The Online Finish Line
"Boosting the racing experience, not overworking it"©2000-2007 Dwight Drum…Safety Net Plus, Inc.
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Track Focus Story and photos by Dwight Drum Daytona: A Lot Different Than It Looks. Drivers Tell Why A Dozen Racing Minds The media, TV, radio, print and Internet, have long tried to put fans as close to their chosen sport as possible and when that sport features roaring engines at high speeds the danger element has huge constraints. Short of the impossibility of inserting a fan in a race car during a NASCAR race, cameras and recorders have utilized top technology to transfer the visual feel and sometimes crushing sounds of racing from drivers to fans. No where is the reality of motorsports more vivid than at the 2.5 tri-oval track at Daytona International Speedway in Daytona Beach, Fla. The track that began as all beach brings history and awe to a modern stadium with spacious stands, infield fan zones, box suites and a motor home village, but it has a few surprises. "You just don't feel like you're going fast here until you hit something." "I get chills every time I come in and I only live 10 minutes from here." And if someone could somehow sneak an eager fan into a race car for the green flag and ride all the way to the first pit stop with their favorite driver before safety officials got frantic over a passenger discovery - a whole new world would be forever in one fan's mind. "It would really shake them how close we run to the other cars." "It would change a person's thinking. They would feel everything you feel." "They would really clam up and hang on." Drivers know the most about racing so it makes sense to gather their best thoughts and memories if fans are to know what it's really like to race at Daytona. NASCAR drivers have dramatic answers to one fast hypothetical question. If you could take a fan on ride first in qualifying and then in draft traffic on the Daytona track how would you describe what they were about to experience?
© 2004-7 Dwight Drum Web work by Larsen & Drum
Jamie McMurray
Mike Skinner
Juan Pablo Montoya
Kasey Kahne
Jason Leffler
"Hang on and have fun. It would a change a person's thinking on a lot of things if they road shotgun with me in one of our cars during a race. They would feel everything you feel. They wouldn't be able to do anything about it if the car got sideways, but they would feel it get sideways and if you're going for the wall and riding up against the wall and passing a car, there's just a lot of neat things that go on when you're racing."
"Every time I ever did a ride-along program in a two-seater car they got a chance to witness what they never knew existed. They had no idea that there were G-forces that are bouncing around the car and that it was going to be a rough ride. They had no idea of the sensation of speed and how close they were going to be to the wall and how narrow the track looks at that speed." Juan Montoya
"Everything, how close you can run to the wall. It would really shake them how close we run to the other cars." Jamie McMurray
"When you're in qualifying trim, it's not that it's boring, it's just the same thing over and over again so it does kind of get - boring. I think in the race it would be maybe be better here - to let them experience what it's like with 40 cars surrounding you. It's a unique feeling. I think the speedway races are kind of like being on the interstate - you catch somebody and you can't pass them because they won't get out of the way. I think it's more frustrating than what it is fun sometimes here." Ted Musgrave
"It's nothing like you see on TV. When you're sitting in the seat and feeling the thing throw you around and slipping and a grabbing with a guy helping you a little bit in the back. You don't really feel all that or see it on TV."
Young drivers have mature thoughts.
Can you compare the first time you drove on the Daytona track to driving on it now?
Chad McCumbee"It is an experience. It's a lot rougher than you would think it would ever be, but now when you come back it's all business." Clay Rogers (Describing his very first laps in traffic at Daytona)
"They're wiggling and dicing back and forth and people are chopping each other off and running three wide. There's a certain part of the human psyche that tells you shouldn't be doing that kind of stuff. It was a lot of fun."
Seasoned drivers have mature thoughts.
Todd Bodine"My first race here we came here in with one car, two motors and three guys working on it. This day and age if you don't come here with a tractor trailer, two cars, four motors and fifteen people you can't compete." Joe Nemechek
"It's about aerodynamics. You get in that car to go though the air. If your car doesn't handle it doesn't matter how much horsepower you have." Terry Cook
"It's kind of hard to see on TV but at a place like Daytona that's just so old and bumpy and got its own characteristics, these things are jumping sideways on you."
The smooth looking track Daytona according to drivers is anything but smooth and the racing is also about being able to take the bouncing inside the car and the mental edge of close action outside the car until the long race ends. When the green flag drops for the Daytona 500 look for the ragged ride, closeness of the cars, narrow track at high speeds and know that patience, luck and skill will ride with the winner. Know too that the car, equipment and team are as much about the win as the driver. When the checker flag drops look for yet another great page in racing history.
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