Daytona International Speedway may not be the longest track on the NASCAR Cup Series schedule, but it is still one of the most massive venues in racing – and in all of sports, for that matter.
The track itself is a four-turn, 2.5-mile (4.023-kilometer) high-banked oval, located in Daytona Beach, Florida. But even the thought of a 2.5-mile track doesn't properly illustrate just how huge the "World Center of Racing" is to the average fan.
If you take 15 of Florida's largest traditional sporting (non-racing) venues and place them in the Daytona infield, they would all fit.
That list includes six college football stadiums, three NFL stadiums, two MLB stadiums, two NBA arenas, and two NHL arenas.
The NCAA football stadiums consist of Ben Hill Griffin Stadium (Florida Gators), Camping World Stadium (Citrus Bowl), FBC Mortgage Stadium (UCF Knights), Bragg Memorial Stadium (Florida A&M Rattlers), Doak Campbell Stadium (Florida State Seminoles), and Pitbull Stadium (FIU Panthers).
The NFL stadiums consist of Raymond James Stadium (Tampa Bay Buccaneers), Hard Rock Stadium (Miami Dolphins), and EverBank Stadium (Jacksonville Jaguars), while the MLB stadiums consist of Tropicana Field (Tampa Bay Rays) and LoanDepot Park (Miami Marlins).
The NBA arenas consist of the Kia Center (Orlando Magic) and the Kaseya Center (Miami Heat), while the NHL arenas consist of Amalie Arena (Tampa Bay Lightning) and Amerant Bank Arena (Florida Panthers).
That's a lot of venues.
Of course, Daytona doesn't house as many fans as all of those venues put together. But that's because, in the grand scheme of things, the 150,000+ fans the track welcomes on Daytona 500 race day are all fairly centralized.
You aren't squishing them into the infield like sardines, otherwise you probably would eclipse the tally from those other 15 stadiums (relatively easily, at that).
And do you remember the rumors about the Jacksonville Jaguars playing their home games on the Daytona International Speedway infield? If traditional NASCAR/Daytona 500 camera shots were used to broadcast those games, it might look like peewee football.
It's even crazier to consider the fact that stock cars take less than 50 seconds to circle the track.
Just think back to 2016, when a college football game between the Tennessee Volunteers and the Virginia Tech Hokies was contested inside Bristol Motor Speedway.
College football fans unfamiliar with NASCAR couldn't stop talking about how massive the venue is. Yet Bristol is only a 0.533-mile (0.858-kilometer) oval, making it one of NASCAR's three shortest tracks.
And laps there only take about 15 seconds.
Following a late schedule change, this year's Daytona 500 is set to be shown live on Fox from Daytona International Speedway beginning at 1:30 p.m. ET this Sunday afternoon. Begin a free trial of FuboTV and don't miss it!