The Daytona Experience - Day Two

Just as I suspected, Kristen is a sawed off little thing who fills a room with her presence. She's a happy person who’s full of vigor and ready to go. It made me wonder how her “hubby” as she calls him can keep up.

She had to get on the computer to answer her fan mail!

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It’s pretty late Friday night when everyone finally quiets down and in no time 6:00 am has rolled around. After breakfast at a local café we’re driving to find our parking lot that’s about three miles north of the speedway. The huge lot appears to be the county fairgrounds and they must have employed every bus in the area to haul the fans. People are hustling to the buses with a definite air of anticipation.Once settled into our big yellow bus it moves off to where there’s a set of high power lines that run north to south with a service road beneath them. The loaded buses follow this exclusive route only passing through surface street intersections with the Florida Highway Patrol stopping traffic to allow the buses a non-stop trip. It’s all choreographed to a fine precision as we get deliivered maybe a half mile from the track and we’re off.

It’s just after 8:00 am and our first stop is the vendor sales and sponsor display area outside the track gates on the northeast corner of the grounds. While we’re looking here and there we notice a small crowd and a couple of guys seated on bar stools on a stage talking over loud speakers. It’s inside the Chevrolet pavilion and the guy being interviewed is Jimmie Johnson! Of course with Terry and Ellie’s newly adopted driver right there in front of us everyone sidled up and joined the growing crowd. There’s a sign to one side of the stage that gives the order of appearance for the morning’s interviews and right after JJ at 8:45 Jeff Gordon will be on stage followed by Juan Pablo Montoya at 9:00. Now I’m looking around and it’s obvious these guys are coming onto the stage and leaving from the rear and that they’ve got to be somehow transported to that point so rather than stand out front it makes sense to get around back where the chances of getting an autograph could go way up. Kristen and I go check it out then she goes back out front and grabs everyone and tries to get them in position to get a once-in-a-lifetime autograph. They’re all looking through their gear for something to get signed, getting their Scripto pens ready and
maneuvering for position when Johnson steps from the stage and moves to his right where he begins signing hats, papers and clothing that’s being shoved in front of him. D.J. had just bought a Jeff Gordon T-shirt so he’s hiding the Gordon logo and gets JJ to sign it. Tim was successful getting JJ's signature as well. In the meantime Gordon’s showed up in a Chevy SUV. He goes directly up on stage but a short while later he’s following the same route JJ had followed as he signs autographs as well. These guys are so in tuned to the autograph procedure they just sign whatever is presented to them without even looking up to see who’s holding the article. D.J. and Tim are able to secure Jeff’s signature as well. D.J. got both of the winningest drivers since the mid 90’s on that Jeff Gordon T-shirt and he’ll frame it once home in Maryland. This was really cool!

D.J. (in red hat) and Ellie on his right (blue visor) in the middle of the autograph squeeze...

With Montoya next up I’m sorry to say we moved on (so much to do, so little time).
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We wandered on through the displays and vendor vans snagging some paraphernalia along with getting proof that Digger is alive and well!

Next we entered the track to watch the end of the Happy Hour practice session. We were able to see the tail end of it and here were the Gibbs and Penske drivers continuing to work on their drafting and position shifting moves as we sat near turn four five rows up where the stands literally shook as the cars screamed by.


With Happy Hour over and the start of the Nationwide race right around the corner Kristen announced she’d meet up with us in the grandstand a little later and left to see her buds down in the shop area again. The rest of us headed east into the belly of the grandstand and marched along for quite a while before eventually finding the section where our seats were located in section F rows 37 and 38. Little did Terry know when he ordered the tickets that these seats would be located under the top deck’s over hang. We were sittin’ in the shade on a downhill grade! It was hot dogs and beer for lunch and in no time the green flag flew. Our seats were beneath that over hang between the top deck and the lower.

D.J. (Dale) and Tim as we anticipate the race.

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Ya know… After all the anticipation and after watching the truck race, I was taken totally by surprise with the tame nature of this NW race that only had 5 cautions and seemingly was over before it really began. What happened to the carnage? Why did everybody decide to play nice? Smoke won and I walked away shaking my head. What could we expect out of the Cup race? I can't imagine it'll be vanilla too... Kristen had joined back up with us about halfway through the race and I learned we were going to have dinner once again (they'd had Thursday dinner with him too but it would be my first) with a bona fide NASCAR pit official!

There was that half mile walk back to the bus loading area in front of us and then we had to stand in line for about an hour, but my legs were holding up. The official was introducing all of us to a really fine Mexican restaurant (and let me assure you, there aren’t many of those in Florida!). Upon taking our seats, J.D. and I must have confused the waitress as we ordered Dos Equis XX beer and she brought us two each! They didn’t go to waste.

L to R... Ellie, Kristen, Dave, Terry and Tim

It was interesting getting our questions answered by Dave the official. On Sunday’s race he told us he was assigned to Tony Stewart’s pit overseeing what they would be doing while Tony tries to check off an item on his bucket list!

There's one more coming!