By Eddie Pipkin
I was at a race event at Daytona International Speedway last
weekend, and I happened to have a pass that allowed me infield access. Looking up from ground level from some distance away to the enormous grandstands that front the iconic 2.5-mile track, I was astonished to see how many people were in attendance. Until I realized they really weren’t, at least not in the grandstands. I was experiencing an intentional optical illusion: the one where they scatter different colored seats throughout the stands to trick the eye (and more importantly the television camera lens) into thinking that more people are in attendance than actually are. It’s a way to artificially create an aura of excitement (or better stated, to avoid the