In Daytona, a motorsports hall that has it all, from land to sea to air

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5 days ago

DAYTONA BEACH — There's an Earhart (Amelia) and an Earnhardt (Dale).
A Roberts (Fireball) who raced on four wheels and another (Kenny) who preferred two.
A Ford (Henry) and two Chevrolets (Louis and Gaston), a France (Big Bill) and another France (Bill Jr.).
A Humpy (Wheeler) and a Smokey (Yunick).
The Motorsports Hall of Fame of America might not be the most famous hall devoted to the competitive motorized world, but it's certainly the most diverse — it honors men and women who competed or participated in various ways on asphalt and dirt, in water and air, in uniform or business attire.
It's located, conveniently, at the World Center of Racing, just outside Turn 4 at Daytona International Speedway.
But it's not just a hall of fame. It's also a museum, a showcase of machinery and artifacts highlighting competitive achievements and sheer ingenuity — from a mammoth hydroplane to a simple sewing machine.
From the reigning Daytona 500 winning car to Sir Malcolm Campbell's block-long Bluebird that once lifted Daytona Beach's legend as the early-20th Century's Birthplace of Speed.
A museum visit is included as part of the Speedway's daily tram tours across the entire property. Each tour ends with visitors dropped off at the museum's northeast corner, practically on the quarter-panel of the winning car from the most recent Daytona 500. That car sits there for a year, complete with any dirt, oil and confetti it gathered from its day of glory.
The car — currently it's William Byron's No. 24 Chevy — sits in the shadow of a mammoth hydroplane racing boat that hangs from the ceiling just steps away.
'That's the neat thing about us here. When they get off the tram that takes them around the Speedway, they come in here and they think all they're gonna see is NASCAR,' says Don Cooper, the museum's operations manager. 'Then the first thing they see is that hydroplane.
"Then they see drag cars and boats and airplanes and motorcycles … and most people who come here, the cool thing is, they've never been this close to a real race car.'
The Motorsports Hall has now been here for a decade
The Motorsports Hall opened in the mid-'80s in the Detroit suburb of Novi. It moved to Daytona Beach and the Speedway's ticket-and-tours building 10 years ago, replacing an interactive racing attraction first known as Daytona USA and then the Daytona 500 Experience.
Some of the racing artifacts remain from the Daytona USA days, including an eye-catching replica of the Speedway's famed 31-degree banking, filled with a variety of racing vehicles.
Plaques honoring the long list of hall inductees are spread across the walls. While there are other halls of fame honoring various racing disciplines — including the NASCAR Hall of Fame in Charlotte — the Motorsports Hall of Fame of America honors giants in all forms of automation.
The first class of inductees, in 1989, featured some obvious racers — including Richard Petty, A.J. Foyt and Phil Hill — but also war hero and aviation pioneer Jimmy Doolittle, as well as the man who injected competition into coast-to-coast car and motorcycle adventures, Cannon Ball Baker.
This year's class of nine included three men who built much of their fame in Daytona Beach, on sand and asphalt, in straight lines and with turns: William K. Vanderbilt, who was among the early beach visitors chasing the land-speed record, which he first achieved in 1904 (92 mph!); motorcycle champ Miguel Duhamel, who won five Daytona 200s; and former NASCAR champ Dale Jarrett, whose career included three Daytona 500 victories.
The 2026 class, announced last month and to be inducted next March, is headlined by Dale Earnhardt Jr., and also includes sprint-car champ Sammy Swindell and powerboat legend Dave Villwock.
Daytona Museum offers a wide range of displays and racing machinery
For the race fan, hardcore or casual, the museum is the attraction. Many of the exhibits are on loan — drag-racing god Don 'Big Daddy' Garlits, part of the inaugural hall class in '89, has donated several cars from his own museum's collection in Ocala.
The displays often rotate in and out. A current one pays tribute to hall inductees who also served in the armed forces. Another honors the late Don Panoz, a pharmaceutical giant who along the way became a major player in sports-car racing. A small replica of Big Bill France's old Main Street filling station is an original display that remains, as is the Bluebird and a relative newcomer, one of Tony Stewart's sprint cars.
Also on the floor are a pair of Paul Newman's old race cars — reportedly the only two not owned by podcaster Adam Carolla. Newman, who won road-racing championships in his spare time, was a 2024 inductee.
A Josef Newgarden Indy car, looking very much like it could double as a rocket ship, is part of the main floor display, and serves to remind you that those cars look so much bigger in person than they do on TV.
And speaking of fighter jet-inspired automation, one of Panoz's old DeltaWing racers ('an odd duck,' Cooper says), which entered three Rolex 24s, sits in a rear showroom that will soon transform.
'We're gonna make a new open-wheel exhibit in here,' says Cooper, who then points to several old wooden doors leaning against a wall.
'Those are sets of original Indianapolis garage doors from Gasoline Alley in the '40s and '50s. We'll make a mini-garage in here,' he says.
Want some Daytona 500 on-track action? There's now a simulator for that
The museum recently installed a modern racing simulator, which allows 'racers' to get a real feel for taking laps around Daytona — at speed and in traffic. For the non-gamer, it'll probably take some time to literally get up to speed.
'It's a professional-grade machine,' Cooper says.
The next major change will transform a relic from the old Daytona USA days. A back room is still filled with 'gondolas,' which seated visitors in front of a large movie screen and gave them a feel for racing around Daytona, complete with bounces and side-to-side movement. They'll soon be gone.
'That room, we're gonna take that and make it a research area,' Cooper says. 'It'll be filled with historic materials, pictures, everything. It will be open to the public for anybody doing research.'
Only by appointment, however.
The Speedway says the museum sees between 100,000 and 110,000 visitors a year.
Daily tram tours, which last about an hour, begin at 9:30 a.m., with the last departing at 3 p.m. Prices are $24.42 for juniors (ages 5 to 12) and $29.97 for others, with free admission for kids 4 and under.
It's rare, but some visit the museum without taking the Speedway tour. Those tickets are $8.88 for ages 5 to 12, $14.43 for others, free for 4 and under. Allow an hour or more for a proper tour of the museum, which closes at 5 p.m.
This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: In Daytona Beach, a motorsports hall of fame covers earth, water, air