A Day in Daytona: International Speedway Tour

It's a fairly straight and unadventurous drive out to Daytona Beach (nicknamed "The Most Famous Beach in the World") from Winter Park.

Inside the International Speedway in Daytona there is a hospital that recorded over 2,000 patients last year. This informed me of two things. Firstly the price that the racers pay for their bottomless appetite to succeed, pushing them to drive at maddening speeds. Second, the incredible amount of wealth that the stadium must generate.

Daytona is the birthplace of speed, due to the sand being so compact you could hurtle down it on a long stretch at incomparable speeds. In 1903 records of 68mph were recorded. By 1935 the British Racer Sir Malcom Campbell (father of Donald Campbell who died during a water speed record attempt at Coniston Water in the Lake District) reached a top speed of 300mph. At this point observers noticed the car started to lift off the ground and it was quickly surmised that the speeds were becoming too fast for the beach.

The International Speedway spans over 500 acres and has been the home of the Daytona 500 since 1959, marking the first race of the season. It boasts newly renovated bleachers that cost $400 million, with non-sequentially coloured seats to offer the illusion that they are filled with people. The 101k capacity is always sold out for the Daytona 500, but now the less coveted races also carry the verisimilitude of being equally as popular.

If you add another 70k allowance for the people in the fan zones, those you'll see animated atop the garages, plus the press, the stadium could be bouncing at any time with up to 220k people.

Our tour guide, an avuncular gentleman with the stereotypical American moustache and cap, indulged my questions about Tom Cruise and Days of Thunder. There is no X marks the spot location that you can pinpoint from the film to the track.

"He did sign a crash helmet for the crew, we have that in the archives." He said. "They also filmed F1 here, that Brad Pitt film. They don't actually race F1 here, but they made it work for the film. * weeks of filming for 10 minutes of film. You get the idea of why that film was so expensive."

"Ever seen anything crazy here?" Another gentleman asks, steering me and the guide away from film talk which I was not altogether happy about.

"Yeah, just last week. You can spend up to 800 hundred bucks on a driver experience here. Meaning you go out on your own for a few laps in one of these cars. One guy got lost on the track, decided to turn around and come back. You have cars coming at you doing 200mph, you don't wanna be going in the wrong direction."

29 acres of Lake Lloyd sit incongruously in the middle of the Speedway, this was carved out to make the tri-oval track. Instead of filling it back up with concrete, the owners stocked it with fish and now they host fishing competitions there. There are also places for people to come and camp, park up their RV's, which of course is sold on a yearly pass for a king's ransom.

When people talk of the Daytona 500 they either talk of the crazy finish between Pearson and Petty in '76 considered to be the greatest in the history of NASCAR, or the tragic death of Dale Earnhardt who was killed on the final lap of the 2001 Daytona 500 in a three-car crash.

This crash brought about the introduction of hollowed steel tubing on the track's perimeter buttressed by hard pack styrofoam triangles that considerably softened the impact.

We stopped off for lunch at Millie’s restaurant, where we enjoyed the market fish (grouper) and how spoiled I am to say, it was fairly standard.

Footnote: these garages were rebuilt after the 2004 hurricanes Charlie and Francis.