This is the Daytona 500 from the Sky: A multi-part series from For The Win looking at NASCAR’s biggest race of the year from an aerial perspective.
DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — If the Goodyear Blimp is circling around a venue, it must be a big-time sporting event in NASCAR, college football, the NBA, the NFL or even American Ninja Warrior.
Few things are as synonymous with major events, like Sunday’s Daytona 500 to kick off the NASCAR Cup Series season, as the blimp. It was present at the first Daytona 500 in 1959 and has been a regular attendee ever since.
But funny thing: It’s not actually a blimp anymore. Although it will forever be known as the Goodyear Blimp, the tire and rubber company, which is a longtime official partner of NASCAR, switched aircraft models in 2014. And it’s now semi-rigid airship, a classification that means it’s technically not a blimp because of its internal frame.
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Still, it’s one of the most iconic elements of American sports, and it was even inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 2019.
“If you think about what they’ve done for the sport and the coverage they’ve provided, I think it goes all the way back to the 1955 Rose Bowl and 2,000 college football games,” ESPN college football analyst Kirk Herbstreit told For The Win in 2019.
“Even as a kid, recognizing the Goodyear Blimp when you’d go up to big games, and then when I would play in big games at Ohio State, if the Goodyear Blimp was there, you knew it was a big time game against a big time opponent.”
For The Win took a ride in the Goodyear Blimp in the week leading up to NASCAR’s first and biggest race of the season. It was a lovely ride as we took off from a small airport about 15 miles away from Daytona International Speedway and traveled to and circled the race track (which is also next-door to Daytona Beach International Airport).
But the most stunning takeaway from the flight was the blimp’s incomprehensible size. When TV broadcasts cut to the blimp, usually in the air, it’s size is not adequately conveyed. This thing is absolutely gigantic.
“I think it surprises [people] how complex it is and the teamwork that’s involved,” said Michael Dougherty, who’s been a Goodyear Blimp pilot for 13 years, while flying it. “We come up here and there’s one or two pilots, they assume there’s a camera operator, which there is. We have our own camera operators at Goodyear. But there’s also a crew of 40 folks on the ground.
“They assume it’s a hot-air balloon ride with engines. It’s really not. It’s more like flying a boat. It’s a pretty modern aircraft, especially for an airship and then the ride and visibility is so unique.”
It’s about 65 feet wide and almost 250 feet long, meaning it would take up about 82 yards on a football field. It has three engines, each with about as much horsepower as a Chevrolet Camaro ZL1.
But it floats through the air with the wind gently rocking it like a boat on the ocean.
Essentially, the Goodyear Blimp is attached to a truck when it’s on the ground. When it’s taking off, there is a person outside the blimp who’s controlling a large cable attached to both the truck and the aircraft. He has to release the blimp for it to take off.
As Goodyear explains, the side stick controls are fairly simple:
“Located next to both left and right seats, these electrical controls are used to steer the Blimp left and right, up and down, using the main three tail fin control surfaces.”
“Football’s kind of fun because you can usually see what’s going on and follow the game,” Dougherty said about his favorite sporting events to fly over. “You can see a little bit of what’s going on on the field. We can also see on our screen here what the camera operator sees [out the front].”
Unlike airplanes, the Goodyear Blimp features multiple windows, which, when opened, create a delightful cross-breeze throughout the gondola. On a sunny day, it was a little toasty inside the cabin, but with the windows open, it was perfect.
When flying to a destination, the Goodyear Blimp travels at about 45 to 55 miles per hour, pilot Ryan Clarke said. But when it’s circling around Daytona International Speedway for the Daytona 500, it’s slowly cruising around at around 35 miles per hour between 1,000 and 1,500 feet off the ground.
It burns about 45 kilograms of fuel an hour, and including travel from New Smyrna Beach Municipal Airport to the track, flying around the track and returning to the airport, it will use about 500 kilograms of fuel, Dougherty explained.
However, a lot of the fuel usage depends on the weather. If it’s not particularly windy and they don’t need to use the engines too much, the blimp can just hover and conserve fuel.
It’s challenging to appreciate how large Daytona International Speedway is until you see it in person. The infield of the 2.5-mile track is so massive that there’s a lake in it: Lake Lloyd, a 29-acre man-made lake that has existed since the track opened in 1959.
While it was a gorgeous day for our flight, weather can be an issue for the Goodyear Blimp when it comes to the safety of those on board while providing aerial coverage.
If the blimp is already in the air, rain isn’t too much of an issue because the drops will roll right off it. However, it’s a totally different story if the blimp is still on the ground and trying to take off in inclement weather.
Because the blimp is so big, if it’s on the ground, the rain can add hundreds of pounds to the overall weight and prevent it from flying, according to Goodyear.
Pilot Clarke described the Goodyear Blimp as a “big boat in the air, and it moves like one too.” More comparable to a boat than a commercial airline, the blimp ebbs and flows with the wind, like it’s riding waves in the air.
To provide that famous aerial coverage during major sporting events, the Goodyear Blimp has a camera attached to the front of the gondola. There is a feed for the camera operator, who works for Goodyear, inside the blimp — often the only passenger, along with two pilots — as well as the crew on the ground.
According to Goodyear, the tire company isn’t compensated for providing aerial coverage by the broadcasting channel, which is FOX for Sunday’s Daytona 500. But in turn, Goodyear doesn’t pay for the on-air plugs, which usually go something like: “Aerial coverage of the Daytona 500 provided by Goodyear” and is often accompanied by some type of on-screen graphic.
The blimp has become so synonymous with the biggest sporting events of the year that providing aerial coverage clearly has been a sound investment.
With an incomparable view of Daytona International Speedway, the Goodyear Blimp truly offers the best view of the Daytona 500 with the whole track in sight from above.
Too bad it’s only available to the two pilots and camera operator on board.
More from our Daytona 500 from the Sky series: 8 things we learned from flying with the Thunderbirds, who perform the Daytona 500 flyover
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