The Pepsi 400
Florida fires force postponement of historic night race
Posted: Thursday July 02, 1998 06:14 PM
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Florida's escalating wilfires has changed plans for the Pepsi 400. The race was reschedule for October 17
(AP) |
DAYTONA BEACH, Florida (CNN/SI) -- History was delayed for four months Thursday after Daytona International Speedway officials postponed the Pepsi 400 -- the Speedway's first night NASCAR race -- because of Florida's escalating wildfires.
The decision came an hour before the complex's gates were to open, disappointing the hundreds of fans already assembled at one gate. All 143,000 grandstand seats had been sold for Saturday night's event, billed as the largest night sports event ever.
"It's too dangerous for everybody," said racing fan Mark Smith
of Dalton, Georgia. "We're breathing soot and everything else right
now. There are ashes falling out here. Just imagine what it's doing
at the race track."
The race, one of the most anticipated NASCAR events in recent
years, was rescheduled for October 17. All tickets will be honored then.
"The wildfires plaguing Daytona Beach and surrounding
communities intensified Wednesday night to a level that makes
postponing this race the right thing to do," said John Graham,
speedway president.
Most of the drivers had already arrived for Thursday night's
qualifying.
"You can't really complain too much," driver Bobby Hamilton
said. "We're talking a little inconvenience and some additional
expense for us. We're talking major problems for the people who
live around that area."
Driver Jeremy Mayfield agreed with the postponement decision.
"It's hard to feel right about running a race or doing anything
else like that while thousands of people are watching it from a
shelter somewhere," he said.
Graham said the race was called off after a report from city and
Volusia County authorities saying roads were closed because of
fires. A less than one hour ride from the Orlando airport to the
speedway now took more than three hours.
"We are all very frustrated," said Ralph Sheheen, chief auto
racing reporter for CBS, which was to televise the race. "We all
had this date circled on our calendars. There was a real buzz among
fans, teams and CBS."
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A local vendor packs up her goods after learning of the suspension of the Pepsi 400 |
About 65 members of the network's technical crew were at the
track, closing its operation, CBS Sports production manager Fred
Quartuccio said.
Twenty people were heading for the airport, including Mike Joy,
who was to have called the race, host Ken Squier and analysts Ned
Jarrett and Buddy Baker.
Race fans Murray Wilson and Marlene Harvey flew in from Iowa on
Wednesday for the race.
"It's disgusting, but it's understandable," Wilson said,
adding that they wouldn't be able to return in October.
Mike Crowley, a firefighter from Sarasota who has been coming to
the races every year since 1979, plans to return for the
rescheduled race.
"It's the best thing they could have done," Crowley said.
"There's no way they could have gotten the spectators here."
The Pepsi 400 usually fills only two-thirds of the grandstands
at Daytona because of the 100-degree temperatures in July. After
deciding to install lights for the first night race, all of the
143,000-plus seats had been sold out by March.
The $5 million lighting project is believed to be the largest
ever for a sports arena. Completed last month in time for testing,
it required 1,835 lamps around the 2 1/2-mile tri-oval to generate as
much light as the high beams of 87,000 passenger cars.
Musco Lighting, which installed the lights, said the lighting
was equivalent to standard residential lights of 24,285 city blocks
-- a road stretching from Daytona Beach to Musco's headquarters in
Muscatine, Iowa.
"Nobody has ever tried to put this much light on something this
big," Musco president Joe Crookham said last month.
The October 17 race will come three weeks before the season-ending
NAPA 500 race outside Atlanta. The only other break in the Winston
Cup series would have been in two weeks.
The new race date coincides with the start of the World Series,
and it's not clear if CBS will televise the Pepsi 400 then.
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