I used to watch Nascar, but I haven't in at least 15 years. I used to go to the Bristol and Charlotte races. Those were fun 2-3 day benders and ending in very hungover drive home. One spring race in Bristol, it snowed. We were camping in a tent. Some dude didn't have boots to keep his feet warm, but he found some size 22 sneakers to wear over his normal shoes. His feet had to be the warmest feet in world that weekend. Some people obviously didn't check the weather and I'm surprised nobody died of hypothermia from being under dressed. Daytona is April 11. I actually just booked our room. My wife and kid travel with me, so I have get our accommodations instead of sharing a room with one of the crew.
More racecar build pics. These are from the Wednesday when Joe and I were trying to finish it up. Cockpit before we put the windshield in it. The cage was put in by professional cage people, that's about the only thing Joe didn't design or build himself. The starlink mount on the passengerside, and the escape hatch on on the driver side The engine. You can have one just like it if you have an internet connection and a credit card. In a few weeks, that will not be the case. This race, we just made a steel mesh to go over the intake, because it was quick. It will have a costume panel that will bolt down over it. The hood will also get louvers, and the nose a splitter to help our aerodynamics. That is an actual closed loop fuel system you see in many professional racing series, where the license plate would be on a street car. Each jug can dump 5 gallons of fuel in about 4.8 seconds. To my knowledge, we were the only team using a completely closed loop system. Joe had experience with it from his truck racing days. The huge majority of teams just refuel with typical nozzles, but much larger, for speed. It's finicky system, and you have to be just right or it will spray fuel everywhere. Our fuel man did an amazing job. The wing uprights will get some metal cut out of the middles for weight savings, but it is already very light. Joe designed and built that wing. The actual wing is, I think, fiberglass. It is built very light and actually very fragile. The Nine Lives racing guys, people that make aero for race cars and sponsor the race, came over looked at it and Joe told them he better not see a copy on there website. Those wheels are very heavy. We're looking for lighter ones. They were cheap, and they were bought months ago because they needed something on the car for it to roll.