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25 Days of Daytona is a fictional story about a rookie attempting to qualify for the Daytona 500.  The story is broken  into daily chapters or segments and was originally posted on the internet one day at a time. Having actually raced stock cars and been very intimate with NASCAR for many years my goal was to inform, entertain and educate about the sport of racing. Like any sport there are many inside details that people wonder about and I tried to address many of these questions in my mini-novela.  I hope you enjoy the story.....Scott

 Thursday Jan 27, 2005

 My name is Rockin’ Scotty and I’m a NASCAR rookie preparing for my first Daytona 500 race.  I truly can’t believe I might actually be driving in this race, I still have to pinch myself. On top of this, I’m attempting the unlikely double duty of documenting my next twenty-five days right up until the very moment I slide my nervous butt into the race car on race day. (I should alter that somewhat as I’m attempting to get into this race.)  Daytona is the only track that takes a page from old school racing where you have to actually qualify in a heat race to get into the main event.  If you would like to learn the particulars of Daytona qualifying, I highly suggest hunting them down on www.jayski.com.

 What you can expect from me is the complete and uncensored inside scoop of my journey.  This is more than a day in the life, there will be no week to wait for the next episode, no tribal meetings and no one is getting 'voted off' my one man island.  You get to live each day as I live them and feel what its like to be a NASCAR driver, what it takes to succeed against the top level of competition and live the ultimate dream of every boy, man, adventurous woman, and every race car driver that’s walked this earth. That would be racing in the Daytona 500.  You’ll feel my excitement, my joy, my pain, my aggravation and come to respect my commitment to the sport.  By the time our journey has concluded, you will never look upon NASCAR or its drivers in the same light. For anyone with even one ounce of passion, a completely new found respect awaits you. Let me take you to the river…”Can I get an Amen brother”? 

 Some people say race car drivers aren’t athletes. I don’t even waste my breath by responding negatively to this insanity anymore.  I smile politely and ask them if they would like to ride shotgun with me at Charlotte. This separates the men from the gay marriage proponents and three laps are all it takes to change their perspective forever.  I do mean forever.  The kind of forever that leaves you wide eyed in your bed late at night staring at the ceiling thinking, not saying, WOWEE WOW WOW.  You close your eyes but your mind races on and sleep eludes you.

 Along the way you’ll learn all 'bout me, tour the shop, meet the entire team, get down and dirty with the engine and chassis guys, sign autographs, attend drivers meetings, hear a few personal stories and learn about NASCAR from a brand new intimate and informative perspective.

 I’m making absolutely no assumptions regarding your racing knowledge.  I can’t get everyone up to speed on every facet of racing in this short time-span. I promise not to the leave the novice fans scratching their heads in bewilderment, however the more you know about racing, cars and NASCAR, the more you’ll learn.  If you know absolutely nothing about NASCAR you’ll come away with an understanding that exceeds the majority of today’s race fans, at least about Daytona which is a unique beast.   So basically it’s a win-win situation for all involved.  I do need to add that I’m a little more outspoken than most of the drivers on the circuit, so these opinions don’t necessarily reflect that of the average driver but heck, we need some color in this sport before Mr. Helton successfully turns us all into corporate goody two shoe boys who come to work, punch in our cards, do our job, and then go home, a sort of “Morning Sam”, “Morning Ralph” mentality.  That’s all hunky dory until you strap on a helmet and take the reigns of a 3500 lb 750 horsepower rocket ship that rattles your fillings and begs to be driven to the stars. 

A transformation occurs when you don that full faced helmet and cinch your five point harness up tight. Mr Hyde awakens slowly and at first whispers sweet nothings in your ear. But the voice never goes away and at times it’s a tangible scream. So crisp and clear in fact that the sound of his voice is often the only thing that penetrates your hyper-focused mind while behind the wheel at 200 MPH. Some can tame him while others can’t. It’s mental warfare for the next 2.5 hours. The collateral damage is found in the form of banged up sheet metal and bruised egos.  After all, there is only one winner each week and the view from the top of Denali on a clear day with a cloudless sky is beyond spectacular.  This isn’t just any other race, it’s the Daytona 500.

 Daytona International Speedway, it’s a 2.5 mile banked oval.  The turns are 31 degrees.  The only thing steeper is Bristol, Tennessee, the bull ring, but that’s a half mile track.  If you stood at the bottom of Daytona you’d have to walk on all fours to climb to the top of the four story banking.  Daytona is not as wide as Talladega so the racing groove gets a little uncomfortable when you start making it three wide all around the track.  It also is a restrictor plate track, so what the heck is a restrictor plate you ask?

 Horsepower isn’t determined by how much gas you put into an engine but rather how much air you can push, pump or inject through that puppy.  A carburetor is the device on an engine that mixes the air and the gas. So once Bill Elliot hit a 212 mph qualifying lap in 1987(which means he was probably cranking along the backstretch at 220 mph) and Bobby Allison had a horrific accident that same year during the Daytona 500, NASCAR took a step back and said “Whoa, we need to slow these guys down a bit.” “What if we put this little plate on top of where that there air enters the carburetor and drill 4 tiny holes on top that severely, (by about 80% ) limits the amount of air entering the carburetor?”  Well, I’ll tell you what happens. It translates to a drop in horsepower from 750 to around 450. Because of this the engine also turns much lower RPM’s. It’s no coincidence that the very first restrictor plate race was used the following year in the 1988 Daytona 500 and racing hasn’t been the same since.  The fans love it and the drivers hate it. Being in a 200 mph 3 wide traffic jam all afternoon is a test of one's will. It is mentally exhausting.  They wait all day and hope luck is on their side when ‘The Big One’ happens, and it almost always does.