Food is a big part of attending the Rolex 24 At Daytona.
“Another big event is Taste of the 24, which is Saturday night from 6 to 10 p.m.” Wile continued. “Local eateries participate and feature their signature dishes. It’s a benefit for the NASCAR Foundation. Fans can go to NASCARFoundation.com to buy tickets to it.”
Another not-to-be-missed attraction is the season opener for the IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge, which is a four-hour race on Friday, Jan. 25.
“New this year is the Ferrari Challenge series will also race on Friday,” Wile said. “That will happen under the lights.”
The Rolex 24 is a family affair for Jana Watt of Davidson, N.C. Her husband, Iain, is Action Express Racing’s technical director.
“We’ve gone since 2006; Iain works the race and I take our daughters,” Watt said. “We started out staying in hotels, but the last four or five years we’ve rented a RV and camped in the infield and we have an absolute ball.
“We love doing all the pre-race festivities: the driver autograph session, the grid walk and right before the race begins, we rush up on top of the garage to watch the start. It’s fantastic.
“We spend the next 24 hours switching between the infield grandstands and the main straightaway grandstands and everything in between,” she continued. “The kids always make a trip to the infield carnival and now that they’re older, we take them to the stage in the paddock that does late-night karaoke, which they find hysterical.
“Overnight we stream the race on radio and TV and have a huge bonfire at the RV,” she added. “And we usually wander to different locations to watch the night racing.”
For the teams, surviving the long-drawn-out night is a challenge. That isn’t lost on Karen Kurtz Earl, of State College, Pa., who has a great deal of experience in television and sports car racing.
“I usually spend the entire race in the pits, garages and infield, but I always go to the grandstands across from the pits as the sun comes up,” Earl said. “There’s something thrilling about sitting there as the sky brightens, seeing who made it through the night, who’s running strong, who’s battered and limping.”
Lenny Krautheim, of Middleburg, Pa., provided an interesting story.
“I attended my first Rolex 24 a few years ago strictly out of boredom,” he said. “I retired from a 20-plus-year career driving sprint cars and also a brief stint driving in a few ARCA races.
“Our Florida vacation home is a few miles from Daytona. So, one day I bought myself a ticket to the Rolex 24.
“I was blown away by the unrestricted access to just about every portion of the facility,” Krautheim said. “I was able to practically reach out and touch the cars. It was nothing like a NASCAR race with huge crowds, long lines and fences to restrict your movements.”
It wasn’t his last visit to the Rolex 24.
“The next year I returned with a good buddy of mine, Butch Adams,” he added. “Since this was his first time there, we decided at midnight we would check out the view from the Ferris wheel.
“Midnight came and there we were, high above looking down at all the race cars’ headlights and glowing brake rotors. What a sight.
“Later that evening, or should I say early morning, I said, ‘Come on; I got another thing to do.’ At 2:30 a.m. we headed to the main grandstand outside of turn four to get a view from outside. I had brought along a bottle of wine and some cheese. So, there we were, outside of turn four at 2:30 a.m. enjoying a bottle of wine and watching the Rolex race.
“We had a blast that year, so much so that the next year and the years to follow we gathered up some other friends and introduced them to the tradition we had started.”