Speedweek: Chasing the tracks

By Jim Holland, Journal staff | Friday, July 04, 2008

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RAPID CITY — Another day, another racetrack for Randy Lewis.

Lewis, 59, of San Clemente, Calif., is a trackchaser, the auto racing hobby of attending events at as many racetracks as possible.

“Some people collect stamps, postcards, or figurines,” said Lewis. “I collect race tracks.”

Last Friday night, Lewis came to Rapid City to maintain his status as the world’s No. 1 ranked trackchaser, bouncing between simultaneous racing events at Black Hills Speedway and a last-minute Badlands Mini-Sprint Association card at Heartland Speedway.

He then traveled to the Badlands Mini-Sprint Association races at Newcastle Fairgrounds Speedway in Newcastle, Wyo., on Saturday night to boost his career racetrack total to 1,361.

A Montana Bump-and-Run series event scheduled for a temporary track at Acton, Mont., Sunday night had actually occurred a couple of weeks ago, not on Sunday night as Lewis was led to believe.

“That was a shutout. That happens sometimes. The races at Heartland were kind of an unexpected plus, so when the Montana races didn’t happen, that took away my plus,” he said.

Lewis grew up in East Peoria, Ill., and saw his first race at the old Peoria Speedway as a small boy.

He didn’t get serious about trackchasing until his working years, traveling as a sales manager for Proctor and Gamble.

“Whenever I would travel somewhere for a meeting, I hang around an extra day or two and go to racetracks,” he said. He was able to pursue two of his favorite pastimes when he retired six years ago.

“Golf is my hobby and trackchasing is my passion,” he said.

In the last four years he has added more than 600 tracks to his total, including venues in all 50 states, the District of Columbia and 15 foreign countries.

In January he attended a six hour endurance race at the Bira Circuit in Thailand, track No. 1,300. His wife, Carol, is currently 27th on the top 40 trackchaser list with 366.

In his travels he has seen a very young Jeff Gordon racing a sprint car at Kings Speedway in California.

Last winter, he spent time with Tiger Woods’ caddie Steve Williams, who races sedans in New Zealand during the southern hemisphere’s summer months.

Earlier this year at a track in Denmark, Lewis saw a Danish prince, fourth in line to the throne, racing a prototype sports car.

He estimated that he travels 50 weekends out of the year. Last year, he traveled 870,000 miles and added 160 tracks to the list.

Lewis maintains a Web site: www.ranlayracing.com, and shoots hundreds of photos to document his travels, including local color and landmarks. While in South Dakota, he visited Wall Drug and Mount Rushmore.

Planning a trip is almost as much fun as attending races, Lewis said.

“Just like the success of a race team is tied to the work they do in the garage, my success depends on how much preparation I do in my office, so there are some similarities,” he said.

Three parameters determine the direction of his travel, he said. Obviously there has to be a new racetrack to see, along with a favorable weather forecast and way to get within reasonable driving distance by air.

Lewis’ son became a pilot for Skywest Airlines two years ago, which allows Lewis to fly for greatly reduced fares. But he also has to wait for an available seat and that makes trip planning more difficult.

Even with the lowered airfares, lodging, food, rental cars, admission tickets or pit passes quickly add up into thousands of dollars per year.

“Obviously, if you don’t have the financial means, you can’t participate at this level, so that’s another similarity to racing,” he said.

Trackchaser rules stipulate that only oval or road courses with no less than three cars competing at once can be counted. That eliminates drag strips, mud bogs, monster truck shows and time trial events. Tracks racing only  “flat cars” such as racing karts also don’t count.

Lewis estimates there are at least 600 tracks in the U.S. alone that he has yet to attend. At least 500 of those tracks will only have one event each year.

As new tracks constantly spring up, there will never be a finish line, nor a winner for trackchasers.

“It never ends,” he said.