This dead tired olelongrooffan, unlike fellow Hoon Bradley Brownell, was able to stay and see the end of the Rolex24 Hours at the Daytona International Speedway. Unfortunately, the timing of Brad’s flight back to the home of the Rock & Roll Museum was such that he had to be at the airport a half hour before the race ended. He was gracious enough to allow me to drop his “bushwacked” butt off a little early so I could get back to the track to see the final laps. As I am leaving the actual race analysis to his extremely knowledgeable talents, prior to assuming the position of the horizontal dude seen above, this olelongrooffan thought I might pop up a few images of the garage and horseshoe turns I gathered among the over 1,200 images I captured this weekend.

As I mentioned earlier, our campsite is immediately adjacent to the west horseshoe and the images above and below show our vantage point for viewing the races.

My race buddies have been renting these spots for the past 12 years and, as with all of the trackside camping spots, they have the right of first refusal each year. I am certain I’ll be back in 2013, God willing and the creek don’t rise.

Yeah, we even were able to see this Series 1 M BMW crap out just prior to entering the west horseshoe.

After the Continental race on Friday, and no, this olelongrooffan won’t reveal the winner either, a bunch of us headed up to see the sites. I thought this bumper sticker was pretty funny.

But just around the corner at the BMW booth was this beauty that I remember racing back in the day.

It is in gorgeous condition and, although I have seen it previously,

it still merited another look around.

And it contains some pretty rudimentary electronics and there is not a computer in sight.

It was campaigned by David Hobbs who is now a commentator on SPEEDTV but in a prior life, he was a very well respected race car driver and one of my favorites.

Fast forward to last nite in the Rolex race and we saw the only Corvette on the track all weekend call it a nite.

At 11:00 straight up, the sky lit up with a fireworks show. I bet those drivers were a bit surprised when they saw it. I know we were.

Earlier today, I went around the corner of the west horseshoe and caught a few images from “the other side of the tracks.”

Just after this Brad returned to base camp after having been AWOL most of the race and grabbed some shuteye, this olelongrooffan headed back to the garage. While there, I spotted Michael Waltrip’s Ferrari up on the stands while the crew was replacing the clutch.

It begs the question, “How many Italians does it take to change a clutch in a Ferrari?” The answer, my fellow Hoons, is 8, plus management personnel.

The only Viper on the track this weekend was parked in its garage and there were several sharpies laying on it.

A kid was autographing it so this olelongrooffan did the only Hoonish thing I could think of.

I grabbed a sharpie and autographed it my own damn self.

Just down the garage a piece I spotted this filthy Camaro and captured this image of it

as well as some of the decals on its flank.

I saw the only Corvette in its garage apparently never having gotten back on the track after its ride on a hook last night. Incidentally, while in Denver last summer, I bought all the windows for the house I was remodeling from Window World.

Next to the Spirit of Daytona transporter was this Corvette Prototype. I asked one of the dudes what was the story and he laughed and said “Parts Car.”

Unfortunately, the Suntrust/Wayne Taylor Corvette Prototype suffered a catastrophic engine failure less than one hour into the Rolex24. Their stuff was packed up tight in their transporter just waiting for the race to end so they could get the hell out of Dodge.

I checked out one of those ubiquitous, this weekend anyway, clocks and realized this olelongrooffan needed to get back to camp to shuttle Brad off to his flight.

But not before I had a “smoke and a coke” watching Dr. MrDreamy and thinking of fellow Hoon, $kaycog.

On the trek back, I gathered a few images at the International horseshoe.

Upon returning, I noticed my fellow race buddies had broken camp and were waiting for time to run out so we could all wave our caps like drunken Hoons during the parade lap.

On the parade lap, the SCCA corner workers were waving their flags as furiously as we were waving out caps.

Well, we Rolex24 attendees realized the party was over so we parted ways and this olelongrooffan headed back to my Taj Mahal. On the trip across the Main Street drawbridge, I was stopped by this sailboat passing on through. I thought about how different those boat riders weekend had been compared to mine. I’ll bet I had more fun.

And after unpacking the cooler and picnic basket and doing a few loads of laundry, I got to checking out the passes I was using this weekend. The one above as well as the one below

will allow this olelongrooffan nearly unrestricted access to all things Hoon out at the Daytona International Speedway through the end of the Daytona 500!

I guess I won’t be returning my borrowed Comanche mounted camper anytime soon.