The Daytona 500 Race

The Daytona 500, the first race in the NASCAR race season, was a great place to have our first experience with big time stock car races! With a starting field of 43, there was no shortage of action. This year's Daytona set records for most lead changes and most laps under caution. It also produced the youngest winner, Travor Bayne, who celebrated his 20th birthday the day before the race. He was pushed across the line by Bobby LaBonte, a veteran of NASCAR racing.

Daytona has a 2.5 mile track with some steeply banked turns (31 degrees). This is equivalent to a ski slope. It allows speeds of 200 mph through the turn. A new phenomenon emerged during tryouts for this year's Daytona. It's referred to as "hooking up." Successful race drivers have always used "drafting" to gain an advantage. Hooking up goes one step further: instead of just closely following another car, the second car actually pushes the first car. In simple physics, basically what happens is that you have one car with two engines. Hook-ups went on throughout this year's race although the pairings changed as the field was reduced by more than half by the end of the race. In Picture 2 you can see the banked turns and the pairs.

Race attendance, including RVers in the infield and pit crews, was estimated at just under 300,000 people. A unscientific estimate is that several million cans of beer were consumed at the race!

Getting 300,000 people into the stands is a logistical challenge to say the least! Race fans were transported from their assigned parking lots by a fleet of several hundred school buses. An estimated 30,000 cars were parked in our lot. One needs to remember where one parked since everyone in the lot was picked up and dropped off (after dark) at the same point.