A message from
the president of
NASCAR,
Bill France
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NASCAR and NASCAR Winston Cup Series History
1947 Daytona Beach
Road Race.
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 he nation was going through a tremendous period of change in 1947.
Just a couple of years out of a war, everything was getting back to normal. In fact, things were going well.
The economy was on the upswing. The country was in a good mood and the heroes had shifted from the battlefield to the ballfield. And to the movie screen.
AND TO THE RACE TRACK
Stock car racing was experiencing the greatest popularity it had ever seen. Tracks all over the country were drawing more and more drivers to race in front of bigger and bigger crowds.
But a cohesiveness did not exist. From track to track, rules were different. Some tracks were just makeshift facilities, built to produce one big show at a county fair or something similar to capitalize on the crowds flocking to the events. 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.
Bill France Sr.,
founder of NASCAR.
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In December, 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.
France had come to Florida from Maryland years earlier and operated a local service station as
The cars zip around Daytona Beach, throwing sand from beneath their tires.
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well as promote events on the city's famed beach course that he often raced in himself.
From that simple meeting, the National Association of 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.
Not even France, who believed a sanctioning body was exactly what the sport of stock car racing needed, could have envisioned what NASCAR has become today.
THE FIRST RACE
Things came together quickly. The first NASCAR-sanctioned race was held on Daytona's beach course Feb. 15, 1948, two months after the organizational meeting. Red Byron, a stock-car legend from Atlanta, won the event in his Ford Modified.
With a new logo, NASCAR was off and running.
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It was 1949 when, what is now the NASCAR Winston Cup Series, the premier racing division in America was born.
Jim Roper of Great Bend, Kan., was the winner of the first NASCAR Grand National (now Winston Cup) event, held at the Charlotte (N.C.) Fairgrounds. A tremendous crowd attended the event to see automobiles, with the appearance of passenger cars, race door-to-door. The new racing series was off and running. It was an immediate success.
Plans were made for ways to bring bigger, faster races to bigger, hungrier crowds. Less than a year later, the country's first asphalt superspeedway, Darlington Raceway in South Carolina, opened its doors.
The first decade for the NASCAR Winston Cup Series was one of tremendous growth. Characters became heroes and fans hung on every turn of the wheel, watching drivers manhandle cars at speeds fans wished they legally could run.
Names like Lee Petty, Fireball Roberts, Buck Baker, Herb Thomas, The Flock brothers, Bill Rexford, Paul Goldsmith and others became as well-known to race fans as Willie, Mickey and the Duke were to baseball fans.
Cars streak by on what was the new Daytona International Speedway in 1959.
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Looking to the future and the past, and with the success of Darlington, Bill France Sr., began construction of a 2.5-mile, high-banked superspeedway four miles off the beach in Daytona Beach.
France had helped lead the fight to keep racing affiliated with the city. When those looking to set land-speed records opted for Utah's Bonneville Salt Flats, 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 on to its racing roots, but had outgrown the beach and, in 1959, moved events to Daytona International Speedway. With its long back straightway and sweeping high-banked turns of more than 30 degrees,
Crowds pack the stands for the Daytona 500.
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the 2.5-mile tri-oval was one of the largest speedway's in the world.
In the first race, fans were treated to something that each year still brings millions of fans to NASCAR races -- close competition.
The first Daytona 500 didn't end for three days. It took that long for NASCAR officials to study a photograph of the finish between Lee Petty and Johnny Beauchamp before declaring Petty the winner.
THE HOOK HAD BEEN SET
The following year (1960), superspeedways were opened just outside Atlanta and Charlotte, N.C. The 1961 Firecracker 400 from Daytona Beach was televised by ABC as part of its "Wide World of Sports."
NEW HEROES EMERGED
Lee Petty's son Richard, who would soon be referred to as "The King" of stock car racing, Buddy Baker,
With the spoils of victory, this winner addresses the crowd.
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Cale Yarborough, Ned Jarrett,
David Pearson and Bobby Allison were among the drivers that led NASCAR through an era that featured more than 60 races a year on tracks from Florida to California to Maine.
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),
Check out the action at the Talladega Speedway.
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the largest and fastest motorsports oval in the world. New tracks sprang up in Brooklyn, Mich., (70 miles southwest of Detroit), Dover, Del., (near Philadelphia and Baltimore) and Pocono, Pa, two hours from Manhattan.
The decade of the '70's brought further change, including one at the top when Bill France Sr., passed the torch of leadership to his son Bill, Jr. in 1971.
Richard "The King" Petty signs with sponsor STP in 1972.
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Corporate sponsorship of the series by the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company, through its Winston brand, began in 1971 and NASCAR's premier division became what it is now known as, the NASCAR Winston Cup Series. Reynolds' involvement later led to the NASCAR West Series and the NASCAR Winston Racing Series -- weekly events held at approximately 100 tracks nationwide, with drivers vying for eight regional and national championships.
In 1976, NASCAR's Winston Cup Series took the lead in worldwide motorsports attendance for
Bobby Allison does an interview for television as viewers tuned in for the first live broadcast of a race.
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the first time with more than 1.4 million spectators making their way to events, according to figures from the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company. That lead 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.
By the mid 1980's, Fortune 500 companies not only were involved in sponsoring NASCAR Series, but individual races and teams as well.
Drivers such as Darrell Waltrip, Dale Earnhardt, Bill Elliott and others were rising to challenge Petty and Allison and Yarborough and displaying the colors of detergents and coffees and cereals on the hoods of their cars.
Major organizations such as General Foods, Procter & Gamble and Kellogg's were realizing what Bill France knew in the late 1940's -- stock car racing was big.
By 1989, 10 years after the first live television broadcast, every race on the NASCAR Winston Cup Series schedule was televised, nearly all of them live.
Close competition and high speeds in cars that have a "stock" appearance are the hallmark of the NASCAR Winston Cup Series.
With the decade of the 1990's half over and NASCAR's 50th anniversary fast approaching, there still are more names.
Jeff Gordon shows off the flashy color scheme of the DuPont Finishes Chevrolet.
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Waltrip and Elliott and Earnhardt, who has won the NASCAR Winston Cup title seven times, matching a record set by Richard Petty, are now the veterans, along with Rusty Wallace, Mark Martin, Terry Labonte, Ken Schrader and others.
But young stars such as Jeff Gordon and Bobby Labonte, like in every new decade, are emerging.
In 1993, after three years of hosting a NASCAR Busch Series event, New Hampshire International Speedway, 70 miles north of Boston, was granted its first NASCAR Winston Cup Series event.
NEARLY 70,000 TICKETS SOLD IN AN HOUR
In 1994, the NASCAR Winston Cup Series drew 4,896,000 fans for 31 events, up nearly 1 million from the year before and an average of 157,936 per event. The NASCAR Busch Series Grand National Division drew 1,302,400 for an average of 46,514 for 28 events.
The 1994 Brickyard 400, the first stock-car race in the history of the famed Indianapolis Motor Speedway drew an estimated 315,000 fans for a race in which there were nearly 1 million ticket requests. The 1995 event sold out in less than a week.
In 1994, all NASCAR Winston Cup Series events were broadcast live on television by either ABC, CBS, ESPN, TNN or TBS.
Craftsman Trucks: NASCAR's newest success story.
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All NASCAR Busch Series events were televised, all but two were live. In addition to the more than 6 million people who attended NASCAR Winston Cup or NASCAR Busch Series events in 1994, more than 200 million watched at home.
In May, 1994, NASCAR introduced a new series, the NASCAR SuperTruck Series by Craftsman, involving full-size, full-bodied pickup trucks on NASCAR Winston Cup frames. After several exhibition events, the first points race was held Feb. 5 in Phoenix, a little less than nine months after the new series was announced. It is now called the NASCAR Craftman Truck Series.
NASCAR
P.O. Box 2875
1801 W. International Speedway Blvd.
Daytona Beach, FL 32114
(904) 253-0611
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