Photography by Rich Gigli

The Fastest Beach on Earth.

In 1903 marked the first official organized car racing event along the sandy beach at Daytona Beach, Florida, with Winton setting a new beach record for the measured mile of 68.198mph. However, it was only a year later in 1904, that the first Daytona record appears in the record books. Millionaire William K. Vanderbilt in his Mercedes took the record away from Henry Ford with a 39 second measured mile at 92.30mph on  January 27th. Racing continued on the beach-road course until 1958.  Bill France built the Daytona International Speedway in 1958. This is a 2.5 mile course used today for the famous Daytona 500 NASCAR race, and where lap records are in excess of 200mph.

The NASCAR racing season begins February 20th, with forty-three of the best stock car drivers in the world. The drivers will compete in the most prestigious  racing event ,“The Great American Race”.

Tags: Rich Gigli

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 22nd, 2011 at 9:14 am and is filed under Rich Gigli. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.