There are some things in life that you just have to do at least once. Not necessarily everyone’s cup of tea, but camping in the infield during the Daytona 500 made the list for a couple of us. I can only describe the experience as every NASCAR stereotype you’ve ever heard combined with trying to fit 40 ounces of beer into a 12 ounce can, and I mean that in the most positive way possible….
Day 0
The crew had been pumped up since Monday and all of us couldn’t wait to get down to Daytona for a weekend of racing and good weather. Tony and I were the first ones on the road with a scheduled stop in Richmond to pick up an extra tent and gear from Ben’s brother Taylor. Neil was flying in from Chicago where he was trying to escape freezing temperatures and would ride down with Ben in the 4Runner. Finally, Gerrit would be driving down from Atlanta in his Florida-appropriate Tundra on 22’s.
Our first rendezvous point was at the South of the Border shantytown truck stop where we linked up and grabbed some dinner. If you were by any chance driving through and found them sold out of Mike and Ike’s we’re sorry.
Day 1
We got into Jacksonville at 2 AM and decided to get a hotel room so we could grab a few hours of sleep. This would be the last shower and warm bed we could expect all weekend so we all took advantage of this. We rolled out a little past 5AM to pick up Gerrit and head into the infield. Do the math on how much sleep we got. Finally we were headed to the NASCAR promised land.
We quickly got around to setting up camp using our 2 trusty Oztents and a Turbo tent (which would be a lifesaver later in the weekend). Thanks to Ben we also had a brand new banner and flag we dubbed the Jolly Roger staking our claim and (more importantly) providing us with a landmark to find base camp all weekend.
We really enjoyed infield people-watching, even this Jeep Rubicon whose driver insisted on staring us down (it’s a Jeep thing?). We didn’t know if it was because of our Toyota’s or because he was jealous of our tires.
We also did a little gear testing and discovered that a 5th Gen 4Runner with a BajaRack will support 5 grown men (we don’t recommend this…). After a couple hours reveling at our campsite we headed down to the track to watch the start of the Nationwide Race from the pits.
Day 2
After the Nationwide Race everything became pretty blurry. While most of the time you have to worry about having a designated driver apparently we should have worried about having a designated photographer. We probably should have taken some notes also but it was a pretty great evening as the infield comes alive with several bars and dance floors (shout out to “Club 3”!) popping up in every other campsite.
We woke up the next morning to the soothing sounds of generators and jet driers being fired up and cars hitting the track for morning warm ups. This alarm clock was something we were expecting, realizing that we had all been given “rookie” nicknames from veteran fans was something we were not.
Nicknames are listed from left to right (should be pretty obvious): “Tom Cruise”, “Fat Tony”, “Macklemore”, “The Chinese”, “Neil”. How Neil escaped unscathed was unknown to us but we assume it was because he looked like he belonged there.
Race day was probably one of the greatest days of our lives, it combined everything any man could ever want out of an event. The experience of walking down in the pits and hanging out on the track made the drive worth it. Throw in a country concert performed by Luke Bryan, and getting to drink a few beers on the track for a few hours before the race, well you might as well call it man heaven.
Ben even found a guy to make his suit for his upcoming wedding.
Checking out Pit Row left us drooling from some of the tool setups, but we were also reassured that like any hobby, duct tape is the material that holds it all together.
After finishing up with the opening ceremonies we headed back to the infield to watch the race and admire the haphazardly constructed tent city around us.
And then our world came crashing down around us, what started as a drizzle turned into an epic, alleged tornado-producing thunderstorm. Lucky for us our Oztents held up with ease and kept us dry through the torrential downpour, our neighbors took a different spin on it and decided to build a slip and slide.
After waiting for a few hours it was starting to look doubtful that the race would get started again on Sunday. We decided on the safe bet and loaded up our wet gear and headed north to Jacksonville to crash for the night before having to make the 10 hour drive home. We got ourselves a hotel room where exhaustion began to set in, we also realized at this point that we had only drank beer the entire weekend and none of us could remember the last time we saw a vegetable. Of course the race did get started again…oh well!
The next morning we all left Florida in pain but in high spirits. After we recover completely (the process continues…) we are going to start planning for next year. We’ll have to do it big, since we won’t be rookies anymore…
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