The Naked Virus: A Daytona Superspreader

Posted on by Thor

Bike Week in Daytona Florida continues through March 14, 2021. This is the 80th Daytona Bike Week.Last year the rally happened right at the beginning of the pandemic and it helped spread the virus.

300,000 bikers are expected to show up in Daytona the midst of the pandemic. It will of course spread the virus all across the country. The new COVID variant, B117 is far more contagious and deadly than the first strain of the virus and Florida is ground zero. There have been 31,000 deaths from COVID-19 in Florida so far, the third highest death toll in the country. Florida continues to do every stupid thing it can to be number one.

Officials in Daytona allowed bars to open at 60 percent indoor capacity for the annual Bike Week. Just like the Sturgis Bike Rally in North Dakota during the pandemic, making money took a priority over public health.

Infectious Disease doctor Mohammed Reza of Daytona is worried about the possible outcomes. “My concern is this will become a superspreader event,” Reza said. “Especially if we have this more contagious variant of the virus already in Florida. No matter how much we do, anytime people congregate and come together, this virus will spread.”

Bobby chin strap, The Naked Virus, has been pan handling at Bike Week for 21 years. His wife, The Naked Cow Girl also works the event. This year Daytona instituted a policy that prohibits pan handling within 10 feet of businesses. The Naked Cowboy was arrested for pan handling.

At first I was sympathetic to the plight of the guitarist who only wore Fruit of the Loom underwear. Perhaps he was truly an artist. But then he started throwing the  N-Word around. “So the blacks can walk around and take tips all day long.” he said. He also gave the female officer a hard time for wearing a mask saying she must be a fan of Biden. She was wearing a neck garter which is the least effective form of a mask, the other officer had no mask. Bobby chin-strap,  The Naked Virus, WAS wearing a mask when he appeared in court. Pan handling charges were dropped and he pleaded no contest to resisting arrest. Chin strap paid $223 in court costs.

With the vaccines rolling out there is light at the end of the tunnel. Stop being stupid.

Sterio Type performed at the Fringe Outdoor Stage.

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Stereo Type which hails from Daytona Beach, Florida performed at the Fringe Outdoor Stage. Band members include, Vincent Victor Oath on Guitar and Lead Vocals, Brian Topp on Drums.
Their genre is Punk and Hard Rock. We came across the band performing during the Fringe Sketch Tour. Music sets on the outdoor stage are seldom over an hour long and usually much less, so I rushed to get something on the page. My Sketch Tour protege was a bit tired, having already done about 5 drawings that day. She decided to listen to the music and just watch me work. In a sense this sketch became a demonstration on how to work fast and furious. Hopefully it helped.

The music was also fast and furious as band members banged their heads to the beat. When sketching live performances, the beat and rhythm often work their way into every line and wash on the sketch. After the initial frustrations subside, I often reach a point where I’m no longer drawing things, but a feeling or flow through the scene. It is magic when it happens but I’m to harsh a critic to decide if it worked. I put the sketch aside and start hunting for my next scene to capture.

Sunstroke Melt Race at the Daytona International Speedway

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Wendy Wallenberg invited me to the Sunstroke Melt Race at the Daytona International Speedway. She is friends with one of the drivers,  Jim Kneeland, so she had full access to the inner field of the raceway as well as access to the pit area and garages. This was a sketch opportunity that I couldn’t pass up. This sketch is at the starting line to the race. Two rows of cars lined up facing one another and at the start they rolled onto the race track in order of their standings. So I was sketching in an area where I might get run over if a driver jumped the line. It was nerve wracking and I had to work fast.

Jim’s car, a Mazda Miata,  was number 37 and he had body damage from an accident from the day before.  It had been raining all day and many cars spun out on one particular curve that day. This was Jim’s first race and he had a lot invested in being sure he stayed on the field. He wasn’t expecting to win, he just needed to place. Jim has worked in the pit crew for other drivers and this was his chance to get on the track himself.

The official on the starting line stood near me and she made sure to give me time to get behind the line before the start. She had never seen an artist sketch the race, so she was glad to help keep me out of harm’s way. Race cars don’t have air conditioning so drivers get incredibly hot as they wait. Their driving outfits actually have coils with cool water that keep them from over heating. Some assistants also had fans to blow cool air into the cars.

There was no dramatic squealing of tires at the start. All of the cars rumbled to life and filed onto the track at a relaxing 25 miles per hour. They then followed a pace car to get up to speed. Wendy drove the golf cart to the curve where the cars were spinning out the day before. From those infield stands it was possible to see Jim’s Mazda as he made his way around the track. The front runners went so fast that they caught up to and passed the cars at the back of the pack. Then it became confusing to figure out who was in front of who.

Watching the Daytona International Speedway Pit Crews from the Turn 1 Infield Bleachers

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On May 4th, I had time for one more sketch when a second race began at the Daytona International Speedway. The races were not very long, so there wasn’t much action to sketch among the pit crews. I decided instead to watch the race from covered bleachers that overlooked the pit crews. I needed to get in some shade before I became a red neck. The cars racing on the track were a blur of motion and intense sound. Here we saw the cars as they came off the first turn and headed down the straight away. There weren’t many people in the bleachers, only a few family and friends of the drivers. The large bleachers on the outer rim of the track were empty. The Speedway is undergoing major renovations which made it hard for me to find the entrance to the infield when I first arrived.

Driver Jim Kneeland didn’t win the race but since it was his first race, he was happy to finish. He went to the officials office and recovered his license. In a few weeks, he would be on the track again.  Daytona left his car with some body damage that would need repair on the front driver’s side bumper. Some drivers had huge air Conditioned trailers with state of the art amenities, while others scape by with only the bare essentials. Having all those bells and whistles doesn’t guarantee a win. Watch for number 37 to start moving up the ranks.

Before the Race

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Between races, the cars returned to the garage on the Daytona International Speedway infield for repairs and maintenance. You get to the infield by driving under the track through a tunnel. Here all the trailers that transport the race cars are parked. Wendy Wallenberg leaned against Jim Kneeland‘s number 37 Mazda Miada. Before the race, the drivers have to give their driving license to race officials. Only after the race can the drivers get their license back. This is to keep drivers from being overly agressive or breaking rules of conduct.

Tires literally melt as the cars scream down the Daytona Speedway track.  They often jet stream behind another car. The cars don’t only tailgate, they touch bumpers. The back car pushes the front car and both cars go faster. lt is very easy to cause a spin out but no accidents happened while I watched the race. This was my first time watching a race from up close, and it was a unique thrill. I believe the red car, number 25 was the car that won the next race.

Museum of Arts & Sciences

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Chere Force and her husband Rory sent out an invitation to local artists to join them on a trip to the Museum of Arts & Sciences in Daytona Beach. About six artists answered the call and we all decided to meet in Altimonte Springs and car pool from there. The morning we left it was incredibly cold for Central Florida, down in the 30’s. The main reason for the trip was to see Reflections II: Watercolors of Florida 1835-2000, from the Collection of Cici and Hyatt Brown which is on exhibit through March 25th of 2012. I was particularly excited to see work from Andrew Wyeth. I piled into the back of the Force family van and was soon joined by Dotti Stickly. Dotti and Chere are both members of the Central Florida Watercolor Society and they have exhibited work in the same shews. The rest of the artist drove to Daytona in another SUV.

At the museum, we all split up and explored the museum on our own until it was time for lunch. I spent the morning examining all the watercolors up close. The Wyeth was a bold image in black and white washes of a pirate on a beach. Andrew was just 13 years old when he did it and his father’s influence was strong. Humbling and inspiring work. I was disappointed that only one of his watercolors was on exhibit.The large room with warm yellow walls had perhaps a hundred pieces on exhibit. I was excited to find a painting by Thomas Moran, a Hudson River School artist whose work I admire. The painting was called Solitude, Fort George Island. All the paintings were done in Florida. One of the highest prices paintings was a study of Spanish Moss in Tampa Bay by Winslow Homer done in 1886.

After examining all the watercolors I walked out of the gallery and was immediately confronted by this Volusia County Giant Sloth skeleton. Time to sketch. This 13 foot tall skeleton is the best preserved and most complete fossil of this species in North America. It has been in the Museum of Arts & Sciences for the past 30 years. Chere remembered seeing the Sloth as a child. Children who saw the Sloth for the first time would stop in their tracks shouting out “Whoa!” They would scamper around the base trying to see the beast from every angle while mothers waited patiently. Before lunch, we took a group photo in front of the Sloth.

For lunch, our group went to a Tai Restaurant where I had a fabulous Pad Thai. I was suffering from post holiday starvation and perhaps I had been staring at bones for too long. I was famished. When we returned to the museum we were given a tour of the watercolor exhibit by a docent named Tom Davis. The exhibit showcased work from artists over a 168 year span. 23 women artists were represented and three living artists. Tom was a painter himself and much of the time he outlined the differences between oil painting and watercolor. The obvious difference being that watercolors are painted from light to dark while oils are painted dark to light. I’m not sure he understood he was talking to a room full of artists. I sat in a leather chair in the center of the gallery and spun around following his progress. I had already seen the work up close. He did say something that I have since been experimenting with. He pointed out in one landscape that there were essentially only two colors, red and green. To get darker greens, red washes were applied over the green. I’ve started applying this principle of applying complimentary color washes over areas to build up darks and it is a quick effective way to build a sketch. There was some amazing work in the exhibit and some work that didn’t have strong enough value changes to have a solid punch. Watercolorists have to be fearless because changes can’t be made after a wash is applied. I use the medium because I can fit the palette in a pocket and sketch anywhere.

A mother walking with her children dismissed the exhibit saying, “Oh, those are only watercolors.”