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Coronavirus: Seniors at 2 Florida schools will get diplomas at Daytona International Speedway

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. — Graduates, start your engines. The checkered flag is about to drop on your high school careers.

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Prohibited from walking across the stage at their graduation ceremony due to the coronavirus, seniors at two Florida high schools will drive across the finish line at Daytona International Speedway to receive their diplomas, CNN reported.

The graduating seniors from Flagler-Palm Coast and Matanzas high schools in Flagler County will conduct the drive-thru ceremony May 31, The Record of St. Augustine reported.

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The ceremony for Matanzas’ seniors will begin at 11 a.m., with Palm Coast’s ceremony to follow at 4 p.m., according to the newspaper.

Each graduate and family members are allowed to drive one car, and everyone must stay inside their vehicle, CNN reported. The graduates will have their names called over the speakers at the speedway and will be handed their diploma through the window of their vehicles.

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Graduates then will be allowed to take a victory lap -- at a reasonable speed -- around the 2.5-mile tri-oval racetrack.

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“Knowing that these seniors are not going to get the opportunity that we all had when we graduated high school to walk across that stage, what better way to do it than at the Daytona International Speedway,” Chip Wile, president of Daytona International Speedway, told CNN on Saturday.

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The ceremony will be simulcast via radio inside the speedway and livestreamed at FlaglerSchools.com.

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This is a once in a lifetime opportunity,” Wile told CNN.

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