Greetings from Cortland, Ohio
From the travels and adventures of the
“World’s #1 Trackchaser”
Trumbull County Fairgrounds (Dirt Oval) –
Lifetime Track #1,976
What an idea for a Trackchasing Tourist Attraction. Good planning by my brother. What a golf match! No food or drink. If we find it you’re kicked out. Back on the block we call this a good deal. Where did all of that “green” come from on the weather radar? . American are not Europeans and sometimes that’s not a good thing. We had an early morning wake-up call. I woke up this morning at home in Angola, Indiana. I went to bed in Holland, Ohio. This is how the day turned out. This is day two of a 42-day trackchasing trip? Brother Mike (Delta Sigma Pi fraternity brother) and I awoke at 6 a.m. Eastern time (3 a.m. California time) to begin our day. Folks that’s getting up early just to play golf. Our Priceline.com ordered Ramada Inn was serving up breakfast. After a perfectly cooked waffle with all the fixins we were off to the golf course. For more on this outing check out the Trackchasing Tourist Attractions section. Following golf…. This track had been on my radar screen for years. After golf Mike headed west toward Illinois. I pointed my National Car Rental Hyundai Sonata eastward toward the Ohio/Pennsylvania state line. I would be visiting a track long on my radar screen, the Trumbull County Fairgrounds. You’ve find more about that adventure in “The Races” section. Following the races…. What an idea for a Trackchasing Tourist Attraction. Following the races I came up with another great Trackchasing Tourist Attraction idea. That made two for the day, golf being the first. Check it out in the Trackchasing Tourist Attractions section. We’ll keep the light on for you. I would need a hotel for tonight too. Soon Priceline.com was giving me a half price deal at the Extended Stay America location in Holland, Ohio. I had to give them a call to say I wouldn’t be arriving until nearly 2 a.m. They close their front desk overnight so that phone call was important. The folks over at the Extended Stay American hotel would make special arrangements for me. 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. Glendarin Hills Golf Club – Angola, Indiana Good planning by my brother. Brother Mike had arranged for a 7:50 a.m. tee time at the Glendarin Hills Golf Club in Angola, Indiana. The golf course was just one mile from our hotel. That’s good planning. Despite this being July in the Midwest the skies would be clear and the temperatures just right. Angola was having “San Clemente weather” and anywhere that has “San Clemente weather” is just fine with me. The golf course was just perfect. What does a “perfect” golf course have? Lots of things. It wasn’t too expensive and it wasn’t too crowded. Mike and I went off as a twosome, which is what we preferred. The course was both challenging and in great condition. All of the elements for a perfect day of golf worked in our favor. What a golf match! Of course we wouldn’t want to have a match if there wasn’t “a little something” on the outcome. In golf two players of differing abilities can have a contest that “equals out” their difference in golfing skill. How is that done? This is accomplished by the use of a handicap. The stronger golfer gives his fellow competitor a few strokes to lower his score on the hardest holes. Of course professionals don’t “give strokes”. Everyone brings their “A” game and the person with the best “A” game wins. I refer to giving strokes as “golf welfare”. Golf handicaps are like taxes…simply a redistribution of wealth. I used to give Mike 14 strokes per round. However, over time he has gotten a little better (lessons) and I have gotten a little worse (lack of play). Today I gave him two strokes, one on each side (nine holes). They say that most golf bets are won on the first hole before one shot have ever been attempted. That’s right. If you negotiate the bet properly you don’t have to play as well! We would be playing “match” play. That’s where each hole is won or lost individually. The player who wins the most holes wins the match. Mike won the first hole. Was this how the day was going to go? By the end of the first 12 holes (18 holes make up a match!) I was three holes ahead. However, Mike made a heroic comeback to win holes 13, 14 and 15. Now we were tied. We were playing for lunch. Today’s winner would eat free. It was time to bear down. I ended up winning holes #16 and #17 to win the match “two and one”. That means I was ahead by two holes with just one to play. Long-term readers know very well they would get the same thorough recap if I had lost the golf match! Sometimes it’s good to avoid progress. There are parts of the country that still haven’t moved into the 21st century. States that meet that situation in this area would be Ohio, Pennsylvania and New York. There are lots of places where you can still experience the “50s” if you want too back here. I like the 50s and 60s. Tonight I wanted to go back in time. What did that mean? It meant I was in search of a drive-in movie. The races had been rained out at about 7 p.m. I did a little searching and found there were SEVERAL active drive-in movie theaters in the general area. There was just two issues that I needed to work around. First, some of the drive-ins were only open on weekends. Tonight was a Wednesday. Secondly a drive-in movie theatre cannot show their film until the sun goes down. This is early July and the days are pretty long right now. I still had a good deal of driving to do tonight. I was heading from Ohio back up to Michigan. I needed to drive as far as I could in the daylight. Then I hoped to drop into a drive-in movie just a few minutes before the “curtain went up” on the evening show. I found the drive-in in North Ridgeville, Ohio. The first show would not begin until 9:30 p.m.! That’s pretty late for the first show to begin when there is a second movie to follow. However, they can’t start until it gets dark. No food or drink. If we find it you’re kicked out. I paid $7.50 to get in. There were all kinds of signs, and I was quizzed when I bought my ticket about bringing any food or drink onto the premises. Who were they kidding? Anyone who WANTED to bring food and/or drink could easily hide it in their car. Then when the movie began, after dark, it would be easy to eat and drink your own stuff. I thought it comical that they made such a big deal out of this idea. Since I had not eaten dinner I visited the snack bar before the first show began. I was surprised at the variety of concessions. The prices were reasonable too. I don’t know when you last visited a drive-in movie theatre. Most things are the same as they were 50 years ago but not everything. Now you don’t have to use one of those big clunky speakers anymore. Today guests simply tune into the sound via their FM car radios. That may go by the wayside soon as AM/FM radios are becoming dinosaurs to a great degree. When it was time to leave I was still hearing the broadcast from the drive-in until I was 3-4 miles on down the road. If you haven’t been to a drive-in movie lately and you want to go before the last of about 200 drive-ins close I wouldn’t wait much longer. I had a fine time. ONE CANNOT LIVE WELL OR SLEEP WELL IF ONE HAS NOT DINED WELL Sutton’s Deli – Angola, Indiana Following golf I consulted Yelp! I didn’t know the first thing about the eateries in the smallish town of Angola, Indiana. However, Yelp! users did. We settled on “Sutton’s Deli” located on the county square of Steuben county in Angola. There we dined on perfectly prepared sandwiches, refillable fountain drinks and a very tasty lemon square. Most of Angola seemed to agree with Sutton’s Yelp! rating as they dined among us. Trumbull County Fairgrounds – Cortland, Ohio Back on the block we call this a good deal. I arrived early for the fair. Once in the parking lot I took a 12-minute powernap. Not everybody tees off at the old golf course at 4:50 a.m. their time. Today’s fair pricing situation was what we used to call back on the block simply a “good deal”. Parking was free. General admission to the fair itself was $8 U.S. However folks over the age of 62 were admitted for half that. There was no admission to the covered county fair grandstand, which was nearly filled. How’s that for a good deal? Admission to the fair AND the races was just four dollars. The next night at a Michigan fair I would pay ten bucks just to park. Tonight’s racing would be done on one of the largest dirt ovals I have seen in a long time. It looked longer than the advertised distance of ½-mile. The track was mainly flat especially in the racing groove. Three classes were racing tonight. There were about 16 late models, 12 e-modifieds and 9 mini-stocks. The program was beginning early. Practice started at 5:30 p.m. with racing set for six. If you’re not early you’re late. I was happy to see they started on time. Why would they begin so early on a weeknight no less? They didn’t have any lights! With the sun setting between 8:30 p.m. and 9 p.m. they would still have plenty of time to race. The late models and e-mods each ran two heats. The mini-stox ran just one four-lap heat. The announcing was good. It was surprising to see a crowd of nearly 2,000 in their seats by 6 p.m. on a Wednesday night. Where did all of that “green” come from on the weather radar? Next up was the 16-car 25-lap feature event for the late models. It was only 6:39 p.m. They were REALLY moving this program along. Why? I looked at my iPhone. All of a sudden there was some “green” on the weather radar descending upon the small town of Cortland. Then I looked at the sky. Then I looked at some of the fans sitting in the bleachers that were not covered by the grandstand roof. Those folks were beginning to sprout umbrellas and clear plastic rain ponchos. The late model feature has started. However, with this light rain, that wasn’t much more than a sprinkle, they would not be able to race much longer. American are not Europeans and sometimes that’s not a good thing. Americans are not Europeans. We don’t get out of the fast lane on the highway when we should and we don’t race in the rain. I wish we did both. Soon the track officials pulled the cars off the track because it was to wet to race. All during this time several spectators stood out in the elements without a care in the world from this light sprinkle. It rained a little harder but not much. I casually walked around the fair buildings and the carnival midway. It was now getting to be nearly 7:30 p.m. It would take some time to get the track race ready if the rain did stop. Remember they didn’t have any track lights. I added up all these “clues” and figured they would not get back to racing tonight. Maybe they would run the features tomorrow night as this was a two-day county fair show. I bid the Trumbull County Fairgrounds farewell. I had anticipated seeing this track for a long time. Then when the time actually came I only got to see five heat races and seven laps of feature racing. Do what you say and say what you do. I could be like some of my “favorite” trackchasers and try to tell you I’ll make it a special point to come back here sometime…..but I won’t and they don’t. I’m not a big fan of folks who say one thing and do another. I gave the Trumbull County Fairgrounds my best shot. The rain forecast was low and it didn’t rain much. However dirt track racing, especially high-speed dirt track racing, does not take much moisture to cancel a program. That got me to thinking. It wasn’t yet 8 p.m. The evening was young. I had gotten up at 3 a.m. on the time zone I was most accustomed too. Was there more activity in my future for tonight? The answer was “Yes”. Take a look at the “Attractions” tab to see what I’m talking about. Ohio The Buckeye state This evening I saw my 71st lifetime track in the Buckeye state, yes the Buckeye state. Ohio has always been a tough place for me with National Geographic Diversity (NGD) points. I’ve popped in and out of the top ten. However, I think I’m just one track out of a top ten ranking now. Some of the people ahead of me are deceased or have pretty much stopped trackchasing. Tonight gave me a good feeling about removing the NGD penalty points associated with my lack of achievement in Ohio. We’ll see what the rest of 2014 holds for the Buckeye state. 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 Ohio happenings: You see people wear bib overalls to funerals QUICK FACTS AIRPLANE Los Angeles, CA (LAX) – Chicago, IL (ORD) – 1,745 miles RENTAL CAR #1 O’Hare International Airport – trip begins Charlotte, MI Cortland, OH TRACK ADMISSION PRICES: Eaton County Fairgrounds – $10 Trumbull County Fairgrounds – $4 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. 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 Take a look at what today’s activities looked like. Just click on the link: Golf, racing and a drive-in movie! 
