Roar of engines reason for trip to Daytona
By Staff
East Mississippi Group regional sports director Austin Bishop is on assignment at Daytona International Speedway covering the first weekend of Speedweeks. This is the second of four daily installments tracking his experiences.
February 7, 2004
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. As I write this, I can hear the roaring engines of the Nextel Cup cars as they fly around Daytona International Speedway taking practice laps for Saturday night's Budweiser shootout.
What makes that even worth writing about?
Well, I'm not in the garage area.
I'm not in the media center.
I'm locked securely in my hotel room a mile away, yet I can still hear the deep hum of those powerful engines.
There wasn't that kind of noise when I first made my way inside the speedway just before 6 a.m. Mississippi time on Friday. The tunnel going underneath the speedway isn't open at time, so the only way to get into the infield is to go through the main entrance and cross the track.
I've gotta' tell you, it's a weird feeling to be driving your family car across the front stretch of Daytona International Speedway before daybreak.
I looked to my left and saw Turn 4, the place Dale Earnhardt Sr. died.
I looked to my right and saw the Tri-Oval. You know, I really was tempted to just take a right-hand turn and take a little drive a couple hundred yards down the track.
But, I yeilded to common sense and thus didn't get ejected from the premisis.
The garage areas for all three series currently being housed at Daytona Nextel Cup, ARCA and IPOWERacing Dash are all locked down overnight and nobody is allowed inside until 7 a.m. (Eastern).
By the time 7 rolled around there were already crew members lined up ready to begin to work on their cars.
It was a big day for the IPOWERacing Dash folks. The six-cylinder cars held their qualifying day on Friday and it was unique to say the least.
In an usual move, the IPOWER folks sent five cars out onto the track in four-second intervals. This did two very important things it allowed cars to get together to draft and it took less than an hour to qualify 36 cars.
That's amazing.
Most of the drivers enjoyed the new format, especially those that posted the best times.
Wilson's time was later disallowed by IPOWERacing officials due to a rulebook violation.
That gave the pole to Danny Bagwell of Cordova, Ala., who posted a time of 54.232 (165.954 miles per hour),
The drivers had time before the qualifying session to work out a game plan to draft, or they could choose to run solo.
While Wilson, Bagwell and York opted to run as a team, Wilson said what happened on the track wasn't exactly what was talked about in the garage.
After the IPOWERacing qualifying, the ARCA cars hit the track.
Among the drivers trying to improve upon her time was Kim Crosby, an assistant principal from Slidell, La.
Crosby is going to have a busy 10 days. After competing in the race on Saturday, she qualified 20th, Crosby will begin trying to get her No. 13 Busch car ready to qualify next week.
I cut out pretty early on Friday, after spending a long day in the pits interviewing nearly a dozen drivers and crew members and racing back and forth from the media center to file press releases.
I'm saving up for today.
After getting a little later start, I plan to spend the entire day at the track, taking in the last day of Dash Series practice, the Auto Advance 200 ARCA and the Budweiser Shootout.
Like I said yesterday, it's a tough job but somebody's got to do it.
