Wagner Speedway

 

DAY 8 – “ONE LONG JULY” TRACKCHASING TOUR

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GREETINGS FROM WAGNER, SOUTH DAKOTA

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TODAY’S HEADLINES

I brought my golf clubs on this trip. ………..details in “The Trip and Trackchasing Tourist Attraction sections”.

 

 

The small town of Wagner, South Dakota had some unusual aspects to it………………more in “The Trip”.

 

 

The grudge match of all-time, or at least July, took place at the Wagner Speedway………..details in “Race Review”.

 

 

 

 

 

THE OBJECTIVE, THE TRIP, THE PEOPLE…AND A WHOLE LOT MORE

 

 

 

 

The Objective 

 

 

In at least twenty states, I’m doing well.

I guess the primary objective for stopping at the Wagner Speedway was to get one more NGD point. Tonight’s South Dakota track moved me into a tie for second place here. This gives me an even twenty states where I hold either a #1 or #2 state ranking.

 

 

Of course, it didn’t hurt that I was already in South Dakota after seeing the World of Outlaw late models racing in Huron, South Dakota last night. Wagner is located in extreme Southeast South Dakota, just across from the Nebraska line. When I travel to places like this, it’s a good idea to see more than one track. This way visits to “geographic obscurity” areas can be most efficient.

 

 

By the way, one of the most significant outcomes of the National Geographic Diversity program is that it promotes trackchaser visits to remote states like South Dakota. 

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The Trip

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This trip required bringing my sticks.

I don’t normally take my golf clubs with me when I do trackchasing trips. When I was buying all of my airline tickets (2006 and before), I brought my clubs all the time. However, in the world of standby flying it’s too difficult to check luggage. I usually get on the plane (or not) at the very last minute. When I check bags under my airline sponsorship program they go to my destination whether I do or not.

 

 

However, on this trip, I was playing in the “Illinois Cup”. If I was going to bring my clubs for that, I might as well play at least one more time on this 17-day odyssey. I’ll tell you more about today’s golf in the “Trackchasing Tourist Attraction” section.

 

 

 

Wagner, South Dakota is a small western town.

Wagner is a very small town of about 1,700 people. It doesn’t look very prosperous to me. I’m told the median income is about $21,000 per person. Of note, is the fact that some 34% of the Wagner population are Native Americans. That statement wouldn’t be true of 0.5% of the trackchasing towns that I have visited.

 

I very much enjoy driving in areas of the country like South Dakota. It’s rural out here and there is no traffic. I marvel at what a difference six months can make in the weather since I live in a place that is nearly the same weather-wise all year. I see things on trips like this that I don’t see in San Clemente. That would include lots of hay fields and drive-in movie theatres. When was the last time you attended or even SAW a drive-in movie theatre?

 

 

 

The People

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In South Dakota there are not many people.

After leaving Huron late last night, playing golf by myself and sleeping overnight it my car, there was not much time for people contacts!

 

 

 

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.

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Hillcrest Golf & Country Club – Yankton, South Dakota

I play 100% of my golf in a competitive situation. Almost all of my golf is played at my home club, the Bella Collina Towne & Golf Club (formerly Pacific Golf Club) in San Clemente, California. My men’s groups require a $20 or $30 buy-in. There we join up teams and the winners get the entry fees in the form of prize money. When I play with my friends we always play for something even if the bet is as small as a dollar. It’s fun to “have something on the line”.

 

 

That is why I found my golf outing somewhat less than fulfilling today in Yankton, South Dakota. The golf course was nice and the weather was perfect. It’s cooler than normal in South Dakota during this trip. Today I had sunny skies and 80 degrees. For golf, that’s perfect.

 

 

However, there was no one for me to play with today. It was a Friday afternoon and there were no single players anywhere in site when I came by about noon. Rather than wait any longer in the hopes of getting a pairing, I hit some balls on the practice range and went out onto the course.

 

 

I always look forward to playing with locals. First, it gives me someone to talk too. Secondly, I always learn something about living at whatever location I’m playing at from local residents. Since I had no one to play with I hit multiple balls on every hole. Nobody held me up and I didn’t hold anybody up. I did get a chance to work on my game, but I would have preferred a more traditional game of golf. This was my second round of the trip. I may not have time for anymore golf.

 

 

  

RACE REVIEW

 

WAGNER SPEEDWAY, WAGNER, SOUTH DAKOTA

 

 

The Wagner Speedway was better than expected.

Some of the advance reports about the Wagner Speedway weren’t that positive. However, it is often with that kind of advance notice that I find that the “bad things” have been overstated. That was the case with the Wagner Speedway in my opinion.

 

 

I’ll tell you about some of the items that made the Wagner Speedway unique and some that made this track pretty much like any other I might visit. I drove out to the track at about 4 p.m. since I got into town early. Although there wasn’t much happening, I was impressed with the newly mown grass and freshly painted race buildings. With no one at the track, I spent the next three hours at the city park in the shade and worked on my trackchasing plans.

 

Near race time of 8 p.m., I resurfaced at the Wagner Speedway. I parked within a few feet of the front gate and a huge cornfield. The corn crop looks greats. I’m 6’3” and the corn is more than a foot taller than I am.

 

General admission was ten bucks. There was no discount for geezers (seniors). That was somewhat surprising since the majority of fans here tonight seemed to be older than the median age. I was surprised that with a Native American population of 34% in a small town that I didn’t notice any Native Americans. Short track auto racing is a lily-white sport and probably suffers in many ways because of it.

 

 

Very few trackchasers have ever been here.

The track itself was a higher banked quarter-mile dirt track. Only one other trackchaser (Jack Erdmann) in the state’s top ten have been to the Wagner Speedway. The pit area sits beyond the backstretch. The concession stand is located beneath the announcing tower and grandstand.

 

One of the most notable features of this track, and not a good one, is where the sun decides to retreat. The sun sets just over turns three and four. It takes its time too! For nearly two hours, I stared into a blinding and glaring sun. I must admit there was a most beautiful sunset when it did go down but hardly worth the pain and suffering before it did.

 

The track food was great.

A major positive attribute of this track was the concession stand. I had a “pork chop” that looked like a 12 oz. steak. The pork chop was lean and large and cost me only $3.50. I’m pretty sure I couldn’t go into a grocery store and buy this cut of meat for less than what I paid tonight.

 

They also had a “tavern” on the menu. Do you have any idea what that would be? I didn’t! I was told it was a BBQ sandwich. I have no idea where they came up with that name. They also had such exotic items on their menu as the “Walking Taco” ($3.50) and “Big Pickle” ($1.00).

 

 

There were five divisions of stock cars racing tonight in front of about 200 fans. These included: Hobby stocks, B-Buzzers, Pro Stocks, B-Mods and Late Models. These were all low dollar racing groups. Only the first two classes had enough cars to run two heats.

 

 

At intermission, they had a candy toss for the kids. They also had a grudge match between two local people. With just two cars, those folks ran a few laps and then stopped in front of the grandstand to switch drivers and cars. Of course, no plan ever works perfectly. One of the cars would not restart and had to be jump-started by the other. I can’t imagine that happening at Talladega!

 

 

Was this a compliment of not?

The announcer game me a nice trackchaser “mention” I think. First of all, he told the crowd that I was in the audience and tonight I was seeing my 1,459^th lifetime track. This provoked a light round of applause at his urging. He then went on to say “if what Randy is saying is true (ouch) then he knows more about racing than all of us combined” I didn’t know if this was a compliment or not!

 

 

I often use my iPhone as an entertainment center during down periods of short track racing events. It comes in very handy for this purpose since there are usually no short of “down periods”. However, tonight there was a shortage of phone service. As a matter of fact, there was no AT&T service. With that being the case, I went to electronic device #2, my race scanner for entertainment. They didn’t say much over the radio, but it was better than nothing. They work on the 467.5500 frequency.

 

 

They started a little late at 8:20 p.m. The heats (seven of them) were wrapped up an hour later. Car counts were small (12-12-7-7-5) spread over the classes listed above. The cars raced without delay better during the heat races than the features.

 

The racing was so-so at best.

With the mosquitoes beginning to bite and the yellow flags flying almost as frequently, the program really slowed down at feature time. I find this is frequently the case when the track has no penalty for drivers causing yellow flag delays. The tracks that have a “one or two spin and you’re out” rule don’t have longish programs. The tracks that kowtow to the competitors at the expense of the spectators have poor race shows that ultimately push the spectators into some other form of entertainment.

 

 

After the first two features, I had seen enough. It was time to boogie. I had a nearly four-hour drive down to Omaha to make tonight. There would not be time to get a hotel based upon my early morning flight time. I would have to sleep three hours in my car at an interstate rest area. I don’t like doing this. I know that several of my fellow competitors routinely sleep overnight in their vehicles. I know why they do it, I just would not want to do it.

 

 

 

STATE COMPARISONS

 

South Dakota

Tonight I saw my 14^th lifetime track in South Dakota. This moves me into a tie for second place with Jack Erdmann. I have just two more active tracks in the state that I have not seen. That doesn’t give me a good chance to catch the state trackchasing leader, since the two tracks I have yet to see only race three times in 2009. Ed Esser leads in South Dakota with 16 tracks.

 

 

 

 

RENTAL CAR UPDATE

 

Cincinnati, OH – Monday/Saturday

I’ve driven my National Rental Car Taurus more than 1,700 miles since picking it up in Cincinnati five days ago. I’ve driven more than 2,300 miles since the trip started eight days ago. The Ford Taurus has been an impressive car. I really enjoyed listening to the NASCAR channel on Sirius radio.

 

 

I paid an average price of $2.36 per gallon. The Ford gave me a solid 27.6 miles per gallon in fuel mileage at a cost of 9.0 cents per mile. The car cost just 9.0 cents per mile to rent, all taxes included. This included a two-day sponsorship from the National Rental Car Company.

 

 

 

Coming Soon – RANLAY Racing Exclusive Features!

 

Why I fear Ed Esser. (Delayed! Coming, hopefully, by July, 2009).

 

 

My six-month trackchasing budget results (coming July, 2009)

 

 

How do fellow P&G retirees really think? (Coming in Trackchaser Report #1,464)

 

 

What is Randy’s (speaking in the third person) trackchasing future? (Coming August, 2009)

 

 

Who have been Randy’s three toughest trackchasing competitors? (Coming soon)

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Thanks for reading about my trackchasing,

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Randy Lewis

Alberta’s #1 Trackchaser

I’m still trackchasing out of a tiny three-car garage in the faraway but sunny seaside village of San Clemente, California.

 

 

 

 

TRAVEL DETAILS

 

AIRPLANE

Los Angeles, CA – Boston, MA – 2,608 miles

 

RENTAL CAR #1 

Logan International Airport – trip begins

Seekonk, MA – 60 miles

Stafford Springs, CT – 178 miles

Richmond, ME – 488 miles

Logan International Airport – 645 miles – trip ends 

 

AIRPLANE

Boston, MA – Cincinnati, OH – 752 miles 

 

RENTAL CAR #2 

Cincinnati – Northern Kentucky International Airport – trip begins

Wilmington, OH – 66 miles

Rock Rapids, IA – 1,091 miles

Huron, SD – 1,209 miles

Wagner, SD – 1,410 miles

Eppley Airfield (Omaha) – 1,725 miles – trip ends

 

 

 

TRACK ADMSSION PRICES: 

Seekonk Speedway – $5 (no senior rate)

Stafford Motor Speedway – $10 (pit pass $20)

Richmond Karting Speedway – complimentary

Clinton County Fairgrounds – $6

Lyon County Fairgrounds – $8

Dakota State Fair Speedway – $30

Wagner Speedway – $10

 

 

 

COMPARISONS

 

LIFETIME NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC DIVERSITY UPDATE

 

Randy Lewis – current score = 5.31 (tracks posted thru July 12)

 

2009 NGD point changes

Connecticut -7

Maine -10

New Hampshire -11

North Dakota -1

Rhode Island – 8

South Dakota -1

Texas +1

 

Net changes -37

 

 

 

Gordon Killian – current score = 5.90 (tracks posted thru May 15)

 

2009 NGD point changes 

Georgia -6

Kansas +1

New Jersey +1

North Dakota +1

Ohio -1

Rhode Island -1

South Carolina +2

South Dakota +1

 

Net changes -3

 

 

 

LIFETIME TRACKCHASER COMPARISONS  

 

There are no trackchasers currently within 200 tracks of my lifetime total.

 

1. Randy Lewis, San Clemente, California – 1,459

 

 

 

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You might have remembrances of the Wagner Speedway.  If so, please feel free to share in the comments section below.  If you have any photos from back in the day, send them to me at Ranlay@yahoo.com.  I’ll try to include them here.

 

Official end of RANLAY Racing Trackchaser Report

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photo album: Wagner Speedway – July 17, 2009