So, recently while this olelongrooffan was out and about at the Rolex24 at Daytona weekend just taking a stroll through the trackside garages and seeing a bunch of cool and not so cool stuff; cool stuff including the first ever diesel racecars to compete at the Daytona International Speedway; not so cool stuff including a couple tore up Turner’s Motorsports racecars and a few cars under going additional post tech inspections. But those Turner Girls are always sweet. Anyway, after rounding the corner at the end of those garages, I spotted this TruSpeed Porsche racecar being loaded in the upper berth of that transporter heading on its way home to its comfortable crib. And, of course, my fellow Hoons that wasn’t all.

Earlier while I was out and about, I spotted this flagstand just over a bunch of touristas signing their name on the black and white checkerboard Start/Finish Line just beneath it. I gathered up a bunch of different images of the Rolex24 logos around the track thinking this olelongrooffan would be all artsy-fartsy and have one of them as the entry to every Rolex24 post I did about that race. Well, I soon learned the error of my ways. And that Start/Finish Line autograph session? 

 Been there done that. With thehorsefarmer no less. Yeah, this olelongrooffan will always remember when his daughter, the Shark, called us as we were captured on national TV by some random camera dude watching Greg Biffle being interviewed. She called thehorsefarmer while we were in the garage area at the NASCAR qualifying session and demanded to know where we were. “Well, Shark, your dad and I are watching the Biff being interviewed in the garages of the Daytona International Speedway,” this olelongrooffan responded to her after thehorsefarmer had handed me his phone with a gruff, “Here take this call.” Well she proclaimed she and TheLittlePrincess had just seen us on the boob tube while they were back in the Ozark Mountain region of the ShowMe State. Yeah, this shit just cannot be made up. Damn great memories for this olelongrooffan…and all my relatives as well. It’s fun being a Hoon ain’t it?

Meanwhile, I captured this image of one of the big-ass fire trucks those boys have out there in the garage area  just keeping watch over their zone. That golf cart sized fire buggy is the first line of response in these tight quarters. I did find out that most of the fire fighters out at my Speedway are actually professional firemen and women from around the Sunshine State and for them to be selected as part of this team is a great honor. And the TRG transporter FTW.

Heading back to the garage area, I spotted these guys down on their belly’s (or is it bellie’s?) doing a quick clutch replacement on this Porsche in preparation for the next big race. Yeah, Magnus Racing is a well known name to this olelongrooffan and they always are strong runners down here at the World Center of Racing.

Even the “suits” get involved in race prep. The two guys above are preparing to install new air vents cooling the cockpit area of that racecar. It seems the rough nature of that infield portion of the track, was well as the curbs on those curves, had broken the two vents seen just to the right of the forwardmost dude and cracked the belly pan as well. While they were working on the old one, I asked if they were going to repair the one they had in front of them? Despite the accidentally captured sour image on the bearded one’s face, they were quite friendly and mentioned they had at least one replacement part for every part on that Porsche racecar, including a new belly pan. I inquired the price of those small air vents and one of these guys mentioned they were no more that twenty bucks each. Yeah, this isn’t a sport for those of us here at poverty level. But this olelongrooffan loves my price of admission this weekend.

This old carpenter will say about that, it is time for those guys to replace that 25′ tape measure. I couldn’t measure a piece of crown molding for either of their homes with that worn out tape.

And it wasn’t just the clutch and belly pan that were undergoing transformation by the Magnus Race Team in this garage bay that day. They were going to town on every single non structural aspect of that racecar. And just to mention, this olelongrooffan has a shop vac just like that one. Just without those air hoses lying nearby.

Just a couple garage bays to the west was the Brumos garage bay. Now I have to say that every freakin’ image of the Brumos garage I gathered with my elcheapoebay acquired image taker that day came out blurry as hell. I guess it had decided that every image this olelongrooffan had gathered enough of them over in the Exhibition Area was enough. But I had to include this one as, just like the Ganassi team, every body component has its own personalized set of luggage. Here a replacement right front fender is being removed from its own damn piece of softside luggage.

And in the next bay down was the only non prototype Corvette in the show. This olelongrooffan will be extremely interested to see what happens in 2014, when ALMS and Grand Am merge, to the non prototype class Corvettes. As I would suspect many of we Hoons are. But having said that, this team, with a variety of sponsors, has been around for years in this class and, for that alone, they are worthy of applause from all of us.

Just a bay or two away was this Audi R8, which have yet to gain much attention from this olelongrooffan, other than their paint color, this season; but stay tuned. Well, they performed very well in the Rolex Series race but are still striving in the Continental Series. But know this my fellow Hoons, it’s not just in the garages this olelongrooffan checks in to.

Sometimes the trash can out front also warrants attention. I mean to say, check out this filter box. There is not a word of English on it and it, at one time, contained, an air filter for this Volkswagen Group derived R-8. And the old air filter?

Although this fuzzy image doesn’t do it justice, I would suspect that many of my fellow Hoons wouldn’t even think of replacing it, at this early age of use, unless we were running a non LeMon’s sanctioned race.

Just waiting for A Trip Around The Grid This 24 Hours of Daytona.

Stay Tuned, Should My Fellow Hoons So Desire.

Image Copyright Hooniverse 2013/longrooffan