Daytona Beach, Florida - Discount Hotels, Vacations, Resorts, Vacation Packages and Travel Guid Since the turn of the century, Daytona Beach has had a fascination for speed. In 1902, industrialist upstart Ransom Olds, father of the Oldsmobile, is alleged to have challenged his friend Alexander Winton to a car race on the wide, hard-packed sand of Ormond Beach just north of Daytona Beach Shores. It ended in a tie, but the race captured the public's imagination, and the news spread quickly that Daytona was the place to be if you were into fast cars. Other rich, young men came to Daytona to enjoy the good life and to chase the land speed record, which seemed to rise with every passing week. Those early, informal challenges along the shore marked the birth of stock car racing, now a hugely popular sport and a multi-billion dollar industry. The monument to that industry is the Daytona International Speedway, a leviathan of a stadium that dominates the landscape out by the airport near I-95. Here, thousands of spectators come not only to watch several annual events such as the Daytona 500 and the...more
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