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They call the Daytona 500 the Great American race, well we saw the Daytona 383 and it wasn’t that great. I guess it depends upon whether you are a glass half full or half empty kind of person to be able to gauge the day as a whole. Personally I don’t feel too bad as when I had seen the weather forecast I didn’t think we’d get any racing in at all and we’d spend the day watching the ran from the stand/car and have our plans for the fortnight scuppered on day one, so the fact that we got to see over ¾ of the race was not a bad thing.

Apparently, according to the pissed up guy in the queue for the shuttle bus, this was the first time in the 51 years the race had been held that it had been stopped early due to rain, it’s too late for me to research so I’ll have to take his word for it.

For those uninitiated in NASCAR they don’t race in the rain, as soon as the slightest drop hit’s the track, they run behind the safety car for a while, and if it doesn’t stop, they red flag the race and either wait for it to dry or call it a result if it has gone past half way. So when the heavens started to open around lap 150 we knew it was game over.

The day started with a supplies run and 18 cans of Bud being purchased along with a couple of bottles of water, what more do you need. The plan being to head over to the track in plenty of time but not too early. We decided to set off around 11 and got onto the interstate no problem, but then 10 miles away we hit traffic, fortunately this was just before the intersection with another instate that I’d read up on as an alternative route, so we scooted down there. We were a little confused as not many other cars were coming this way so we checked the map, realised we were ok but spotted a bit of shortcut and took that, great we were at the circuit within an hour of leaving the hotel, that’s when our trouble started. We were actually outside the front gates with ages to go, but unfortunately the disabled parking spaces were all taken and we were directed elsewhere (in case any of you are wondering, no it isn’t our mental disabilities that we were hoping to use to blag a disabled parking, Rag is actually a bone fide holder of a blue badge and needs to use crutches to walk - pay attention, that information will come in handy later). Whilst sailing past what looked to be extremely convenient parking spaces we ask one of the police officers on traffic duty what our option were, we could either continue on and swing round to the right but the traffic looks heavy or you can cut across four lanes, hang a u-turn and head left at the next lights, a Uey it was and we turned left, what a mistake. Chock a block traffic as far as the eye can see. Even worse the guys were getting through the beer.

After about an hour of queuing and slow moving traffic we make it into the overflow disabled parking which was actually off circuit. We managed to get the last available spot in the disabled section and then survey our surroundings. First thing that hit us was the distance from the parking spot (over fields with drainage ditches) to the courtesy shuttle bus stops, quickly followed by the realisation that there were no port-a-loos anywhere near the car either. We decided staying in the car was pointless so we started our trek to the bus. What we found next dumbfounded us, in between the disabled parking and the bus stop was a three foot high fence. We all got over one by one, with Rag unceremoniously throwing himself over and found the toilets and the information desk to work out how we got to our actual seats. The plan was that we had to catch the bus, then get a golf cart from the bus stop to the tram stop, get a tram then at the other end get a golf cart to the stand with our seats in. Sounded easy, especially for the A-Team.

Problem was, when we got off the bus at the other end, no golf carts to be seen, not even one we could blag so we meander off in the general direction of the tram stop in the vain hope of flagging one down as we went. We probably got two-thirds of the way before finding and collaring one. The tram itself was uneventful, but again at the far end, no golf carts to be found, so we decided on walking to our seats. By this stage Rag was knackered so this was a slow trudge, made worse by the realisation that we had three flight of steps to negotiate before getting to our seats. Once in the seats, that was it, both Rag and I were rooted to the spot, we didn’t fancy the flights of stairs or any other kind of walking after that. Fortunately the seats were good ones with good views of the start line and the pit exit plus the first turn, and there was a video screen directly opposite, so we were sorted. We got to the seats with about 45 minutes to spare, which was ideal really.

What happened next can only be described as a wild goose chase. Rag wanted a new Juan Pablo Montoya baseball cap as he has new sponsorship this season. I’d looked on Friday when I went to the trucks and couldn’t find one, but Rag was determined so sent his brother and his dad on a shopping trip. Also with the instruction of bringing more beer and a hot dog back. 35 minutes later they return with beer and nothing else. It turns out that they haven’t even made any of these baseball caps yet so the guys were never going to find them. What did happen though was that the guys sitting behind us had picked up on Rag’s request of a hot dog and kept heckling Ivan every time he left his seat to get beer, or have a cigarette or go to the toilet asking him to bring them back a hotdog each time. That is one thing about the fans in NASCAR, they are very fanatical and hard-core in their support of one driver, but they have a great spirit and will join in with the banter, it’s never threatening like football can be at times.

The race itself was good, Kyle Busch (yes my pick) showed his supreme driving skills. It takes some guts to drive bumper to bumper, sometimes three wide at 200 mph, and these guys have guts in abundance (in some cases quite literally). He was unlucky to get collected up in an incident just after halfway. With that 9 car incident (can’t call them crashes, that’s not pc) three of the four guys we’d picked out in the sweepstake had been involved in one way or another leaving only my pick with a fighting chance of finishing highly, and given that the money paid to the highest placed pick, I was laughing.

Once the heavens did open we knew that it’d be race over, and we were proven right when they first red flagged the race and called the result with Matt Kenseth taking the victory. Of course our journey back was made worse by the fact that still no golf carts could be seen, everyone was trying to make the same journey at the same time and it was still raining. By the time we’d go off the tram Rag was completely gone, so his brother kindly offered to piggy-back him part of the way to the buses. It was a sight to behold, if nothing more than the fact that Rag was mooning everyone as his trousers were falling down and he needed his arms to hang onto his brother. We queued for the bus, had a couple of chats to the folks around in the queue, hence the conversation about the first ever rained off Daytona 500 and made our way back to the car. By this stage part of the fence had been kicked down so it was slightly less inconvenient, but overall the transportation policy was a complete farce.

On a bright note to end the evening we ended up in Ker’s Winghouse across the street from the motel, it’s a kind of a Hooters rip-off. We were served by the lovely Brandi, who wouldn’t have been out of place in a Hooters, so it wasn’t all bad. Although when asked for her number she said she was engaged, which is better than the usual response. I won't say who actually asked for the number as it may incriminate one of the crew (however if any of their wives/girlfriends want to e-mail me privately I may divulge that information).

You could look at the day and say we were robbed of a grandstand finish due to the rain, but you could also say that we were lucky to get any racing in at all and at least our plans were not thrown into disarray straightaway.

Now, this could be the last entry from me for a couple of days as I’ve no idea where we will be staying tomorrow night and have no idea what kind of internet access it will have. If it’s part of the same chain as the one we are in at the moment, it will have free wi-fi but dodgy cleaning routines.

Goodbye from Florida and well done for wading through all that drivel.