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It has been an odd day in racing history, highlighted by Daytona bring the venue for two significant 200mph speed records being broken 56 years apart.
First way back in 1928, Malcolm Campbell and his 450 hp 22-litre Bluebird smashed the 200mph barrier en route to to a new 206.9 mph World Land Speed Record on Daytona Beach, before Cale Yarborough took his fourth Daytona 500 on the same day in 1984 after he passed Darrell Waltrip on the final lap and outran Dale Earnhardt off the final turn to claim victory and break the 200 mph barrier on a closed circuit.
Sticking with Daytona, Joe Weatherly won the inaugural 10 lap 'American Challenge Cup' race in 1961 and in the 500, Bobby Allison raced his Bud Moore Ford to the 1978 victory, Darrell Waltrip finally won his first Daytona 500 after 17 attempts driving car 17 in 1988,
Ernie Irvan passed Dale Earnhardt to win with six to go in ’91; Sterling Marlin held Earnhardt off to his second straight win in’ 95 and Jimmie Johnson won it in 2006. In other NASCAR action Darrell Waltrip won the 1983 Goody's 300, which Dale Earnhardt also won in 1994, while Jamie Whincup took the Yas Marina Aussie V8 Supercar win this day 2010.
In other 19 February race history Neel Jani drove an F1 car in Bahrain for the first time in a Sauber demo on the streets of Manamain in a 2004 stunt aimed at drumming-up support for a Grand Prix there. Two years later, Bernie Ecclestone slammed the FIA and F1 teams' decision to drop 3-litre V10 engines for 2.4 litre V8s in an effort to limit the speed of the cars and Jacques Villeneuve used his talents outside the cockpit to release his debut album, Private Paradise in 2006. He wrote six of the 13 songs himself, one about his dad Gilles.
In other history, Ferrari homologated the 250LM into FIA GT racing in 1966, while notable racers, occasional F1 runner Stephen South was born in 1952, the versatile John Paul Jr. in 1960, Le Mans winner Andy Wallace in ’61, NASCAR winner Trevor Bayne in 1991 and GT racer Yelmer Buurman in ’85.
