They positioned it as the end of an era. Funny, it didn't look much different to me.

Daytona International Speedway's currently in the middle of getting its 2.5-mile racing surface stripped to the proverbial bones. It's strange, but after being here 27 years, I can't get excited about it.

They're repaving it, sure. But when they're done, it's still going to be the same 18- and 31-degree banked tri-oval -- quite a bit blacker, for sure -- and with spiffy bright striping, wherever they decide to put it.

But it'll be the same old place, with the proverbial fresh coat of paint.

At about 3:30 Sunday morning I walked out of the infield media and out to pit road. I didn't know what I'd feel.

Whether it's too many races, too many race tracks or too many years -- it didn't feel, or look any differently than it ever does: trash everywhere, the tire and pit cart crews scurrying to-and-fro with their motorized machines, doing their business...

So it was business as usual. Nothing seemed final to me.

I haven't seen any need to observe any of the dis-assembly that goes with doing a complete repave of the "World Center of Racing" for first time since 1978.

Taking down the light poles, the catch fences, the SAFER barriers -- ho-hum, nothing of interest there; at least that's what it seems like to me.

These types of things have occurred a lot in the past 15 years here. It's sad, but they don't seem to matter much -- because the bottom line is, life goes on.

I'll never forget going away for a race weekend and coming back to find a patch of asphalt outside the Turn 4 tunnel where one of the original track office buildings had been -- the location of my first office here, as a matter of fact.

Poof -- gone, just like that.

At the end of 1984, that one-story building housed the Speedway president's office, credentials, PR, photography, MRN, publications, marketing, security, shipping & receiving and printing facilities. Yeah, that was a lot under one small roof.

My, my how things have changed. And believe it or not, they've changed mostly for the better. You can't ever look back, or you'll get passed by someone who's been catching up to you.

I hate to say it, but even when they gutted the infield for the second time during my tenure here -- back when the new garages and the Sprint Fan Zone were installed -- it just wasn't that big of a deal.

The biggest deal was watching the sheer glee on Benny Parsons' face as he got to wield a variety of heavy demolition equipment to tear various parts of the place to bits.

You can only imagine what was racing through his head as that pavement over the new Turn 1 tunnel, or the walls of those old garages, came tumbling down.

But that's it, right there. It's all about the memories. A piece of the pavement will be a nice thing to have, sure -- but realistically, I'd need about 100, or maybe a thousand, to cover all the memories that have occurred at this place.

The neatest thing to watch is going to be if the paving process is any different than it was in 1958 when this place was coated for the first time. Sure, the machinery will be 21st century, but the dynamics? Not sure you can do much about that.

And that will be a memory to hold onto. Just like in January of 2011, when you can only hope testing returns to build some excitement for the Speedweeks that follows. And then it'll be time to start harvesting a whole new crop of memories.

Some time between now and then, I'll have to ask Kyle Petty, who won the first big stock-car race on the new pavement and Richard Petty, the first Daytona 500 winner on the new asphalt, what those memories were like, just to get the anticipation whetted for some new ones.

The opinions expressed are solely those of the writer.