Check One Off The Bucket List!

Those of you who've been to my (Dave's) office know that I'm a huge auto racing fan.  Most of my focus is on open wheel racing (F1 & Indycar) but I do like NASCAR as well.  Because of our beliefs about the Sunday Christian Sabbath, I haven't attended or watched a sporting event on a Sunday for many years.  Of course, the great American media machine has every major sporting event culminate on Sundays.  Needless to say, I read about my favorite events in the news on Monday morning or I hear them recorded on podcasts.

Racing in the US has two big events annually.  For Indycar, it's the Indy 500 in May.  For NASCAR, it's the Daytona 500 which is actually the first race of the year.  I always said that if either of these events happened to be rained out on Sunday and moved to Monday, I'd try to make it.  The Indy 500 has been delayed before, but it is rare to delay it to Monday.  The Daytona 500 has never been rain delayed to Monday...  Until last Sunday.

Monday morning I read in the news that the Daytona 500 was rain delayed to Monday and scheduled for a noon start.  Unfortunately, I had been at a funeral pretty much all day on Sunday and wasn't even aware of the rain delay.  A little bummed there's no way to make it there, I resign myself to following it online during the day.  Mid-morning I checked the weather in Daytona and it said there were showers in the area.  At 10am, NASCAR.com posted that the race had been delayed again for a 7pm start.  First ever rain delay to Monday and first ever night race.

The Journey South
Mon. 10am - Toying with the idea to be spontaneous and impetuous.

Mon. 10:30am - Checking potential flights to see if it is even possible.  Orlando - None.  Lauderdale - Too late and too far.  Jacksonville - 1:15PM out of O'Hare.  Booked.

Mon. 11:00am - Leaving work.  Asked my admin to help me book a car and hotel.

Mon. 11:15am - Called Tara and asked her to pack my bag and be ready to throw it in the car when I got home.

Mon. 11:30am - Do my version of a pit stop by doing a 3 point turn in the driveway and stopping just long enough for Tara to throw my bag in the front seat of the MINI.

Mon. 12:20pm - Pull into O'Hare lot feeling pretty good about making the flight.  I've never made it to O'Hare in 50 minutes before.

Mon. 12:30pm - Priority security line is at half capacity and moving REALLY slow.  Patience IS a virtue.

Mon. 1:00pm - Board the flight just in time.  I'm on my way!!

Mon. 4:30pm (EST) - Flight lands on time.  I grab a late lunch to go and I grab my keys to the flaming red Ford Focus and I'm off down I95.  GPS says 1:45 to Daytona.

Mon. 6:30pm - Pull into Daytona and it is jammed packed.  I park on the street about a mile away from the track and walk in looking for a ticket.

Mon. 6:55pm - Scalpers galore, but most seats at the ends of the front stretch.  If I'm going to this race one time, I want a more centered ticket.  I cross the street and a guy is holding 2 tickets in Roberts Tower in Row 41.  These are just off center towards Turn 1.  A young student is also standing there looking for a single ticket.  After a little negotiation, I buy one of them for $60.

Mon. 7:00pm - Walking into the gate.  Amazing how all the timing worked out to make it.

An Unprecedented Race
Being a 2.5 mile track, it can take quite a while to get to the right place for your seats.  The green flag fell as I was walking to Roberts Tower and a quick wreck occurred on Lap 2 so by the time I got into my seat, the race was already under caution.  But it was an awesome sight.

Here's a short video of a lap around the Great American Race.

Here's Danica still having problems.  She was involved in the wreck on Lap2 but got repaired and returned.  But she continued to have issues all night.

This is a video of one of the pit stops under caution when everyone comes in at the same time.  I was focused on Tony Stewart #14 Office Depot and as you'll see he takes 4 tires while most everyone only takes 2 outside tires to get a shorter pit stop.  That strategy call may have cost Tony a good spot in the end.

But the most unique part of the night was definitely a freak accident under caution on Lap 160 when Juan Pablo Montoya was trying to catch up to the pack and something broke in his front end and he lost control and crashed into one of the Jet Dryer Trucks in Turn 3.  Now these Jet Dryers are literally Jet Engines mounted sideways and pulled by a truck to blow debris off the track.  They run on jet fuel so you can just imagine how dangerous this became.  Jet fuel began running down the banked turn and quickly ignited in flames and a swath of Turn 3 was now in flames.  Here's a video from YouTube of the crash.



Well, as you can imagine, the track practically melted where the fire was and jet fuel isn't really easy to clean up.  It took 2+ hours to put out the fire, wash the track down with Tide (yes, the laundry detergent), patch the burnt part of the track, dry the track, and test it out.  So, at midnight the race was restarted under caution for the final 40 laps.

After a final wreck on Lap 197 when Tony Stewart tried to make his final move and got tapped in the rear by another car, the race was under caution again, but NASCAR tries to not end races under caution because fans want to see a true race to the end.  So they do what is known as a Green/White/Checkered finish which is a 1 lap shootout.  So we actually got to see the 201st lap as the final lap.  In the end Matt Kenseth #17 Best Buy won the race as he should since he pretty much led the second half of the race.  Dale Earnhardt Jr. #88 Mountain Dew was just able to pass Greg Biffle #16 3M coming out of Turn 4 to grab 2nd place.

Mayhem in Victory Lane

So at 1am on Tuesday, the race was finally over.  Took me over an hour to get back to the car and crawl out of town along with 140,000 other fans who had witnessed a most unusual day at Daytona.  I finally rolled into the hotel back in Jacksonville at 3:45am and got up at 7:30am to get ready for my flight home.

This once in a lifetime opportunity was worth every penny and minute spent.  I'll probably never get another opportunity to see it live again.  Check this one off the bucket list.  Praying for rain the day before Memorial Day...