Daytona's July weekend no longer a day at the beach

Crewmen would enter the racetrack in darkness, and push their cars through technical inspection as the first rays of sunlight peeked above the Atlantic. By early afternoon, the vehicles would be covered and the garage area locked. By the time the real heat of the day settled over the Florida coastline, the men of NASCAR's premier series would be batting volleyballs and playing with children on Daytona's sparkling, sandy beach.

It was the closest thing to a working vacation the schedule allowed, a weekend that became as much about fun and sun as it was mettle and speed. Teams still worked hard, still prepared hard, still drove hard to win. But the schedule around the annual July race at Daytona International Speedway allowed them some well-earned time to depressurize, and for a little while cease being crewmen and just be fathers, husbands, and friends.

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Those who were there during that time speak of it wistfully, as if they can still vividly see the images in their mind's eye. Beach chairs were packed up along with spare parts. Wives and children made the trip along with mechanics and fabricators. Crewmen held volleyball tournaments on the beach, while drivers taught their kids to swim. On race day -- always July 4, regardless of when it fell -- the green flag flew at 10 a.m., and by mid-afternoon everyone was reliving the action with their toes in the sand.

"I remember, we used to have a little mini-volleyball tournament in the early '90s, with the Pettys and whoever. It was just a lot of fun," said Philippe Lopez, a veteran Nextel Cup crew chief who is now director of competition at Hall of Fame Racing. "Racing is fun, but when you can bring your family and call it a vacation on top of it, it's the best of both worlds. It was so relaxing, because we got our business done in the morning. Obviously, you couldn't get too carried away at night, with having to be in the garage at 5 or 6 [a.m.]. But that was OK. This wasn't a Vegas-style vacation, it was a bring-your-family-style vacation. All that's changed now."

It all changed in 1998, when the event known for decades as the Firecracker 400 moved to Saturday night under the lights. One year later, it became the first NASCAR event to be televised in prime time by a broadcast television network. A threshold had been crossed. The money, exposure, and pressure all increased. And what had been a nice beach weekend squeezed around a Nextel Cup race was transformed forever.

Now Saturday's 8 p.m. Pepsi 400 is a glitzy event that kicks off the stretch run to the Chase, suddenly a mere nine race weekends away. Now it's all about teams trying to maintain position or make up ground. Some crewmen will still manage to get away to the beach on Saturday morning -- but they'll be under strict orders not to overdo it. The days of volleyball tournaments are long past.

"It was a simpler type of racing than it is today," driver Jeff Burton said. "It was easier for car owners to say, 'Hey, just take your family down there.' Now it costs so much, because we have so many different people and so many hotel rooms and everything else, that it's just hard for them to do that. The sport in general has less of a relaxed atmosphere. This weekend for sure, for us, has much less of a relaxed atmosphere compared to what it used to." (Continued)