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NASCAR (National Association for Stock Car Racing) is the largest car racing organization in the United States. The race series, managed and organized by NASCAR - the Sprint Cup, the Nationwide Series and the Camping World Truck Series - are the most popular in American technical sports. In addition, it oversees several smaller regional competitions. The association officially became operational on February 21, 1948. They have set a single requirement and set of rules for competitions that used to run in amateur way and under different rules before. The first full racing season took place in 1949 with a total prize of $ 5,000.
Over the years, the Cup series has been extended with new locations, and its popularity has increased year by year. The first television broadcast took place in 1979. As a result of television broadcasting, the competition has become increasingly popular among sponsors, and by the end of the 1980s it had become a major business. Its popularity has continued unabated ever since.

History

1920s and 1930s

The roots go back to the twenties and thirties, the era of American ban, when the smugglers used their hand-tuned cars to try and get rid of the police who were chasing them and also booze car mechanics and other adventurous youngsters joined them. This is how stock car racing was born.

1940s

In December 1947, Bill France, Sr. organized a meeting at the Streamline Hotel in Florida to discuss the rules of series car racing. From this simple meeting, NASCAR was born. Of course, there were skeptics who thought that this organization would never be operational, but France believed that this is exactly what the sport needs and saw the vision that NASCAR that it has today. The first NASCAR-supervised race was held on February 15, 1948, in Daytona Beach, just two months after the meeting. The winner was Atlanta series car legend Robert 'Red' Byron, who started with a Ford Modified. Six days later, on February 21, NASCAR was registered as an association. It was 1949 when the NASCAR Nextel Cup Series, America's premier race class, was born. The total prize money for the first Cup was $ 5,000 and took place on a two-mile (3.6 km) course in South Florida. Nine car brands were represented in the first official race: Buick, Cadillac, Chrysler, Ford, Hudson, Kaiser, Lincoln, Mercury and Oldsmobile. This was followed by a 150 - mile(241 - km) clash on the 3 / 4 - mile(1.2 - km) oval Charlotte Speedway, where Jim Roper took the checkered flag.Enormous crowds attended the race to watch the exterior of cars look like street cars.In 1949, eight races were held.< p > < h4 > 1950s < p > Successful plans immediately brought bigger and faster races and more and more excited spectators to the races. Less than a year later, in 1950, the country's first asphalt pavement, the Darlington Raceway in South Carolina, opened its doors to the new series. During the first decade, the NASCAR Cup Tournaments showed tremendous progress. Racers became heroes, fans watched every moment with people’s mouths open and dreamed that maybe once they could drive a similar car. Names such as Lee Petty, Fireball Roberts, Buck Baker, Herb Thomas, the Flock brothers, Bill Rexford, Paul Goldsmith and others have gained similar popularity among people, such as Mickey Mouse or the big baseball stars of that time. In 1954, France announced the construction of a 2.5 - mile(4 km) slope at Daytona Beach, six kilometers from the beach. Construction began in November 1957 and was completed in 1959.France fought together with the city to obtain competition licenses.By the end of NASCAR's first decade, the city had not only simply been the root of the sport, but had already grown beyond the seafront and moved to Daytona International Speedway. With its long back straight and sweeping curves of over 30 degrees, the 2.5-mile tri-oval was the world's mostly beloved racetrack. The first course on the new course was a 100 - mile(160 km) NASCAR Convertible Division race on 20th February, 1959.At this event, viewers could see a very tight race that had already attracted millions to NASCAR before. The very first Daytona 500 brought a very tight run between Lee Petty and Johnny Beauchamp. The judges studied the target photo for three days before declaring the Petty as the a winner with an Oldsmobile.

1960s

The following year (1960), superspeedways were opened near Atlanta and Charlotte, North Carolina.New heroes were born, such as Lee Petty's son Richard (soon to be known as 'The King of Stock Car Racing'), Buddy Baker, Cale Yarborough, Ned Jarrett, David Pearson and Bobby Allison. They were the big cannons of the era, running not less than sixty races a year from Florida to California.
Today Richard 'The King' Petty is the owner of a NASCAR Nextel Cup team, while his son Kyle has also been a racer who has competed in more than 750 races (8 wins, 8 poles) since his first start in 1979. Interest continued to grow and there was a growing demand for bigger and faster racetracks.In 1969, France opened the 2.66-mile (4.25 km) Alabama International Motor Speedway(now called Talladega Superspeedway), the world's largest and fastest oval track. New tracks were built in Brooklyn, Michigan (about 110 miles southwest of Detroit), Dover in Delaware (between Philadelphia and Baltimore), and Pocono in Pennsylvania (two hours from Manhattan).

1970s

The 1970s brought further changes.One came in the leadership when from Bill France, his son, Bill Jr. took the management on January 10, 1972. During this period, the R.J.Reynolds Tobacco Company emerged and became the leading sponsor of the Winston brand.From then on, NASCAR's highest division was called the Winston Cup.
In 1976, the NASCAR Winston Cup Series, according to a survey by the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company, topped the list of motorsport attendance worldwide with its 1.4 million local audiences a year.This priority has been unbroken ever since. In 1978, the first lightbulb race at Bristol Motor Speedway (then Bristol International Raceway) was held.The evening program is a special attraction till day.
The television milestone was the 1979 Daytona 500, which was the first time viewers could watch live from their homes. Even the weather helped because in February 1979, during the race, a huge snowstorm hit the eastern United States. As a result, millions of people were forced to stay in their homes and watched the broadcast, which reached much higher viewers than expected.That's when people got to love the NASCAR races, and that's when the sport came into the public eye.Incidentally, the 1979 Daytona 500 was voted the best Daytona 500 of all time because it brought a wonderful fight and an unforgettable run.

1980s

In 1982, NASCAR merged the Late Model Sportsman Division into a new series.The plan was to organize bigger races from the smaller Weekly series.This allowed local excellence to compete together throughout the year.Anheuser-Busch Inc. of St. Louis has become a sponsor of the new NASCAR Budweiser Late Model Sportsman Series.He became a major sponsor in 1984 and has since been referred to as the NASCAR Busch Series Grand National Divison.As of this year, the Winston Cup Series did not use the name Grand National Division.
The success and popularity of television broadcasting continued to grow. By 1989 all of the Winston Cup events had been broadcast, most of them live. Fierce battles and high speed were the hallmarks of these events.Bill France's prediction and vision of the late 1940s came true: NASCAR became huge.

1990s

The big legendary names of the previous decade(s) were still present in the 1990s: Waltrip, Elliott, Earnhardt (who won the Winston Cup championship seven times, setting Richard Petty's record). They were veterans already with Rusty Wallace, Terry Labonte, Ken Schrader, Mark Martin and others. As usual, new young challengers like Jeff Gordon, Bobby Labonte and Ricky Craven appeared.
In 1993, three years after hosting its first Busch Series race, New Hampshire International Speedway (110 miles north of Boston) hosted the first Winston Cup event. Almost 70,000 tickets were sold in one hour. In 1994, NASCAR's highest streak attracted 4,896,000 on-site visitors during its 31 races.
In May 1994, NASCAR announced its new Craftsman Truck Series.Here were American-made pickups built on a Winston Cup-style chassis. The following year is marked as the year of NASCAR's feeling of nationality. The NASCAR cover story was for Forbes and Sports Illustrated magazines, and for the first time surpassed the five million attendance at the Winston Cup. Television viewing has broken all records so far. The Winston Cup, Busch Series and Craftsman Truck Series have attracted over 120 million viewers.
In 1996, NASCAR held its first non-US race in Suzhou, Japan.The race was held in 1997 and 1998, the last year already in Motegi.
In 1997, NASCAR made another effort to increase the sport. The Winston Cup reached California Speedway, near Los Angeles, and also attacked the Dallas market with Texas Motor Speedway. The Busch Series also hosted races in Los Angeles, Texas and Las Vegas. The Craftsman Truck Series has set foot in Orlando, Los Angeles and Texas.
In 1998, the NASCAR Touring Series expanded to 13 with the RE / MAX Challenge Series, established from the former Midwest ARTGO Series.The Weekly Series has continued to attract spectators and riders alike, with almost 100 short-track races. NASCAR already has more than 55,000 certified drivers nationwide.
The NASCAR Winston Cup headed south in 1999 when it held its first race at the Miami-Dade Homestead Motorsports Complex Incorporating.
In February 1999, NASCAR changed management for the second time in its fifty-one year history.Mike Helton, who was a referee in Daytona and Talladega, and since 1994 organized races has become the new vice president and chief operating officer at NASCAR.France remained president while his son Brian became vice president of marketing and communications.

2000s

NASCAR has announced its new television contract with Fox Sports / FX and NBC Sports / TNT for Cup and Busch, and DaimlerChrysler has also signaled Dodge's return to the Winston Cup from the 2001 season. Fourteen different racers were able to win in the 2000 Winston Cup which is a sign of an extremely exciting and intense battle.In the first ten races, ten different riders took the checkered flag, setting a new record for the series.For the first time since 1981, two newcomers were able to win a race in the same year.
Since 2001, NASCAR racers, teams and tracks have received unprecedented publicity due to the new television contract and the 36-round season schedule.Nineteen different winners in thirty-six races, another record. NASCAR will continue to fight for international markets(outside the United States), with the help of Juan Pablo Montoya, who has been certified by Chip Ganassi Racing since 2007. Montoya is the first Formula One rider to sign up for the NASCAR Nextel Cup all season.