Greetings from Gilbert, Pennsylvania
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From the travels and adventures of the
“World’s #1 Trackchaser”
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West End Fairgrounds
Dirt oval
Lifetime track #2,271
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 MONDAY I see life as a series of thousands and thousands of small decisions. I believe if you make the vast majority of those small decisions correctly you’re going to have a successful life. Of course a bus can hit anyone at just the wrong moment. But, if you don’t get hit by a bus the quality of your life is going to be based on how you made those thousands of small decisions. There are several categories and subcategories that make up life’s decisions. Some of those decisions revolve around how finances are managed. When I’m out on the trackchasing trail I try to spend my money prudently. I’ve been retired for nearly 15 years. Carol never worked outside the home after the birth of our second child, Kristy. That means for nearly the past 40 years I’ve been the sole breadwinner in the Lewis household. My trackchasing hobby is about as fun of a thing as I can think to do. Remember it’s not all about racing. Most of it is NOT about racing. It’s about traveling. It’s about seeing the sights. It’s about eating in good restaurants as well as seeing a race along the way. It is a true statement that no one has ever trackchased like I do. Every other trackchaser has been a “driving” chaser. I brought airplanes into the hobby. That allowed me to set new records at every turn. I pride myself in getting good financial “deals” all the time. Even with that being done trackchasing for me is still an expensive hobby. I just know that if anyone else tried to replicate exactly what I do from where I do it they would be paying two or three more times more than I do. I could try to buy cheap things cheap when I make these trips. That’s not how I roll. I want to buy good things cheap. There is a huge huge difference in those two strategies. I woke up this morning in an Indiana highway rest area. You might think that I had chosen the cheap option. I didn’t see it that way. I chose the practical option. Sometimes the practical option is the least expensive as well. I only had five hours from the time I would arrive into the Indianapolis area from last night’s race in Sands, Michigan and the time my flight left Indy this morning. Getting a hotel for five hours or less didn’t make any sense to me. Nowadays the tracks that I’m seeing are so far apart there isn’t always time to get a hotel considering the driving distance required. I’ve had to sleep in highway rest areas for four of the last six nights. I’ve never ever done something like that in the past. However, it’s not all that difficult and just part of the hobby at this stage. Today I was flying from Indianapolis to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Once in Philly I would set about on another week long journey of trackchasing and touring. This would stretch my trip from 12 days to 19 days my longest of the 2016 season. You might think that 19 days is a long trip. Hardly for me. In 2015 I had a 66-day trackchasing/touring adventure. This weekend’s plan was aggressive. Almost all of my trip maps are! I would be needing a rental car in Philadelphia for a full week. I made a reservation with my longtime sponsor National Car Rental. They are very easy to deal with. There are no hassles about insurance, gas or any of that other rigmarole that they try to upsell you at other rental car companies. National also gives me sponsorship rebates that can be used for free rentals. I love renting from National. My reservation called for a full-sized rental car with National. However, I discovered that I could get an intermediate car at a competing company for $200 less than what National was charging. I didn’t want to take a small downgrade but for $200 it seemed like a worthwhile idea. I booked with Hertz. Here’s the funny thing about my saving 200 bucks. If by the end of my life I don’t run out of money the idea that I saved $200 won’t mean much of anything except to my heirs. Nevertheless having grown up in the Midwest I have a good understanding of the value of a dollar. I still bend over to pick up a penny. It’s the principle (pun intended) of the thing. Tonight I would need a hotel as well. For every night on this trip except one I have booked my hotels through Priceline.com. I fully understand all of the strategies with Priceline that it takes to get a good deal. I booked a reservation for a three-star hotel up in Scranton, Pennsylvania. I saved 35% off the hotel’s best available on line rate. That hotel savings coupled with a $200 savings on my rental car and a very good deal with my airline sponsors made this much less expensive than it would be for my fellow competitors. It still wasn’t cheap by a lot of people standards but it was a “good deal”. I wasn’t really looking forward to the process of picking up my Hertz Rental Car. I was going to have to stand in line just like everyone else. I’ve traveled so much in my life with VIP treatment, most of the time, that standing in line is not something that I look forward to. I would decline all of the insurances they had to offer. I have my own insurance even though it comes with a $1,000 deductible. If I crash one of these cars it’s going to cost me 1,000 bucks. However when I rent with National that’s all covered with my corporate insurance. That’s another reason that I like to stay with a National Car Rental reservation. With Hertz today I had a choice of exactly two cars. With National I can choose virtually any car in their fleet. All this summer I’ve been driving around in Chrysler 300s, a $40,000 automobile. Today I ended up with a Hyundai Elantra. The Elantra is not a bad car for its class but it’s not a Chrysler 300. Of course I would bypass the rental car fuel service option. I can’t understand why anyone would want to take that option. However I would have to return the gas tank full. If I didn’t they would charge me an unconsciously large $9.99 per gallon refueling charge. I am not a big fan of the aggressive and often times negative attitude that so many easterners* exhibit. Franky, I don’t even think they know they come off that way. I encountered a couple of those folks at the Hertz location. However, I must say that once an Easterner thinks that you are not trying to hurt them in anyway they really come around and can be some very nice people. Until that point their skepticism can sometimes be overwhelming. Nevertheless, if they like you, they will walk through fire for you. Please don’t go politically correct on me. * What I am saying is not that ALL Easterners behave this way, just a greater than statistically predictable percentage and probably ALL of the Eastern based passengers on a typical Chicago-New York plane ride. It was time for a late lunch. Whenever I’m in a new location where I’m not familiar with things, which is most of the time, I’m going to use my Yelp iPhone application. I will benefit from the reviews that previous users have provided for a business that they have frequented. When you’re in Philadelphia you should probably be eating cheesesteaks. I did a quick search to find out where a good highly recommended cheesesteak could be bought be close to the airport. In a microsecond I found Leo’s Steak Shop. They had a 4.5-star Yelp rating from 123 reviewers. That’s fantastic. Additionally they were within five miles of the airport. Soon I found myself pulling the Hertz Rental Car Racing Hyundai Elantra up in front of Leo’s Steak Shop. A huge sign told me that they were voted as Philly’s number one steak shop. I marched in the front door. I found a very busy kitchen with no indoor seating whatsoever. I strongly prefer chicken cheesesteaks to the beef option. I noticed that a small cheesesteak went for about eight bucks and a large one for fifteen. That seemed pricey. I ordered a small cheesesteak and waited for it to be freshly made. While I was waiting a big rough looking fellow engaged me in conversation. He was a Philly resident from birth. He had grown up just three blocks from Leo’s Steak Shop which has been in business here for 42 years. My new best buddy was a huge fan of Leo’s. He’s been eating there since he was a kid. I mentioned that I thought $15 bucks for a cheesesteak was a little hefty. He said, “It’s worth every penny”. He had ordered a large one for himself. When his fifteen dollar cheesesteak was ready he proudly handed it to me and said, “Feel the weight of this thing.” He was right. It was about the size of Mickey Mantle’s 34-inch baseball bat! The fellow who ran the joint heard our conversation. He was surprised that I was visiting from California he came over to say hello. He was very gracious and welcomed me to Leo’s Steak Shop. All of a sudden all these gruff-looking weather-beaten Eastern minded folks were greeting me with open arms to their neighborhood eatery. That was nice. Thank you fellas. It was a beautiful 82° blue-sky, with white puffy clouds, weather day. The big guy who grew up just three blocks away was now a bricklayer. He told me that I shouldn’t leave the shop without getting a package of Herr’s potato chips. They were locally made he told me. They would make my meal complete. I did as recommended. Once outside I grabbed a picnic table and opened up my cheesesteak just as if I were opening up a present on Christmas morning. How good was it? It was very good. However I’ve had a lot of good cheesesteaks in Philadelphia. It wasn’t any better than the others and probably wasn’t any worse. I think I enjoyed the experience of meeting and talking with the people as much as I did the sandwich. I know I did! THE RACING West End Fairgrounds – Gilbert, Pennsylvania Following lunch I headed northward toward tonight’s fairgrounds. They have their share of tunnels in the northeast. I made my way through the Lehigh Tunnel. They have their share of toll roads here as well. California has almost no toll roads. It was a gorgeous day. Pennsylvania is a very rural place. I truly do believe it really is, “Alabama with Philadelphia and Pittsburg on each end.” The scenery is green, rolling and beautiful. I like the old farms. They will never tear down an old barn until it falls down. From the looks of things that takes a while! As I rolled into Chestnuthill Township it didn’t take me long to find the West End Fairgrounds. A good work friend of mine, Stu Lord, was most familiar with this fairground. His brother-in-law used to run the fair. Despite it being a beautiful sunny day I would come to find out that by evening the temperature was falling fast. That part reminded me of my home state of California. When the sun begins to set in California you might need a jacket. That was the case tonight as well. There was no charge for parking. There was a $5 charge to enter the fair. Once inside I found the place charming. I’ve been to a lot of county fairs, more than three hundred. The West End Fairgrounds seemed as if it were built inside a forest. It was one of the most scenic fairgrounds I have visited anywhere. I had plenty of time to scout things out at the fair. The folks in these parts know their groceries. There was just about very kind of fair food you could imagine….and then some. Despite having been to so many fairs tonight I could still find something to eat that I had never tried at a fair before. What was that? Wait for it. Rice pudding! That’s right, rice pudding. Who goes to a county fair to have rice pudding? I did. At a dollar a serving it was a refrigerated delight. When I tried to buy another later in the evening the vendor was closed. The fair has a large two-tiered grandstand for fans to watch the on-track activities. The track itself is a small permanent dirt oval. I’ll guess the overall link of the flat track was about 1/6-mile. Over the years I have noticed that Wisconsinites drink a lot of beer. Folks in California wear a lot of board shorts. People from Pennsylvania think of auto racing as a religion. I’ve never seen a one group of people more single-minded about auto racing than here. Maybe that’s why the hobby of trackchasing started in Pennsylvania. Tonight they were trying to put 10 pounds of auto racing in a 5-pound bag. They had WAY too many classes and cars for a reasonable three-hour program. The small car racing, which included flat karts, slingshots, senior champs karts and more provided good racing. I like double cheeseburgers but I don’t think I would try to eat ten in a single day. Please don’t quote me on that. As I recall I I paid an additional ten dollars to enter the grandstand to watch the races. I don’t think the grandstand was any more than a quarter to maybe, but probably not, a third full all-night. The program began at about 8 p.m. By 11 p.m. I noticed several things….most of them were not good. First, the number of fans in the grandstands had dropped to about one hundred. I scanned the crowd. I didn’t see anyone I knew. The cars didn’t generate that much dust as to make the viewing a problem. However, there was a fine layer dust on the grandstand seats that made it look as if they did. By 11:06 p.m. the temperature had dropped to 55 degrees. It seemed colder. There were still several features that had not been raced. I really wanted to see a full field of slingshots race in their feature. However, based upon the rate of yellow flags, it looked as if that wasn’t going to happen until well past midnight. The track had taken an intermission following the heat races. I took that opportunity to do some more touring of the fairgrounds. The Elvis impersonator was belting out the hits. He drew a large crowd of appreciative spectators. After having been at the fairgrounds for more than four hours, and more than three hours after the races had begun I couldn’t take it anymore. I was freezing. Maybe the track was freezing but I doubt it. Nevertheless, the feature races were going agonizingly slow. That was it. Ten pounds don’t fit in a five-pound bag! AFTER THE RACES What I was about to see was something I could never recall seeing at any other country fair I had visited. Every one of the vendors and carnival rides was locked up tight! They seemed to have closed long ago. They were still racing but at this point EVERYTHING else at the fair was closed. Even Elvis had left the building. It was now so dark in the remainder of the fairgrounds that I had to walk slowly so as not to trip. There was something a little creepy about leaving the fair in almost total darkness. It is a fact that Pennsylvania has one of the oldest populations of any state in the country. However, the cemetery display of burial monuments was a first for any county fair I have ever visited. I felt as if I were walking past a graveyard in the dark at midnight. I guess I was! Of course the monuments in tonight’s “graveyard” were still “fill in the blank”. My car was parked virtually all by itself where I had left it several hours ago. The weather had started out really nice. The fairgrounds was one of the most scenic I had ever seen. The food choices were well above average. The carnival wasn’t much but they had other local games that entertained the fans. The racing had been good. However, when the main racing event of the night isn’t going to begin until well past midnight, on a good weather day, that’s not acceptable. When the entire fair is closed up tight, while they are still racing, that is almost unbelievable. If you’ve read my Trackchaser Reports for very long you know that I try to find both the strong points and the weak ones of any place I visit. That was not hard to do here. They had ‘em both. I couldn’t lose sight of one very important aspect of tonight’s promotion. They were racing on a Monday night! That’s the least popular day of the week for a race to be scheduled. That was a good thing, a very good thing. Tonight I had seen my 2,271st lifetime track. Tonight I was seeing my 96th lifetime track in Pennsylvania. I have seen more than 100 tracks in five separate states. No one matches those totals. Good evening from Gilbert, Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania The Keystone state This evening I saw my 96th lifetime track in the Keystone state, yes the Keystone state. I told you that Pennsylvanians are more passionate about auto racing than any other state in the country. Where does my 96-track Pennsylvania total rank? I’m not anywhere close to the top ten! Nevertheless, I’ve seen 96 or more tracks in six 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 Pennsylvania definitions: Dutch What it means everywhere else: People from the Netherlands, also known as Holland. What it means in Pennsylvania: A word found everywhere around Pennsylvania referring to early German settlers, once referred to as “Deustch” but slowly Americanized over time. 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 575 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 Click on the link below to see the video production from the racing action today. 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. I’m going “county fair trackchasing” in Pennsylvania….the photo album 
2 comments
Is that a green bean and cottage cheese samich?
How about rice pudding!!