Today we took a tour of the Daytona Speedway, home of the Daytona 500, one of the most prestigious races in NASCAR. The track was built in 1958 to host the former Daytona Beach Road Course race and opened in 1959. 1958 was the last year that Daytonas race was held on the beach.
The track was designed to give spectators a better view of the race and to allow the cars to reach higher speeds.
The track features multiple layouts, the primary being the 2.5 mile (4.0km) high speed tri-oval. The tracks 180-acre infield also includes the 29-acre lake Loyd which was formed when millions of tons of soil was removed to help form the high banked turns on the track. The high water table in the area resulted in the hole quickly filling with water forming Lake Loyd.
In July of 2010 repaving of the track began and is expected to be completed by December 15 2010. Goodyear has scheduled a tire-test on the new surface for this date.
This tunnel runs under the track and is used to get people and vehicles to the track and infield.
Multiple garages are available for the drivers and their crew members and are assigned by the speedway.
This is one of the inspection stations where everything is weighed and measured to ensure that it meets the racing standards set by Daytona Speedway. The car is weighed with the driver inside it so even the drivers weight has to be accounted for.
We got to visit Victory Lane....notice the black marks left by the last winners tires.
We got to view the track from the press tower.
This is the official pace car for the Daytona 500 race in 2011.
No comments:
Post a Comment