RICK @ the RACES ( Feb 2012 Florida Trip)
9 Feb East Bay Speedway Park, Gibsonton, FL
12 Feb Homestead Speedway, Miami , FL
This weeks report starts at 4-00pm on Tuesday Feb 7 when I left home in Cornwall, Ontario, bound for Syracuse NY. I was driving down to the Hancock International Airport where I’d be taking a flight the next day. Once I’d reached Syracuse, the HHR was parked at the Airport Best Western Hotel, where I stayed over night. On Wednesday morning their shuttle bus took me the short distance to the terminal.
My eventual destination for this trip was Ft Lauderdale in Florida, where my daughter Carla and her boyfriend Alex, have been living for the past 2 years. There is no direct flight out of Syracuse, so my trip, involved a change of planes in Atlanta, Georgia. The outbound aircraft was late arriving at Syracuse, so it meant a late arrival in Atlanta. Delta, my airline , had to make arrangements for me to connect with a later flight to Ft Lauderdale. It all went smoothly, and at 6-20 pm , I landed in Florida where Carla was at the Airport to meet me.
Our first stop was the EZ car rental desk, where I picked up my ‘wheels’. Carla and Alex would be working on Thursday and Friday, so my plan was to take off for a race ‘somewhere’ .
My rental car for the two days was a cheap and cheerful Hyundai Accent, so I followed Carla in her KIA Forte , back to their home in Plantation. She’d made a nice lasagne for supper, and after this we drove out to the local Walmart to get me a disposable cel phone. ( $14 for the phone , plus $15 worth of calls) My regular cel phone doesn’t work in the USA, and Carla wanted ‘dad’ to be prepared.
On Thursday morning I left my holiday home in Plantation at around 9-30 am for the 4 hour drive to the races. My intended track was the East Bay Speedway Park , located at Gibsonton, just south of Tampa.
The journey involved a two hour drive across a section of Interstate 75 , known as ‘Alligator Alley’ . It’s also known as the Everglades Parkway and it stretches for about 85 miles between Ft Lauderdale and Naples. Once on this piece of highway there is very little else, other than swampland, so it’s not a good place to have a break down. I only counted one rest area with a gas station , so you need to make sure your tank is full, before making the trip.
Once I’d reached civilization and got past Naples, I looked for a McDonalds, to eat, and have the use of their Free WiFi.
By about 3-00pm I was in the Gibsonton area and was stocking up on snacks at the local Walmart, in preparation for my return trip in the evening. After this, I drove the short distance to the track.
I’ve visited the East Bay Speedway Park twice before and it has to be my favorite Florida track. ( yep, I prefer it to Daytona !) 
It was the opening night for their annual Winter Nationals and this weeks racing featured ‘Open Wheeled’ Modifieds and Mod Lites.
There were representatives from 14 different states competing, but it was one of the local guys I was interested in watching. When you’re in the ‘media game’ it’s not a good thing to have ‘favorite drivers’ , but human nature , obviously proves otherwise. Long time Modified driver, Buzzie Reutimann, from Zephyr Hills is my exception to the rule, and once in the pits, I made a B line to his car.
After my wander around the pits, I headed back to the parking lot , and parked right next to the gate, I spotted a familiar vehicle with Ontario License plates. It was the Chevy Camper van of my friend, Ron Morin , the Cornwall Motor Speedway promoter. I found Ron and his good lady Riena sitting inside, so I joined them for a chat. They’d driven down from Canada for a racing vacation.
Before the nights racing action got under way , the three of us decided to get a bite to eat in the track restaurant. The East Bay Speedway has some of the best race track food, you’ll find anywhere, so while Ron and Riena dined on the spagetti and meat balls, I went straight into the dessert, with the fresh strawberry flan.
Because this was a personal vacation and not a fully fledged racing trip, I had traveled light, and left my heavy camera equipment at home, and was relying on my small ‘point and shoot’ Fugi digicam to record things. Therefore, I hadn’t planned on taking pics from the center and decided to hang out with my two friends for the night. During the course of the evening we went along to the pits for a chat with ‘Buzzie’ . Ron knows him very well from the days when he regularly competed at the Cornwall Motor Speedway. (In fact ‘Buzzie Reutimann was the Feature winner, on my first visit to the track, when I moved to the Cornwall area back in 1996).
It just goes to show, that it’s not ‘what you know’, but it’s ‘who you know’ because after chatting with ‘Buzzie’, Ron got my www.rickattheraces.com sticker attached to the famous # 00 car.
Another famous racing personality at East Bay that night was NASCAR and SPEED TV star, Kenny Wallace in his UNOH sponsored car. I first met Kenny a few years back, when he was using the Jimmy Phelps in the SUPER DIRT SERIES at the Virginia Motor Speedway in May 2007. It was good to meet up with him again.
I always enjoy the racing at East Bay, and watched the action from the grandstands with Ron and Riena.
Feature winner of the night was Devin Dixon. With the long journey back to Ft Lauderdale ahead of me, I never stayed to the end of the show and unfortunately I don’t have any Victory Lane shots for the report. After making sure the gas tank was full I drove back across the Everglades and was back in Plantation at 2-00 am.
I spent my Friday relaxing around the house before returning the rental car and having supper at the Oasis Casino with Carla and Alex.
On Saturday, we went to the beach at Ft Lauderdale, where I went for a paddle, before having lunch at an ocean side restaurant .
It was then back to the house to relax before another night of dining out. I had yet to meet Alex’s mother , Doris, so the four of us had arranged for a night out at a classy Brazilian restaurant.
Sunday turned out to be a really busy day for us, where we did lots of great things.
We set of in the morning bound for the Miami area and the first stop was the Anhinga Trail at Royal Palm deep in the Everglades. Once parked at the visitors center , we took advantage of the free tarps that were available to put over the car.
The reason for this was obvious as we looked on at other vehicles belonging to those that hadn’t bothered.
There were large vultures everywhere, and they tend to have a liking for the rubber items, such as windshield sealers and roof racks.
With Carla’s KIA safely tarped, we wandered around the trail , and soon came across several Alligators and other exotic creatures.
From the nature reserve, we moved on to the nearby Schnebly Redland winery for some wine tasting and to watch the ‘Carambola Stomp’ (fruit crushing). 
After this our next stop was at ‘Robert is Here’ a Fruit stand and small petting zoo.
By now it was mid afternoon , and just down the road from us, was the Homestead Miami Speedway, so I had to take a look.
My intention was only to get a photo of the main entrance, but when we arrived and found out there was racing going on, the temptation was too much.
There was a Championship Cup Series event taking place for Motorcycles, and the lady on the gate, told us there were three races left on the days schedule. We drove inside and parked on the center to watch a bit of the action.
The bikes were using a 2-21 mile road course that incorporated part of the super speedway. Although this was a ‘new track’ for me, I unfortunately wont be able to add it to my official TRACKCHASING totals. Some of the TRACKCHASER rules are a ‘little bit odd’ and are difficult to figure out. Among the events not counted in their rules, are motorcycles, some forms of karts and even Drag Strips. ( If I were to include the tracks from these catagories , my ‘totals’ list would be a lot longer).
From Homestead we drove into down town Miami, where we parked up and wandered down the fashionable Lincoln Ave. After a burger and a walk on the beach we headed back to Plantation.
An excellent day was concluded by a cosey night on the couch watching the Grammy Awards on TV. I don’t normally waste my time watching awards shows such as this , where the ‘prima donnas’ of this world stand up and ‘thank everyone including their dog’ , but I didn’t want to miss this one. The Beach Boys, my all time favorite band , were reuniting especially for the occasion and I wasn’t disappointed !
Monday was the last day of my vacation and after Carla dropped me off at the Airport, my homeward bound journey began. Once again, I had to change planes in Atlanta, and I eventually touched down in Syracuse NY at 10-30 pm. Lucky for me, there had been no fresh snow, and it was a beautiful clear night for the drive home to Canada. I left Syracuse about 11-00 pm and was back home in Cornwall, Ontario at 2-00 am.