There are a few spots remaining on the bus for a tour of the Daytona Beach Area’s historic stock car racing sites will take place on Friday morning, February 22nd two days before the Daytona 500. Tour guides will be Buz McKim, NASCAR Hall of Fame Historian and ISC Archives Manager Eddie Roche. The tour will leave at 9:15 am and is being conducted through the Living Legends of Auto Racing. The cost for the tour is $30.00 which includes lunch at Racing’s North Turn Restaurant in Ponce Inlet. If you’d like to go on the tour, e-mail me at announcerdave@usa.net and include a contact phone number… This will be well worth the money and also includes a tour of the ISC Archives and a chance to meet me personally (wowzers!)…
The spots included on the tour are:
• Merchant’s Bank, 252 Beach St., now Halifax Historical Society Museum.
• Firehouse, which sounded siren during land speed days.
• Jackie Robinson Ballpark.
• Bill France house, 29 Goodall Ave.
• Streamline Hotel, 140 S. Atlantic Ave.
• Froggy’s Saloon, 800 Main St., above which was NASCAR’s first office.
• Bill France’s gas station, 316 Main St.
• NASCAR’s old office, 42 S. Peninsula.
• France family first home, 136 Second Ave.
• Patterson Motors, NW corner of 2nd Ave & Beach St.
• Lloyd Buick-Cadillac, 354 N. Beach St.
• Daytona Beach Cycles, 402 N. Beach St., formerly Motive Parts (Marshall Teague cars kept here; Fireball Roberts drove the parts truck)
• Thoroughbred Motorsports, 420 N. Beach St., formerly Cox Motor Co.
• Avanza Marine, 500 Ballough Rd., formerly Marshall Teague’s Pure Oil.
• National Guard Armory, former race inspection headquarters during the beach days.
• Sunset Harbor Beach Club, 861 Ballough Rd., formerly Fish Carburetor Co. & later Ray Fox Engineering.
• SE corner of N. Beach & 2nd St., former site of Smokey’s Best Damn Garage in Town.
• Plaza Resort & Spa, 600 N. Atlantic Ave., underneath drive-thru was beach entryway for land speed record cars.
• Princess Issena Hotel, 441 Seabreeze Blvd., former home of NASCAR awards banquets.
• N Turn of original course, 3047 S. Atlantic Ave.
• Dunlawton Ave. beach approach marks southern boundary of Measured Mile course.
• Demotte Ave., marked South Turn of original beach-road course.
• N Turn of second course under condo at 4525 S. Atlantic Ave.