You never can tell who you are going to run into on a walk through the garages during a bit of down time.  From legendary rockers to legendary racing drivers, there are characters of all kinds to be found in the Daytona paddock, even on the Friday before the race.  Brian Johnson, crazy jump-around lead of Aussie rocker band AC/DC, is likely the most popular driver in the race this year (perhaps even more than Dr. McDreamy, Patrick Dempsey).

For those who can’t tell, on the right is Emil Assentato, and on the left you have 5-time Le Mans and 3-time Daytona winner the legendary Derek Bell.  The Porsche fanatic in me crawled into a corner and cried itself to sleep.

The younger Franchitti, Dario’s brother Marino, talks shop with Trans Am guy and SPEED shill, Tommy Kendall.

Magnus Racing drivers Andy Lally, John Potter, Richard Lietz, and Rene Rast practice driver changes in their Porsche GT3.  I was completely  mesmerized as they kept at it for over half an hour.  At an average of 22 seconds from door open to door close, they ran through a lot of changes.

Action Express has their Corvette engine out less than 24 hours before it has to last 24 hours (and they weren’t the only ones).

I also ran across Alan McNish, Christian Fittipaldi, Travis Pastrana, and Hurley Haywood.