The Daytona 500 is considered by almost every NASCAR fan to be the most prestigious if not most important race in the entire Sprint Cup Series. It’s been called “The Great American Race” and “The Super Bowl of Stock Car Racing,” but in the words of Ben, “It’s a Redneck Burning Man.”
In approximately 24 hours the DirtRoadTrip crew will be leaving DC and heading south for a weekend of infield camping at the Daytona International Speedway to partake in what can only be described as Americana in all it’s glory. 200,000 other fans will be making the pilgrimage with us for 2 days of burning rubber, revving engines, and some of the best people watching on this here planet.
So, this is decidedly NOT overlanding or offroading. However, it IS a roadtrip, and it IS camping, and we are not the type to restrict ourselves in terms of the fun we have. This trip came about in December on a wintry Friday night in Chicago, the temperatures outside were in the single digits and the wind was whipping. Ben was catching up with a college buddy, Neil, over beers at a downtown bar, and they started batting around an idea – “we should go to a NASCAR race sometime…”, which quickly devolved into “we should definitely go to the Daytona 500…”
Several weeks went by, and without another word about that bar conversation, Neil booked a plane ticket to DC to do the roadtrip down to Daytona. Ben quickly went about recruiting me and some other good friends for the adventure. Several folks politely declined or just couldn’t make the scheduling work, but myself, Tony, and Ben’s friend Gerrit (Atlanta-based) quickly all jumped on the Daytona bandwagon.
We’ve reserved 2 camp sites in infield “Geico Caveman” tent city campground for us to setup, and Ben had the foresight to get us our own private Porta-Potty for the weekend (probably the only camping we’ll ever do where we pre-order a toilet). Other than that we don’t know what to expect but we plan on taking advantage of everything Daytona has to offer. Keep an eye on our Facebook and Twitter for updates throughout the weekend, and if you see any Jeff Gordon fans give them a Mikes Hard Lemonade on us.
