After a break I hired a car and drove from Ohio to Daytona Beach in Florida for the Daytona 500 NASCAR race. Two days to get there, 4 days there and drove back to New York from where I flew back to Perth.

Again I went from well below freezing temperatures and snow storms to 25C with rain showers. The rain unfortunately decided to descend on race day after 38 laps out of 200 had been completed. Believe it or not they do not just change to rain tyres and continue to race in the rain as they do in every other form of circuit racing including Motorcycles. The race is stopped and they use these massive hair dryers towed behind trucks connected to huge power generators alongside on semi trailers, to dry the track, quite a site. The rain started around 2 pm and got heavier, I left at 5 pm and by then there were only a handful of people left in the stands out of the approximately 150,000 crowd.

The next day I learned they had re-started the race at 9 pm and it finished at 1130 pm. Oval track racing is an acquired taste and after 38 laps I was disappointed but also relieved that I did not have to continue to sit in a very narrow, hard and uncomfortable seat with absolutely no leg room, squashed between two extra-large spectators hahaha. The race weekend is quite an event with race itself being the icing on the cake.

Ohio to Daytona

Daytona Beach, before the Race

Daytona 500 Race day

Short video of the race