DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (AP) — Flying a few hundred feet above the streets and shores of Daytona Beach, the Goodyear Blimp draws a crowd.
Onlookers stare and point. Drivers pull over for better looks, snapping pictures, recording videos and trying to line up the perfect selfie. For some, it’s nostalgic. For others, it’s a glimpse at a larger-than-life advertising icon.
At 100 years old, the blimp is an ageless star in the sky. And the 246-foot-long airship will be in the background of the Daytona 500 on Sunday — roughly 1,500 feet above Daytona International Speedway, actually — to celebrate its latest and greatest anniversary tour.
Even though remote camera technologies — drones, mostly — are improving regularly and changing the landscape of aerial footage, the blimp continues to carve out a niche. At Daytona, with the usual 40-car field racing around a 2½-mile superspeedway, views from the blimp aptly provide the scope of the event.
“It’s great to show the pack racing,” Fox Sports director Artie Kempner said, adding that he expected to use aerial shots from the blimp about 50 times during Sunday’s race.
The Goodyear Blimp has been a regular at major sporting events since flying above the 1955 Rose Bowl. A few years later, it became a service vehicle for television coverage while simultaneously functioning as a highly visible advertising platform. It’s been at every Daytona 500 since 1962.
During that streak, blimps have undergone wholesale changes and improved dramatically: steering technology, safety innovations, high-definition cameras, gyro-stabilized aerial views and much quieter rides thanks to relocated engines and propellers.
Nowadays, riding on the blimp isn’t much different from traveling on a small plane. The 12-seater comes with reclining seats, tray tables, seatbelts, a safety briefing and a bathroom with amazing views. A few windows serve as the only air conditioning onboard. The blimp offers a smooth ride even at top speed, creeping along at 73 mph — well below the cars pushing 200 mph on the track.
“It’s an iconic symbol for our nation, a floating piece of Americana,” blimp pilot Jensen Kervern said. “There’s nothing like it in the world.”
The blimp has covered more than 2,500 events and taken more than 500,000 passengers for rides, according to Goodyear. Former President Ronald Reagan might be the most famous passenger, and rapper Ice Cube raised the blimp’s street cred when he included a line about it in his 1992 song titled “It Was A Good Day.”
But not just anyone can climb aboard. Rides are invitation only even though phones at blimp headquarters — the three U.S.-based airships are housed in California, Florida and Ohio — ring off the hook with people inquiring about buying a ride.
As part of the blimp’s 100-year anniversary celebration, however, Goodyear is giving three U.S. residents a chance to join the exclusive club and win a ride. The sweepstakes will provide each winner a certificate for two to fly on the blimp. The prize also includes $3,000 for travel expenses to one of Goodyear’s airship hangars.
It would be a once-in-a-lifetime experience, no doubt.
The blimp flies low enough to spot pods of dolphins or flotillas of sea turtles in the Atlantic Ocean. The view over Daytona International Speedway is equally stunning, with the ability to see every inch of the famed track while watching (and hearing) race cars turning laps.
Already in 2025, the Goodyear fleet has flown over the Rose Bowl, the Orange Bowl, the Pro Bowl and Pebble Beach. Its upcoming schedule includes the Academy Awards, Coachella and WrestleMania.
But will the blimp survive another 100 years?
Drone imagery and resolution continue to improve along with maneuverability, stability and flight longevity. And where drones can be flown by one person, the Goodyear Blimp crew at Daytona tops 20 staffers.
But given the blimp’s longevity, adaptability and celebrity, no one should bet against it sticking around for generations to come.
“Despite changes in technology and our environment, people still get so excited to see the blimp," Kervern said. “It's just an iconic symbol for our nation.”
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Daytona International Speedway is viewed the Goodyear Blimp, Wednesday, Feb. 12, 2025, in Daytona Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Mark Long)
The cockpit of the Goodyear Blimp is scene during a flight, Wednesday, Feb. 12, 2025, in Daytona Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Mark Long)
The Goodyear Blimp is prepared for takeoff, Wednesday, Feb. 12, 2025, in New Smyrna Beach, Fla. (AP Photo/Mark Long)
WASHINGTON (AP) — More than a year before an American military operation deposed Nicolás Maduro, a senior aide to President Donald Trump argued that the Venezuelan leader had been dispatching gang members into the United States.
"If you’re a dictator of a poor country with a high crime rate, wouldn’t you send your criminals to our open border?” Stephen Miller told reporters in the closing stretch of Trump's 2024 comeback campaign.
Miller now serves as the White House chief of staff for policy, where he plays a prominent role in promoting Trump's policy agenda. His bombastic style and zero-sum worldview have made him a lightning rod within the administration. Critics argue that Miller’s rhetoric about foreign nations and immigrants echoes racist and imperialist ideas that have undergirded military actions by the U.S. and other nations for centuries.
A joint statement from the governments of Spain and five Latin American countries following the Venezuela operation called for countries in the region to engage in “mutual respect, the peaceful settlement of disputes, and nonintervention,” while Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., called the administration's Venezuela policy “old-fashioned imperialism.”
“Advocating for policies that put American citizens first isn’t racist. Anyone who says so is either intentionally lying or just plain stupid,” said White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson.
Here's a look at how Miller laid the rhetorical groundwork for this month's attack on Venezuela and what his comments say about the administration's broader worldview.
Shortly after the U.S. operation that captured Maduro, Miller wrote on social media: “Not long after World War II the West dissolved its empires and colonies and began sending colossal sums of taxpayer-funded aid to these former territories (despite have already made them far wealthier and more successful). The West opened its borders, a kind of reverse colonization, providing welfare and thus remittances, while extending to these newcomers and their families not only the full franchise but preferential legal and financial treatment over the native citizenry. The neoliberal experiment, at its core, has been a long self-punishment of the places and peoples that built the modern world."
Two weeks before Maduro's arrest, Miller in December echoed arguments by Trump that the Venezuelan oil industry was stolen from American oil companies:
“American sweat, ingenuity and toil created the oil industry in Venezuela. Its tyrannical expropriation was the largest recorded theft of American wealth and property. These pillaged assets were then used to fund terrorism and flood our streets with killers, mercenaries and drugs,” Miller wrote on social media.
Miller in January claimed to reporters that U.S. military power had ensured compliance from the Caracas government.
“We have an oil embargo in Venezuela for them to do any kind of commerce. They need our permission. We have our massive fleet or armada still present there. This is an active and ongoing U.S. government military operation, and so, of course, we set the terms and conditions," Miller said.
He added: “Our conversations are that we are very much getting full, complete and total cooperation from the government of Venezuela, and as a result of that cooperation, the people of Venezuela are going to become richer than they ever have before. And of course, the United States is going to benefit from this massively in terms of economic, security and military cooperation, counter-narcotics, counterterrorism and every other dimension of our security."
During a wide-ranging January interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper, Miller repeatedly argued for the primacy of American power and criticized the international order the U.S. once led.
“You can talk all you want about international niceties and everything else. But we live in a world, in the real world, Jake, that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power. These are the iron laws of the world," said Miller.
Miller also dismissed concerns that Trump's vows to take Greenland from Denmark, a fellow member of the NATO military alliance, may trigger a military conflict with Europe.
“Nobody’s going to fight the United States militarily over the future of Greenland," said Miller.
In the same interview, Miller said it would be “absurd and preposterous” and “not even a serious question” to propose the administration support Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado's bid to lead the country because the military would not back her.
Tapper then asked whether the South American country should hold elections.
Miller replied: “The United States is using its military to secure our interests unapologetically in our hemisphere. We’re a superpower, and under President Trump, we are going to conduct ourselves as a superpower. It is absurd that we would allow a nation in our own backyard to become the supplier of resources to our adversaries, but not to us, to hoard weapons from our adversaries, to be able to be positioned as an asset against the United States, rather than on behalf of the United States.”
The anchor pressed Miller on whether sovereign countries had the right to conduct their own affairs.
Miller explained the administration’s stance: “The Monroe Doctrine and the Trump Doctrine is all about securing the national interest of America. For years, we sent our soldiers to die in deserts in the Middle East to try to build them parliaments, to try to build them democracies, to try to give them more oil, try to give them more resources. The future of the free world, Jake, depends on America being able to assert ourselves and our interests without apology." He called for an end to "This whole period that happened after World War II, where the West began apologizing and groveling and engaging in these massive reparations schemes.”
He also defended the administration's operation and echoed his past claims that Maduro had sent criminals into the U.S.: “We’re not going to let tinpot communist dictators send rapists into our country, send drugs into our country, send weapons into our country."
Miller has returned to promoting the administration's stance on domestic issues like immigration and partisan politics.
On Tuesday, following nationwide protests after an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer shot and killed a woman in Minnesota, Miller wrote on social media: “Americans voting overwhelmingly for mass deportation. Congress passed laws requiring it and then passed new legislation to fully fund it. The response of the Democrat Party and its activists has been to support and orchestrate violent resistance against federal law enforcement.”
He later added in a separate post, “In case it isn’t clear by now, if Democrats won they would have made every city into Mogadishu or Kabul or Port-au-Prince."
FILE - United States Homeland Security Advisor Stephen Miller reacts on the sidelines of the ASEAN Summit in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Sunday, Oct. 26, 2025. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein), File)
