Nascar History

After the second world war stock car racing was very popular and drew big crowds. As its popularity grew so did the number of make-shift tracks increased. Due to the lack of a governing body often the rules varied from track to track and safety standards were inadequate.

In 1947 Bill France organized a meeting at the Streamline Hotel to discuss introducing a governing body for the stock car races. Bill was born in Washington D.C to his mother Emma Graham, an Irish immigrant, and father William Henry France. Bill France usually organized races on the beach-road courses and also raced in them himself. At the end of the meeting the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing was created.

However the Cup Series, originally called the premier division, did not start until 1949 and its first race was held on 19th June 1949 at the Charlotte (N.C.) Fairgrounds. It was a big success and attracted a large crowd.

In 1950 the plans were made to allow the race to grow bringing bigger crowds and faster cars which led to the creation of the Darlington Raceway in South Carolina.

The first 10 years of NASCAR was an overwhelming success with the drivers soon becoming super-stars and heroes to the masses of fans that attended the races. The NASCAR race had outgrown the track at Daytona beach and moved to Daytona International Speedway with a 2.5 mile track banked at 30 degrees. The first competition that took place at the new track ended in a photo-finish that took the judges 3 days of deliberation to decide on the winner, Petty.

Even with the new Daytona racetrack the thirst for bigger and faster cars was still there and in 1960 Frank opened the 2.66-mile Alabama International Motor Speedway which is also known as Talladega Superspeedway. The need for more tracks led to new tracks being created throughout the country in places such as Brooklyn, Dover and Pocono.