Just back from a week in Daytona Beach. Besides the usual beach activities, one day we took a 90 minute “behind the scenes” tour of the Daytona International Speedway. It was really interesting, even for a non-fan like me. We got to walk on the track at the finish line, which was banked at a surprisingly steep 18 degrees, and learned that the curves are banked at 31 degrees. We got to walk around Victory Lane, go in the press room, see the pit areas, and walk around the concourse. They also have a small museum of the track’s history, with exhibits of several models of old racing cars. The track has more than NASCAR racing -they also have truck and motorcycle race events.
The car that won the 2017 Daytona 500 was on exhibit as well. It was dented and banged up, had big clumps of dried out turf on it and was covered with confetti. Apparently what they do is once the car has gone through Victory Lane and the celebrations are over, they take the car and put it on exhibit in the museum, leaving it just as it was after the celebration, not cleaning it at all. You don’t get it back until a few days before the next years race when they get the area all cleaned up so they can put the new winner’s car in there.
I enjoyed the tour and was glad I did it, but a couple of hours of NASCAR was more than enough for me. It’s a very testosterone-heavy atmosphere and when it was done it was a bit of a relief to get out of there. But I will watch a bit of the Daytona 500 this February for the fun of seeing the places we toured.
