Lake Speed, who won a world karting championship in his youth, competed in 402 Cup Series races, scoring one victory at rugged Darlington Raceway in 1988. This past weekend, he was back on a go-kart flying over the high banks of Daytona International Speedway, the site of his famous runner-up finish to Bill Elliott in the1985 Daytona 500.
Speed, who celebrates his 60th birthday Jan. 17, is now a business real estate developer who plays every so often on a stock class go-kart. Speed dabbled with historic stock car racing for a few years, but said the costs of fielding a competitive car got too high for his budget.
“So I sat around a few years and this NASCAR official I know said, ‘Hey, come out and do karts with me at the kart track in Charlotte,’ ” Speed said. “Then the bug hit me again real bad. I had forgot how much fun these things are to drive.” Speed was one of hundreds of competitors who have made camp at the Speedway for Daytona KartWeek by Cometic Gasket.
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so are these the same 3 foot long racer karts like they have on the local raceways that only go like 100-120 MPH? That must be a seriously long lap time, even moreso if they run the infield road course.
Of all the drivers in NASCAR, this was the guy Michael Waltrip attacked. The tallest went after the shortest. Sucker punched him while he was belted in his car. Mikey reached in and just started swinging. It was all caught on camera. Lake and Mikey had a run in or two that day. Nowadays, if someone attacked Mikey like he did Lake, they’d suspend him for half a season and at least give him a $100,000 fine. Robby, Tony and Junior haven’t done stuff that bad and look at the fines and probation they’ve had.