I wonder how many British and European readers who have been to Le Mans on one or more occasion have ever considered crossing the pond and attending the world’s only other top-class 24-hour race? If so, and having been myself to the Daytona 24 Hours for the first time this year, you absolutely should.

If you are a regular Le Mans-goer, you’ll barely believe how different an experience is offered up by the Florida race track in January. For a start a lap is less than half the distance, but there are the same number of cars competing. So you know drivers complain about how hard it is to get a clear lap in France? Well, it’s more than twice as difficult in The Sunshine State. Talking of which, it was 90°F when I left the circuit on Sunday to return to a rainswept, freezing England. Reason enough, some might say, to make the trip.

What Daytona lacks relative to Le Mans is an epic circuit full of heart-in-mouth corners. Here you’re either flat out on the banking or negotiating a fiddly infield section of no great distinction. Which ain’t great. But you can also see almost the entire lap from the main grandstand, so following the progress of a favourite car is easy whereas in France it is impossible.

The racing is different too: because of the number of safety car periods and the fact that cars are waved through, it is almost impossible for one driver to pull out a big lead on the field, so the idea is to stay on the lead lap for 22 hours after which all hell lets loose. This year, for instance, the gap between first and second with less than five minutes to go was under 0.5sec. And the closing speed of prototypes on GT cars coming off the banking is extraordinary.

But what I liked most was the atmosphere. The access to everything is easier and better than at Le Mans, there’s no crowding and no whistle-blowing officials telling you what you can and can’t do. Everyone I met at Daytona just wanted you to have as good a time as common sense allowed. In short, I loved it, and I’ll be back.

While in Daytona I was taken for a lap by recently retired racing driver Rob Bell and, as we careened around the banking at a strictly limited 120mph, I was taken back to the last time I was on a banked circuit in the US. Incredibly, at least for me, it was 30 years ago.

The circuit was Talladega, the cars a series of Saab 900s, the purpose to help break as many long-distance class records as possible. An assorted bunch of vaguely trustworthy hacks had been drafted onto the official strength of proper racing drivers to help out, which explains what I was doing there.

I was allocated a 900 Turbo and, after a briefing from none other than Erik Carlsson was sent out to do some practice laps in a spare car while the various record breakers whizzed around at the same time. And what I found was that the circuit was essentially flat out, even in a showroom standard car picked off the line at random by the FIA, but that one of the banked turns required a definite line and a deep breath if the pedal was to be held to the floor. Do that and even 30 years ago a Saab 900 Turbo would lap at an average of 150mph.