Today I spent all day in Daytona practicing to hold a large photo banner in tomorrow’s Daytona 500 pre-race show starring country superstar Keith Urban.

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About 1500 volunteers, including myself, spent about a half the day practicing our cues and transitions at a football stadium a few miles from the track. Then we got bussed to the actual race track and spent all evening practicing again there on the grass infield where the show will be performed tomorrow afternoon (Sunday Feb 15th). The pre-race show will be aired live on FOX TV around 2:30pm Eastern time.

Below is a photo of the “Jeff Gordon Winners” banner that I get to help reveal and hold up in the air:

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Here is my view of the grandstand during the beginning of the pre-race show.  Our Jeff Gordon banner is the second photo banner to the right of the stage, from the audience and camera’s perspective.  So if the cameras pan to the right of the stage, look for me holding up the large Jeff Gordon banner.

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Here’s a photo of the performance stage that I took while we were walking over the finish line on the track after the rehearsal was over.  Keith Urban’s actual band performed tonight for the rehearsal, but a stand-in singer was used instead of Keith  Urban.

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Here is an artists concept of the field during the beginning of the show.  I circled our Jeff Gordon banner in green.

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Here is an artists concept of the field during the end of the show.  Our Jeff Gordon banner is way off to the right side later in the show.

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It was a very long day … from 7:30am to almost 8pm.  And much of it was spent out in the sun with no chance of shade.  But I had fun anyways.  I got to meet some interesting people.  We got to see the end of a race this afternoon since our track rehearsal needed to start as soon as the race was finished.  They fed us well.  Our very long day ended on a high note when we rehearsed the show perfectly and got a big pat on the back from the director and staff.

Oh yeah, I get to see the race tomorrow for free from the infield FanZone for my trouble, and I’ve always wanted to see a NASCAR race, so this was a perfect opportunity.