A lap around Daytona can be quite the bumpy ride

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- It feels less like a car roaring around a racetrack, and more like a ship navigating a choppy sea. Running the high groove at Daytona International Speedway, with the speedometer needle kissing 120 mph, the pace car bucks up and down like a living thing. From a distance, the asphalt looks so smooth. From the front seat, it feels anything but.

Brett Bodine warns you about it going in. "The one thing that will probably surprise you a little bit is how rough the racetrack is," NASCAR's director of cost research and Sprint Cup pace car driver says before turning the ignition on the white Chevrolet Impala SS.

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He speaks the truth. Drivers pointed out the deceivingly rough nature of Daytona after Thursday's twin Daytona 500 qualifying races, during which some of them suffered tire problems. The failures seemed to stem from a combination of issues, including the green nature of the racetrack -- two days of rain had washed much of the grip out of the surface -- and a new car that placed more of a load on the right-front tire.

No one specifically blamed the racetrack, which was last paved in 1978. But the rough surface, combined with the high speeds Daytona generates, only added to the challenge of keeping all the rubber on the road.

"Listen, this place feels like Darlington sometimes, or Atlanta," said driver Brian Vickers, referring to two notoriously rough racing surfaces, although Darlington is in the process of being repaved. "It is wore out. I feel bad for Goodyear having to make a tire come in doing 200 mph. This place is like Darlington. So the track's getting worse."

Inside the pace car, it's easy to see what he means. Bodine, who won one Cup race and five then-Busch events in his driving career, has the vehicle up to 60 mph before it reaches the end of pit road. By the time the car climbs the top of the 31-degree banking in Turn 1, it's doing 100. And it's jouncing, the front end wobbling up and down ever so slightly, each small bump in the asphalt magnified by the speed. The roughest patch is in Turn 4, up near the wall -- exactly where drivers liked to ride around Thursday, trying to use as much of the banking as possible to save their tires.

"It's just weathered," Bodine said. "Every racetrack goes through that."

And every racetrack, with the exception of those that have been recently resurfaced, is a much rougher ride than it looks from the grandstand. Daytona is no exception. Even at a relatively slow 120 mph -- the Sprint Cup cars in Sunday's Daytona 500 will travel about 70 mph faster -- the sensation of speed is intense. Every rut in the racing surface is felt, even in a comfortable leather seat. Lateral forces push and pull as the car speeds through the turns. Bodine points out why the transition from Turn 2 onto the backstretch is so tricky, because drivers are still turning when their cars hit the flat.

At speed, the sheer height of Daytona's massive banked turn is barely noticeable. Then Bodine slows the car to a crawl, and it suddenly feels like you're hanging off the side of a cliff. Drivers have to reduce speed to 55 mph before reaching pit road, and the space they have to slow down in goes by in the blink of an eye. What a difference that is from when Bodine broke in to NASCAR, and there was no pit-road speed limit. Back then, drivers would practice how fast they could get down pit road.

But what sticks with you most -- other than the thought of, if 120 mph feels that fast, what must Bill Elliott's record lap of 210.364 mph have felt like? -- are the bumps. Inside the pace car, that smooth ribbon of asphalt seen on television feels at times like a cheese grater. But to hear Dale Earnhardt Jr. tell it, there are other places that are much rougher.

"The bumps aren't so severe right now that I would ask for it to be fixed. I mean, it can be improved, but it's not so extreme bump-wise," the former Daytona 500 winner said. "... It's hard to pave a place like this. I wouldn't anticipate them doing it for another five years or so."