NASCAR'S HISTORY

The nation was going through a tremendous period of change in 1947. Just a couple of years out of a war, the country was in a positive mood and the heroes had shifted from the battlefield to the ball field. And, of course, to the race track.

Stock car racing was experiencing the greatest popularity it had ever witnessed. Tracks all over the country were drawing more drivers and racing in front of bigger crowds.

But cohesiveness was lacking. From track to track, rules varied. Some tracks were just makeshift facilities. Other tracks were more suited to handle the cars, but not the crowds. Some could manage both, but did little to adhere to rules set by neighboring tracks.

In December of 1947, Bill France Sr., of Daytona Beach, Fla., organized a meeting at the Streamline Hotel in town to discuss the matters facing stock car racing.

From that meeting, the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing was born. Few knew when the meeting adjourned if the organization would be successful. In fact, there were skeptics who believed it never would work.

Things came together quickly. The first NASCAR-sanctioned race was held on Daytona's beach course Feb. 15, 1948, just two months after the organizational meeting. Six days later on Feb. 21, 1948, the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing was incorporated.

 

A tremendous crowd attended the first-ever NASCAR Grand National (now NASCAR Sprint Cup) event to see automobiles with the appearance of a street car compete door-to-door. The new racing series was an immediate success.

 

Plans immediately were made for ways to bring bigger, faster races to larger, hungrier crowds and less than a year later (1950), the country's first asphalt superspeedway, Darlington Raceway in Darlington, South Carolina, opened for the new division.

 

The first decade for the series was one of tremendous growth. Drivers became heroes and fans hung on every turn of the wheel, watching them manhandle cars at speeds fans wished they could legally run themselves.

 

France had helped lead the fight to keep racing affiliated with the city. The beachfront development at Daytona Beach being a factor, the city wanted to maintain one of its main attractions - fast cars and the beach. By the end of NASCAR's first decade, the city not only had held onto its racing roots, but had outgrown the beach and, in 1959, moved events to Daytona International Speedway. With its long back straightaway and sweeping high-banked turns of 31 degrees, the 2.5-mile tri-oval was one of the largest speedways in the world.

 

In 1960, superspeedways were opened just outside Atlanta and Charlotte. New heroes emerged.

 

Fan interest grew and the demand for bigger, faster tracks was heard. In 1969, France opened the 2.66-mile Alabama International Motor Speedway (now known as Talladega Superspeedway), the largest motorsports oval in the world. New tracks sprang up in Brooklyn, Mich., (70 miles southwest of Detroit), Dover, Del., (between Philadelphia and Baltimore) and Pocono, Pa., two hours from Manhattan.

The decade of the 1970s brought further change, including one at the top when France Sr., passed the torch of leadership of NASCAR to his son, Bill Jr., on Jan. 10,1972.

 

In 1976, NASCAR's premier division took the lead in worldwide motorsports attendance for the first time with more than 1.4 million spectators making their way to events, according to figures compiled by the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company. That top position never has been relinquished.

 

Television exposure grew as well. The 1979 Daytona 500 became the first 500-mile race in history to be telecast live in its entirety. In 1981, NASCAR moved it annual awards ceremony to New York City from Daytona Beach for the first time.

 

In the 1990s, NASCAR’s at-track attendance was growing monumentally. The NASCAR lifestyle was becoming a national phenomenon with cover stories in Forbes and Sports Illustrated. To help feed the tremendous growth, NASCAR launched its official website in 1995 (www.nascar.com).

 

The 1998 season marked the celebration of NASCAR’s 50th Anniversary with an unprecedented integrated marketing campaign to celebrate NASCAR’s past, present and future.

 

From 1993 to 1998, the NASCAR NEXTEL Cup Series at-track attendance alone grew 57% (by 2.2 million) to over 6.3 million and its top three divisions combined grew a staggering 80% (by 4.1 million), to over 9.3 million.

 

As the sports fan base grew, NASCAR grew internally as well. In November of 2000, Mike Helton became the third president in NASCAR history as the torch of leadership was passed to a non-France family member for the first time.

 

By the turn of the century, nothing could stand in the way of NASCAR’s raging success. New stars emerged such as Jeff Gordon, Bobby Labonte and second-generation driver Dale Jarrett.

 

In 2008, history was made when Jimmy Johnson won a third consecutive NASCAR Sprint Cup championship, tying Cal Yarborough’s record set from 1976-78.