 |
| Kyle Ray-Smith and Brian Nixon check out the cars on pit lane before the race. |
We went to the 24 Hours of Daytona Race, and here's our observations:
-During the first hour, the cars drove laps.
-For the second hour, they did the same.
-During hours 3-24, ditto.
The end.
 |
| One of the drivers of this Ford Mustang was Romain Grosjean, former Haas F1 and IndyCar driver. A few hours before the race, they put all the cars on the pit lane, and you can walk around to check them out! This was very cool, even though it was very crowded. |
Oh, here's a few more specifics! The Rolex 24 Hours of Daytona is a BIG DEAL. I mean like with BIG CROWDS, one grandstand that holds over 100,000 people, BIG CROWDS, BIG INFIELD, BIG TRACK, and pretty much everything is BIG! One thing that is NOT big enough is close and convenient parking, so for most of us that means parking at a mall across the street and hiking about a mile to get to the track. Oh well, it was a good workout.
 |
| Our view at the start. Two Navy jets flew over at the end of the National Anthem, the 2nd time was REALLY LOW AND LOUD! |
 |
| Lower left is where the cars leave the main oval and turn left to the infield. On the right is where they come out of the infield, and turn left back onto the banking. Grandstand seating is open, so you can sit anywhere you want in the 100,000+ seats! |
This was my first time at this event, so I can only share a few impressions, or else I'd have about 40 normal sized blog posts to try and cover everything. We had great warm weather with no rain, although there was a LOT of fog that rolled in, probably due to the big winter storm up in the rest of the country! There was so much fog overnight during the race that they threw out the yellow caution flags for over six hours on Saturday night, which I believe is a Daytona record. If you attend the race, check the weather so that you're prepared for sun, rain, cold, heat, or all the above!
 |
| Saturday night, it's cooling off and the fog is rolling in. You can see some headlights approaching from the left, and this is also a good view of the pit entry. |
Later on Sunday morning the fog cleared enough with the sun up to go racing, and things were good after that. The race runs from 1:40PM Saturday to the same time on Sunday.
 |
| Night time pit stop. Even with cars zipping by at the bottom of the shot, you could hear the wheel guns over there in the pit! |
 |
| Photo op back behind the garages. When a car is in the pit lane for damage during the race, if it's bad they have a bit of a distance to go to roll it back to the garages. |
One highlight was sitting way high up in the grandstand above turn 1 for the opening few hours, and we got a GREAT view of the first lap incident. About three cars tried to share the same space, went off track, and several other cars went off track to avoid them. That is probably not too unusual in the first corner, but then two of those cars hit each other just trying to get back on the track. It was crazy! Oh, and that 2nd collision was when the 2nd pack of racers was heading into turn 1 for the first time, so it could have been a big one! Here's my video of the incident on YouTube:
2026 Rolex 24 Hour Start
After watching from that spot, we walked thru the turn 1 tunnel to the infield, and man we walked another mile to do that. Big infield crowd, lots of RVs, fancy cars, campfires, vendors, manufacturers, etc. We walked by the garages, saw the spare pace cars standing by, and picked up various free t-shirts and keychains too.
 |
| This graphic sums up the four classes of cars racing on track at the same time. The GTP is the fastest class, and they are constantly passing the slower cars. The LeMans Prototype 2 or LMP2 class is unique, because all the cars use the same engine, and basically the same body from one of four manufacturers. In other words, they don't have Porsche, Ford, Corvette, Acura, BMW, Aston Martin, and brands like the other classes. |
Brian and I needed some dinner, so we walked another mile out of the turn 4 tunnel to an Olive Garden across from the track, ate some dinner, and went back in to watch the racing under the lights. This time we sat down close to the track before the start/finish, and from that up close and personal I can verify that those cars were MOVING FAST! Amazingly enough, even with the noise of cars going by, we could still hear the wheel guns in the pit lane when some cars were changing tires. Those mechanics have some industrial strength earplugs I'm sure!
 |
| We did not ride the Ferris Wheel in the infield! Other than the huge number of people and RVs, the infield pretty much smelled like wood and charcoal fires, with lots of folks camping there all weekend too! |
The bottom line is that if you like race cars, then a 24 Hour Daytona is a great experience! Oh we didn't stay at the track the whole time, so you can rest easy knowing we were back at a VRBO house sleeping during the yellow flag!
 |
| Acura on display in the infield. All the major manufacturers had various displays, contests, giveaways, etc. |
 |
| Ford probably had the largest display, like this GT. They also had some simulators if you wanted to stand in that line in the background. |
 |
| Brian and I took a break in the Porsche Club of America tent. While I was expecting fancy champagne and caviar, we did get a free soda and a bottle of water. The race was on the big screen there too. |
 |
| Pre-race, cars and opening ceremony stage are set on the pit lane. To go out there you get to walk across the track at the start finish line (right half of photo) and baby, it is STEEP on that track! |
 |
| The South Carolina "Bunch of Idiots" Lemons Racing gang, waiting for the race to start. |
