Daytona - Day 2 - Remembering Dale, Practice & Crashes

February 19th, 2014

There were Truck and Sprint Cup practices today and we decided to explore around the speedway and watch the practices.  We have Fanzone passes which enable us to go closer to the garages and see the cars being worked on.  They have several events planned for this area during the week.  Unfortunately in our eagerness we got there before it opened at 1pm and decided to go to the Midway, which is the area where they have displays of cars and shopping for souvenirs.  They were also just setting up, so we just walked around.
We had to go through the turn 4 tunnel to get to the Midway and saw the spot where Dale Earnhardt Sr. crashed here 13 years ago yesterday, and died.  This article about that day, was in the news yesterday.
As most of you probably know Bryan was a Earnhardt Sr. supporter for many, many years.  It was surreal to realize this was where that crash happened, remembering watching the crash, and then later hearing that he had died, on the car radio, while we were on our way out.
We got a shuttle back to the fanzone and looked around.  We found a good spot at a table just above the garages and watched as they worked on cars and got ready for the practices.

Kevin Harvick in the background, talking to a reporter.

Kyle Busch's car coming back from inspection

Tony Stewart, still limping from his broken leg

Danica Patrick, in the green, letting someone know exactly what she was thinking!!!

Her boyfriend, Ricky Steinhouse, trying to drag her toward his trailer.  She escaped.

We stayed where we were and watched the cars go out for practice. Here is a VIDEO.

They weren't out that long and Jeff Gordon came back with something embedded in his bumper.  The Aaron car was towed in shortly after and looked as though he got the worse end of the deal.

Getting parts off of the crashed car to put on the replacement

 They had to bring the replacement car into the garage and started to get it ready to replace the original.  Kevin Harvick was a little later in getting out to practice and while he was waiting in pit lane to go out,

Bryan supports Kevin Harvick #4

 there was a crash, right in front of us.  No one was injured, although the cars took a bit of a beating. The wall needed to be repaired as well.  I couldn't believe it - They do realize this is only practice, don't they!!!  Practice was halted and Kevin ended up coming back to the garage, without getting on the track.

After the accident, repairing the wall

One of the cars being towed back after the accident

We decided to go back to the motorhome as there was no telling if they would get the wall repaired in time to continue practice.

Practice continued later and we stood on the top of the motorhome to watch it. Here is a VIDEO taken from the roof of the motorhome.

Our neighbors arrived yesterday evening and are a nice couple.  Here he is standing on his roof.

We discovered that we only have a third of a tank of fresh water.  When we filled up with propane before we left Tampa we were on a slope and lost some water as it overflowed but we didn't think it would be that much.  We will have to get a fill from the tanker that is going around out here tomorrow.