A Dream Come True at Daytona 500 and Captured in Film Photos

I was 6 or 7 years old and sat on the blue carpet in front of the black Zenith TV we used to have in our living room.

The TV was tuned to the Daytona 500 and I was cheering on Jeff Gordon’s rainbow-colored No.24 Chevrolet after hearing my dad call him “that young kid from California all the Good Ol’ Boys love to hate.”

My introduction to the 500 was vivid: Gordon became the youngest winner at the time in ‘97. Dale Earnhardt, after years of tears and heartbreak, finally took his No.3 to victory lane in ‘98. My guy Gordon won again in ‘99. Dale Jarrett refused to be denied his third Daytona 500 win in 2000.

Then, a year later, came the day we lost Dale to a 160-mph head-on collision with the wall on the last lap of the Daytona 500.

Somewhere among those childhood memories, I decided that one year I would make the pilgrimage to NASCAR’s mecca, the self-proclaimed World Center of Racing better known as Daytona International Speedway.

This year, 2018, just so happened to be that year, and the storylines were endless.

For the geeks, Chevrolet was bringing its newly revamped and fully cranked Camaro ZL1 Cup car to the track for the first time, plus, NASCAR’s new ride height rules have made the cars faster and tougher to handle than they’ve been for years. On the human interest side, there was Bubba Wallace, a 24-year-old hot shoe from Mobile, Alabama, driving Richard Petty’s iconic No.43. He also happens to be the first black man to compete in the cup series full time since Wendall Scott was doing his thing back in the ‘70s.

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Because I’m a responsible hipster, I decided that whatever happened at the Speedway I wanted it immortalized on 35mm film. A few months ago, I picked up an old Canon T90 – its top-shelf SLR back in 1986 – and I’ve been itching to shoot motorsports with it ever since. The photos that accompany this article are all scanned versions of printed film photos.

I didn’t really have any frame of reference for what to expect, either. I’ve been to Formula One in Montreal and that was a wild ride — an entire city gyrating with madness for a week just because it can — but F1 itself is far too stifling for any real weirdness to occur. IMSA, and especially Pirelli World Challenge, have this disorganized charm to their events that you can’t help but find endearing. IndyCar sucks.

But none of those prepared me for Daytona, which seemed to have more in common with an NFL game than a major league motor race. Sun-drenched skin, saggy tattoos, beer bellies, the smell of lingering cigarettes mixed with fried food, obscene lines for the bathroom, cargo shorts, and an endless supply of Busch Light.

Attending the Daytona 500 is a point of pride and there are people who make the journey year, after year, after year. For more than a week, the town of Daytona Beach throngs with people addicted to speed to the extent that I saw two parents racing their baby strollers one night. The drinking starts on Thursday and doesn’t stop until after the race on Sunday — the liquid energy is undeniable, along with a frenzied anticipation that builds and builds until the green flag drops.

On Sunday, I’m at the track early. It’s 9 a.m. in the Daytona Infield and you can already tell it’s going to be scorching hot. Most of the RV campers are either up or simply haven’t gone to bed yet, the Budweiser is already flowing in the fan areas, and the Bojangles truck is cranking out chicken ’n’ biscuits with inappropriate pace.

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Stroll through the garage area and teams are hard at work making their final preparations to go racing later that afternoon. Most of the cars haven’t run for a few days and Daytona’s notorious for tearing up race cars, so many teams skip Saturday’s final practice in order to preserve their machinery and mental strength for the race. Everything is on display, teams work side by side in the garage area, and provided they’re not crazy busy, most of them will take the time to explain what they’re working on.

By 9:30 a.m., the awnings and pit boxes start getting built. One guy sits there gluing 140 lug nuts to the 28 individual wheels the teams will go through during the afternoon. Teams are allowed seven sets of tires for the race, and between the rubber and the rim, each set costs $3,000. The Goodyear man told me the rich teams will buy 11 sets and sell their scrubbed practice tires to poorer teams who’ll use them during the race.

By the time 3 p.m. rolls around, it’s 85 degrees outside, which is nice if you’re down for the weekend from the Northeast, but positively brutal if you’re one of the team members who has to stand around in the sun wearing flame-retardant Nomex for five hours. Nevermind being one of the drivers and subjected to 120-degree cockpit temperatures for 500 miles. Hydration is one of the little-heralded aspects of the race, and it’s no wonder Gatorade sponsors Daytona’s venerated victory lane.

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The race itself has turned into a bonafide war since NASCAR introduced stage racing last year. In years past, you could hang out in the lead pack, and so long as you kept your nose clean through the inevitable restrictor plate wrecks, you could start making your way toward the front with about 10 to go. But now, with the race effectively split into three mini-races, the intensity is always simmering near the surface, oftentimes boiling over into the “Big One.”

With two laps left, there were only six cars with a chance to win. As the pack exited the tri-oval for the last time, Aric Almirola was leading in the No.10 Ford, ahead of Austin Dillion in the reincarnated No.3 Chevrolet, and Bubba Wallace in his No.43. Halfway around, Dillion turned Almirola just before the entrance of Turn 3, which allowed his Camaro ZL1 to scamper to an improbable debut race victory, while Bubba was left to fend off the hard-charging Toyota of Denny Hamlin.

Then Monday came and I digested the race in the best possible way I could think of — on the beach, because, we’re in Daytona after all.