My ‘classic’ trips often times start on Thursday now

 

 

I thought I was flying into Charlotte….but I wasn’t

 

 

One-way car rentals a valuable trackchasing strategy

 

 

Loud and generally obnoxious

 

 

What the heck is ‘stadium off-road’?

 

 

For some reason ‘stadium off-road’ attracts a much different demographic

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THURSDAY

 

My ‘classic’ trips often times start on Thursday now.

I woke up this morning at home at home in San Clemente, California. I spent the entire day traveling before reaching my hotel at 4 a.m. (Friday) in Charlotte. Then I did some Charlotte area touring before staying overnight in Charlotte for the second straight night. This is what happened.

 

 

Most of my normal weekend trips begin with a race on Friday night. When that happens with an east coast visit it creates a travel problem. I can’t leave California on Friday morning and make it to most east coast tracks for a Friday night start time. In those cases I will leave California on Thursday. That way I’ll land somewhere in the east on Thursday night. Then I have all day on Friday to travel to wherever Friday night’s racing might be. It’s not the preferred method (that would be having a private jet) but it gets the job done.

 

 

This was not the first option I planned.

Some aspects of my trip planning get locked up days or weeks before I make the trip. Some are only “put in concrete” a few minutes before the trip begins. When you marry up these two concepts sometimes it’s not a happy marriage.

 

 

A few weeks ago I had purchased a one-way ticket from Los Angeles to Atlanta. Atlanta seemed like a good choice with the track grouping I had planned at that time. Then all kinds of things happened.

 

 

First, I found a complete weekend trip that would include only North Carolina and Virginia. This would replace a trip beginning in NC and continuing into two other states. Then an opportunity came up for being in North Carolina on Friday and returning to a Far Western state on Saturday. I was going with that plan until the weather in the west deteriorated and resulted in a cancellation. That put me back into North Carolina for the entire weekend. I’m sorry I can’t be more specific about the tracks I did not attend. That’s because of “competitive reasons”.

 

 

I thought I was flying into Charlotte….but I wasn’t. That was dumb thinking.

Somewhere along the line I thought I was flying into Charlotte and not Atlanta. I’m not sure how I got that mixed up. Based upon that erroneous assumption I made a non-refundable hotel reservation in Charlotte. Luckily, I guess, Atlanta was “only” a four-hour drive over to Charlotte!

 

 

I landed in Atlanta at nearly midnight. That was after a one-hour delay connecting in Dallas. That put me into my hotel in Charlotte at 4 a.m. after a brief caffeine stop along the interstate at a Waffle House restaurant. Actually, arriving at 4 a.m. Eastern time wasn’t too bad. It was only 1 a.m. back home in California. I try to be a positive thinker!

 

 

One-way car rentals a valuable trackchasing strategy.

In Atlanta I grabbed a Hyundai Sonata as I now normally do. It will give me great gas mileage and provides Sirius/XM satellite radio. However, this will be a “one-way” rental. Luckily, with the National Car Rental Company being a long-time trackchasing sponsor of mine, they charged me just eight dollars for the entire rental. I say it all the time, “I couldn’t do this without my sponsors.

 

 

FRIDAY

 

 

It’s not noon?

When one checks into their hotel room at 4 a.m. there is no need to get up early. I didn’t. I slept until 10:30 a.m. I thought I was using my laptop’s clock as my timekeeper. However, my laptop apparently does not adjust for daylight saving time. In reality, it was 11:30 a.m. That little “issue” had me checking out at 1 p.m. when I thought I was meeting the hotel’s checkout requirement of 1 p.m. when it was really 2 p.m. Surprisingly, they didn’t say a word. Is that a workable strategy for the future?

 

 

An Econo Lodge is not a Marriott.

Tonight I stayed over in an EconoLodge near the airport. That was a good price choice for two reasons. By using their airport shuttle on Friday night I could reduce my rental car expense by a full day. I would return my one-way rental Friday night and rent a new car on Saturday morning. That saved about 50 bucks. For some reason rental cars this weekend were very high priced. The cheapest car offered on Kayak.com, my go to travel site, was more than $80 per day.

 

 

Priceline.com got me into the EconoLodge for about a 20% discount. Even at 4 a.m. I could see that I had stayed here before. However, during my previous stay the hotel was a Marriott Fairfield Inn. Marriott takes care of their properties much better than EconoLodge does!

 

 

After a brief stop for breakfast/lunch at a Waffle House nearby I was off to the day’s Trackchasing Tourist Attraction. More on that under the Trackchasing Tourist Attraction headline. Hope you like my returning to the “one click” Trackchaser Report format.

 

 

Nobody likes sub-par service.

I must tell you the service at the Waffle House was sub-par. That is not normally the case. However, these “workers” were more interested in chatting with each other than minding to their customer’s needs.

 

 

Loud and generally obnoxious.

I did get a laugh in the Waffle House though. A loud talking gruff speaking construction type New Yorker walked in. He acted as if he owned the place sitting in a booth by himself that was clearing reserved (as almost all booths at Waffle Houses are) for two or more people.

 

 

He meticulously took his server through the specifics of his most customized order. I could hear him trying to build some quick rapport with the server in the hopes of getting his order the way he wanted it. He needed mushrooms (an item I have never seen in a WH), light on the jalapenos, toast no butter and lots of other special requests. I’ll all for special requests but today’s crowd would not be delivering on those wants.

 

 

I had just been served my ordered scrambled eggs as fried eggs. I had to ask for tableware and a menu. I wished my fellow diner good luck.

 

 

Soon he was served. I could see him losing his good cheer that had been used trying to win his server’s attention. Another diner asked him if they got his order right. “No,” he growled. “They screwed up most of it,” he groaned. When his server came back to ask him how things were going all he could offer was “You’re lucky I’m in a good mood today!”  

 

 

After the races……..

 

 

More rental car management.

After tonight’s races I traded in my rental car. It had served its purpose. This first car was to be used to get me from Atlanta to Charlotte. In the road warrior lingo that would be called a “one-way” rental. One-way rentals can often cost more than $100 per day. However, I have trackchasing rental car sponsors. They give me free or heavily discounted rates. Today they charged me just $8 for my one-way rental. However, I had to return it within 24 hours of picking it up. That was fine. I would begin a new rental in Charlotte and keep it for a couple more days.

 

 

There would be a few bumps in the proverbial road.

However, just to manage things properly, I would start that rental on Saturday morning. I would keep car #2 until Monday morning. However, there would be “tire problems” that would necessitate my getting a THIRD rental car. So it certainly sounds like THREE rental cars including a one-way rental would be expensive for a Thursday to Monday timeframe. However, with my sponsorship program all of those cars would cost me less than ten dollars! No, I could not do this without my sponsors.

 

 

 

TRACKCHASING TOURIST ATTRACTION

I very much enjoy the racing when I go on trackchasing trips. However, I am not the type of person who would feel the trip was complete if I simply left home, went to the race and came back home.

 

I do a good deal of traveling. I want to do my best to see the local area when I come for a visit. There are usually unusual attractions that one area is noted for more than any other locale. I want to see those places. I want to touch them and feel them. When I leave an area, I want to have memories of these special places that I call Trackchasing Tourist Attractions. I will remember those experiences long after the checkered flag has fallen on whatever race I have seen that day.

 

 

 

Michael Waltrip Racing – Cornelius, North Carolina

 

Editor’s note:  Check out the photos tab for more picture from my tour of Michael Waltrip Racing.

 

 

Charlotte is a special place for Trackchasing Tourist Attractions.

One of the best things about coming to Charlotte is being able to tour the NASCAR race shops. As you probably know the city of Charlotte is the unofficial world headquarters of NASCAR racing.

 

 

Almost all of the NASCAR teams are located in and around Charlotte. All of the major teams open up their race shops to the public in one form or another.

 

 

To date I have been to the Hendricks, Roush, Stewart-Hass and Gibbs racing shops. They support more than a dozen of NASCAR’s top 20 racers.

 

 

MWR…here I come.

Today I had the Michael Waltrip Racing headquarters on my radar screen. In reading the reviews it seemed like MWR tours were rated the highest. The last time I was in town MWR was charging $10 per person to tour their facility. That made them the only such operation to charge an admission price.

 

 

Today I was pleasantly surprised to learn that MWR no longer charges for their tours. During the tour I also heard they used to charge as much as $20 per person!

 

 

What a great way to see this stuff up close and personal.

Tours are given every hour on the hour. I arrived a few minutes early. This permitted me to observe the race shop from one of their second floor catwalks. From one position I could see almost 50 cars in one form of completion or another. MWR only has two full-time drivers!

 

 

I also occupied myself with a movie in their more than 100-seat theatre. Speaking of theatres this MWR race shop is located in a former movie theatre.

 

 

Dean the fast-talking and witty tour guide.

Precisely at 3 p.m. I was met by “Dean” a fast-talking and witty tour guide. There were just two other people, a couple visiting from Canada, on our tour. Gene took us everywhere.

 

 

First, we walked through a NASCAR hauler. We sat in the driver’s lounge area while Gene explained to everyone the tremendous expense of operating a NASCAR team. Each shock absorber costs about $1,000 U.S. Tires are “leased” from Goodyear at a cost of $378 per tire. It’s not uncommon for each car to use more than 40 tires per race.

 

 

From there we toured the chassis shop. This was the only place where no photos were allowed. They had another dozen or cars in there in addition to the 50 I had seen earlier.

 

 

Dean might have been the most unique tour guide I had ever met. At times he spoke with the speed of an auctioneer as he walked backwards while his guests walked forwards. You had to listen closely for the jokes. They came fast and furious. He had a few zingers for drivers not associated with MWR as you might imagine. They were his version of the “Dreaded East Coast Trackchasers”.

 

 

Overall, I highly recommend the Michael Waltrip Racing shop tour. If you are lucky enough to get Dean as a tour guide tell him the “World’s #1 Trackchaser” said to say hello. After the tour he and I spent several minutes chatting about one thing or another. He was a very nice man.

 

 

THE RACING

 

 

 

The Dirt Track At Charlotte – Concord, North Carolina

 

 

It was ‘welcome back’ to the Dirt Track.

This was not my first visit to “The Dirt Track At Charlotte”. Back in April, 2002 my good buddy George Robertson and I stopped by for a DIRT modified show. It was a terribly cold and uncomfortable night. Although that was just 12 years ago it was also nearly 1,400 tracks ago. My visit on April 6, 2002 to the “Dirt Track AT Lowe’s Motor Speedway” was track #554. You can read all about track #554 behind the “2002-Oval” tab.

 

 

That trackchasing visit was tied into our visit to the Masters golf tournament. Seeing play at the Masters was an all-time sports highlight of mine. I have often tied my trackchasing trips into special family and/or other major sports programs.

 

 

TORC!

Tonight I would be seeing racing organized by “TORC”. TORC stands for the “The Off-Road Championship” racing series. They, along with Lucas Oil, sanction the two most successful stadium off-road racing groups. However, I’m liking the Robby Gordon Stadium Super Truck series as much or more as I do these two groups.

 

 

What the heck is ‘stadium off-road’?

“Stadium Off-Road” is exactly what the names implies. They taken the very popular off-road desert racing and put it inside a stadium. Desert racing happens, wait for it, in the desert. I’ve seen desert racing where one “loop” or lap is 50 miles long. There’s not a lot of spectating opportunities in situations like that. However, when desert racing moves into a stadium on a course of a mile or less fans can sit in one place and see all of the action. This format is much better for televising races too.

 

 

Tonight’s general admission price was just $15. I was expecting more like $25. Maybe the lower admission prices, and sponsor tickets too contributed to a nice sized crowd in the 12,000-person capacity aluminum grandstand.

 

 

You gotta love NASCAR.

The Dirt Track At Charlotte racing venue sits across the street from the famous Charlotte Motor Speedway. There is also a major drag strip on site. It’s all owned by Speedway Motorsports founded by Bruton Smith. As you might imagine from a NASCAR type track parking is free. Fans can bring coolers into the stands as well. You just gotta love NASCAR.

 

 

I didn’t see many of the track refreshments being sold. There didn’t seem to be many offerings either. I did notice that small and large frozen lemonade drinks were selling for $4 and $6 respectively. Large pretzels were four bucks each.

 

 

For some reason ‘stadium off-road’ attracts a much different demographic.

This type of “off-road” racing attracts a much different fan demographic. These folks are younger and more “hip” whatever that might mean. There was a large contingent of youngsters in the crowd tonight as well.

 

 

Tonight was feature racing only. The announcer told the crowd that “practice and qualifying” had already taken place. I was happy to hear that!

 

 

A nicely structured program.

There would be three races tonight. That meant a feature event for each of three classes. All of the classes were for trucks. Racers were separated by engine size and whether their mount was a 2-wheel or 4-wheel drive.

 

 

Truck counts were somewhat low. The first race had 22 competitors and the last two races, nine and seven. Nevertheless, the racing was some of the best I had seen all season. Don’t miss the photos and video of tonight’s racing. This is a unique form of motorsports.

 

 

The track used turns one and two as well as turns three and four of the half-mile dirt oval. There were several jumps on the oval’s straights and some left and right hand turns that took the racers through the infield. I’m guessing the course was nearly a mile in length. It was an all dirt-racing surface.

 

 

The P.A. system was high quality. So was the announcing. The announcers told us that people were listening in “all around the world”. Good on them.

 

 

The organizers took about 30 minutes between races. During this time they recognized the winners and worked on the track. Graders smoothed things out and water trucks watered the surface to keep the dust down.

 

 

Very fan oriented.

Stadium off-road racing is oriented toward the fan. Sadly, in my opinion, much of the oval track racing I see focuses on the racing competitor and not the fan. Maybe that’s why stadium off-road racing is drawing much bigger crowds than most oval tracks can get.

 

 

Stadium off-road racing has “competitive cautions”. At about midway in the race the yellow flag is thrown. This allows all of the racers to “bunch up”. Then the green flag flies and it’s fun for the fan to see everyone racing bumper to bumper again.

 

 

Not for the traditionalists?

Some oval track traditionalists find the competition caution a contrived activity. However, I believe they are missing the point. Most stadium off-road racing doesn’t have ANY yellow flag delays. In oval track racing a typical 25-lap feature event might have five or many more yellow flag delays. Each time a yellow flag is displayed the field “bunches up” just like it does during the one and only competition caution in stadium off-road.

 

 

On the gas!

These stadium off-road racers are “on the gas”! Except in the most hard fought sprint and midget races I don’t see racing like this anywhere. The trucks are flying through the air, kicking up the dirt and using “slide jobs” to the “nth” degree. It’s very fun and exciting racing to watch.

 

 

I hit the weather sweet spot.

The weather was interesting for this weekend. A huge rain front had just moved through the Charlotte area before tonight’s racing began. Just a bit north in Richmond, Virginia the NASCAR race tonight was delayed for a few hours by rain. I got a few sprinkles in the track’s parking lot when I arrived. After that the rain was gone. Then when I left the area on Monday morning rain was expected to hit the area soon. I definitely hit the sweet spot on this weather weekend.

 

 

 

State Comparisons

 

 

North Carolina

 

The Tar Heel state

Tonight I saw my 44^th lifetime track in the Tar Heel state, yes the Tar Heel state. There’s a good chance I’ll see more North Carolina racing before this trip is finished.

 

 

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

North Carolina sayings: Where tobacco is a vegetable.

 

 

 

QUICK FACTS

 

 

AIRPLANE

Los Angeles, CA (LAX) – Dallas, TX (DFW) – 1,256 miles

Dallas, TX (DFW) – Atlanta, GA (ATL) – 713 miles

 

 

RENTAL CAR #1

Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport – trip begins

Concord, NC

 

 

 

TRACK ADMISSION PRICES:

The Dirt Track At Charlotte – $15

 

 

 

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

1. Randy Lewis, San Clemente, California – 1,943

 

 

 

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

 

 

 

 

Reprinted with permission from my Trackchaser Report written following my April 6, 2002 visit to the Dirt Track At Lowe’s Motor Speedway (oval track).

 

 

 

Greetings from Concord, North Carolina,

 

 

PEOPLE/TRAVEL NEWS

  

The Dirt Track at Lowe’s Motor Speedway was just an hour up the hard road from the Carolina Motorsports Park in Kershaw, South Carolina. On my way up to the track I would need to pick up my good friend, George Robertson at the Charlotte International Airport. George lives out in California but is originally from Eden, North Carolina. He’s coming in for a little golf activity and I’ve twisted his arm to attend an auto race. This will be his first live race since he was a boy.

 

 

It does seem that when I take a friend or novice race fan to a track that “the forces” come up with something that makes the program not as good as it normally would be. That probably happened tonight.

 

 

The weather wasn’t good. It was cold, probably about 40 degrees and windy. These are not ideal conditions when you’ll be out in the elements for more than three hours. Secondly, it was dusty. Fortunately, I had thought to bring racing goggles for George and me. So we froze our butts off and we had the dirt and rubber dust on our faces to prove we were at the races.

 

 

Overall, George was a good sport and we topped off our evening with a midnight visit to the Waffle House and then on to a Super 8 Motel. I’ll give you more information about George that you might find interesting in my next track report.

 

  

RACING NEWS

 

 

I believe my most favorite short track racing class is the D.I.R.T. Modifieds who race in the Northeast, primarily in New York State. These cars are open wheel, single seat, and V8 powered racers. Tonight they had more than 40 of these cars make the trip to North Carolina. One of the big plusses for this racing division is these cars can pass each other. It’s not unusual for a car to come from deep in the pack to win the race.

 

 

The D.I.R.T. Pro Stock division was also on the card. They put on an entertaining race that started about 30 cars in their feature event.

 

 

The Dirt Track at Lowe’s Motor Speedway is located next to the famous Lowe’s Motor Speedway (formerly the Charlotte Motor Speedway). Several NASCAR Winston Cup tracks including Charlotte, Las Vegas and Texas Motor Speedway have built smaller dirt or asphalt tracks on their properties. The promoters then bring in the top short track racing groups to supplement the NASCAR Winston Cup racing weekend.

 

 

The Dirt Track At Lowe’s Motor Speedway is a four-tenths miles dirt oval. They have a 12,000-person grandstand with aluminum seats that also include a backrest. The track offers a professional scoreboard, an easy to hear P.A. system and great sight lines from just about any location. The grandstand was filled to about 70% capacity.

 

 

TRACK FOOD

 

 

Most expensive: George had pizza slices at $3 each

Most unusual: The track offered Philly Cheese steak sandwiches, probably in honor of their northeastern visitors.

 

 

RENTAL CAR UPDATE: My Hertz racing Mercury Grand Marquis now has a little more than 700 miles on it and continues to perform well.

 

 

TRACK RADIO FREQUENCY: I listened to the track radio but forgot to record the frequency.

 

Upcoming events for April, 2002

 

Oglethorpe Speedway Park, Savannah, GA

South Boston Speedway, South Boston, VA

Martinsville Speedway, Martinsville, VA

Bakersfield Raceway Park, Linton, IN

Indianapolis Raceway Park (road course), Indianapolis, IN

Shadyhill Raceway, Medaryville, IN

Golden Sands Speedway, Plover, WI

Kil-Kare Speedway (small oval), Xenia, OH

Kil-Kare Speedway (figure 8), Xenia, OH

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Racing from the Dirt Track at Charlotte

 

 

 

 

 

Michael Waltrip Racing shop tour