Some motor racing venues go through the streets. Others are completely secluded from the populated areas. There are those that have their own golf course. Today, however, we focus our attention on the race course that has a lake. As it turns out there is more to the Daytona track than Daytona 500 Betting. That’s right – there is a racing location with a large body of water, and we are going to discuss its history as well as some trivia behind it. So, if you’ll pardon the expression, let’s dive in.

Lake Lloyd

Lake Lloyd has been an integral part of Daytona’s history. The lake, spanning over 29 acres, hosted powerboat races, but that’s not the key thing about it. It is actually a manmade lake that came to be at about the same time as the track itself. You see, when the track was constructed, the engineer behind the project, Charles Moneypenny, and the founder of NASCAR, William France Sr., came together to discuss how the course should be constructed.

France wanted the course to have high banking, as this was essential to the viewing pleasure of the crowd. In order to build the said banking, the building crew had to do some serious excavation work. In fact, they excavated about a million square yards of the soil from the infield of the track. The area was blessed or cursed with a high water table and, as a result, the hole from which the ground was excavated started filling with water. This is how the lake came to be and it is named after Joseph Lloyd.

Trivia

Here is where our swimming enthusiasts can relax and take a relaxing backstroke across the manmade body of water. If you are looking for other leisure activities, there is fishing (the lake houses some 60,000 fish), water-skiing, and the aforementioned powerboat racing, though the last one was discontinued after an unfortunate incident, resulting in the death of one of the contestants.

If you are a NASCAR driver, it is possible, but not very fortunate, to take an unplanned swim in the lake. As strange as it may seem, several NASCAR drivers did fall into the lake including Bay Darnell in 1964 and Dave Stacy in 1994. Nowadays, you can fall into the lake with your car only if you are set on doing so, as the safety precautions have been improved significantly.

Competitions

Athletes are welcome to try to take on the famous Challenge Daytona, the occasion which hosts nearly a dozen racing events. Among these are the walks and runs, but what we are really interested in is the Triathlon, the Aquathlon, and the Aquabike races. For example, the Aquabike race is, supposedly, a 1.2 mile swim in the lake, though this event, like all the others, is subject to change, so it might be a good idea to keep yourself posted by checking out the official Challenge Daytona website. Good luck!