Daytona 500-2008 edition

I finally have a little time to post something about my experience from this years Daytona 500. I met up with one my high school buddies from Ohio Jeremy Lipps in Orlando. This was Jeremy's first time ever to a race. People that we talked to couldn't believe that he got to go to this race first, since its the Superbowl for Nascar (and the 50th anniversary at that!).

We stayed in Orlando near the University of Central Florida's campus at a Hampton Inn where Jen and I have previously stayed. It's too expensive to stay in Daytona, if you can even find a room. The drive wasn't that bad TO the track (will explain our ride back later).

Friday night we just got something to eat and went to the grocery store to get our necessities for the weekend. We did take advantage of the hot tub that night because it was nice and hot and the weather was perfect (the temp was 28 when Jeff left Tulsa, but by the time he got to Orlando it had dropped to like -4!!) It was like 80 when we arrived in Orlando.

Saturday morning we got up and were off to the track about 9:30. The traffic wasn't bad at all, but there were also half the people that were going to be at Sunday's race. The weather was just about perfect, there wasn't a cloud in the sky. Jeff got a little sunburned, but not that bad.

I wish I had a picture of Jeremy's face when the cars were up to speed after the Nationwide Series race started. It was pretty priceless. He said that it looks fast on tv, but even faster in person. He was amazed how close they get to each others bumper. The race was pretty uneventful with not a whole lot of major cautions. Jeremy enjoyed listening to the race and the drivers on the FanView device that we rented for the weekend. The FanView helps you stay connected with your favorite driver plus it has a tv built in to it.

After the race was over we decided to get something to eat and to allow the lines to go down for waiting on a bus back to the parking lot. While we waited we made new friends with a couple from Ohio. We stopped at a grocery store down from the hotel to buy a replacement cooler and some more Yuengling Black and Tan (beer)which Jeremy turned me onto, too bad I can't get it here!! Jeremy got his first taste of Chik-Fil-A since they aren't that popular in Ohio. Once we got back to the hotel, the first order of business was to get back into the hot tub!! We made some new friends at the hot tub with some race fans from all over the country.

Sunday morning we got up bright and early to had to the track(not as early as our new friends were going to leave for the track, 5 am!!). We were almost to where we needed to go and the Highway Patrol had the road blocked off because of a broken down bus. Thanks to Jeremy's quick thinking we were able to avoid the majority of the standstill traffic and go to the next exit and turn around. Once we got to the track we headed straight towards the infield so that we could go to the FanZone. The Fanzone was something new this year which allowed the fans to have an up close view of what goes on behind the scenes. It was definitely worth the money. You can see from some of the pictures in the slideshow that we were able to get pretty close in certain areas. It was hotter on Sunday, but there was more cloud cover.

The race was sold out so every seat was filled. I made friends with the soon to be drunk guy sitting in front of us. He was hilarious, he said that he had hoped to sit by somebody like me (not sure that I still really know what means). He even bet me that Dale Jr. would win the race. When he realized that he wasn't going to win he wadded up the dollar bill as tight as he could and stuck it in my pocket. The race got interesting in the last few laps of the race. Ryan Newman eventually pulled ahead and won the race. As soon as the race was over a fight about broke out across the aisle. An overzealous Newman fan hit the lady behind him (by accident) The next thing we know, the woman's husband, whose a big burly guy takes off his glasses and is ready to throw down. They eventually came to their senses and apologized. We wandered around the outside of the track for a little bit before we decided to go stand in line to wait for the buses (I wish I had a picture to show how many people waited for the buses). We waited 2+ hours to get on a bus. Once we finally got back to the parking lot we had a hard time remembering where we parked because all of the landmarks we thought of were gone or it was too dark to see them. There wasn't any point in hurrying up to leave, so we just sat in the car for a couple hours. Long story short, we made it back to the hotel about 1:10 am!! The traffic management out of the parking lot was horrible. It was a very long day (we really wanted to get in the hot tub, but the pool area closes at 10 pm). I can kind of see why Jen wanted to leave early so that we didn't have to wait in all of the traffic.

On Monday we decided to drive to Cocoa Beach and Kennedy Space Center. Jeremy had fun seeing all of the gators along the side of the road in the swamp area around the space center. We walked up to the ticket booths and turned around because we didn't feel like paying $38 a piece to get into the space center and fight the Presidents Day crowd. We drove on down to Cocoa Beach and went into Ron Jon's surf shop. It's next to the original one because the new one is huge. The old building is there, but you just rent surf boards there. After that we went to Coconuts on the Beach and got something to eat and drink. We then walked quite a ways on the beach (too bad Jen wasn't there I saw hardly any seaweed-she hates seaweed).

That pretty much sums up our trip. Jeremy left bright and early Tuesday morning and I left about mid morning. So, now we are now back to reality.