Daytona's banking is so big it makes racing cars look like slot cars

The fact that a Lola T70 MkIIIB can be made to look like a toy says almost all you need to know about the two major banked sections of the Daytona International Speedway. These giant edifices of speed have to be seen to be believed. In a way that always seems to happen with race tracks, a simple photo cannot do them justice. It's like seeing Eau Rouge/Radillion for the first time having only seen pictures before – the scale suddenly becomes very real.

The best we can do is show you the effect these giant mounds of earth have on a racing car. To show you just how small they look as they traverse the 31-degree slopes, designed specifically to allow 700bhp NASCARS to hurl themselves to ever increasing speeds as they race for 500 miles.

Not only are they breathtaking in terms of sheer size, but they give you a perspective on racing cars that you really don't see anywhere other than a traditional high-banked US oval (or maybe a helicopter). You see the cars roof-on as they turn around you, gaining momentum as you crane your neck to watch eatch one go past.

It makes you wonder just what it feels like to be inside one of these missiles winding their way around Daytona and feels very American – building huge banking into a track so that corners don't have to affect straight-line speed too much. Yee haw.

Photography by Ben Miles.