After Michael Waltrip won his second Daytona 500 in February, his #15 NAPA Chevy was rolled into Daytona USA for public display — or easy pickings? There are whispers out there that several Winston Cup teams, bound and determined find the strength of DEI’s restrictor-plate fleet, sent people to photograph and measure Waltrip’s sitting duck car. “It’s a great story to say people are going to Daytona to look at our car,” Waltrip said Wednesday while doing a media tour in California. Daytona officials said no one carrying a tape measure has entered Daytona USA after paying the $16 adult admission price. Nobody has taken measurements of the car and nobody better try it in the future. “There’s no way they can get close to the car,” Speedway spokesman David Talley said. “We don’t allow anybody to get close to the car or touch it. They can come take pictures if they want, but they can’t take out a tape measure and get up to the car, touch it or measure it.” Daytona USA has at least one employee near the car at all times and security makes regular sweeps through the building. Talley said if somebody was caught messing with Waltrip’s car, they’d get the bum’s rush. “We’d call security and escort them out of the building,” Talley said. NASCAR heard the same story about spies doing detailed measurements of Waltrip’s car and immediately called the Speedway about it.( Daytona Beach News Journal )(4-24-2003)
