Independence day

Friday 4th July

Happy July 4th to all Americans!

I kick started this day with a proper American breakfast to set me up for the day.
Marcelo's was full of fellow English holidaymakers.... A whole new meaning to the phrase 'full English breakfast'.

Anyway after this I had a few hrs to kill so watched the end of the first Wimbledon mens semi final before venturing into the florida mall, adjacent to my hotel. Again lots of English voices could be heard.  I was amazed at how they have really got into soccer over here now, there are several shops selling us soccer team merchandise and they were showing the world cup on a big a screen inside the mall.  The mall itself is huge, never ending, completely dwarves Brighton or Eastbourne with lots of department stores and hundreds of others.

At 1pm I met up with the rest of the race folk to head up to Daytona for the NASCAR nationwide race.  It took 90mins to get to the track, about expected with traffic on interstate 4 (Orlando equivalent of the m25)

The primesport staff are all really friendly and glad to help out, plus they were giving out free bottled water which would be needed again today as the humidity was extremely high and  the temperature around 90 again.

When I got off the coach I was right by a tram stop which was taking fans to the sprint fanzone area on the infield section of the speedway so decided to go there first.  Here I got to overlook the teams hard at work preparing the sprint cup cars ready for their qualifying session later in the afternoon.  Now, name dropping.... Saw Kurt Bush, Jimmie Johnson and Danica Patrick in the garage area and also Ryan Newman later on the main stage in the fanzone area.

Wandered the area some more, headed to victory lane, watched a  bit of the nationwide  qualifying session before the heavens opened after the first session.

Took the tram back over to turn 1 but my grandstand seat was nearer turn 4..... That was a looooooong way to walk. the sheer size of the place is mind blowing, I must have walked a few miles. After hitting the merchandise trailers (had to be done) I headed to my seat to watch cup qualifying.  This to was rained out after just 1 session.  From then on we has a long persistent period of heavy rain which lasted a couple of hours.... Needless to say the nationwide race was late starting, don't think it started until around 9pm. The rains stopped and the air titan track dryers worked really well as they managed to dry the 2.5 mile oval fairly quickly once the rain let up.

Had a good seat just on the entry to the tri oval, which is where I will be tomorrow as well. Can pretty much see the whole track!

What a great atmosphere when the cars fired up and the race for underway..... A really special moment.  The race itself was pretty clean for most of it but the final part was excellent, nail biting until the end with Kasey Khane winning with a last lap pass in virtually a photo finish.

Hopefully the weather cooperates tomorrow for the cup race, the forecast is for it to be clearer to here's hoping no more rain delays.

Got back to the hotel just before 1am.....we do it all again tomorrow...... Bring it on!!!!!!