The t-shirt I wore today, Get Back To Dirt, is from a documentary with the same name that Dale Jr recommended last season on Dave Despain's show, Windtunnel. I saw it the one time it aired on Speed channel. It's about a 2003? season at a local dirt track in Mesquite TX (suburb of Dallas). Thoroughly enjoyed it. Makes me want to go to a race there this season. http://www.getbacktodirt.com/
So Saturday the bus left the resort in St Augustine at 8am. Took about an hour to get to the Daytona track. There were all kinds of signs for parking in shopping strips, $30, then $35 as it got closer. This track is definetly not in the middle of nowhere like Texas Motor Speedway. There was some parking at the track but it looked like in front of the track that most of it was taken up by hospitality tents. So we walked to the track entrance which is about in the middle of the track. Denise and I decide to go check this FanZone thing out. and while we're there we're going to the Daytona 500 Club to see what it's all about. I called it getting our sea-legs (getting our bearings). We wanted to scope it all out today so we would know what to do or what we wanted to do for the big race Sunday.
The tram was way way down by Turn 1 where our seats are in Lockhart Tower. So we huff and puff it along the way. We jump on the tram and are on our way. Well we were going through the tunnel and just right before we got to the top of it, the dooley truck stopped. Then we started sliding back some with another tram coming up behind. The adventure has begun! When the driver tried to go forward he was smokin' the tires. Apparently he might have been new to all this as we got lost or took the long way to FanZone. It was all in good fun. Some clapped when we got off the tram.
I think it was at this point Denise realized she didn't bring her batteries for her camera. They were still in our resort room just chargin' up a storm. So I was the official photog for us today.
We made our way over to the Daytona 500 Club. Showed our credentials and got our wristband.
Wow, they had food out for breakfast. Some cool art on the wall. We say Victory Lane area to our right just outside. In fact you have to go through Daytona 500 Club to get to the Victory Lane bleachers. We were told we could go up to the second floor that would see the track better from there. Upstairs was nice, too. Tvs hanging from the ceiling, tables and chairs with cushions, and the bar with a snack buffet. We were right at the start/finish line. Somewhere along the line we decided to watch the race from here, too. So we had some food and watched some practicing. Now we felt like we had the lay of the land for the D500 Club, and were ready to explore the FanZone. Fans are able to walk on the roof of the garages. So we saw Cup car haulers of which I got pictures. Then we went garage huntin'. It was cool to see the mechanics working on the Cup cars. We all clamoured around the glass windows for a look see. Of course, Dale Jr's was the most crowded area, so the glare off the tshirts off the glass was bad, but I got some shots for Denise.
Back to the D500 Club for some a/c and some beverages. We didn't see any merchandise trailers so guess we'll do that tomorrow. Our waitress, Sheila, was great. Denise told her about me being one of two ESPN contest winners. She said she'd help us find the other winner as she likes to asks people how they got here.
They let us out into Victory Lane with about 10 laps to go. We headed out there. The view in the D500 club is limited so this way we could see more of the frontstretch. We had one hour to be back at the bus from the checkered flag. We hung out a bit, I got some pictures, then we decided we needed to head back to the bus. We hoofed it all the way but this time by walking through the tunnel in Turn 4 which is closer to the FanZone. There was a Turn 4 shuttle, but the line looked long and we were on a deadline. We were the last two to make it to the bus, BUT we were within the one hour time limit. They shut the doors and we were on our way back to the resort. What an amazing day, and I won this trip off the internet!!
Denise started talking to some people on our bus. There was a man and possibly his father, they came all the way from Holland to see the race. They come over about 6 times a year...another couple from New Jersey, and yet another from North Dakota with several of us representing Texas.
PICTURES: http://picasaweb.google.com/thomtxt/CampingWorld300Feb162008?authkey=4bkoobO8rxA
11 years ago
