HISTORY OF NASCAR EXCITING TRADITION


In 1947, NASCAR was just an idea. In the time since, it’s come a long way


NASCAR Sprint Cup action, under the lights at Daytona International Speedway, during February’s Daytona 500.


n the years immediately following World War II, stock car racing was ex- periencing the greatest popularity it had ever seen. Tracks throughout the country were drawing more drivers – and bigger crowds.


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Nonetheless, there was a serious lack of organization. From track to track, rules were different. Some tracks were makeshift facilities, built to produce one big show at a county fair or something sim- ilar to capitalize on the crowds flocking to the events. Other tracks were suited to handle the cars, but not the crowds. Some could manage both, but did little to adhere to rules set by other tracks. In December 1947, Bill France Sr., of Daytona Beach, Fla., organized a meeting at the Streamline Hotel across the street from the Atlantic Ocean to discuss the problems facing stock car racing. France had come to Florida from Wash-


ington, D.C., years earlier. He operated a local service station and also promoted races on the city’s famed beach-road courses, often racing himself. He was a man of strong will – and ambition. Thus, by the time that meeting at the Streamline Hotel was complete, the National Associa- tion 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. Not even France, who believed a sanc-


tioning body was exactly what the sport of stock car racing needed, could have envi- sioned what NASCAR has become today.


56 • NASCAR CANADIAN TIRE SERIES


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. Red Byron, a stock car legend from Atlanta, won the event in his Ford Modified. Six days later on Feb. 21, the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing was incorporated. It was 1949, however, that what is now


the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series, the pre- mier racing series in America, was born. Jim Roper of Great Bend, Kan., was the


winner of the first “Strictly Stock” (the pre- cursor to NASCAR Sprint Cup) event, held at the Charlotte Fairgrounds on June 19, 1949. A tremendous crowd attended the event to see automobiles with the appear- ance of a street-car race door-to-door. The new racing series was off and running. And it was an immediate success. Plans immediately were made for ways


to bring bigger, faster races to bigger, hun- grier crowds and less than a year later (1950), the country’s first asphalt super- speedway, Darlington Raceway in South Carolina, opened its doors. The first decade for the NASCAR Sprint


Cup Series was one of tremendous growth. Characters became heroes and fans hung on every turn of the wheel, watching driv- ers manhandle cars at speeds fans wished they could legally run themselves. 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


PHOTO COURTESY OF JOHN HARRELSON / GETTY IMAGES FOR NASCAR


baseball fans. Looking to the future, and the past 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 affili- ated with the city. When those looking to set land speed records began opting for the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah so the in- coming and outgoing tides at Daytona Beach would not be a factor, the city wanted to maintain one of its main attrac- tions – 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 straightaway and sweep- ing, high-banked turns of more than 30 degrees, the 2.5-mile tri-oval was one of the largest speedways in the world. In the first race, fans were treated to something that each year still brings mil- lions of fans to NASCAR races – close com- petition. 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 Petty and Johnny Beauchamp be- fore declaring Petty the winner. The hook had been set. The following year (1960), superspeed-


ways were opened just outside Atlanta and Charlotte. ABC televised the 1961 Fire- cracker 250 from Daytona Beach as part of its “Wide World of Sports.” New heroes emerged. Lee Petty’s son


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