"RoseGarden" - - - - - - - from - nscave

I promised a run down on my first experience to a NASCAR race at Daytona International Speedway. It begins today, with some stories, information and some pictures to follow in days ahead. First of all it was an awesome experience that included frustration, concern, humour and an excitement beyond description.

You Can See It Better On TV

I heard this saying so many times in the past I almost began to believe it. Not true. You can see the cars close up continually on TV, but you don’t get the experience!

What’s the experience? In my view, it’s this:

• First, we had perfect seats, just a level above and to the left of the flag man at Sprint Tower right at the start/finish line. This gave a view of the entire track except for a few hundred feet of the back stretch where the black media building blocks some of the back stretch. - that’s an experience.

• We had an unobstructed view of turns 1 & 2, 3 & 4, the tri-oval front stretch and the pits. - that’s an experience.

• To be there and see cars get around 2.5 miles in a little over 41 sec. that’s an experience. On TV they are going fast, but there’s not much to relate to.

• When a car skids on TV it looks fast. When you are there in person and a skid begins and the car actually picks up speed when it hits the grass and goes like a rocket - that’s an experience.

• After a collision you see a car fly in the air like a feather, roll and look like a pancake afterwards, - that’s an experience.

• To see the driver drop the net and climb out without a scratch afterwards, - that’s an experience.

• To hear the sound of those engines so loud it hurts your ears even with ear protection and vibrates your chest and feels like a tornado as they go by - that’s an experience.

• To see all the pit crews in action at one time with all the cars seemingly pulling out at one time - that’s an experience. You get to know how much is really done in 9 sec.

There is nothing like being there. I can tell you one thing, it will enhance my TV viewing of Daytona races in the future, because I will be able to relate to where things are and how fast they really happen.

I must say though, I never saw Digger pop out of the track once!

Tomorrow: Getting from Panama City Beach to Daytona.

This work by NSCAVE is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License