It's time for some more Midget Travels! Our first big trip of the year is to the GOF (Gathering of the Faithful) in Daytona, Florida. Because of the distance, and our back road travels, we took a couple of days to get there. After an easy drive, we stopped in Waycross, GA the first night.
April 10 - Our route to Daytona went right by St. Augustine and since we had never been to America's oldest city, we planned to spend a day there, then continue to Daytona the following day.
We did the touristy things, walked through the old city and around the old fort and then we took a sight seeing trolley around the city to see a lot of the interesting places and buildings. One of our stops was at Big Bill's Die Cast shop. This is a store that has been here for a long time and it has thousands of die cast models, mainly cars, trucks and motorcycles, but also all sorts of other items like planes, boats and campers. It was pretty incredible. If you're looking for a particular model check out Big Bill's - "If I don't have it, they don't make it!"
April 11 - After spending a little more time in St. Augustine, we headed to Daytona Beach. It was a nice drive on Hwy. A1A, mostly along, or near, the ocean. Was pretty until we ran into some road construction and a slight detour. We arrived at the hotel and our room at the Plaza resort had a great view of the ocean. After relaxing for awhile, we washed all the road crud off the car and went out to eat at a local Italian restaurant.
April 12 - Today is the day we've been waiting for. No, not the car show, but today we get to drive around the Daytona Speedway! After attending some tech sessions in the morning, we had lunch at Caribbean Jack's (had to be a good place, right?!) which was at a marina right on the water. Later in the afternoon, 64 MGs lined up for a trip from the hotel to the track. After arriving at the track, we all lined up waiting for the officials to allow us in. We entered through a tunnel under the track and into the infield. It was very exciting driving into this huge facility but our excitement was somewhat dimmed when we started driving around the track. We were driving on the "roval", which is the road course which includes most of the oval racetrack. For some reason, we were only allowed to drive about 30 mph, maybe 35 at some points. Don't know if it was the pace car going that slow, or just some slow cars in front (probably the former), but it was VERY SLOOOOW. Was still pretty cool to drive around the track, but would have been nice to go a little faster. I'll try to link some videos later.
There were 64 MGs driving around, including our friends in their 1931 M-type.
After 3 laps at the track, we went back to the hotel for a BBQ dinner and social. The show is tomorrow. Click the link below for an excruciatingly slow trip around the speedway!
MGs at the Daytona Speedway
April 13 - Today is the show, which was held in the parking lot adjacent to the hotel, which is right next to the ocean. There were around 90 cars present, and we visited with some old friends and made some new ones. After the show, there was a scenic drive around the Ormond loop and along the historic Dixie Highway. After the very nice drive, it was back to the hotel for the awards banquet.
April 14 - We reversed course and headed home today, but we did not stop in St. Augustine this time around. We went straight to Waycross, where we stopped for the night.
April 15 - Back home! Time to wash clothes and the car and get it ready for the next trip in just a couple of weeks. Stay tuned - we're going back to Florida!
Sounds like an excellent trip. And I agree that 30-35 mph around a race track is way too slow!
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