The acrid smell of exhaust wafted through the air as bikers made one last stop on Main Street. Flashes of Saint Patrick's Day green graced the halter tops of the tub girls, and the afternoon sun made the candy-colored motorcycles sparkle.
Onlookers held aloft cellphones, snapping photos of the cavalcade of custom choppers.
You couldn't ask for a more beautiful Saturday to take in the spectacle of Bike Week. Here are a few of the people working behind the scenes and others who stole the show.
The Painted Man
If Jim Thomas' wife, Shirley, was less than thrilled with the buxom, blonde-haired, woman on the top of his cranium, she didn't show it.
Bending over at the waist, he displayed the tattoo, saying "you've always got women messing with your mind."
There's not an inch of Jim Thomas' body without ink, and his wife urged him to take down his pants to provide a glimpse of her favorite: a "Grateful Dead" horse on the back of his thigh.
"We've been married 40 years," she said. "We always celebrate our honeymoon at Bike Week."
Thomas' tattoos were less about telling his life's story, and more about seeing his skin as a canvas for art and wry jokes. He had an Asian symbol on his stomach that meant both "pain and pleasure." Sprockets and metal tubing wrapped around each side of his skull.
"My brain never shuts off," he said. "The gears are always turning."
There was also a village scene taken from a picture at the couple's favorite Chinese restaurant. He estimated that its taken ten years and some 8,000 hours of work to cover his epidermis with bright ink.
Bike Week, he said, was one of the few places where he could be shirtless and still "blend in."
The Living Deads
Taking the stage at Main Street Station was Symphony Tidwell, who thrummed a lime green upright base for the band "The Living Deads." It matched her look: light-blue hair, red lipstick and black triangular eye-shadow.
She and drummer Randee McKnight have been touring for the past eight years, and they always stop at Bike Week, though she said they usually play to rowdier crowds, with fans slamming into each other in mosh pits.
But the band's softer rockabilly sound made for easy listening this afternoon as bikers sipped their first beers.
Among them was George Taylor, 68, of Melbourne.
"She plays the base fiddle like no lady you've ever seem," he said. "She's also one hell of a singer."
A Victory Lap
When the tattoo artists pulled out their cellphones to display their work this past week, they recalled both the good and the bad. But whether it was a tattoo of Ozzy Osborne's visage on a person's backside, or a geometric design with intricate shading, none of it could be described as ugly.
Victory Tattoo is the first parlor to open on Main Street since a de facto ban was lifted last April. And the bikers did not disappoint, the tattoo artists said, describing the week as a marathon. Two artists even came from Pittsburgh and Houston as reinforcements for the event.
There were many Harley-Davidson badges. But Drew Potts said he won't forget the outline of a Harley shield he drew on the hand of a 78-year-old man. It was the man's first tattoo.
Also unforgettable were the flames that Neil Palmer inked along a man's temples.
There were also a few tattoos that people might not remember until they wake up the next morning.
"There have been a lot of butt tattoos," said Josh Thehand. "Both men and women."
Come in from the Cold
The satin and black leather corsets hanging from the wall at the Biker's Den had gone untouched all week, and that was a problem for Rita Farhat, the store's owner.
A cold snap had struck during much of Bike Week's festivities, turning neon pink sweatshirts into a bestseller. She even had to call in for more stock, she said.
The run on sweatshirts, however, wasn't enough to make up for what she described as a thin crowd. She estimated hat her business was down some 20 percent compared with last year.
"In the middle of the week, there was nobody," she said.
She was already worried about Bike Week's finish when the corridor of leather and chrome turns "dead," she said. For now, though, her energy went into ringing up sales, including one for a man who held up a small camouflaged shirt that read "my grandpa rides a Haw-lee."
Farhat then returned to the sweatshirts, hurriedly putting 2018 Daytona Beach Bike Week gold decals on their fronts.
Shamrocks and Shots
At Dirty Harry's outdoor bar, Sara Long had bikers stopping for pictures and telling her that she "looked adorable as a leprechaun," though the green string-bikini likely caught their eyes before the tiny green top hat.
She said that the swimsuit was part of a sponsorship with "Cexce Bikinis," explaining that she had some 170,000 Instagram followers.
Long, whose father is Irish and mother is Spanish, was slinging drinks, and she was anticipating a big night with the biker bash coming to its end on the same day as St. Patrick's Day.
"It's one of the funnest holidays," she said. "It's just good vibes. It just makes everyone happy."