Pelicans Hit the High Banks of Daytona!

[cegerer]

Friday at Rennsport II, anyone with a 911 could pay $20 to do 2 laps of Daytona. Pretty cool, but these were supposed to be "parade laps" at slow speed ....... oh well, should be fun anyway, so we lineup:

Here's me (cegerer), Cornpanzer, Type550 (white coupe), Racemor, Halm, and P-Thomas:





So we head out on to the track at 40-50MPH ...... yawn ...... supposed to stay off the high banks (or should I say the wall!! )



Hmmmm, nobody's looking .... let's try the banking ..... holy crap!! I thought the car was going to roll over .....



The rest of the crew ...... Cornpanzer, Type550, Racemor, Florida Highway Patrol!, Halm, P-Thomas:



Hmmm, what's this? We're picking up speed. Yes!



What the ...? They've got the hammer down in front of me. Time to wind it out down the front banking! Parade? My a$$!!



Wound up hitting just over 100MPH down the front straight. Then we able to hammer through the hairpin and left, right back up onto the oval. Second lap was pretty much the same, maybe a little faster. What a blast!

[typ550]

Awesome, Curt! Sorry I had to jump out of line for in that first pic, but wanted to make sure I was in the shot!

[Paul Thomas]

Here are some from the rear. I was in the back and couldn't keep up.

Here are the cars staging for the hot laps.

[makaio]

That looks so much cooler than on TV! Thanks for the pics.

[Zeke]

You have to do about 70 to stay up on the banking w/o having to turn right to keep up on it. As you can imagine, turning right while leaning over at 31* is a little scary. I drove the sister track Talladega which has 33* banking in a tow truck. 70mph is the magic no.

[Jack Olsen]

That is awesome.

[masraum]

Wow, you guys suck. I just hope as I get a tad older and get my finances on track with the slow recovery of the IT market that this stuff is still going on. I'd love to have the opportunity to do this in a few years.

You guys make me so jealous. I'm just glad to be a part of the board so I can hear about this board and all of the things that you can learn here. Besides it's inspirational, hearing about all of the things that are possible with just a little money.

Very cool pictures, thanks!

P-Thomas, cool pics, the funky colors make them look like vintage pics.

[expat]

Originally posted by cegerer
Friday at Rennsport II, anyone with a 911 could pay $20 to do 2 laps of Daytona.

Damn That is so cool. Thanks for this post Curt. Great Pics and captions.

Wonder what it would be like with Pepperwagon on those banked curves...hehehe...that would be tempting.

Mark

[IROC]

Here's my shot coming down the front straight:



I had to put my foot in the throttle a couple of times in the infield. I was able to develop some pretty good slip angles a couple of times...

Mike

[Cornpanzer]

Thanks for posting those pics Curt....that was great! Nice meeting you Chris and Paul.
Here are some pics or Curts car out my windshield. Sorry they werent closer but I was having some problems keeping up with that 2.5L hot rod.

[bigchillcar]

boys will be boys...

awesome...those cars look like they simply belong on the speedway. how friggin' cool...i've got to make this trip myself someday. life is short..drive in a big circle...
ryan

[azasadny]

Curt,
Looks like you had a blast! Thanks for the pictures!

[trj911]

Very cool! I hope no one left their mark on the wall!

[cegerer]

Hey IROC - nice talking to you. Hope you had a safe drive home. -- Curt

[JCR]

Hey Curt, Dave, Mike and others... great meeting you guys at the Ale House. I sure do wish I had my car down for the track laps!

Can anyone post a speeding ticket from one of those troopers that says "Location - Daytona International Speedway - Turn 4"???

[DonDavis]

Very cool!! I hate you Curt....ok, not really

Must have been a blast. Tell us about the drive down and back. How did your car do and how was the weather. Wasn't there supposed to be some rain?

[racemor]

My brother was riding and shot the on track stuff to film. No digital yet. But here is a good one of Curt and Paul. Probably the first of the MANY times over the weekend that Paul had to say, "yes, it really is a 3.5."

[Zeke]

Another thing about Daytona is the infield course is flat as a pool table. the pics here show T-3 a few times which is a 180* horseshoe. I'll bet it's fun to hang it out a bit there. Daytona and Fontana have some similarities in the flatness even though the course is laid out very differently. Talladega has an infield course as well, but it is in poor repair and not used for racing, just traffic. Too bad. They had some sporty car races on it many years ago, but the Southern folks didn't come out to watch. That was before the TV money was the biggest source of revenue. In today's market, it wouldn't matter where the course is, if the TV audience shows up, it's sucessful. But, I digress.

And now there's Skip Barber right down the road.

[}{arlequin]

...those cars look like they simply belong on the speedway

If NASCAR involved a bunch of 911's (IROC's, RSR's, any really) I think I would tune in.

[Carl Bauer]

Ready to go out...