It was Feb. 18, 1962, when Bob and Vivian Randall settled into their seats, just past the start/finish line at Daytona International Speedway.
It was chilly, so much so that the Floridians they had befriended in the campground outside the track, in the lot where they had parked their tow-behind camper, were wearing coats. And not just any coats. Vivian was astonished when women stepped out of their campers on race morning with hair done, full faces of makeup and fur coats draped over their shoulders.
This was a big deal, after all. It was the fourth edition of "The Great American Race." More than 58,000 people packed the cold concrete stands to watch local hero Fireball Roberts lead a top 10 that included seven future NASCAR Hall of Famers.
Bob was 25 years old. Vivian was 19. They had been married all of nine days, yet their future together -- at least their future Februarys together -- was already set.
"The timing of when we were married was very important to him," Vivian says now with a laugh. "He wanted to make sure we could honeymoon in Daytona for the 500. And we've honeymooned there every year since."
The 1962 Daytona 500 was Vivian's first, but it was Bob's third. Prior to that, he had attended a handful of Daytona Speedweeks when they were held on the beach. Bob Randall didn't start out as a racing guy. He was a car guy. More specifically, he was a Ford man -- actually, he was a Ford kid. Bob was from Cuyler, New York, an upstate town of fewer than 1,000 along the banks of the Tioughnioga River. He was destined to be a dairy farmer, and that was fine by him.
Sometime in the mid-1950s, teenage Bob's older friends were buzzing about the stock car races held on the beach 1,200 miles to the south. Eventually, they convinced him to ride down with them. They watched the likes of Marshall Teague, Junior Johnson and the Flock family hammering their way down Highway A1A and then back up through the sand alongside the Atlantic Ocean.
"From then on, that was just what they did every winter," Vivian says of the Cuyler boys. "I started dating Bob when I was 17, so I always knew that was just the way it was. Any of us that decided to marry any of those guys knew that was just the way that it was."
Bob missed the first race at the brand new Daytona International Speedway, won by Lee Petty in 1959. He never missed another; he went to 56 straight starting in 1960. Since she first joined him in '62, Vivian has missed only one. In '64, the oldest of their four children was born on Feb. 28. That year's 500, won by a kid named Richard Petty, was held on Feb. 23.
"Bob made it back here for the birth, so I gave him a pass on that one," Vivian said.
Bob and Vivian's seats for the 500 have always been the same: located two sections past the start/finish line on the Turn 1 side. Also the same is their parking spot, just outside the tunnel near that same corner. The camper was upgraded over the years, with four models ranging from their original tow-behind to the current 38-footer, and as the years went by, the number of friends grew.
By the 1970s, the Randalls' grandstand family circle had grown to more than 40. Seeing those people each February became part of the Randalls' life cycle.
Thanksgiving ... Christmas ... wedding anniversary ... Daytona 500.
Bob became a Petty fan, so naturally, Vivian rooted for David Pearson. When the two legendary rivals unleashed their Hollywood ending in 1976 -- wrecking off of Turn 4, sliding in the infield grass, frantically trying to re-fire their engines to cross the finish line -- Vivian climbed atop her seat and jumped up and down as Pearson sputtered by beneath the checkered flag. Bob did the same for Petty, but it didn't help.
In 1988, the pair moved down from their mid-grandstand seats into the first two rows to watch the end of the race -- something they never did. They got there just in time to have Petty plow into the wall directly in front of them and barrel roll with such an impact that, in Vivian's still frightened words, "parts and pieces went flying way up over our heads."
They never moved seats again.
Over the years, they brought their children and, eventually, their children's children to Daytona. Bob's love for NASCAR infected the entire family.
The Randalls' youngest daughter, Danielle, now 47, recalls getting in her daddy's pickup and driving atop every hill on the family farm while desperately trying to find an AM radio signal that carried the races. Danielle ended up turning that love into a career; she moved south to run multiple successful NASCAR marketing ventures and became a business manager for a long list of drivers. Many of those drivers made it out to the speedway campground to meet her parents.
The night before the 2011 Daytona 500, a kid who had stepped into Vivian's beloved Wood Brothers car stopped by to visit. It was Trevor Bayne. The next day, he won the race.
The Randalls once attended a dinner with Danielle that went late into the night. Well past midnight, a flamboyant racer, dressed in a fur coat like those of the campground ladies so many years earlier, charmed Vivian before disappearing into the night. It was Tim Richmond. They cried the following year when Richmond missed the 500, but he flew a banner behind a plane to tell the fans he missed them. He later died of AIDS.
Bob begrudgingly became friends with Dale Earnhardt. Because he was a Petty fan, Bob didn't want to like the man who threatened to match The King's record of seven Sprint Cup titles. But The Intimidator developed a soft spot for Vivian, whom he always called "Mama."
At one point, Earnhardt volunteered to take in a baby deer that Bob, a volunteer fireman in Cuyler, had rescued from its dying mother after she had been hit by a car. On the way to Daytona from New York, Bob and Vivian stopped by Earnhardt's house in Mooresville, North Carolina, and dropped off the fawn, who rode in the camper while curled up with the family dog and drinking from a baby bottle.
"Damn," Earnhardt said, "I didn't know it was a pet!"
"Lucky," the deer, lived on Earnhardt's farm and eventually moved to Michael Waltrip's property, where it spawned countless more deer. Years later, it would still come running when Bob stopped by and called it by name.
Bob and Vivian cheered like crazy when Earnhardt finally won the 500 in 1998. They cried like crazy three years later when he was killed.
Over the past several years, Bob and Vivian kept their Daytona 500 streak alive, but they started wondering aloud when it might end. In retirement, their winter routine had become much longer, as they traveled south at the end of fall and didn't return to Cuyler until March. Their once huge group of grandstand friends was shrinking. Friends were no longer able to travel. Many had passed away. In 2012, Vivian was diagnosed with multiple myeloma, and part of the routine of the Randalls' last few Daytona trips included her chemotherapy and rehab.
Last year, due to the massive Daytona Rising renovation project, the Randalls spent their 53rd Daytona 500 together sitting in different seats for the first time. Their regular seats weren't seats at all; they were a construction zone. They could see them from their temporary seats -- just a bare concrete slab. After Joey Logano's win, they sat in the camper and discussed whether that had been their final 500. Ultimately, they decided they would return in 2016 because they wanted to see what their old seats would be like after the racetrack's $400 million face-lift was finished.
"In 2014, we said, 'Well, that might be it.' But we came back," Vivian said. "Last year, we said, 'Well, that might be it.' But we came back. And we agreed that this year we'd come back one last time. Who knows? We might have decided to go one more year ... again."
That conversation won't happen. On Sunday, Vivian Randall will attend her 54th Daytona 500. For the first time, Bob won't be with her. After they attended the races in May in Charlotte, nagging health issues suddenly took a sharp turn for the worse.
On July 23, Bob Randall passed away at the age of 79. He was a 56-time attendee of the Great American Race.
"I did think about not going this year, but I'm here," Vivian said Wednesday from the Randall camper, which is parked a few miles up I-95 from the speedway this year. Vivian has been in Florida since November, recruiting the help of friends and strangers alike to make the long trip and get her campsite up and running. "We said we were going to see what our seats were like in the new grandstand, and that's what I'm going to do. I promised."
Vivian's son, Doug, is flying in for the weekend to help his mother navigate the crowds. He will occupy his father's seat.
As for Bob, he is here, in a sense. Vivian brought his ashes from Cuyler. They're in the camper. The box that contains them is in a large Crown Royal bag. Bob wasn't a huge drinker, but when he did drink, he sipped Crown.
There has been talk among the family that Vivian might try to sneak Bob's ashes into the race Sunday, for a symbolic attendance of what was supposed to be his 58th 500. But she admits the logistics would be just too tricky.
"These days, I can barely get myself moved around -- let alone look after him too," she said with a chuckle.
That doesn't matter. Bob Randall is here. And next year, even if Vivian decides not to come back, he'll be here again. Fans such as Bob Randall will always be at Daytona, whether in body or in spirit.
"Going to the Daytona 500 is just what Bob and I do," his wife said. "So that's what I'm going to do on Sunday."