The Origins of NASCAR
April 2, 2009 by Warren Hayashi
Filed under Racing
Stock car racing started drawing larger crowds after the end of World War II, fans were starting to head to the track to take in the excitement and adrenalin-inducing entertainment, and more drivers were showing up with stock cars wanting to run their cars.
NASCAR today
Stock car was a bit disjointed at this time, lacking professional organization and rules, the rules varied as the drivers went from track to rack, and safety rules were just being thought of as something the sport needed to take into account. Standardization of the tracks was non-existent, many were simply built quickly to provide entertainment at country fairs, other tracks were better suited for the cars and drivers, but weren’t exactly crowd friendly venues. At this time there were only a few tracks that were actually designed and capable of both providing for the cars and drivers and the fans, but they didn’t follow the same rules in place at other tracks.
The first organized meeting was set up and run by a gentlemen named, Bill France Sr., of Daytona Beach, Florida at the Streamline Hotel to talk and discuss the current issues that were facing the sport of stock car racing. A man of strong roots and personal strength, Bill France Sr.’s ambitions were realized by the time this first meeting was complete and the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing was born.
The sport started to come together quickly after the setting up of a sanctioning body and this was the exact thing the sport needed to help it grow into the NASCAR we know today. NASCAR started to pick up speed and momentum after that and the first organized and sanctioned race occurred on Daytona’s beach course on February 15, 1948, only two months after the first organized meeting. The first winner of a NASCAR car race was Red Byron, a stock car icon from Atlanta who won in his Ford, just six days after the first race, on February 21, 1948, the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing was incorporated and the rest is race history.
Image: Newscom
Check out Perry Allen Wood’s book on race tracks. You’ll be surprised at just how many tracks there actually were! By the time Bill France was getting NASCAR rolling, race tracks were being built for automobile racing exclusively. Earles had Martinsville rolling a year before NASCAR even!
Always great to see columns on the history of the sport. There’s so many interesting things to talk about!