DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — When Jimmie Johnson first arrived at Daytona International Speedway in the late 1990s, there was only one way in and out when cars were running on the track. The young driver who would become a seven-time NASCAR champion and a Hall of Famer drove into the infield the way most everyone else did — through the double-tubed tunnel underneath the speedway’s fourth turn.
Johnson heard cars making laps. Practice before single-car qualifying, he suspected. When he re-emerged into the daylight, his eyes locked on another iconic image.
“When I popped out on the other side, I looked up because I could hear a car coming through (turns) three and four. And there was the black No. 3, and I’ll never forget,” Johnson said, recalling the sight of Dale Earnhardt at speed at the peak of his “Man in Black” swagger. “It was just a bright, sunny day. Wasn’t really anybody there yet, so I had a clear line of sight across the grass and seagulls flying, and that black No. 3 coming around. Back in that era, they ran a certain type of exhaust, and the car had a very distinct sound, and that car went screaming by — the Intimidator went screaming by — and I was like, ‘This is cool. I’m in Daytona.’
“And I still think of that. Also I still love just going through the Turn 4 tunnel whenever it’s open. It’s just nostalgic in that way.”
For many, the Turn 4 tunnel that has served as an enduring entryway for millions since the original track opened for business in 1959 has meant arrival at one of the most sacred places in sports. Like seeing the ivy-covered outfield walls of Wrigley Field on baseball’s opening day or the not-yet-frozen tundra of Lambeau for pro football’s kickoff, reaching your destination at Daytona means rising from the tunnel into the sunlight and seeing the swaying palm trees and the steep ribbon of high-speed asphalt that rings the acres of sandy soil.
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The ritual is an annual tradition for many, but each trip through stirs the anticipation for the dawn of a new season and an arrival at one of auto racing’s meccas.
“I mean, I’m in Year 19, and I still get those butterflies that I did, right from the very beginning,” said three-time Daytona 500 winner Denny Hamlin. “The nervousness doesn’t set in … I don’t get nervous like I used to, but it’s just more excitement now that we’re about to go, this is about to happen. It’s amazing. You go through the tunnel; the tunnel’s been the same now for many, many years. You feel it when you go down that, when you come out the other side.”
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Daytona’s Turn 4 tunnel was a space-age amenity at the time of its construction. NASCAR founder Bill France envisioned a gleaming race track the same length as the Indianapolis Motor Speedway to its north, but with sweeping, high-banked turns designed to rival the speeds of the Italian Grand Prix’s oval section at Monza. That vision came with a nearly $3 million price tag — $32M in today’s money – to transform 448 acres of city-owned land from wilderness into a speed palace in just under two years.
To welcome the thousands of fans drawn to the new spectacle, France planned for six entrances to accommodate upward of 30,000 cars. The lone tunnel was both novelty and luxury. Infield access at the bullrings that were commonplace on the NASCAR schedule at the time was typically through a primitive crossover gate or an opening in the retaining walls during a break in the action.
The Turn 4 tunnel allowed access to the inner section of the Daytona track at all times — crucial to crowd control amid a rigorous schedule of practice and speed trials before the speedway’s 1959 debut. Or, as the Orlando Sentinel delicately worded it in its July 27, 1958 editions: “The tunnels will not only help the parking problem but they will provide a means of getting the meat wagons out in a hurry in case of a crash.”
By late April the previous year, France announced that the work for the tunnels had been contracted out. The dual steel tubes were ordered by mid-May, and dredging and installation lasted through the summer. By late November and with crews racing to finish the speedway in time for the first Daytona 500, the tunnels were in place — 14 feet in diameter, with a three-foot roadbed base leaving an 11-foot clearance at the top of each tube (that clearance is listed as a tidy 7-foot-6 today). The angled path measured 228 feet from in to out.
The first travelers to make their way through reacted with unbridled awe. Lee Petty was already one of the sport’s earliest stars by then, winning 37 Cup Series races all up and down the East Coast, but mostly at dusty fairgrounds-style ovals a half-mile or shorter in length. Mighty Darlington was his only basis for comparison, but even NASCAR’s first superspeedway was still nearly half of Daytona’s size.
So when Petty drove through the tunnel for the first time with his family, he had his No. 42 Oldsmobile race car in tow and his 21-year-old son – the man who would be king – as a backseat driver. When he cleared the exit, Petty’s eyes grew wider and he slammed on the brakes.
“I had my wife next to me, and Richie in the back seat, and I wanted to say something, but I was just speechless,” Lee Petty told the St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times in 1988. “I had never seen anything so big in my entire life. I looked at those high-banked corners, and that giant grandstand, and I thought, ‘no way.’ “
Days later, Lee Petty was crowned as the Daytona 500’s first champion. “Richie” Petty later cemented his legend here as King Richard by winning the “Great American Race” a record seven times over.
“We came here,” Richard Petty says now, “it was just a whole different world.”
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One day before he won the pole position for Monday’s Daytona 500, Joey Logano officially landed at the track through the fourth-turn tunnel. The trip provided some personal validation, but it also gave his family the best derring-do exhilaration a full-sized SUV can provide — with a literal landing.
“I still get excited about it, which is good. When I did that last night, I said, ‘OK, I’m still excited to go racing.’ That means I’m not ready to hang it up, so that part’s good,” Logano said during Wednesday’s Media Day, just hours before putting his No. 22 Team Penske Ford on the point in qualifying. “My kids, I didn’t think about this, but my kids love that tunnel so you know, because you can jump out of it pretty good. You can definitely catch air, so if you were wondering if a Ford Expedition can catch air, yes it can, out of the tunnel, and they love it.
“You should give it a shot sometime. It’s full commit, though. You’ve got to really want it.”
Even less-acrobatic trips still require some finesse. The tunnel — with yellow guard rails projecting the narrow pedestrian walkway — is a snug fit for anything much larger than a midsize sedan. Ask Hamlin, who has three Harley J. Earl trophies to his credit but has had the misfortune of putting more than one rental on the damaged-vehicle policy clock.
“It’s multiple times,” Hamlin says. “Don’t text and drive through the tunnel. It’s tighter than a normal road. … We’ve had some Darlington stripes on a few rental cars.”
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A massive renovation in 2004 broke up the Turn 4 tunnel’s Daytona monopoly. A large underground pathway was built at the entrance to Turn 1, large enough to allow RVs, campers and race haulers safe passage inside.
The modern tunnel’s birth still didn’t render the original obsolete. Fans still arrive by the tramload, and drivers still shimmy their way through, like threading a three-wide needle at 190 mph on the banked asphalt above it.
It’s all part of the annual pilgrimage, with the Turn 4 tunnel calling all race fans like a beacon in the night.
“I don’t care what you go through. I don’t care what happens at Daytona that gives you maybe a second thought. There’s nothing like going through that tunnel,” said NASCAR Vice Chairman Mike Helton. “And there’s other places for me, but there’s nothing like Daytona. … It’s magic.”
