Thousands of burgers, 2,500 pounds of chili rolling through Speedweeks

DAYTONA BEACH — In a kitchen underneath the stadium seating of Daytona International Speedway, 400 pounds of chili were made Monday.

For Speedweeks, that's only a fraction of the race.

The chili is used to top the Bill France Hotdog, named for late NASCAR president Bill France Jr. and based on a hotdog France used to enjoy at Pullian’s Hot Dog Stand in Winston-Salem. Approximately 2,500 pounds of this particular chili is expected to be prepared during Speedweeks, according to Mike Pappas, corporate executive chef for Americrown.

Food preparations by Americrown — a business unit of International Speedway Corp. that handles food and beverages at the company's tracks — is already underway at the World Center of Racing. The efforts will culminate in the Feb. 18 Daytona 500, when about 1,800 staffers will work at the facility's concession stands and another 550 will work in the catering department that services the Speedway's suites and clubs. Work takes place in 10 catering kitchens and an estimated 30 concession kitchens, Pappas said.

"This is the biggest event for us and, obviously in terms of finding staff, we use a lot of local staffing agencies to help us with this gigantic number," said Arjun Suresh, Americrown's senior director of concessions. "This is probably the most all-hands-on-deck event, so to speak. We have multiple managers and directors who oversee our other venues across the nation traveling (here) just to assist."

The number of staffers pales in comparison to the quantities of food that will be put out during Speedweeks. According to Suresh and Pappas, between the concession stands and the catering department, approximately 55,000 burgers will be served up.

Prefer hotdogs? There will be about 40,000 of them.

Need something to wash those down? How about 115,000 bottled soda products?

If you want something a little harder, 100,000 beers are expected to move through the concession side while the catering department plans to pour 50,000 servings of adult beverages including beer, wine and liquor.

Meanwhile concession stands are expected to dish out 6,000 bags of peanuts while the catering department cooks up about 20,000 chicken breasts.

While staffing swells on race day, preparation in the concession stands typically start about 45 days ahead of time, Suresh said.

"The first thing which we do is we conduct a walk-through of each concession stand (and) make detailed notes of what needs to be fixed, what needs to be stocked," he said. "Before we even start stocking anything, we want to first make sure that all the stands are cleaned and sanitized and make sure that it's a healthy environment for food preparation and food safety."

Pappas begins his catering planning a full year in advance.

"Monday, after the 500, we'll begin the process of creating the menus for the next Speedweeks," he said. "For the first three months, we're focusing on what worked and what can we improve on."

Within 100 days before the racing gets underway, things go "operational," Pappas said.

"When you're selling this much food, we have to give our purveyors significant notice so that they have that type of volume," he said. "We've got to let them know, 'Hey, we're going to sell this many chicken tenders' or whatever the item is, well in advance because normally the purveyors don't stock that type of volume even if they're a big, giant purveyor. So if we're getting pallets, hundreds of cases of an item, we have to let them know. So we start doing projections far in advance."

It takes a lot to feed the crowds at Daytona International Speedway during Speedweeks. Here's a closer look at some of the numbers.

55,000 hamburgers

40,000 hotdogs

115,000 bottled sodas

100,000 beers*

* concessions only

Source: Americrown

By the numbers