Wish you were here

Daaaaayyyyytona! Let's fly away! (pic by Janine)

As I’ve said in the post below, there is nothing like Speedweeks to kick off the season in style. A few years back my family and I were fortunate enough to find ourselves in Florida during February, so we made it our mission to go and see the action by the beach. Not what the average English holiday-makers get up to in the Sunshine State, but it’s an experience I’d recommend to anybody who loves racing.

Our own Speedweeks experience had begun with the ARCA race. The Speedway is slap-bang on a high street, with Target Stores, 7-Elevens and all the happy shoppers going about their business literally across the street from the daunting stands. It was all a far cry from driving down the leafy lanes to the majestic seclusion of Oulton Park. We parked our rental car on somebody’s lawn for a fee and bought our tickets from a guy with a cowboy hat, a gun and a big red truck. That also doesn’t happen at Oulton Park.

We could hear the cars firing up in the distance so we hot-footed it to the grandstands, running straight through to the fence just as the green flag waved. Nothing prepares you for being a few feet away from 43 stock cars, it remains my most frightening and vivid of racing memories – 30,000 horsepower, 180 mph, bumper-to-bumper, ground-shaking, ear-splitting – and all with no warning whatsoever as we hadn’t had chance to so much as look at a stock car in person before a whole pack of them were unleashed in front of us.

By lap two we were already climbing higher in the stands as we really didn’t fancy being up against that fence when the Big One happened. From our perch up in the Gods we could look down on the roofs of the cars, but I’m glad that we initially scared ourselves by rushing to get as close as possible to them. That moment has made watching Nascar on TV that bit more exhilarating. It may be a cliche, but you have to see Nascar in the flesh to really get to grips with it.

Boogity boogity boogity!

 

The wraps come off the 2011 season at Daytona (pic by 359)

Racing is the most thrilling pursuit in the world bar none, so reading reports of meaningless F1 lap times at dull tracks is hardly a fitting way for the European season to start. Moto GP has a better idea by televising the Barcelona test and giving the fastest rider a BMW M3 as a prize, although that’s still not as exciting as a curtain-raiser should be. What we need is a pair of blue riband races sandwiching a whole month of motorsport all played out in front of hundreds of thousands of people. What we need is Speedweeks.

I always get excited about the new season once the beach at Daytona is echoing to the sound of rumbling V8s. It’s the same each year as the Rolex 24 starts the festivities of Speedweeks. This year the endurance classic was just that; a classic encounter that really sold me on the current Grand Am rulebook for the first time. Has it always been this good?

Tonight there has been more racing as the grid for the 500 was settled in the Gatorade Duels. Last week saw the Bud Shoot Out produce some of the weirdest racing I’ve ever seen – 206mph tandems that effectively made for eight-wheel race cars, the Duels were much the same. The smoother track surface may make things look a little less edgy, but the high speeds and the necessity for two cars to stay tied together conspires to create some wacky racing.

It says a lot about Nascar that they have already put rule changes into place to try to change the racing. I know things aren’t quite so simple in F1, but Nascar shames them when it comes to the ad hoc management of the regulations. Ditherers need not apply in Nascar. There could be further alterations to the cars between the Gatorade Duels and the main event with Sprint Cup series Director John Darby saying as late as Wednesday “We’ve got a long way to go until Sunday. The goal is to get everything under control so that we can put on the most exciting Daytona 500 that everybody’s ever watched. We’ll do what we have to do to get there.” Now that’s the spirit!