Daytona International Speedway

Before there was a speedway there was a beach. Cars raced on the hard sand at Ormond and Daytona for decades, and in 1935 Malcolm Campbell averaged 276.82 miles an hour there. After that, record runs moved to the salt flats of Utah.

Stock cars stayed. NASCAR took shape in 1948 after talks that began at Daytona Beach's Streamline Hotel, and it sanctioned beach races until 1958. Bill France Sr. proposed a permanent track in 1953 because the crowds were outgrowing the sand.

Daytona International Speedway opened in 1959. The first Daytona 500, on February 22, ended in a photo finish that took three days to call; Lee Petty was named the winner over Johnny Beauchamp. The tri-oval is 2.5 miles around, banked 31 degrees in the turns, and the soil dug out for that banking left a hole in the infield that filled with groundwater and became Lake Lloyd. A 3.56-mile road course winds through the infield for sports cars.

The plan view makes it plain: a dark gray tri-oval ringed by pale buildings and lots, a green infield with the blue lake at its center, the road course traced as a thin black line through the grass, and the checkered finish line marked across the front straight. The title sits above in small spaced capitals, on cream.