE PEOPLE…AND A WHOLE LOT MORE The Objective and the Strategy The objective. Could I beat the weather? Today’s objective was to beat the weather and score a “same location” double. A “same location” trackchasing double occurs when a trackchaser gets to see racing on two different tracks at the same physical location. That often includes seeing racing on an inner oval and an outer oval. Sometimes it’s racing on an oval and a figure 8 track. Perfect so far! I have not been rained out in 2011. I have intended to go trackchasing on 33 days this year. Every day that I left the house and planned to see a new track I have. I believe Ed Esser reported he has already had seven rainouts this season. I don’t expect to be perfect in this area. However, by using state of the art technology and airplanes I should be very successful in avoiding rainouts. It looks as if I will make it into at least June without a rain cancellation. Given the abnormally wet spring the country has had that is noteworthy. The strategy. Today was special. One of my main trackchasing strategies is to see as many racetracks as I can. That goes along with seeing those tracks in an efficient and cost-effective manner. Of course, seeing local attractions is high on the list as well. Today was special. I would be seeing two new tracks while sitting in the SAME grandstand. That really pumps up the trackchasing numbers. I’ve been planning this visit for several weeks. The Trip I needed to keep an eye on the weather. I woke up this morning in Florence, Kentucky. I went to sleep in San Francisco, California. This is what happened in between. It was a short two-hour drive from my motel to Salem, Indiana. The morning began under blue skies. However, the weather forecast predicted a 40% chance of rain for the afternoon. The iPhone “Weather Channel” app is rarely wrong. The forecast concerned me. I came to Salem back in the ‘old days’. I first came to the Salem Speedway in 1970 or 1971 with my stepfather and Ken Poole, one of our friends. We had gone to several tracks within a 100-mile radius of our home up to that point. However, coming to Salem was our first ever BIG TRIP. Back then the track was known as the Salem Super Speedway. It was recorded as my 12th lifetime track. Folks, we’re going back a ways! On that day we saw a 500-lap ARCA stock car race. Bobby Allison was racing an AMC Javelin for Roger Penske. A local driver from the Peoria Speedway was also in the field, Jim Strube. My first visit with the colonel. What do I remember most from that trip? First, the Salem track was the first “big time” track I had ever visited. It was old then (the track started in 1947) and somewhat dilapidated. The second thing I remember was this was the first time I ever ate at a Kentucky Fried Chicken (now KFC) restaurant. The People It’s important to maintain a ‘lifeline’. Not much on the people front. I drove to the track, saw the race, drove back to the airport and flew to California. I guess the highlight was the airline agent, Dawn that I met in the Cincinnati airport. She was outstanding. She refunded several tickets I had as “backups” from previous trips. That helps our cash flow. She also ticketed several potential trips that I will use as backups soon. One never wants to be far from home without a way to get back. You’ll see what I’m talking about shortly. RACE REVIEW SALEM SPEEDWAY – SALEM, INDIANA I like ‘above average’. Every so often I happen across a racing promotion that is above average. Frankly, it doesn’t happen nearly as often as I would like. Today’s experience at the Salem Speedway was above average. The good show made me feel badly that my guest, Greg Robbins, saw a lesser quality show with me on Friday. I was in Salem to see racing on the track’s quarter-mile oval and the figure 8 track. As mentioned I saw an ARCA stock car race on the big half-mile (or bigger) outer oval. Carol and I came back in 1974 when we lived in Cincinnati, Ohio. NASCAR star Darrell Waltrip was the big guest star. He drove a local car and dropped out on the first lap of the feature. I thought it was rigged. This was a rare opportunity. The track owners built the smaller inner oval and figure 8 track just last year. As far as I know they used them on the same day only once in 2010. Of course, Midwestern guru Ed Esser was there for the opening program. I didn’t plan to come to Salem until both the inner oval and figure 8 tracks were racing on the same day. They are scheduled to do that just twice this year. The first time is this weekend and the second is in August. By the way, I spotted another trackchaser here today. However, I can’t “rat him out”. When a fellow drives all the way from the East coast to a sleepy little southern Indiana village he deserves some privacy right? If he doesn’t want his name associated with trackchasing that’s his call. That right should be given to everyone. The track’s ‘bone structure’ was good. I arrived at 1:30 p.m., the official start time. Fans were standing for the national anthem when I bought my ticket. The track has changed a good deal since I first came here. They have a huge aluminum grandstands with seat backs now. The P.A. system is very good. They have a professional announcer and high-quality scoring tower. Someone has put some money into the track. Good on them. The inner oval is flat. The figure 8 track uses the turns of the inner oval. Both operate on newly paved asphalt. I can’t recall seeing a higher quality, three tracks at one facility than at the Salem Speedway. The track website had mentioned a program of only feature events. I loved that idea. Heat races are usually boring and take up “butt time”. For some reason the track ran 2-3 heats with their small engine class. That wasn’t a big problem since it only took 15 minutes or so. Beating the weather would be a challenge. When the sun was out it was hot. Temps were in the low 80s. However, dark clouds flew by from time to time. That worried me from a trackchasing view but made me feel much more comfortable. The weather radar showed some heavy rain scooting just a few miles north of the track at about noon. That was a close call. Early on we were looking good with the weather. Support classes of lower level, but nicely prepared stock cars ran a couple of features on the inner oval. There was just the right amount of pushing and shoving. One driver moved another out of first place with a shove. Let’s be fair, it’s the only way to operate. I felt the pusher should have been put to the back. As it was the leader, and spinner, tagged the tail. The offending driver assumed the lead. That didn’t make any more sense to me than it did to the driver who had been shoved out of the lead. To show his displeasure he promptly “punted” the antagonist during the caution period. Then he drove his car directly to the pits. Good on him. Was this Darlington? A special surprise included a 15-car feature event on the big high-banked oval. The banking at this track is steep. I think the turns are banked at about 34 degrees. The tracks used to be called, “Salem High Banks”. I can’t think of any other short track with higher banking. The cars race fast on this outer oval. The fast line is within inches of the outer wall. The track reminds me of the famous Darlington Speedway in South Carolina. This was outstanding racing. Don’t miss the video. My best ever figure 8 race? Next up was the figure 8 feature event. These cars came from the nearby Sportsdrome track in Jeffersonville, Indiana. They started 12 cars for the 100-lap feature race. I can’t ever recall seeing a 100-lap figure 8 race. This was an outstanding event. It may have been the best figure 8 RACE I have ever seen. Most figure 8 “races” are spectacles. They were RACING today. The cars looked like late models but without tops. They also featured huge, clear plexi-glass “sideboards”. Twelve cars on a track like this were perfect. There was lots of action at the “X” although no crashes. These guys had to be good to drive 50-70 M.P.H. through an intersection every ten seconds without hitting anyone. I timed the leader in at about 22 seconds per lap. For the first 50 laps the first four cars raced on each other’s bumper. During the last half of the race the passing began. There is a unique aspect to this type of figure 8 racing. Normally when one car gets “under” another, the driver can “nudge” his way to the lead. However the car on the inside of a figure 8 race quickly becomes the car on the OUTSIDE in the very next turn. A driver doesn’t want to nudge too hard while he drives on the inside lane. If he does, about ten seconds later, he will find himself on the outside lane and possibly pushed out of the race. The driver in fourth at lap 50 patiently moved his way into third at about lap sixty. It took him more than five laps to make that pass. At around lap 80, he began to work on the leaders. By lap 90 the driver had moved up to first from his fourth position at the midway point. It was an excellent race. All the while the leaders were battling the back markers who were creating traffic at the “X”. Raindrops were falling on my head. During the last ten laps of the figure 8 feature it began to sprinkle. By the race’s end the rain had picked up and the wind was gusting at more than 30 M.P.H. The announcer was calling for the final feature to get going on the track. It was time for me to leave. I had a two-hour drive back to Cincinnati. Then I had a nearly 5-hour flight to San Francisco. I don’t know for sure if they got that last feature in. I doubt it. The opportunistic trackchaser could have seen three new tracks in one location today. I was happy, given the weather situation, to get two. There are only a handful of “same track” doubles left for me to see. I’ve made a practice of picking off those over the past several years. STATE COMPARISONS Indiana This evening I saw my 66th lifetime track in Indiana, the Hoosier state, yes the Hoosier state. I think that’s a good number of tracks here. That’s gives me an eighth place ranking just one track behind Pappy Hough. There are no other trackchasers ready to pass me in Indiana this year. I still have some 54 tracks to see in Indiana. Only a couple race on a regular basis. Most are county fairgrounds. They race just one time er year. Coming Soon – RLR – Randy Lewis Racing Exclusive Features! My review of the Apple iPhone trackchasing “app” Track Guide powered by the National Speedway Directory. How is the transition going from unofficial trackchasing commissioner Will White to his successor? Thanks for reading about my trackchasing, Randy Lewis World’s #1 Trackchaser Indiana sayings: Two billion years; tidal wave free TRAVEL DETAILS AIRPLANE Orange County, CA (SNA) – Salt Lake City, UT (SLC) – 588 miles Salt Lake City, UT (SLC) – Chicago, IL (ORD) – 1,255 miles Chicago, IL (ORD) – Cincinnati, OH (CVG) – 264 miles RENTAL CAR #1 Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky Airport – trip begins Xenia, OH – 77 miles Glencoe, Kentucky – 266 miles Salem, Indiana – 386 miles Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky Airport – 500 miles – trip ends AIRPLANE Cincinnati, OH (CVG) – San Francisco, CA (SFO) – 2,030 miles TRACK ADMISSION PRICES: Kil-Kare Speedway – $20 Gallatin County Fairgrounds – $10 Florence Speedway – $10 (not a trackchasing expense) Salem Speedway – $15 COMPARISONS LIFETIME TRACKCHASER COMPARISONS There are no trackchasers currently within 200 tracks of my lifetime total. 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. Salem Speedway – 2016 – ROVAL racing . . Salem Speedway – 2011 – Racing on the 1/4-mile oval and the figure 8 track . . Salem Speedway – 2011 – The day in pictures put to music! 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. Salem Speedway – 2016 – Racing on the ROVAL track . . Salem Speedway – 2011 – Racing on the 1/4-mile oval and figure 8 track 
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