SpeedWeeks ~ That Daytona Feeling
1/31/2014
PattyKay Lilley
I bid
you welcome gentle readers, and invite you to join me in a look at what
SpeedWeeks have become over the last decade of racing. It used to be that the
first 2 weeks in February were a constant flurry of activity in Daytona Beach
and the surrounding area. NASCAR's grandiose "Media Tour" had been
held back in January, in a fairly successful effort to keep both media and fans
interested in what was soon to come. Oh, we were interested all right. They
need not have worried. February was fast approaching; Media Tour was history
and so was that little NFL party they call the Stupor Bowl... or something like
that.
The
first weekend in February brought the Rolex-24, also known as the 24 Hours of
Daytona... a SportsCar Enduro
whose starting line-up had begun to read more and more like that of a Stock Car
race in the elite Cup series; but that only served to pique our interest even
more, and folks that had never cared one whit about a road race before, began
watching just to hear a mention of a favorite Cup driver... or any Cup driver,
after living through the 90-day month of January. "SpeedWeeks" were
underway in Daytona Beach.
Directly
following that weekend-long event, cars began taking to the big track to make
practice runs, both for the Busch Clash/Budweiser Shootout and Qualifying day
for the Daytona 500. The Clash/Shootout, a special non-points paying event for
pole winners of the previous year, was run on Saturday evening, with all manner
of fanfare preceding it. After all, it was an integral part of SpeedWeeks,
situated right square between the beginning and the
end.
The
following day, Sunday, was reserved for one of the most useless exercises of
the racing year... qualifying for the Daytona 500 pole. (The other would be
Daytona testing... those January days when drivers that couldn't talk their way
out of it or find a substitute driver to send in their stead, took a car or two
down to Florida at the heart of the rainy season, sportily adorned in no one's
favorite color, primer grey, with a number clumsily painted on doors and roof
to let the TV viewing world know who in heck you might be, or at least who
owned that particular grey car. They would then spend perhaps three days either
making single-car runs around the big track or sitting out the inevitable rain
delays.
Once the
qualifying had decided who would start on the front row only for the Daytona
500, there was a day of rest on Monday... I guess because they'd worked on
Sunday? Anyway, come Tuesday and forward, there were practices, and more
practices and still more practices. They practiced for the Twin 150s coming up
on Thursday, which would set the rest of the field for the Great American Race,
come Sunday. Some practiced for the Craftsman/Camping World Truck race, which
would run on Friday, and still others for the Busch/Nationwide race on
Saturday. Of course, there were many practice sessions for the big Sunday race
as well.
It was
SpeedWeeks, and for 15 days, it was speed, speed and more speed, as various
racing series took their turn in the Daytona spotlight. The media was kept
abuzz with happenings throughout the duration, and fans seldom had a chance to
do more than inhale a few times before a new event was front and center on the
racing stage. Surrounding all of that, there was racing at the small tracks in
the area being held at off hours, when the big track wasn't busy. Several
series came to Florida just to insure that fans never had a minute in which to
be bored. Bored? We hardly had a chance to sleep. No one was bored. It was
SpeedWeeks!
TV did
its part to contribute to the fanfare and excitement in the air by putting it
ON the air. Untold hours of race coverage filled the airways, with SPEEDtv leading the way in programming. Between SPEED and
local and national coverage on the commercial channels, it was hard to miss the
fact that the cars had come to Daytona and racing was about to commence for a
new season. The general consensus was that if SpeedWeeks didn't excite you, the
embalmer would be paying a call, because you were beyond hope. It really wasn't
created; it just sort of happened, mostly under the guidance of one of the best
promoters this world has ever known, Big Bill France.
Fast
forward ten years to 2014, and what do we have? Well, the Rolex 24 ran last
weekend. Yes, many called it the beginning of SpeedWeeks, B-U-T... what now? The
Media Tour is in full swing right now, along with inductions into the NASCAR
Hall of Fame, bringing both fans and media away from Daytona Beach and back to
Charlotte North Carolina for festivities that in a perfect world would have
preceded the Rolex race. This coming weekend, when February finally does
arrive, the NFL will have the stage for their little show, which seems to feature
the halftime moreso than the game itself. That's not part of SpeedWeeks, even
though Danica Patrick will be part of the advertisements, as has been her
custom.
And
what of the following week and weekend? Well, that week, there is nothing. No racing! No
football! No nothing! (Yes, I have heard of the winter Olympics. If you look in
your Thesaurus under "boring" you'll find a pictorial description of
"Biathalon." I'd rather be racing... or even napping!) In a better place and time, that would have
been the week of the Clash and 500 qualifying, but those things have been
pushed off by still another week, to the 15th and 16th of February, and all the
pomp and circumstance surrounding the big race will be almost at the end of the
month instead of within the first two weeks.
Hmm, I
don't think I even need to name names when I point out that someone always
looking to manufacture excitement where there isn't any, has gone out of his
way to take much of the excitement out of what was once the most exciting time
of the racing season, SpeedWeeks at Daytona... that time when once again a fan
can hear the roar of those rumbling V-8 engines as they come to life; can smell
raw gas and burned rubber mixing in the nostrils and feel the thrill as those screaming-fast
cars shake the ground under you as they head for the checkers at the finish
line, 2, 3, maybe 4 abreast. SpeedWeeks! I miss it now that it's all broken in
pieces... don't you?
Just a short addendum here, if
you will. Want to hear Mama? Tune in
Monday evenings to Blog Talk Radio at www.racinnation.com ~ 8:00 on Bump and
Run with Robyn Vandenberg aka That Sports Chick. Robyn has invited me to come
on each week during the 8:00 hour and do a segment with her in which Mama sits
someone in the corner for doing misdeeds during the previous week. It's a
call-in show, so if you desire, you can call up and call me sweet names or tell
me where to get off. Sound like fun? I hope so! See y'all there on Monday!
Be well
gentle readers, and remember to keep smiling. It looks so good on you!
~
PattyKay
[email protected]